Beijing

Ni hao from Beijing! It's about 4:30 AM and I am wide awake. I arrived in Beijing late Thursday night (happy birthday ES!) and was intercepted at the airport by Michael (not his Chinese name!) of the Michael and George tour guide duo. Michael speaks better English than me and let me know that three families had already arrived earlier in the day and one was arriving in 20 minutes. They were on a different airline so we had to go to another terminal to get them. We jumped on a shuttle bus and thus, my first taste of traffic here. I have heard stories.  I have seen pictures. Nothing compares to living it. There was lots of horn blowing and slamming on the brakes. I was amazed our bus didn't hit any other cars because we were all over the road. Other cars would dart in front of us or pass us and I thought there was no way they could fit but somehow they did. At one point my suitcase (right at 50 pounds, thank you very much!) fell over and crashed against the doors to the bus. I thought the doors were going to fly open but they didn't. Good thing because I do not think our driver would have stopped. We picked up the other family (this is their second adoption form China) and headed toward the hotel.  There was lots of traffic on the way and people everywhere. People walking and people on bikes. Michael shared a lot of cultural information such as it costs about $10,000 to get a license for your car. What?! I guess if I lived in Beijing I would be on a bike, too. We finally arrived at the hotel about 11:30 and I felt delirious from lack of sleep. I took a shower and looked for my travel alarm clock as we were all meeting in the lobby at 8:30 the next morning. I had just bought the alarm clock on Tuesday, made sure it worked, knew I had packed it. Well I couldn't find it. I unpacked everything. Everything. I looked through each compartment, each zipper, each ziplock bag. I looked through all my snacks (four bags of snacks!), took apart each pair of socks, dumped everything out of my carry on bag and nothing. I was so tired and wanted to go sleep. I was thisclose to asking the hotel about a wake up call when it hit me. I put the alarm clock in my make up bag. I set it for 7 AM and was o-u-t. The next morning I woke up so excited to meet the group and explore the city. I went down to breakfast which was very nice and busy. I had eggs, bacon, crossiant, and hash browns. I sat with a couple from Sweden. The husband reminded me of a pirate.  His wife  fixed his coffee for him and kept eating off his plate. He didn't seem to mind. I tried to chat with them but they weren't too friendly. I was so eager and excited I had to talk to someone. I hadn't met the rest of the families so I didn't know what they looked like and there were lots of people having breakfast. I finally told the Swedish couple that I was visiting China on an adoption trip. I was not adopting a child but worked for an adoption agency in America and was with a group of families adopting. Well this really interested them and we had a long chat after that about the process and paperwork and how they know someone that knows someone that has adopted a child from China. I exchanged some money and met my group in the lobby. Everyone was excited and hesitant, nervous but friendly. We loaded up on a bus and were off for the day!