Here's a brief rundown of the week:
1. Arrive in Chengdu last Tuesday after taking the long distance bus with my friends Marc and Holly, who came to visit me in Chongqing for the weekend. Run into my friend Chris in the Peace Corps office, where we have both come a day early for medical reasons. We go to the hospital, where I have surgery in my cheek to remove an enlarged lymph node that developed a cyst. THIS HURTS A LOT. I take pain pills for the next 48 hours and can't open my mouth all the way. Also, I still have a loss of feeling on the left side of my mouth. I hope it comes back. The node is being analyzed for cancer, but as I have not heard anything, I assume it was negative. Surgery in China is not something I ever want to do again.
2. We have our 3 days or so of meetings, and I get to see other volunteers and eat at real restaurants and stay in a hotel and this is all a lot of fun. (Every year the Peace Corps pays for all volunteers to come to headquarters for a conference.)
3. Nicole, Jason and I leave the conference and take an 18 hour overnight train trip to Xi'an (steerage class because we are poor, quite an adventure!), where we meet up with volunteers Kim, Austin, Jonny and Jonny's friend Neil visiting from the US. We all stay in a hostel together and marvel at how clean and nice and Westernized Xi'an is compared to our assignment cities. We also went and saw the famed Terra Cotta Warriors (8,000 clay warriors discovered buried underground to guard the tomb of the 1st Emperor of the Qin dynasty.) I also become addicted to spicy muslim pita sandwiches.
4. I have three days of fun in Xi'an, and today Austin and I flew back to Chongqing together. (He then took the bus back to his city, about an hour and a half from here.) I am now gathering gifts, doing laundry and packing for my trip the US. And looking forward to sleeping in my own bed tonight.
5. Tomorrow I will be uploading pictures from my trip to my flickr account, so stay tuned!
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