Money Day!

Today was another day off for the ladies. We started off the day with a meeting. The meeting was supposed to be just the females but the men had also scheduled a meeting for the same time in the same room. We ended up just doing the meeting together, which was convenient since the 6 North Americans had to sing our song. We had the 2 French Canadians sing Row, Row, Row Your Boat in English first. They had translated it into French for the 4 English speaking officials, however I think something was lost in translation, haha. Below is the French version of our song - for your amusement I have put our phonetic spelling as well:

Pet, Pet, Pet Encore (pet pet pet on-car)
Tranquilement dans mes pantalons (tran-kill-ma da me pantalone)
C'est chaud, c'est chaud, c'est chaud, c'est chaud (say show, say show, say show, say show)
Mais ca fait du bien (me saw-fe du bien)

Naturally we had a little bit of fun with this song and it really wasn't anything close to Row, Row, Row Your Boat. We wanted to see if anyone would figure it out but nobody knows any French besides the Canadiens. What we really sang to the tune of Row Row Row Your Boat was:

Fart, Fart, Fart again
Slowly in my pants
It's warm, it's warm, it's warm, it's warm
But it feels so good!

This creativity was courtesy of France and Helen (said Ellen - they don't use H's). We are obviously a very mature group. This brings up language a little more. We have all been trying to learn a few Chinese words here and there. They typical Chinese greeting is "ni how" so we say that pretty much everywhere we go. I guess this makes the Chinese assume we actually speak the language since most foreigners don't try to learn any Chinese so they immediately start spitting back Chinese in our faces, to which we calmly respond "ni how." This always makes them laugh.

Anyway, this was the meeting where we finally received our money. We were told we were 50 Euros a day that we are here, including travel days. For me that is 17 days or 850 Euros. They have been promising us the money the entire time we have been here but we had only seen about 2 days worth. I had exchanged a bunch of money at the airport so I was fine but some of the guys literally didn't have a yuan left and their atm/credit cards weren't working so they need cash. So finally, at the end of our meeting I swear what had to have been the Chinese mob came in with a suitcase full of cash and handed it out to all of us. It was pretty crazy.

After getting our money the girls decided to celebrate by going to McDonalds. Yes that is two days in a row I have eaten McDonalds. I don't think I have ever had McDonalds two days in a row at home. Even though the food tastes just like it does at home, ordering is a bit different. They have a picture menu where you can point to what you want. Seems easy enough, huh? Not so much. Helen wanted a big mac meal plus an additional burger. Instead, she got two big mac meals - both with large fries and large sodas. Similar stuff happened to others so we ended up with way more food than we wanted.

After McDonalds we went to the grocery store again. We needed beer and the others wanted to pick up a few things. This was Stacey's first visit so she was scarred for life when she saw a woman pick up a pepper, take a huge bite, decide she didn't like it and put it back in the bin. As I have said before, only in China...

We then headed to the men's rink to watch the US play Japan. This was a really important game for standings that the US had to win. It was a competitive game but they took way too many penalties and ended up losing 6-3 with an empty net goal. They are now relegated to the 7th place game.

Tonight we just hung out at the hotel, drank some Harbin beer and relaxed. While we have all had an amazing time, I think everyone is getting a little tired of China and will be happy to get home. Personally, I am missing my soft bed, american food, english speaking people who respect personal space and no smoking rules. This has been the trip of a lifetime but now that the end is near I'm looking forward to some of the comforts of home.

Supermarket pictures are finally posted at www.picasaweb.google.com/connolly.kate. We also took video during one of our infamous cab rides today that I need to steal from Tara's camera. While it really doesn't do it justice, it will at least give you a glimpse of how crazy the drivers are here. Goodnight!