These are a Few of my Favorite Things...

First I want to thank the Confucius Institute, Troy University, and the University of South Alabama for making our "excellent adventure" to China possible and Peggy Delmas for her friendship, good ideas, and organizational skills which helped me pull off major travels in a short period of time.

Peggy, Mary Jo, Kim, Jason, Vic, Beverly, Alice, Susan and Sarah were wonderful travel partners. I could never have imagined how much I would learn and how much fun I would have being a part of a new "family" exploring a country across the world.

Paige and Peggy in the Mobile airport...Sweet Home Alabama!

As I leave China, I am already anticipating missing so many experiences which have become comfortable over the 10 day journey:

I will miss the morning e-mails from Peggy containing the beautiful words she arranged the night before for me to quickly copy and paste to the blog before we boarded the bus and while we still had Internet access. Thankfully Peggy is my USA friend and colleague and this trip is just the beginning of our friendship and collaboration; in addition to our academic pursuits, we have big plans for experimenting with Chinese cooking!

I will miss witnessing Dean Mary Jo Cochran's professionalism and travel expertise. From her articulate communication and leadership at each and every university we visited to her savvy shopping skills in the major markets of China, I was never anything less than amazed by her abilities.

I will miss referring to each day as a year; we did so much every day! I now feel like I have known my colleagues and friends for 10 years. We have certainly experienced events of a lifetime together and I would travel anywhere with this family!

I'm going to miss catnaps on the bus ...dozing off to the melodic and often animated sounds of Alice and our tour guide in each city talking to each other in Chinese.

I will miss loading the pictures of the day on my iPad (holding my breath as I prayed storage room didn't run out) and looking at them on the bus; picking out our favorites and expressing oohs and ahhs with my friends!

As a person who doesn't normally eat breakfast, I will miss breakfast buffets which were available every morning; "Jolly rancher" (as Jason called it) kiwi juice might be missed the most.

Having lunch and dinner in a different restaurant every day and night including a variety of Chinese dishes served family style is my new normal. I loved analyzing each and every ingredient with our "family" and choosing our favorites. Everything with eggplant was devoured by Peggy and me.

I will miss attempting to speak Chinese with Alice's patient assistance and the honest and fascinating discussions comparing and contrasting American and Chinese culture; you have taught me so much Alice!

I will miss laughing incessantly with Kim and Jason as we enjoyed the planned events all day together and explored the streets each and every night to discover authentic Chinese experiences. If laughter really is the best medicine and humor is healthy, I should be extremely well!

-Paige

Jason, Paige, and Kim - the three musketeers in Beijing