I've only been in China for a few days, but I feel like I've been here for a long time already. This morning, I had to go over to the Chinese as a Second Language Building to get my placement scores. It was an interesting experience. They had everyone's scores posted on this huge board in the courtyard outside the building. I couldn't read what I placed into, so I had to grab the room number and head to that room to find out what books I would be getting. After waiting in line, I had to talk to 2 teachers. They talked to me a bit to see if I had been placed into the right level. For both spoken they bumped me up 1 level and reading I got bumped up 2. I think I can still go to the next higher level and not have a problem, but I'm going to wait until my class starts and see how easy it is before I make a decision to level up. I want to enjoy my time in China, not spend all my time studying and trying to catch up with the rest of my class. As long as my Chinese improves enough so I can test out of classes at Drexel, I'll be happy. I get to pick my elective courses on Friday, tomorrow morning I have to go back to get my class schedule.

After getting my books, I went with 2 friends over to the 饺子 restaurant on campus. After eating, I was invited by a friend to play basketball. I really suck at basketball, but I decided to go along anyway to have some experience talking to local people. Ended up playing a few games with a few of the guys on the courts. They looked very confused when I asked them if I could join them. I guess they don't get many girls that play basketball in China. We ended up playing a little 2v2. It was a lot of fun and a great way to learn new words and practice what I already knew. I realized I know a lot more Chinese than I initially thought I did. I ended up playing basketball for about 3 hours.

After that, I headed back to the dorm to cool off before jumping on the bus to go to the Great Wall. It was a 1 hour ride from campus to the wall. We didnt' go to the main touris-ty spot, we instead to a more run down part of the wall. No one else was there. We were allowed 3 hours to hike around the wall and look at everything. I took so many pictures. It was actually a very difficult hike. Sections of the wall are super steep and it's all stairs going up to the top. I was not prepared for this level of diffculty, but it wasn't too bad. I'm definitely tired out from it. Towards the end of our time there, a lot of clouds started rolling in, making everything look pretty foggy.  After the hike, we headed to a local restaurant for dinner and once again stuffed our faces with food before heading back to the school. So now I am home and I am exhausted from basketball, climbing the Great Wall and all the other activities I've been doing this week. Time for me to get some sleep!