Next Steps

Chinese New Year is coming! And With it, I am going with a fellow T.A. (Carl) to GuiYang in the GuiZhou province of China for a few days to stay with a student/friends family (Austin). On the 21 I will Leave to Chengdu in the Shezuan province to stay with another student/friends family (Teddy) while our application for a VISA to Tibet clears. Four-Five days later Teddy, Austin, Carl, and I will be flying into Tibet for the rest of the month. We are extremely excited and I have spent the night packing. Chinese people usually spend the Chinese new year with family, but both Teddy and Austin's families see the value in travelling and spending time with two Americans -- So they were more than happy to allow them to accompany us. We are lucky to have two Chinese speakers as guides and we will try to the fullest to not put them in any sort of difficult situation.

Carl and I have spent the past few days preparing. Our altitude promises a challenge and we have packed altitude sickness pills. The cold suggests a challenge as we all brought warm weather clothes and this is Tibetian winter. The travel distence will be the furthest we have traveled into mainland China, more than 4 flights. The language barrier should be lessened by the help of our friends, and Carl and I have been studying Chinese most studiously. I am most aware of the fact that this will be a difficult journey but these challeneges have been outmatched step by step with anticipation and excitement.

Visiting Tibet has been a point of interest for me for quite awhile now - a landlocked land of intregue. As my cousin who visited Tibet in the most recent past have put it - "it is a land of extreme beauty and depression". I have as little understanding of the working of Tibet as the average Minnesotain but I have been doing my research and slowly building knowledge of the area.

I look forward to updating you all on my travels as soon as we get out and moving but I cannot guarantee when the next post will be. Thank you dear family, friends - Minnesotains, Wisconsinites, Montanians, Gustavians, Saint Paulites, Southtowners, and anyone else who has been following my adventure and supporting me!