Changes in the air

In the past two days, the temperature has dropped greatly. We venture out in layers of fleece and down, looking like we've stepped out of an REI catalog. If anyone is prepared for the cold, it is surely Josh. He has enough warm gear to camp on the ice in Antarctica. In fact, this cold weather has him wishing he were on top of a mountain with the wind burning his face, stirring up Swiss Miss on his whisperlite stove. He really comes alive when the temperature drops. I am the exaggerated teeth chattering type who says "It.Is.Frr-ee-zing!" every 5 or 10 minutes. But I am enjoying it too. What I have most enjoyed is the new street food that is appearing with the new season. Candied crab apples and sweet potatoes. Every street corner accomadates a man in army surplus gear with what looks like a kiln full of baking sweet potatoes. The wrinkled skin peels away to steaming orange sweetness and it reminds me of Thanksgiving.
We did actually get an American food fix recently at Jenny's Cafe. It was like stepping into a cafe anywhere in the Western world. You could have a latte on the sofa, a Budweiser at the bar, or deluxe nachos at one of the tables. Josh and I split a salad, nachos and french fries. The nachos were a great dissapointment, six chips arranged on the plate with beef, lettuce tomato, and hardly enough cheese to register carefully piled on each chip. It was a comforting meal, but cost us nearly six dollars, so we won't be eating there often.
We have begun our Chinese classes, which have turned out to be rather intense. Our teacher speaks mostly in Chinese to us. We can't understand what she is saying, but we know when to repeat after her. Right now, we are working on tones and pronunciation with a few vocab words thrown in here and there. The language really breaks down into sounds, and each sound may have four different meanings, depending on what tone you say it in. Its going to be a long road ahead, but I want to learn the language more and more everyday, so I am glad to finally be in class. I keep my students updated with my progress, which they find endlessly amusing---maybe not a good sign.
As of yesterday, we have eaten in the campus cafeteria twice. The food is extremely cheap and apart from not always being as hot as I would like it to be, its really tasty. There are three floors with a variety of vegetables, meats, soups, buns, seafoods, eggs, rice and tofu. We fight through the crowds, swipe our card and take a plate full of what looks good. The cafeteria swarms with thousands of students at the designated meal times, I feel like I am having an experience I missed out on in college. It would be interesting to study the culture of college cafeterias around the world. Here, the students sit down with a full tray of food and eat it fast. Nobody seems to take of their jacket, or work on any math problems with dinner. I wonder if students in France linger in the college cafeteria, savoring each morsel?
In keeping with the theme of change for this entry, I took a trip to the Red Leaf Valley today. Josh was busy with work, so I jumped on a small bus with 20 foriegn teachers. In a rather reflective mood, I decided to venture out on my own as soon as we arrived. It was a perfect cold, sunny Fall day. The scenery really took my breath away today. I don't know what it was, a combination of everything maybe...the smells coming off of the grills, the ducks, the waterfalls, the weather, my mood...I thought, maybe, it was the most beautiful place I had ever seen.