I Love Fruit!!!

So after eating dumplings, noodles, rice, and pork for two weeks I went and bought bananas and apples this week. I can honestly say that I have never had better bananas or apples in my life. Selina said I had a look of absolute ecstasy on my face when I ate an apple yesterday :) And to make it even better, Ruby's grandfather, who's 90 by the way, raises bees and makes real 100% homemade honey. She brought some back from her house and I put some on an apple this morning... absolutely delightful :) There is a small market right next to our apartments that sells fruit for a really good price so I will be stopping there weekly. Oh, and I learned the word for peanut which I was major excited about. They have dishes of peanuts here at most restaurants and you can ask for it in rice and noodles and stuff, I've never seen peanuts so readily available, it's kind of fantastic. I'm also sure that one of the things I will miss most when I leave China will be the street food. We had it for dinner last night and for lunch today and, I shall dare to say it, I believe it to be better than P.F. Changs... I think I can hear the shocked gasps from all the way over here...

We had our first test today, I did pretty well on the oral section of the exam but the written part was quite a different story. Now I know that these tests require about 5 times as much preparation as I gave it last night. Oh well, now I know :)

We got our schedules for our week long group trip next week. We are going to Xi'an province, a 20 hour train ride, and then we are going to several other places by train and bus. We will be exhausted by the time we get back but it sounds like so much fun! We are going up to higher elevations so it will be colder, which I am looking forward to :) We leave on Friday at 4pm and get back on Saturday. It will also be nice not to have class for a week.

Tomorrow Selina and I want to go downtown in the morning and look around and shop. We both want to get a coat custom made while we're here. Some people are getting cashmere coats made but that's too fancy for me, I would like a leather jacket with bizarre colored lining on the inside though. I know that pictures of Walmart are in high demand so I promise to have some up the by the end of the weekend :)