Here I am!

Hi folks.

I made it safely to Tsinghua University on Thursday night around midnight, but the offices were all closed until today, and I don't get internet until this afternoon. I've been surprised with how much Chinese I've needed just to get around, and am very glad that I have some of the language. I'm going to try to take a language course and will attend a wastewater course in Chinese, which should be interesting.

I live in the foreign student dorms and have met some people from France, Ivory Coast, Holland, , Australia, USA, and elsewhere. The cafeterias are kind of overwhelming. You go to a window and point to (say if you know Chinese) what you want to eat. There are at last 20 different place you can go and they have a plate the size of your face full of jiaozi (dumplings) for about 50 cents. Yum.

I went to a clothing market with a guy I met from the Ivory Coast who could actually barter, and I got some clothes (I didn't bring many under the extremely false presumption that Chinese do not wear clothes with English on them) at about 20% of the price they originally asked (rich foreigners. . .)

People in the office seem nice and I will start doing lab work on Wednesday or so.