Home Sweet Home… I’m not in Narnia anymore

Arriving to campus well after midnight local time, RA’s quickly checked my group in and gave us each room keys.  Since all the 76 students in the Beijing Program this semester were staying in the dorm for a week during orientation, all the rooms on the girls floor were already occupied.  An RA walked me to the end of the guys hall and opened my door for me, 229.

There was an eerie silence throughout the hall as I stood looking into the empty starch white room.  Not unlike an insane asylum, the two plain beds and empty desks were a big change from my chandelier-hanging, pink-polka-dotted Opus suite…

The biggest immediate shock to me was the closet.  The 2x2ft cement floored closet, complete with its very own ever-opening creaky door, is far from the Narnia that I built in my room last semester… At least if I squat it’s a walk-in! And truth be told I don’t have a lot of stuff, my single suitcase fits fine inside it.  Since this won’t be my actual room for the semester, I haven’t unpacked, but they still have yet to tell me when or where I’ll be moving.

So cuddling up in the pink blanket my mom packed for me I sat with the lights off in the corner of the room, willing myself to sleep but jumping at every bump and sound I awaited morning.

In the morning, many new discoveries awaited me.  It should be expected that you’ll have to make adjustments whenever living in a new country, but I was not ready for the major paper adjustment.

Like in many other countries, toilet paper is not offered in bathroom stalls.  While I expected this out around the city of Beijing, I was also informed that I needed to take my own roll to the community bathroom down the hall.  Because of the old pipes and plumbing through Beijing another rule applies: In addition to bringing your own paper, you must also take your paper… yep, that means bringing used TP out to a trash can instead of flushing it down the toilet, eww.

As if that isn’t enough the sinks are located in a totally different room and offer no towels, paper or otherwise, to dry your hands on.  So that means after walking with your used TP down the hallway, you must then walk back to your dorm room with dripping wet hands, hey I guess it could be worse.

Oddly enough, the sinks and mirrors are located in the kitchen… silly me, why didn’t I think to put those there?  So in the morning while fixing yourself up in the mirror, you also get to watch people fix themselves breakfast.  It makes for quite interesting conversations, that’s for certain.