Fall

Just a quick post since I'm packing to leave soon. Fall has hit, and amazingly Dalian's weather seemed to change instantaneously. One day it was humid and next day, it's windy and everyone's breaking out the jumpers. It also keeps alternating between raining and cloudy to extremely beautiful clear blue skies every other day. My mother just came to visit for the last three days and she caught two rainy days and one sunny day, though even on the cloudy day you could see how gorgeous the Dalian seaside is.

I've been in a ridiculously good mood today; I skipped class to drop mom off at the airport; then I went back to school to pick up my passport. I've got my residency permit all sorted out! Even though I had to rent a room in the dorms to pretend I was living there in order to get the new permit. (50 USD total for 8 nights in a room I never even stepped foot in...) Then I went to lunch at Amici's, a popular western food coffee shop, then F and I sat at the Xinghai beach for a good hour and a half just watching people, listening to the waves crashing and laying in the sun. Now I'm packing for my October Holiday trip -with BCA again -we're going to Western China for a week! Well, tomorrow will be spent in Beijing because of the way the train and flight schedules worked out, but then we'll go to Western China. Silk Road, Yellow River, some desert, Inner Mongolia...that whole area. I'm super excited...plus when I return, I still have a full six days off of school!