Gypsies!

(Colin)

On the morning of February 15^th, 2011 AD,  in the Julian Calendar of the west, the Sarcastic Four arose from a decent slumber.  I myself did not enjoy the softness of the mattresses, as I am more of a firm mattress person, but I’m not one to complain about mattresses, so I shall continue.  We ate at the hotel’s breakfast buffet for the third and final time, and enjoyed the music that they played, which was the exact same as they had played the two days before.  Though consuming bad noodles to bad new age jazz is not something that one would consider ideal breakfast, we got more than a kick out of the massive contemporary wingbacks that we sat in, and the plethora of watermelon.  Aching to get out of new age jazzland, we quickly went back to our rooms, and packed.

During packing, I had the interesting predicament of a gourd flute that I purchased in Lijiang, which I had dismantled the evening before in a fruitless attempt to repair it.  My bags were full, by back was already straining under the thought of my backpack, and I hated this flute with the force of a thousand suns ...

so I decided to leave it in the room as either refuse or a gift to the housekeeper.  Nonetheless, the women at reception kept me waiting for about ten minutes trying to figure out why there was a flute lying on one of their beds.  After trying to negotiate with them in their fractured English and my fractured Chinese, I was finally allowed to leave.

Our driver (who I think looks like George Clooney but nobody else agrees), was waiting for us with our guide.  As our original train out of the city was scheduled for around noon was rescheduled for 9:00 PM, we spent most of our time aimlessly driving around the city with few things to do.  It was cold, a bit snowy, and, as with every other drive in China, perilous.  Nonetheless, we had a good time.  We went to a museum only to see that it was closed, then we were taken to see Xi’an’s artificial lake and park complex.  Surrounded by contemporary architecture and statues, the lake-park-area-thingy was clean, pleasant, and vacant.  Aside from a few stragglers, nobody seemed to stalk its walkways.  This lack of humans did not stop me from giving my all at a balloon-shooting booth, as one would see at a carnival.  I won a small bracelet, which boasted wood beads and fake jade.  As it did not match my style, or lack thereof, I gave it to Lizzy, who I am sure immediately tossed it in the lake.

After our escapade in the park, we were vanned to the new mall to see a fountain music show, only to hear upon our arrival that it had been cancelled.  Not to be out smarted, Cool and Mr. Wu brought us to a Muslim restaurant, where we walked in, through a warm dining room, and into a cold dining room.  We were immediately presented with pancake like bread, and bowls, neither of which did any of us have any clue what to do with.  Only after our triumphant guides came to the table did we know that we had to rip the bread up into tiny pieces into the bowls, which would then be brought into the kitchen and filled with yumminess.  Our waitress brought out six plastic cups, and a kettle of tea.  For reasons that I still do not comprehend, the tea went in the plastic cups.  As the hot tea thinned the cup walls at an alarming rate, I said “When in Rome…” for the umpteenth time this week and drank it.  Our food arrived within a matter of minutes and consisted of some noodles, some lamb, broth, and all of the bread that we had ripped up earlier.  We ate under a cloud of cigarette smoke, surrounded by laughs and memories.  Needless to say, it was fantastic.  At the end of the meal, I went to the bathroom, which was really more of a war-torn post apocalyptic river basin than a hygienic facility, and caught the plague.

Woozy from the fumes of the bathroom, we went to the Shaanxi History Museum, which Cool had told us was the largest history museum in Asia.  Immediately we believed him, as it was fairly large and boasted some old pottery, models, and arrowheads.  However, after a meager 70 minutes, 90 minutes short of our 4:00 PM deadline, we realized that we had seen all of the museum’s exhibits and that it wasn’t really that big at all.  We called Cool to pick us up, and soon departed the museum.  We continued to drive aimlessly, and pulled over at a McDonald’s.

Before I talk about the McDonalds, I would like to clarify that it was NOT my idea, and that I am NOT the one who wanted to eat McDonald’s while in China.  I didn’t even order anything.  But, as today is my blog day, and Mickie D’s is part of today’s events, I will write about it.  The restaurant had the same floor tiles as McDonald’s branches have in the US, and that is about as far as similarities go.  The restaurant played a weird New Year themed techno song, which was about 15 seconds long, and looped for the entire time that we were there.  This was, at first, endearing, as is beating one’s head against a wall.  But like this activity, it became annoying and painful.  Ryan ordered a burger and a McFlurry, of all things, and Chris and Lizzy both had coffee.  Cool got some hot liquid that wasn’t coffee, and I got a feeling of satisfaction for holding out the longest against the influence of American food corporations.

After the torturous-music infested fast food encounter, we went to yet another museum, this one about art. We saw some pretty paintings, puppets, and got a crash course in calligraphy.  We then bought some paintings made by art students, and were about to leave when the curator of the museum offered that we take our calligraphy work home with us.  Because we were all terrible at it, we decided to donate them to the museum for a new wing of western attempts at Chinese art.

With an hour left before the beginning of dinner, we walked around the area of the same place where we had eaten two nights before, as someone thought it would be a good idea to eat hot pot again.   During this hour, we went to Dunkin Donuts, which was very clean, happy, and had great workers.  As we ate, a boy and his mother approached us, and he asked if he could take a picture with us.  We happily obliged.  We ate and talked for an hour, then went to an uneventful dinner.

After dinner, we went to the train station, which I was excited for.  I had misplaced my excitement.  The station was full of people trying to get home to families for the New Year, and one of my terra cotta warriors had his head broken off.  A little Krazy Glue will fix it, but it is an inconvenience.  We said goodbye to Cool and George Clooney, and sat in a surprisingly vacant waiting room for an hour.  We got some mystery food, and went on the train.

Not much can be said about the train, other than the fact that we get our own room with four beds and plenty of space.  After we had gotten all of our things under our seats and whatnot, we were in exploration phase, and looked around to see if there was anything interesting in our room.  There wasn’t.  During this exploration, however, Chris found a knob, labeled “Volume”.  He turned it clockwise, out of a speaker in the ceiling bellowed some Gypsy music.  At the risk of offending even more Gypsies with a blog post, it was not good music.  We have, however, been feeling like we are Gypsies, as we live nomadically in a modern world.  All that is left is for us to wear shawls and dance a bit less drastically.