events of March 2
Sunday morning, I got some much-needed rest. It’s amazing what 13 hours of sleep does for you. My host brother Kevin took me down the street to Zhejiang University for some lunch. There is a food court there that sells strictly Islamic food, so we went there, and it was delicious. Earlier in the trip someone wrote about the big bowls of soup in Xi’an with the pancake noodles. We basically had that again, but this soup had noodles and some kind of vegetable. I was still full from the giant lunch we had yesterday, so I didn’t eat a lot. Kevin, on the other hand, was very hungry and had a lot of food, so we walked around campus to burn it off. He showed me the different buildings around campus, and the surrounding area. We went back to the apartment for a few hours for some rest and so Kevin could finish his homework.
Time passed slowly for me, but at 3 o’clock, it was time to go out again. Kevin and I went back to the university so I could teach him American football, and so he could teach me some badminton. The badminton courts were full, so we went down to the track stadium. I started out by teaching him some football. We started with basic skills like throwing, catching, and running. I ran him through some drills, and then taught him some basic rules. I felt like a real coach, and I was proud of my student; he picked it up very quickly. Kevin started teaching me some badminton, but I failed miserably. After an hour or so, Kevin’s friend from middle school, Jack, came over. Jack goes to a different school, but he and Kevin are still good friends. The three of us passed the football around, and then some random guy came over and joined us. His name was Lu, and he was a graduate student at Zhejiang. Lu was pretty cool; I never thought I would meet somebody else who knew football, but he did. He said that he knew the game, but never played it because American football is basically nonexistent in China.
We had four people, which is enough for a small game. It was Kevin and Jack vs. Lu and me. Looking back, the teams were unfair. The two people who knew the game played the two people who didn’t really know. I thought Kevin and Jack would be good together, and they were. They would have been better if they knew all the rules. Anyway, we played a game of “football,” where we played by the rules only half the time. Football, however, is a fun game regardless of how you play it, and we ended up losing track of time. Jack and Lu had to go, but we promised that we would meet again and play in two weeks at the same time. Kevin and I said our goodbyes and headed to dinner.
We went to the main dining hall where we both had a ton of beef fried rice. The plate was maybe seven inches in diameter and the rice was piled high. The two of us waddled back to the apartment where we had some fruit and talked on the couch. My host dad came home that night from his nephew’s wedding and showed me some pictures…his nephew’s a lucky guy! By that time, we were all tired, so we all went to our separate rooms to rest for the next day. It was a fun day of making new friends, and I can’t wait until the next football game.
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