overnight train from Beijing to Shanghai. It was just a trip getting
to the train station since we decided to take the subway, so we had to
figure that whole deal as well. Anyways, we made it to the train
station and we made it Shanghai where we were fetched by her uncle.
Riding on a train overnight was kind of cool if not hard to sleep. As
always, we got weird looks when we spoke English. Shanghai is another
enormous city. I actually like it, perhaps more than Beijing, the
only major difficulty is that everyone here speaks Shanghainese. It's
hard enough for me to understand Mandarin, so I can barely catch a few
words when the locals speak. Luckily, most of them will speak
Mandarin if you ask.
Staying with people is always a bit taxing for both sides. Staying
with relatives of your girlfriends can also be awkward as well as
taxing. Staying with relatives of your girlfriends who don't speak
English can be awkward, taxing, and plain difficult. That being said,
their family is just like any other, and after a day, I got to be
pretty comfortable around most of them. The one thing that still
catches me a little off guard is how much beer they give me drink at
meals. Apparently Linda's uncle likes to drink beer (ok, who
doesn't?). However, before I came, characteristically well
intentioned Linda told them that I like to drink stouts, which is true
because I do enjoy a good stout every once in a while. What I didn't
know was that the stouts here have twice as much alcohol as the more
common lagers. Since Linda's uncle doesn't normally have anyone to
drink with, when I came, he pretty much went to town. He is clearly a
champion drinker because he drinks about three times as fast as I do.
So every dinner is at least three stouts, and by the end, let's just
say chopsticks get a little difficult to use. Not only that, but it
also gets harder and harder for me to make coherent Chinese sentences.
Oh well, life could be worse, I suppose.
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