Dusting off my Passport!

Other big things are happening, too!  It's been 2 years since I was last out of the country (I cannot believe it's been that long!  Seems like just yesterday.), and now my severe wanderlust is being satisfied this summer - I'm leaving for China in a week!  My university's orchestra is going on tour, and we're headed to Beijing, Shanghai, and Tianjin.  We just received our itinerary, and besides performances, it includes visits to gardens, museums, temples, a boat ride, an acrobatic show, riding on the bullet train, and seeing the Great Wall, Forbidden City, Tiananmen Square...the list goes on.  It sounds like it will be a very packed trip.  I'm pretty excited because I don't think I would have thought to put China at the top of my list of travel destinations anytime soon, and I don't know if I'd feel comfortable just heading over on my own for a visit, so this will be a great way to get a first taste.  I was talking to my dad, and he said that's how he felt about going behind the Iron Curtain when it was still the Iron Curtain; he went on tour with his school choir, and that was the best way to do it.  And then he said that there was one slightly sketchy part of the trip where he and his friend went off to Budapest for the day on their own and exchanged currency on the black market, "but everything worked out well."  Whaaattt??  Crazy.  You learn something new every day.  Anyway I can't wait!  Also, more travel news coming up soon...

~xomo

ps:  photo from the window of my friend's flat in Paris, where he graciously took me in for a week when I visited a couple years ago :)