Bear with me.

So, I just now decided to create this blog. My first post rambles quite a bit because after 11 days of being here I'm sure you can understand I have A LOT to say. Bear with me- I'll try and make future posts a bit more organized.

I keep running into things and thinking- I wonder if Molly and Alyssa experienced this? So, if anyone goes to China in the future, they can read my blog and prepare themselves for what China has in store :)

Here we go:

Well, I arrived in Tianjin on May 18, so I have been here for over a week now. Let me just tell you- this trip has been crazy. Unlike other study abroad programs, ours seems to be very free form. While we have group activities every once in a while, there is minimal direction/leadership from our program directors. We have a graduate student here with us, Taizhi. He is really nice and helpful whenever we need simple things (like a translation for Carrefour to show to a cab driver). We have truly been aliens in this city. Beijing and Shanghai are a little more tourist-friendly and the people used to tourists, but in Tianjin, although it is a very large well-developed city, we are completely out of place. We spent our first week here trying to figure out the basics like where to eat. Kat and I don’t eat very much at all because it is a hassle to find food sometimes.

On a normal day, we wake up around 7. The first week that was no problem at all because we were so jet lagged that we woke up early on our own. This week, we are finally adjusted and it’s a little more difficult- as I would expect. We have Chinese class from 8:30-9:20 Mondays->Thursdays. We are enjoying it and learning a lot actually. It’s a really challenging language though. It is not coming as naturally to me as Spanish did. We are focusing on speaking/pinyin and have not learned the characters much at all. But it is helpful.

We walk to 7-eleven down the street to get baozi for breakfast most days. It’s a kind of bread pocket filled with veggies and egg, or meat and veggies. Generally we spend from 1.5-2.5 kuai/yuan on a baozi. That translates to about .25-.50 cents. CHEAP. Sometimes we go to cafeterias on campus (there are 5 and 1 international). Meals in the cafeterias are extremely cheap and cost about 4-6 yuan. I put 100 yuan on my student card at the beginning of the month and I worry about being able to use it all before we leave.

Then, we have our other classes in the afternoons and spend the time in between doing laundry, working out, or studying. The only place we have decent internet connection is in our rooms so it’s really limiting on where we can study. I will never take for granted GTs internet again. I am so disconnected from the outside world it’s scary.

Laundry is 5 yuan (less than a dollar). You drop it off, and they give you a number. You go back and they give you your wet/clean clothes and we bring it back to hang it dry in our room. All of our clothes feel starchy haha. But, we can deal with it.

We have a gym membership at the neighboring college’s gym, Nancai. We paid ~90 yuan for a month, which is like $15?? Not real. It’s a decent facility but it’s dirty. Nothing like United State’s gyms. People here workout in really strange clothing, it’s not air conditioned so I sweat bullets. But I usually just use the treadmills the whole time.

This whole experience has been a lot to adjust to. Our room is consistently 30 degrees Celsius even with the air conditioning on HIGH. We are slowly getting used to that it’s just difficult to fall asleep when you’re that hot. The first week here we showered like 2-3 times a day, but we are getting more used to it. We really felt so dirty all the time and now I think my body is adjusting.

Tianjin is pretty dry, so when the wind blows it can get pretty dusty. I remember last week we were getting hit with what felt like sand. It hurt. Also, the pollution here is terrible. Today is the second time we have seen blue sky and we are SO HAPPY. It makes a big difference. 

We have found a local bar “The Green Man” where we go every once in a while. We met some people there from Alabama last week. And other English speaking people. There are Texas A&M study abroad students staying close to us and we went out with them last week too. Another place is called Helen’s. Apparently there are 5 locations, but we’ve been to two of them. We have had some CRAZY nights at Helen’s. Imagine an American bar- but with no rules. People dance on the tables, you can order drink after drink after drink. Wednesday night at the bigger Helen’s is Ladies night. We pay 50 yuan and get free drinks till 11. It’s AWESOME.

Overall, the best way to describe this experience has been less than glamorous. It’s not like we’re just carted around and we smile and take pictures. More like we are just trying to get by and get things done on our own. It’s a cluster to be perfectly honest. I feel like I have already learned so much (especially with the trip to Beijing- getting around completely on our own). But, I do think our experience is completely different from other study abroad programs. Some mornings I wake up and I’m like omg…I’m in China. Haha.