Xi'an

I still can't seem to view the blog, so I hope you are all well. We landed in snowy Xi'an yesterday. I think I said before that we were leaving Beijing on Sunday, but we didn't fly out until Tuesday. Xi'an is supposedly a much smaller city, but it still has 13 million people. It is a much older city, and much more polluted. Also not quite as cold, despite the snow! Beijing was pretty much the coldest I've ever been in my life, because we would be outside for hours, touring places like the Forbidde City and the Summer Gardens. Xi'an was the beginning of the Silk Road, and it also has the Terra Cotta Warriors, which we will be visiting tomorrow.

Our last few days in Beijing were lovely. We had Peking duck, which I wasn't actually that impressed with. We've met a couple local people who have the most hilarious stereotypes about Americans. One man didn't believe we were Americans at first because he said we weren't fat enough. He told us we must be Dutch, not American. My ankle is doing better, Mom. Still very swollen, but I have it wrapped and I can walk on it just fine. I was afraid they were going to make me take off my shoes in the airport, because it's really difficult to get them on and off with all of the swelling and the ace bandage. But they didn't. Tomorrow we're supposed to climb the city wall of Xi'an, but I think I might opt out of that. Stairs and I don't seem to get along.

Today, we visited a small hospital providing health care for the farmers outside the city wall. It had it's own set of hilarious signs -- my favorite was "Don't Sping!" which we assumed meant to say don't spit. We visited the OB department -- all of the babies were so wrapped up you couldn't even tell they were babies. They looked more like giant piles of blankets. Tonight, we will be sampling the famous local cuisine - dumplings. Apparently there will be at least 16 different kinds of dumplings! I hope it's better than the duck! We fly out of Xi'an on Friday...to Hangzou, I think. More later!