Airplanes, Tarmac Havoc, and Creepy Bunnies

I took off the other day for San Francisco for our two day orientation for the Fulbright-Hays Program.

Flying out of Portland Maine, I was delighted to see one of my former students. Come to find out we had the same first leg flight to Chicago's O'Hare airport.  She was on her way to North Dakota to see her sister.  I had a great time hearing her tell me about Ramadan while we waited.  

I had forgotten how much I hated Chicago's O'Hare airport. Until this day. 

We sat on the tarmac for over an hour. I nearly missed a flight that would take me the rest of the way to San Francisco.

I got to San Francisco around noon. Which is actually 3 PM my time. We met the other 15 teachers and a professor who will be accompanying us to China.

We were shuttled to our orientation spot at the Vallombrosa Retreat Center with the representatives from the National Committee on US China relations.

Our time is spent in this old mansion on the grounds listening to presentations about Chinese history and culture.

Topics of lectures.

We have Mandarin lessons everyday.  The language has five main tones, and if you are off even a bit - it could mean 5 million other things.  This ought to be interesting.

This cracked me up.  I have been on  a lot of tours with teachers.  If everyone stuck to these, we would have no problems.

Aside from the incredible lectures, and amounts of info we have received, I have had the chance to hang with cool teachers from across the US. They will appear throughout this travel blog over the next weeks. We sit, chat, crack up, exchange ideas and help each other.

There is only one thing I do not care for much here. There are satanic bunnies all over this place. They are a menace. They follow me and try to get into some of the rooms. One tried to lurch at me and eat my eyeballs. True story. Who knew California could be so dangerous. 

#jugulareater

#scoundrel

#goawayjerkrabbit