Made it to China!

Made it to China! We were in Beijing for 3 days. We barely slept because there was so much to do there and not nearly enough time. We flew into Beijing of Sunday morning and on Monday morning we were on the Great Wall of China! I literally just had to sit down on the Great Wall and think for a little while. Less than a week ago I was in India and less than two months before that I was in theAlps. It just doesn’t seem real. I’m more than half way done now. I have internet, but a lot of things are blocked. Facebook is completely blocked. Google works, but restricts all sorts of searches. If you search for something that is against the government your account gets flagged and it restricts your searches even more. Even the one girl who is from China on my program is afraid to talk badly about the government. She says that regardless of where you are in the world, you never know who may be listening. Last night we took an overnight train from Beijing to Changsha. I’m in a hotel tonight, but tomorrow afternoon we move into our homestays. Han - Reesa is my homestay partner. Reesa goes to Colby College which is pretty funny that we ended up being assigned to the same family. I’ll be staying with this family for three weeks. It will be so nice to be in one place for such a long period of time. I’m studying at Central South University (CSU) which has 60,000 students (quite the change from St. Mike’s). It’s a little weird to be back on a college campus, but it’s nice to be surrounded by college students that aren’t just from America. There are huge banners all over the school welcoming us. Everyone is so excited that we are here. Barely anyone speaks English here which makes ordering meals out quite the experience. We went to a night market the other night and a bunch of people ate scorpion and crickets and all sorts of other exotic meat…I stuck to chicken. A lot of people working at the night market would ask “country? Country?“ When we told them America they would all yell “Obamaaaa!“ Some guys working even said that they’d give us free food if we kissed them. We passed up that offer, but it was still pretty funny.

Last night I moved into my homestay. My hostfamily is two grandparents, a mom, a dad, and a 12 year old brother. My hostmom, Ling, is an English professor at CSU. My hostdad is also a professor at CSU. Everyone speaks English except the grandparents. My hostparents actually lived in Columbus, Ohio for a year and just came back in September. I'll keep you posted as I get more settled in. I never imagined that I would be so thankful for my own bed, a closet (to unpack my clothes!), and a washing machine. I have internet, but it works only sometimes. Facebook, Yahoo, and my blog are all blocked. If you want to e-mail me I think the best bet is on my Saint Mike's account awhittemore@smcvt.edu Don’t know when I’ll have internet again so….HAPPY BIRTHDAY ELLA! Can’t believe you’re 10 years old. Love you <3
　

Vacation was absolutely amazing! I wish that it was longer! I spent the first part of my trip in a really touristy state called Goa. It was acceptable to wear bikinis there and everything. We had a beach cottage that was gorgeous and I honestly felt like I could have been on vacation in the U.S. when I was there. It was so nice to just lay out on the beach and relax. I traveled with 6 other girls for the week, but there were 6 other people that were staying in the same towns as us so we ended up meeting up with them a lot. I was with a lot of people from my program, but it was so nice to hang out with everyone just for fun. We all got a lot closer. Sunday night we took an overnight train to another state of India called Kerala. I thought the overnight train was going to be miserable, but we ended up having little cots to sleep on so we slept through the whole thing. The train sold out pretty quickly so one of my friends couldn’t get a ticket in the same class that we were in. We snuck her up into our cabin and she hid in the closet every time someone who worked for the train knocked on our door. It was terrifying, but also hilarious.
Kerala is known for its beaches and was absolutely gorgeous. On the beaches in Goa people were constantly trying to sell us stop, but it wasn’t like that at all in Kerala. We had our own private beach and the water felt like a bathtub. Our cottages were right next to a little village so when the village kids got out of the school they would all come and hang out on the beach. We ended up playing with them every afternoon. I played a huge game of soccer with them on our last night there. They asked me to call them by famous soccer player names. It was so fun. On our last night there instead of going out to dinner we bought a bunch of food and cooked for ourselves. The boys made a fire and grilled chicken, fish, and a ton of vegetables. We all sat by the fire while some guys from the village played their guitars and sang. We ended up dancing and taking a late night swim.
Wednesday night we rented a houseboat! It was like a little hotel that we had to ourselves for 24 hours. There were 13 people from my program on it and then one girl that we met at our fire the night before that ended up coming with us. Yesterday we went to go see waterfalls and drove to the city that we were flying out of. Today we toured a city called Cochin or Kochi and then just got back to Chennai tonight. Tomorrow I have class at 1 and then we fly out at 9 p.m. for Beijing tomorrow night! I can’t believe I’ve already been in India for 5 weeks. That just doesn’t seem possible. I’m both excited and sad to leave. I’ve had such an amazing time here, but I still have 2 more countries left so I’m excited to see everything else as well. I’ll be in Beijing for 3 days,, will take an overnight train to Changsha and then in a hostel with my group in Changsha for 2 nights. In China I’ll be in my homestay for 3 weeks. It will be so nice to have one place to actually settle into. The longest time I’ve spent in one place was in my homestay in India and that was only for 14 nights, two of which I didn’t stay at my homestay.
That was a long post, but I don’t know what the internet situation will be like in China so I wanted to write as much as possible!