Extra Month

Just a quick note to say we've decided to extend our stay here in Yantai by one month, so we'll now be here until the end of April. We're really excited about our decision, it's the first time we've been able to it because in the past we've always had to catch our next flight or make it to our next volunteer program. It's nice to feel a bit more grounded for a while and we're starting to feel more and more at home here--knowing what buses to take, which restaurants are good, and hearing students greet us by name as we walk through the market.

Learning even a little bit of Chinese has proven to be pretty difficult and slow though. When we're on our own we end up either getting really creative with gestures and charades or showing the person we're trying to communicate with our notebook in which the teachers have written down some key phrases in Chinese, most importantly: dumplings and noodles. The words we do remember how to say are: hello, thank you, this, that, not too spicy, tea, beer, Austria and Australia (from explaining our trip), and some numbers. Hopefully our list will start growing over the next few weeks--another good reason to stay longer!