4 Days Off Work

Ok, so, I had a really nice Thanksgiving, and a great weekend, even though I did sustain my first Chinese injury….

We had Thursday and Friday off work, and miraculously, both of those days decided to be absolutely gorgeous, unsmoggy, and warm. Thursday afternoon we walked around Nanjing Normal University, and watched Leif play football (see, Thanksgiving traditions totally intact!). The campus was BEAUTIFUL. I mean, it really might be the prettiest college campus I\’ve ever been on. The buildings were really old, and of the architectural style that reminds me that I\’m in a really foreign country, there were trees everywhere, and students were lying around on the grass, studying and acting like college kids, which I think made us all feel a little old. Then we went to the top of Purple Mountain, and found big rocks to climb on. It was really, really nice to get out of the city and play in the dirt a little bit, and I really enjoyed monkeying around on the boulders.

We made it pretty high up those rocks – a lot higher than I thought I was going to able to go, incidentally – and got a crazy awesome view of Nanjing spread out all over the horizon. I was sitting up there, mostly just worrying about how in the world I was going to get back down, but also being a little thunderstruck to be looking at this huge, sprawling, beautiful city that\’s getting closer and closer to being my home. We drank a pot of (overpriced) chrysanthemum fruit tea in a little tea house at the top with big comfy couches and huge windows, and then went to Blue Sky for \”Thanksgiving dinner\” – I got pork chops, mostly because I didn\’t want to order anything that shared the same name as Mom\’s cooking, because I knew I\’d be in for a bitter and depressing disappointment. I\’m sorry, but no one makes mashed potatoes like my mom. I don\’t even LIKE mashed potatoes that aren\’t my mom\’s. They were good pork chops, though, and it was fun sitting around with my circle of China friends that sort of function as a temporary surrogate family, talking about home and stuff.

Friday was another beautiful day, and we wandered around for quite a while looking for a good restaurant. We found one, after a really nice wander, and I think I finally internalized a few more dishes. So now I can order fried rice and fried noodles, plus this tomato and egg dish I\’m getting addicted to (shi hong se), kung pow chicken (gong pao ji li), soup (tang), and this tasty potato thing (tou dou se) [I have no idea if I\'m spelling any of this pinyin right, just trust me that I can say it out loud]. Then I got my phone set up and did some shoppin\’ – if you want the number, shoot me an email – I\’ve also got an image file of my address, in case anyone wants to send me presents. Then we did our Friday thing, which mostly involves tequila and shaking it like you would not believe, which led to my first Chinese injury, as we shall soon see.

First, though, I talked to a guy in a really low key little bar near my house who is friends with the manager, who agreed to let me practice on their piano – SCORE. I tried to play, but the thing was so out of tune that it caused me actual physical pain. So I\’m going to pay to tune the thing, and in return, I\’ve got practice/performance opportunities. I also found myself a potential Chinese tutor. Busy night.

Anyway, after that place and the tequila, we eventually made our way to Big Scarlet, where we had an awesome time flaunting ourselves and our total lack of concern for the artistic principles of dance, and got up on a platform. Unfortunately, a lot of other people had that same idea, and, even more unfortunately, I was too close to the edge. End of story, an accidental shove sent both me and Chris tumbling down to the floor. Apparently, it looked like a nasty fall – Lily said it wasn\’t even funny, though I have a hard time believing that people dancing off the edge of a stage wasn\’t even fleetingly hilarious. But she said it looked awful and that it looked like the sort of thing that resulted in broken bones. Chris and I also just sort of laid where we fell for a few moments, which made it look even freakier. And I banged the living hell out of my head. I realize that a bump on the head doesn\’t even seem worth mentioning, but you guys really should have been there to palpate the monster. There was a lot of discussion as to whether or not my dizzy ass needed to get to a hospital, but eventually we decided to just go home, and I realized that I was probably fine, I\’d just found myself in a position to milk as much sympathy as humanly possible, and I rarely let such opportunities slide. Even so, I wasn\’t allowed to sleep until early the next morning, even after the internet said that was unnecessary in the event of a possible concussion. I felt fine when I woke up Saturday, but apparently while I was freaking out about coma/death/brain damage, I completely did not notice what I did to the rest of myself – I\’ve got a totally bruised to hell tail bone, and I don\’t even know what I did to my shoulder, but I do know that it HURTS. But once again, DANG I love my China friends – I don\’t know how many of you have had to try to deal with an injured, drunk Anne, but take my word that it\’s not easy or pleasant to do, and I was really glad to have them around for that whole melodramatic incident. So everything\’s fine, just don\’t get too wild and crazy near precipices.

Saturday was good, too – I stayed in my pjs, watched Predator, and sampled Chinese red wine (which I regret to report is a big ol\’ thumbs down – however, if your choice is between that and baijiu, go for the wine) and took it easy while whining about my shoulder/back/bottom incessantly. And it\’s looking like today\’s going to be a similarly laid back sort of deal. Fine by me. I do have pictures of most of what I\’ve been talking about up on flickr, so knock yourself out on that. Unfortunately, there\’s no video of the fall, which I imagine, in spite of Lily\’s account, was pretty damned funny to watch.

~ by Anne on November 26, 2007.