Sept. 27- Arrival in Xi'an

I woke up the next morning feeling very ill rested. I woke up about every 30 minutes because the train would jerk very hard when it was making stops throughout the night. I was also paranoid about falling off the top bunk but I got a feeling that sleep deprivation would be my constant companion throughout the trip so I very clumsily jumped down from my bunk and went outside the compartment to take in the sites. The window felt very cold and it was raining outside. There was endless grass and small hills to look at for the rest of the ride to Xi'an. I spent much of the day reading my book and falling asleep for short periods of time. Selina pretty much slept the entire train ride and woke up only to eat :)

We arrived in Xi'an around 2:30 and got off the train in a frenzy. We were standing on the platform and Brian was counting to make sure everyone was there and he noticed that Tammy was not among us and he asked where she was and Margaret said she was still getting her stuff on the train. Brian got a sudden look of panic on his face and said "But the train's leaving! Watch my bags!" and he dropped all his stuff and ran after an attendant to make sure that Tammy could get off before the train left for some unknown destination. Luckily she got off and everyone was safely in cold and rainy Xi'an. Everyone was miserable but I, of course, was loving it! We went straight to the Sha'anxi History Museum and were given an hour and a half to explore. The museum was not that big so an hour and a half was a little too much time but by the time we were done looking around everyone was craving a substantial meal. We went to a restaurant with the Beijing Alliance students, they were with us the whole week, and sat down to eat. I think the best way to describe what we looked like while eating our meal is like a pack of wild animals who have been fasting for weeks. It had been almost 24 hours since any of us had real food and we pretty much inhaled everything that they put in front of us. Needless to say we left the restaurant in a very satisfied state :)

We drove to our hotel next which were very nice. There were two people in each room so Selina and I roomed together. It had been about 48 hours since I my last shower so I couldn't wait to take one! After our showers we went out on the town for a few hours and went into several bars on one street. A common theme we noticed was that many of the staff in many of the bars were wearing cowboy hats. All the people from Texas thought it was absolutely ridiculous. We stayed out until about 11:30 and then headed back to the hotel because we had an early wake up call the next morning. It was pretty nice to sleep in a bed that didn't move and jerk for one night :)