News from China

Hello Everyone! Just a quick update. This is a picture of a pond in front of the building where I have class. My mom asked for more pictures and this is the only one I remembered to take, so there you go. We call it the Mao pond because on the left hand side of the pond (the way you are looking at it now) there is a huge statue of Mao saluting (as always).
As for good news today, I went swimming at the indoor pool again and tried doing butterfly and backstroke for the first time since my surgery and it went slowly, but better than I expected. Also, I am now on the Women's Rugby Team of Chengdu. It's not as impressive as it sounds and as you all know I don't know how to play rugby. But, I was walking over to the track to go for a run this evening and as I was standing at the entrance a group of foreigners who were across the field started waving at me. I didn't know who they were but I thought I would walk over and see what they wanted. They were playing Rugby and wanted to see if I wanted to play. I decided to give it a try and it was a lot of fun. It was very informal and we just played touch, not tackle. There were 3 guys and 7 girls and we just played a pick up game for an hour or so. The guys were all from Britain or Australia and had played before and the girls had been playing for a few months anyways, but I caught on pretty quickly and they were all very nice. So I told them I would start playing with them regularly. They practice or have games about twice a week and the next game is on Saturday. Even though it's not really Chinese at all and I am just hanging out with a bunch of ex-pats, it's really fun and I am really excited about it, to learn how to play, to make some new friends, and to be on a team again. After "practice" we went to Peter's (one of the Western restaurants) as a goodbye/birthday dinner for some of the girls who had been playing. I hadn't eaten Western food in a really long time and it was overwhelming just to look at the menu. I ended up getting taco's on the recommendation of one of the British guys, Scott. I usually take recommendations at the western places because they are very hit or miss. The tacos were OK, but nothing to write home about (even though I am). It's just interesting because I thought I would miss Western food alot more than I do. I'll get little cravings every now and then, but if I just go eat some delicious Chinese food I am fine. I get cravings to make Western food more than to eat it.