Thanksgiving Week

On Wednesday I went to see Abigail Washburn play at the MIDI School
of Modern Music. She is an American bluegrass musician and her
boyfriend is Bela Fleck, one of the more famous Banjo players. He
played with her and her band. I went with this guy that plays
ultimate and we had an adventure finding the school. We were told to
take a series of buses that took us into the mountains on one side of
Beijing. At the stop, we had no clue where the school was. It was big
fields with a highway and some nondescript buildings. One place
looked promising but the armed Army guard at the gate and uniformed
officers walking around indicated it wasn't. So I called the school
and they said I was right there, to walk down this small road next to
a gas station. So we did, this road was completely nondescript. We
passed some construction worker dorms. We certainly didn't think we
were at a school. I asked a few different guys we saw to help me by
showing them my flyer and they waved me off like they couldn't read.
So we kept walking and finally saw a building with music notes on it
and then the Abigail Washburn flyer. This place was completely
nondescript. There were very small one floor dorms and one building
where the performance was. It was just a big room with a stage. So
the room was full of Chinese music students and then me and my
friend. It was good music, she can sing in Chinese, the musicians
were pretty good. So that was fun.

On Thanksgiving I was invited by one of Michael Carroll's friends,
Cara Vu, to eat dinner with her family. Her parents work for the US
embassy and got a turkey through the embassy. The mom put forth quite
a spread and I did it justice. A bunch of this girl's friends from
school came over and gossiped the whole time and didn't eat too much
so I focused on eating my share and a few other people's. I even got
some decent leftovers. Cara's sister goes to UVA, and her dad said
"oh you are of college age, do you want a glass of wine?" That made
Cara angry because he won't let her drink, she is 16. She said that
I'm only 3 years older than her and can't drink in the states. So it
was a nice dinner.

On Friday I went to this lake with all of these "hutongs" which are
traditional Beijing houses. It consists of alleys with walls all
around and you walk through the doors into a courtyard with 2-4
residences on the sides. The girl that went to try to watch the
football game with me is sometimes a tour guide and so I asked her to
take me around. I went with her and her friend. On the way back on
the subway there was this one girl that said hi to me in line and was
looking at me on the train. It was very crowded and my 2 friends like
looking at "beauty girls". So they were giggling when they saw this
girl and pointed her out to me. Then the girl started talking to me
and asked me for my phone number. I sensed a little bit of jealousy
from my party, one wanted me to say that she was my girlfriend. So
that was amusing.