The Forty-second Day

Saturday -- pretty lean news day today (especially since it is not a work day, and there are no excursions on the docket). I got up pretty late this morning at 840 and then talked to the family. The rest of my morning consisted of sitting around, reading articles on Wikipedia, and practicing my instruments. At about 1145 I headed out to go swim. I knocked on Silvio's door to see if he was coming, and he did decide to join me for a swim. We got him settled with his deep water test swim and necessary credentials. Once Silvio got all that taken care of, he started swimming some. He is not a bad swimmer, but he could use some instruction on stroke mechanics. I got in about 3000 meters. I would guess that Silvio did about 500-700, maybe more.

When we finished up our swimming workout, we went to eat at a place on the campus called the Hollywood Cafe. I had my first hamburger since coming to Beijing. It was not bad a hamburger, but it certainly was not a great hamburger either. I would have been happy just eating at the Sesh Wan place. At about 330, we got back to the dorms, and I did a repeat of my morning routine (see above).

I hung out in the dorm until about 600 and then walked to the green space at Renmin University. There, a very uneventful game of "throw the frisbee" commenced. I really didn't have anyone to properly throw the frisbee with and the "kids" (probably 8-10 years old) thought it great fun to fling the frisbee in a wild and crazy manner (i.e. no finesse, no aiming, no adjusting to try to aim). I have to say I was annoyed, but I did try to be patient. I finished the day with a meal of  fried rice and a sweet potato from one of the street vendors. All in all, one of my first uneventful days - I guess having some downtime is not a bad thing, but it does make for a lonnnnnggggg day.

Good night and God bless.

A special shout out to all my family and friends who came to my graduation party and Beijing send-off. I hope my mom got your thank you notes in the mail.  I am certainly blessed with awesome people in my life.