Safe and sound in China, and only a little the worse for wear. We left our hotel in San Francisco at noon on July 30th, East Coast time, and finally got to our hotel in Chengdu precisely 24 hours later, on July 2nd, Beijing time. After a pathetically weak 7 hours of sleep to recover, we had breakfast and then dove right into this first week of training, with a lot of introcductions, acronyms, and goings-over of schedules for the next 10 weeks. We were also each issued a formidable med kit (more of a small suitcase really). Each session was topped off with food... either an enormous lunch, a whole spread of snacks, or the welcome banquet tonight. We are all officially stuffed, though most of us were afraid we'd fall right to sleep in our food at dinner tonight. I had forgotten how incredible Chinese banquets are.

Tomorrow we begin language training and a more formal review of various Peace Corps policies in general, and PC China policies in specific. We also get the first of several rounds of shots (we'll have a final accumulation of some 16 vaccinations, as well as info sessions on diarrhea and bird flu etc., before we're deemed prepared on the health front). I think it'll just be me and one or two other people in the advanced language group since no one else has had much in the way of studying Mandarin before, but with 4 hours of language classes a day, that's going to be incredibly intense. I can't wait to get started though! The faster we dive in, the faster I'll be able to really communicate over here.

We'll train here (at a hotel just outside the West Gate of Sichuan University) for a few more days. On Thursday we'll separate into three groups to continue training scattered around the city with several different university bases and while living with our Chinese families. I'm pretty exhausted and on my friend's computer so I'd better cut this one short, but I'll be sure to find an internet cafe next weekend, after I've met my host family!