Everything went pretty smooth on my flights over… nothing to report there. When I made it to Beijing, I passed through customs, picked up my suitcase, and proceeded towards the exit, looking for someone with a "Princeton in Beijing" sign. That person didn't seem to exist, so I wandered around aimlessly for a bit until I asked the other random white guy what he was looking for. Surprise, surprise - he was also heading to PiB. Soon thereafter a third PiBer joined us, and after calling the program coordinator we sat down and waited. She showed up after a few minutes, and then we waited a while longer trying to collect a few other students that were supposedly somewhere in the airport.
We finally left the airport at around 2am, although I had slept a lot on the long flight over so I wasn't very tired. After a 45 minute drive to the campus, we bustled into the dormitory and woke up the girl working at the desk (she lives in a room directly adjacent to the front desk). We checked in and retired to our rooms. My roommate had not arrived yet, so I had the place all to myself. There is a bathroom, two (hard) beds, two desks, AC and a kettle for boiling water. I settled in and then tried to sleep, but I don't think I slept more than wink or two.
I woke up around 8 this morning and then started on some errands. First I bought some toothpaste from the campus supermarket. Next I grabbed some breakfast and came back to my room for a bit. Then I set out again to active my room's internet connection. I got that squared away, and successfully set up my wireless router that I brought from home. Around 12 I went out to lunch with a few other classmates.
When I came back I saw my roommate had arrived, although he was not in at the moment. After a few more minutes, though, he came back and we introduced ourselves. His name is Jackson, he is from IU, and he is also a 5th year student (roommates were selected based on matching level). We are relaxing for a bit in our room, but soon we will go out again to get some dinner.
The student-body seems diverse, and although everyone is speaking english now, I think things will get much more interesting once the students are bound by the power of the language pledge!
