大家好！In Chinese, that means hello everyone!  I've decided to start this blog for all the reasons familiar to most study abroad students....I wanted to keep in touch with family and friends, everyone seems to recommend it, etc.  Also, I wanted to start this journal because it's virtually the only place I can use English everyday.  I'm at the C.V. Starr Middlebury China Program at Zhejiang University of Technology in Hangzhou, China.  At my school, we have to sign the "Language Pledge" which basically says that you cannot speak English until you graduate from the program.  Exceptions are made for emergencies, talking to parents and friends online, and a few other instances, but mostly we have to speak Chinese.  I guess that's a good thing, but right now the task of speaking exclusively Chinese for 4 months seems insurmountable(see what I mean? How would I ever know the word for insurmountable in Chinese? It's rather difficult...).  Regardless, I suppose I'll have to considering they'll kick you out if you're reprimanded for breaking the pledge three times.

I travelled to China with a friend of mine, Erin Callahan, who will also be going to the same school as me.  Although school doesn't start until Monday, Erin and I arrived in Shanghai, China on Saturday, February 7th.  We were heavily jetlagged, so as soon as we got to the hotel, we pretty much just went to sleep.  Overall, it was around 22 hours of travel.  NOT something I'd like to repeat in the near future.  Anyway, we woke up the next morning in Shanghai (at around 5 or so, keep in mind, because of the jet-lag) and decided to do some exploring.  We walked down to the Bund to see Shanghai's famous, futuristic skyline, but unfortunately, the pollution that day skewed our view.  Some of it might have been fog, as Erin kept insisting, but I had my doubts.

Our next task was the most difficult yet.  We must have walked to 10 or so restaurants haphazardly translating menus before we finally found one that had pictures for us to point to and order.  Apparently, we need to learn more food words.  Anyway, we ate an unremarkable lunch and continued on our way to The People's Square which is this ginormous park with everything surrounding it.  I know that's deceptively vague, but that's really the best way to describe it.  In fact, that's the best way to describe Shanghai. BIG.  Whether you mean big in size or gaudiness, it all applies to Shanghai.  It seems like this is where all of China's consumerism has come to roost.

Throughout the rest of our long weekend in Shanghai, Erin and I made it to the French Concession which is this area of town that the French controlled for a bit as a trading post during the 1800s (I think it was then).  While walking through the maze of tightly winding streets, it was easy to forget that we were in China and not actually in Europe.  We also went to YuYuan Gardens which was an area of the city that was a garden/monastery some time in the recent past, but now it's morphed into this touristy-mecha full to the brim of Chinese tourist and fake antiques.  Although it was a really fun experience, I doubt I'll make it back there again anytime soon.  I'm not really a fan of the immensity of the crowds there.  When trying to move around, you didn't really walk...rather, you shuffled your feet and scooted inches at a time.  And if the crowd turned one way, then by damn, you'd better want to go that way because there's not much of a choice at that point.

Besides those things, we really just spent time overcoming jetlag.  We hung out in the hotel lots and studied Chinese.  One night, we went back to the Bund to see Shanghai's famous skyline at night, and boy was it spectacular.  It made every other city look positively medieval in comparison.  It turned out that that night was the last night of the Lantern Festival.  Erin and I kept seeing these strange flickering lights all over the sky which we both thought were UFO's until one burst into flames.  It turns out that people were lighting lanters and floating them into the sky.  One of these lanterns actually caught the Mandarin Hotel in Beijing on fire and burnt it to the ground this weekend.  Brand new hotel.  The Chinese government covered it up really well considering everything, but that was kind of crazy.

Anyway, that was the highlights of our stay in Shanghai.  I'm about to head to bed for the night, but do my best to post as much as I can this semester.  I think I'll probably be doing that alot considering it's rather nice to be able to put my thoughts together in English rather than Chinese.