I’ve been home for almost 30 hours , and it’s flown by. Which is surprising since I haven’t really slept. Serisously.
My school was sending a car to pick me up Saturday morning at 6AM, so my last night in Jiaxing I decided not to go to sleep. I figured if I did, I would need to wake up by 4:30, and since I had to go out till at least midnight to make my goodbyes to friends, I figured it wouldn’t be worth it to sleep. My theory was that I could sleep on the plane (13 hours from Shanghai to Detroit, then an hour to Chicago), get home Saturday afternoon, see my family and friends, and hit the wall around midnight or so. Well, I only slept a total of two hours on the flights (not because I was unable to sleep, but because it was a Delta flight and they have individual on-demand screens for every seat, it was great), and still managed to stay up very late last night.
But today I think maybe some jet lag kicked in, and I woke up at 8:30Am (my body thinking it was 10:30Pm still) and have managed to force myself not to sleep now till at least midnight. So right now a bunch of us are watching The Hurt Locker, and I’m running on about six hours of sleep for the last 76 hours. I’m starting to get a little delusional I think. Actually that’s not completely true. I actually feel kind of good right now, which is what makes me think I’m delusional. Like, I know that I SHOULD be tired and sleeping, but I’m on my fifth wind right now and wonder if the next wall I hit will be the one that puts me out for about a dozen hours. I know it’s coming, I just thought it would have been here well before now. I must be that happy to be home right now.
Anyways, here’s a couple pics of the last few nights in Jiaxing (unfortunately, I didn’t think to bring out a camera last night, so I don’t have any of the coming home affair, I’ll have to rely on some Facebook pics – speaking of which, it’s so nice to have freedom on the internet again!). I have a few more stories to type up from the time before I left, and since I’m not currently too busy, I should be getting those out to you quickly in the next few days. I don’t know how many people will even be bothering to read this anymore, but I do still have a few good stories up my sleeve, so if at least a few people are still reading, I’ll continue to post for as long as possible.
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- The tea shop where I picked up my last supply to bring home.
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- Standing by the Moon River area on the last day. 48 degrees and sunny isn’t so bad for January 15.
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- Ben the Brit. I became a huge soccer fan as soon as the World Cup draw came out and we got each other. I can’t wait for an internet war of words.
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- Our final dinner was one of our favorites and most common, consisting of crepes and street BBQ. This is the “Crepe Couple”, our favorite street vendors in all of Jiaxing.
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- A bunch of the foreigner collective from Jiaxing on our last night.
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- Daniell, the Scottish teacher from my school. She’s not related to William Wallace, but that’s ok.
Hi Evan -
I know I am way late with this comment but I just wanted to say welcome back to the U.S and thanks for your blog and all of the “interesting” stories you shared during your time in China. Your blog was the first place I went to when I logged on to my computer every day and it was alwasy a day brightener!
I was a little worried about your return when I read one of your last blogs, I think the one from three days before your return. I had this vision of the Chinese police coming to get you and throwing you in prison. Then your mom and dad would have to get on Larry King Live to plead for your return and ultimately Bill Clinton would have to go to China and negotiate your safe return! Boy, did my mind get carried away! I kind of sound like your grandma, don’t I? All the best!