Back in Beijing

Since one week ago, I am back in Beijing. We are living at the Beijing Foreign Studies University located in the third ring, very close to the zoo and the Summer Palace, where I want to go very soon.
Everyday I have class in the morning, I visit places around Beijing, I meet with my language partner, I go to calligraphy classes and I study Chinese in the afternoons.
I also bought a bike so I can go by bike from one side of the campus to the other, to have lunch, and to some streets around. I really like. I was afraid about the traffic but now I am used to it.Other thing that I really like is the Beijing Opera and the costumes they wear. I hope I can find cheap tickets and go to one performance.
This is my room in the dorm. It is decorated with Spanish flag colors (yellow and red), some notes, flowers, the Asturias flag, and Fernando Alonso flag (my favorite F1 driver who is from my hometown).
And this is the door of my room. It has my name (Rita), my Chinese name (Ai Litai) and some flags from China, the United States, Spain, Asturias, and of course Iowa. I really miss the white board that I had when I was at Drake. I hope I can find one soon!!

Clean water

While we were in Chengde we made a trip to the countryside. Everything was pretty, specially the water that was very clean.
Here you can see some pictures:


We have a great time fishing in the river, playing badminton and talking with people around there.

Learning Chinese

Chinese is in my opinion one of the most difficult languages to learn. I have studied English, French, German and now Chinese and I think this one is the hardest.
It was very difficult the first week, when we were working with pronunciation and listening to some sounds and I couldn't even differentiate them. But thanks to the help of the teacher, my language partners and some classmates, everything is better now.
I would like to continue studying Chinese when I'm back in Spain and come back to this city next year for the Olympic Games.

One of the songs we have learned in classMy classmates and our Chinese professors

I love travelling all over the world!!

Yeah, the more I travel, the more I like it. I started when I was a little girl of 10 years old. I went to many cities in Spain during the weekends with my grandparents, following the soccer team of my hometown. Thanks to them I visited a lot of cool places and I enjoy soccer games.
Then, I started to travel with my classmates to Europe and I did a school exchange with Westlake High School in the USA. Since then, I couldn't stop traveling.
Why do I like it so much? Because I meet new people, I visit beautiful places, I take lots of pictures, and the most important: I learn a lot of things everyday, every second.
And this is what is happening now in China. I love this country, I met new people from the States and China, I visited beautiful places, I took a lot of pictures and I have learned so much.
That's is probably why I want to be a correspondent, so I can keep traveling, taking pictures, and share my experiences and the information about what is going on all over the world.
One of my last experiences was to celebrate for first time the 4th of July with Americans in China. It was incredible to be with people from two countries, having fun and making new friends.

With some Chinese friends in Chengde

Celebration of the 4th of July in Chengde

Some pictures

Having lunch with Americans and our tutors

With my tutor and other friends
A man cooking at the street
A Mongolian tent
With my tutor Hatty

Sorry

I'm in Chengde, living with a Chinese family since yesterday until next Friday.
Chengde is a summer retreat around 200 km outside of Beijing. We took a bus on Monday and it took us more than 4 hours to arrive. There was a lot of traffic and they were working on the highway.
On Tuesday I started with my Chinese classes from 8 am to 12.30 pm. I got a tutor (like a language partner at DULAP), her name is Hatty and she studies at Chengde Nursery University, we meet everyday one hour and she is very nice.
The Chinese classes are really intense. I am in the beginner level and we are seven. Our professor is really good and we were working with tones and pronunciation the first week and then today we started to learn some characters. I really like the characters and writing them, but they are really difficult to memorize, and in a few minutes I forgot them.
This weekend we made a trip to Inner Mongolia and it was great. We visited a National Park, we ride horses, we met Mongolians, they made a Mongolian BBQ, they played cool music, we play some games and we walk around the forest and countryside.
Now I am living with a Chinese family. Yesterday when we came back from Inner Mongolia we met them and I came to their house. They had to change my family because the first one didn't know any English and I don't know any Chinese to communicate with them. I felt bad because the mother and her daughter were really nice, but I couldn't understand them.
In my new family the mother doesn't know English either, but I can speak with the father and her daughter who is a junior at high school.
Today I woke up at 5 a.m. because it was very light, then we had breakfast together at 6 a.m. and the mother came with me to take the bus. It was weird because we couldn't talk during the trip but we smiled to each other.
Then, I had Chinese class, we went for lunch, we met our tutors and I took a bus back to downtown. In the morning it was really sunny, but on my way back to home it was raining a lot and I didn't have an umbrella.
Now it is time to go and learn more characters because we have a test everyday at the beginning of each class.

June 17th in Beijing

It's June 17th in China, and today it's my birthday! 21 years! :D I never thought about celebrate my birthday outside of Spain and less in China, but here I am.
On Friday I took a plane from Shanghai to Beijing. Some people from IES went to the airport to pick me up and then, we came to the BFSU campus where IES has its offices and our dorm.
We are going to stay here until Monday that we are going to Chengde for three weeks. On Tuesday I am to start with my Chinese lessons, five hours a week, and I have to weak up early again because the classes start at 8 a.m.
Today and yesterday I met the group of Americans that are going to study with me and all the IES staff in Beijng. We have some orientation meetings and I made some Chinese friends! So cool!