Well, our friends have departed for Norway.  It was wonderful having them with us but (of course) very sad to see them go.  They hope to return to Xining in a year or so.  By then we’ll be back in the States for 9 months so we might not see them again for two years.  Our kids had a wonderful time playing together for three weeks and there were some tears when they left.  Transition is tough when it involves people you love.

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I have one week of school left.  On Friday, I will have completed my fourth semester of Chinese language study.  It feels like an accomplishment but there is still the feeling that I have only begun to scratch the surface towards fluency.  It’s maddening at times and still frustrating when you can’t spit out what you really want to say. 

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Our small town of Xining (population 1,000,000+) got some notoriety this past weekend.  There is a famous international cycling competition held here in which cyclists start in Xining and then ride out to, and circumnavigate, Qinghai Lake.  It’s a pretty good distance and takes a few days (I imagine) to complete the race.  Not sure the exact distance or duration.  There was a kick-off celebration that was held in the city center.  It was televised with musical performers, dancing, and other events.  One of the hosts was a Frenchman who spoke incredible Chinese.  It was nauseating to me how well he could speak the language.  My hope is that he has lived his whole life in China and isn’t a two-year language student like myself.  It would give me more hope and confidence in my language to know that he has been practicing for a REALLY long time.

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The days have been pretty warm here lately.  Up into the 80s.  I spent a few hours on the outdoor basketball courts over the weekend.  Me and some foreign friends played some 4-on-4 games with some Tibetans students this evening.  We had the upper hand of course (height and more years of practice) but the competition was pretty fierce (but still friendly).  It was competitive and the first game was pretty close, but we won every game (I think) until it got too dark to continue.

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Since the girls (Christa, Anna, Sarah) are all out of school now it’s officially summer.  Christa is a bit concerned that she will be twiddling her thumbs until we move to Jianzha in August.  But we do have plans to take a train trip down to Chengdu in a few weeks, plus we have a friend visiting from Xian in a week or so.  I think the time will go quicker than we think.

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This one probably deserves its own post, but I think I might have talked to my "angel" friend again the other day.  It was strange.  I didn’t realize it until we had parted ways, but afterwards I thought to myself, "Wasn’t that the same guy who asked me to explain an English proverb to him?"  He had very distinct features, I didn’t notice how green his eyes were, though I did notice that he spoke amazing English.  No oranges this time, but I did discover that he teaches Japanese at the college I attend and he lives in the same apartment complex as we do.  Weird.  Really weird.