comfortable. I took my placement exams today (Level 3 out of 7) and will start classes on Monday so that means 4 more unstructured days of playing and exploring. Here is a pic of the main building at Fudan. My classmates appear to be mostly from other Asian countries or of Chinese descent and looking to improve their reading and writing capabilities. I've also met others from Australia, Russia, Spain, Britain, Italy and of course the US. I've come to appreciate the location of Fudan. Although it is pretty far from the center of Shanghai it will force me to use Mandarin more since few people here speak English. AND I found a great food delivery service that delivers from over 50 restaurants: both Chinese and non-Chinese including....CPK!!!!!!!!!!!!!! Woo Hoo!! BBQ Chicken Chop Salad here I come. I found this service after eating at a very yummy Mediterranean cafe downtown where I stocked up on hummus and whole wheat pita. Mmmm. After 6 straight days of Jiaozi (dumplings) I needed to switch it up a bit. Also, next to the Med cafe is a great DVD shop. Anything your heart desires can be bought here. I got Juno, Michael Clayton, Gone Baby Gone, Mean Girls, Memoirs of a Geisha and the first season of Gossip Girl. Life is good.Now the real story is what prompted my need to stock up on DVDs. Now normally I wouldn't talk about my alcohol-driven exploits but this one is too good not to share. It was my Swedish friend Elin's boyfriend's b-day on Tuesday and she invited me to join them and a couple other friends they had met for dinner. I was absolutely up for it. Dinner was at The Grill at the Grand Hyatt which is next to the space ship looking building-very posh. The Hyatt boasts the highest bar in the world, Cloud 9, so of course we had to have a drink there after dinner. Well one drink actually turned into the 5 of us getting a bottle of vodka. What kind of vodka you ask?? Well they were out of Absolut which disappointed Elin so we asked for Skyy which was also on the menu. No dice. Ok what do you have? My stomach dropped and heart pounded w/ fear as I saw our fuwuyuan's (server) finger point to the only vodka they have (duh-duh-duh): Stolichnaya!!!! Ahhhhhhhhhhhhh! NO. For those of you not understanding my fear should know that Stoli (as we endearingly called it) was the vodka we drank in college b/c at $15 a bottle it gave you the most bang for your buck. But of course being at a) a hotel and b) the highest bar in the world it ran for $90!!!!!! My Nordic friends, not ever having seen Stoli before, thought it had to be good since it was Russian and were pleased to buy this bottle. On a side note, to my horror, one of our companions suggested we get Vanilla Stoli and mix it with diet coke (GAG!!). Anyway, following our most expensive bottle of Stoli in the world at the the highest bar in the world we moved on to another lounge for more drinks and little did I know, my friends were just getting started. Three bars later capped by a stint of karaoke we were spent. I casually looked at my watch to see that it was 6:45 AM!!!!!! Wha??!?! I went to bed with daylight shining and didn't get up until 2pm only to move to my couch and watch terrible Chinese TV. Thus prompting the need for DVDs. So my friends, there you have it. My first Shanghai all-nighter and subsequent hangover :( Unfortunately, I forgot my camera so I have no pics to document the evening but Elin took some and will send them to me soon.
Ok I'm off to join a gym w/ Elin. YAY!
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