Alex

I'm back in Beijing.

I arrived at the airport, took a cab to the hostel, ate lunch, and felt so dizzy afterwards that I decided that it might me a good idea to take a nap. It ended up with a four hours nap. Jet lag. I don't really believe in jet lag. I just... you know.... felt like taking a four-hours nap in the middle of the day, and was almost not able no wake up afterwards. No, I don't believe in jet lag. I have never found any proof of it what so ever.

When I woke up, I discovered that it was raining, in that way. Like as if someone have switched place on heaven and sea, and now the sea was falling down on our heads. The next logical step after this discovery was of course to take a walk. So I did. It wasn't the longest walk in the history of mankind, I just walked around the hutongs in the area for a while, but it was enough. I was soaked through in about three minutes. It was all very wonderful. And I don't think that I have ever taken off my shoes and poured water out of them before. Interesting.

I managed to get hold on Amanda after a while, and we met up close to her work. Since I had already had the pleassure of getting wet, and taken a shower and changed my clothes, I didn't enjoy our attempt to get a cab equally much, it resulted in a fifteen- twenty minutes walk in the rain. And that resulted in our damp precense in a restaurant with Amandas brother and one of their friends.

I realized when we sat in that cab last night that the reason to the lack of hysterical enthusiasm, such as characterized my last visit to Beijing, is simply that I don't feel like this is something to get all worked up about. I'm in China. Of course I'm in China. Where the heck would I be otherwise? It's just so perfectly normal to be here. It doesn't feel strange or exotic or weird. Well, it is strange and exotic and weird, but that's normal. It's just China. Of course it's China. I still struggle with the same difficulties as I did last year. My Chinese is still pretty bad, and communication is difficult. But that's nothing to get all nervous about. Of course it's hard to talk to the people I meet. That's normal. Everything in this situation just feels normal.

They have rebuilt the hostel a bit, no more restaurant at the third floor. (It's now down in the lobby instead, not so very cosy.) That's a bummer, because now I can't eat my breakfast on the hostelroof any more. I'm now sharing a room with Amanda, and officially her brother, but he's been a bit ill so he hasn't moved over yet. The room is fine, except for the fact that the roof is leaking, me and Amanda listened to drip-drop, drip-drop all morning, doing our best to ignore it. I don' need much, a bed and a blanket and I'm happy. But having water dripping from the roof every time someone on the floor above takes a shower is just a little bit... low standard, even for me. Well, I don't really care about the leak, it's just the dripping sound that drives me crazy. I went down and told the staff about it when I had crawled out of bed today, we'll see if they do something about it. Somehow I doubt it. They better, because they're gonna get their fishes warm if it's not fixed when Amanda comes back. No one can yell in Chinese as she can. I'm so proud of her.

(To get your fishes warm is a Swedish saying, it means that you're gonna get in big trouble for something you have/haven't done. You can't really say that in English, can you? I don't know why we say like that... get your fishes warm? Completely incomprehensible.)

I'm going to try to make something out of my day, and not just sit here at the computer until Amanda get's off work. I'm tired though. Maybe I'll just sit out on the roof and read for a while. I have this urge to do things all the time, as if I won't spend this entire year in China, and have to do and see everything there is to do and see in just a couple of days. I remind myself of that that's not the case, and that I haven't relaxed for a whole day (or even for a half day, or even for more than two hours) in over five weeks. It's time for me to be lazy. That sounds like a good plan for the day.



Alex 
   
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