DA JIA HAO! (Hello everyone!)

Finally in China! And I've finally figured out how to use a proxy to get on here/facebook =)

Where to begin? My 14-hour flight from Toronto to Shanghai wasn't really as bad as I thought it would be. They had a huge movie selection, so I watched Priest, the Lion King, and Happy Feet 2! I ended up having a 6hour layover in Toronto since there was something wrong with the plane, but I met someone else from CIEE so we went to a bar and hung out together for a few hours (on that note, I can legally drink here. awesome). We didn't get in to Shanghai until around 8pm their time, which was crazy since they fed us breakfast on the plane because it was 6am still in Toronto.

CIEE picked us up from the airport and took us all to the dorm on campus. I live on the fifth floor with Jennifer, a Taiwanese student in her last year here. She's not really supposed to speak that much English with me, which is hard because I don't know very much Chinese! She's awesome though, and her English is incredible. As far as the dorms go, almost everyone has a double, some with CIEE students and some with Chinese students, like me. We have a ton of space, and there's a maid service once a week and we can exchange our linens once every 10 days! So basically I'm living in a hotel! The really weird thing is that the bathrooms don't have toilet paper or soap, so you have to bring your own with you everywhere you go (it's one of those things you only forget once)! The beds are super hard for some reason, it's like basically sleeping on the ground, but my pillow is amazing.

This morning and all this week is orientation...getting orientated to the orient? (see what I did there?) Today was safety briefings and health care, then we got split up into groups for lunch and a tour of the biggest mall I have seen in my entire life. There are 3 ND kids in my group so I had at least known of them before coming here, so we get along well. Samantha was the one that taught me how to get a proxy, so you can thank her for this update! What I've seen of Shanghai is that it's very dreary and industrial, but you can just see the potential. I can't wait for spring; it's going to be gorgeous here! There's a track almost literally next to my dorm, so I'm happy. Also near my dorm? A gigantic statue of Mao, naturally haha.

Overall, it's definitely going to be much more of a challenge studying here than I thought it was going to be. Even without the language barrier there are just so many little things you never even think about that are different. Add that to the fact that I'm going from a tiny, Catholic, all-women's school to a huge university (around 30,000 undergrads, I think) in a huge city (pop: 22 million!) that is secular and co-ed, and it's safe to say that I am DEFINITELY out of my comfort zone! I do love it here though, don't get me wrong. Everything is fresh and new and just so exciting, and I can't wait to see what comes next!