Xi'an

Making it to Xi'an was a bit of an adventure. The flight to Beijing was just shy of 13 hours, but there weren't too many friendly people, so I had to entertain myself. And the movies were mediocre at best. We made it to Beijing in the early afternoon and I got my first glimpse of the smog...they weren't lying when they said that it hangs in the air and really limits visibility.

I took a bus over to the brand new terminal, which is enormous. 1 million square meters is rather large. When I finally got to the gate for the flight to Xi'an (after ping-ponging back and forth between four or five ticket counters) it'd started raining, which soon turned into a monsoon...that didn't stop for the next five hours. Flights became delayed and, in short, I spent the entire night in the terminal making friends with Chinese baristas and other travelers who didn't speak much Enligsh. After learning that "losing my mind" literally means "hit people" It was almost time to get on the 7:00AM flight...only 13 hours after the one I was supposed to have been on. I'd became friends with a few Chinese guys in the cafe earlier in the morning, and we coincidentally were seated next to each other on the flight. The real bombshell dropped when we arrived in Xi'an: our bags had been put on a different plane and, therefore, were not in Xi'an. Needless to say, people weren't thrilled. We made it to the home base after picking up a few other volunteers from other flights and met the other volunteers who had already been here for a few weeks. We'll start work on Monday, so between now and then it's just getting used to the routine...and waiting for my bag to turn up.