August 29: Xi'an

My posts are gonna start getting pretty short because the original luster of China is dulling into traffic ridden, horn blasting, people spitting, and stinky tofu.

This morning I set off with the two leaders of the Alliance Xi'an program to get my visa stuff done.  We stood at the corner of a major road for nearly twenty minutes and could not get an empty cab, then we went to the visa office and they were having none of it since neither I, nor the leader renewing his visa had had our physical yet.  So we went to the hospital where there was a line of student all rushing to get their physicals before the school years started.  We were told it was too busy and to leave so we did.  And I still don't have my visa.  A plus of the day, the taxi that took us to the hospital let us off in the middle of the road and then I almost got sideswiped by another taxi.  At least if I had been hit I was in front of the hospital...though they prolly would have still said they were to busy and to come back another day.
That night Cora, Josh, Jeff, Laura and I played Frogger with drivers that don't give a damn in order to get to food.  Honestly, I love crossing Chang'An Lu.  Chang An meaning long or everlasting peace, it was the old name for Xi'an, or western peace, and Lu meaning road.
At the restaurant we went to there were fish cutouts and the character for fish everywhere.  We ordered no fish.  Instead we got only appetizers.  The waiters kept asking if we were sure we didn't want fish.  We finally gave in, seeing as to how were were in a fish restaurant and tried to order a fish.  The language barrier had never been more apparent than in that situation, even now, two weeks later that was still the worst.  If the waitress had just said "look" and "fish" instead of long strings of Chinese we would have understood, but no.  At one point she just gave up and said in Chinese, "Just eat, just eat."  I would like to report, the fish was delicious.

This is the view from my balcony.