A warm welcome

After nearly 24 hours of straight traveling we finally arrived in Beijing and the first thing all of us wanted to do was find our apartments, unload our gear and shower. This happened easier and faster than we all thought as we breezed through customs and found our Olympic bus that took us to our housing. We were welcomed at the North Star Media Village by a large number of volunteers who were ever so generous in helping us unload our bags and feel welcome. The common theme so far is the Chinese people are very excited and proud of their country and want everyone to feel comfortable. It can almost be overwhelming at times being that there are like five people helping each one of us. My first impression of my apartment was that I was pleasantly surprised at the size and the cleanliness. There were lots of little gifts all around the room – pins, alarm clock, sandals, mugs, etc. – which is nice. I lucked out and got the bigger room compared to Streeter but our living area is smaller than a few other coworkers. The biggest issue so far with the housing is the lack of an internet connection. It’s going to make things tough to talk to Toni and my family on Skype without some sort of privacy and also harder to update this blog as quickly. Hopefully we figure something out.