I am back from my trip to Beijing. What ended up being the absolute best part of the trip was no surprise at all--hanging out with the only soulmate I have ever had, my Sary. :) It is funny to me because she worries so much about us when we bicker, which we do quite often, even on what she thought should be a bicker-free trip. I don't worry about this. I think she is one of the most real relationships in my life; one of the only people I have ever felt solid enough to really just argue with. We can endure conflict. I know that about other relationships, but I am often too scared to test that out. Anyway, back to Beijing. It wasn't perfect by any means. The imperfect parts already seem funny though. Let's lay some of those out first:

a) 3 of the 4 major tourist attractions she planned to take me to, for one reason or another, did not work out. Flexibility ended up being our buzzword. I had forgotten how hard it is to host someone in a foreign country with a foreign language.
b) I got mad sick on Wednesday night. I don't know if it was the food I can't pronounce or some water that wasn't boiled all the way (you have to boil all the water to drink it over there), but man, I was not well. BUT I got better by Thursday night. My sister was a trooper and stayed up with me into the night.
c) So few people there know English. It made Florence feel tame by comparison. I needed my sister to do everything for me from hailing a cab to ordering food to bargaining vendors down to crazy low prices. I do know how to say a couple things, but I can't spell them :) I'd be useless over there. I don't know how she does it, but I was impressed.
d) Beijing was really pretty ugly, but very clean and very, very safe. And I learned that of all the big cities in China, Beijing is the least Western and therefore the most appealing to me who was looking for some real live non-western civilization. :)
e) I won't be seeing Sary for like, four months. Yet our goodbye at the airport was surprisingly casual. I guess that's because clearly when she is back, we will pick up right where we left off. But it is still hitting me now. When I got off my 13+ hour plane ride, I half expected to see her standing there with my family, waiting to welcome me just like they were when I arrived back from Florence. I am already starting to really see how I'll miss her. Hopefully that will push me towards better keeping in touch.

Some very, very cool impressions of Beijing as well as fun activities (lists help me write so much more clearly so hopefully you don't mind)
a) Chinese women are so hip! And some Chinese men, although most of them (just liek Italian men lol) are kinda lame and dorky at times. But I guess I just enjoyed looking at all of them and taking pictures of them and getting to really see some distinct personalities. Not like I was expecting some anoynymous Asian mass, but with them speaking such an indicpherable language, I found it comforting to watch their body language and expressions and style. I felt like I could still kind of get them. What's funny is that, similar to Americans who can't really tell the difference between Korean and Chinese and Japanese, less people stared at my sister and I (the twin freak shows in a one-child policy country) than we thought. Oh we still got stared at sometimes, but Sarah's friend Lan Jiang told us that they have a hard time telling Westerners apart sometimes too. Strange.
b) I enjoyed how different the food was. Among some of my favorites were the Szechuan spicy green beans, the whole fried fish spawled on our plate like it had just been struck by lightning (ew this was more a favorite for laughs not taste!), the 50 cent giant bowl of beef noodles, and the tea with the real flowers in it. We ate out every meal except for breakfasts because we had to. Good times.
c) The campus that Sarah is staying on (Bei Da) is the 'Harvard of China', as told to us by her Chinese friends. It is a beautiful little sanctuary in a very tall, industrial city. And despite being helpless were I to get lost, I managed to walk around the whole thing one day all by my lonesome. A small victory for me, but I was proud nonetheless.
d) We went to two things at this International Christian church there; a service on Sunday which was like the UN there were so many countries there AND on Friday I got see Phillip Yancey speak for free!!! How amazing that he would be there that week. He spoke about grace, of course and had many great stories to tell. There were hundreds of people from all across the city there to hear him and I was so glad I went. My sister and I are both struggling with different aspects fo the limits of grace right now and I felt that his honesty about wrestling to find the answers was more helpful than any answer he could have given. He said that when he fell away from the church, three things brought him back: 1. nature 2. classical music 3. romatnic love. Interesting. Jesus definitely touched hearts through Him, that is for sure. Amazing how you can go halfway around the world and still have Jesus knock you flat on your back, huh?

I probably will have more I can tell and I plan to put pictures up on my website. There are a bunch so that will be fun. Lots of the Great Wall and all that. I can't wait to talk to you all and I will hopefully see most of you very soon!