long time no chat

I know I have been MIA for the past few weeks but life has been kinda busy- so let me try to fill you in a bit....

My buddies Tara and Debbie came to visit me three weekends ago. Tara is from Georgia and I was introduced to her through Lynn, a woman at Coca-Cola who wrote a great article about our Habitat trip. We have become fast friends and through her I have become friends with Debbie, a girl from New Zealand who teaches second grade in Suzhou at an international school. We hung out, ate Girl Scout cookies (thanks mom!) and chatted all weekend, complete with a big barbeque on Poli and Dyan's roof which was really fantastic.

Two weeks ago, Poli, Dyan, Kynesha and I went to Suzhou to stay at Tara's because Debbie was racing in a Dragon Boat race on TaiHu, one of the largest lakes in China. It was held at the Mercury Marina about 30 minutes outside of Suzhou and was totally amazing. There were lots of teams and we had a great time... pics to come on that...

This weekend I was in Suzhou again... Chilling at Tara's. We went to Shanghai on Saturday afternoon for a short shopping trip because she wanted to get some shirts for her brother at the XiangYang Market (full of copies and fakes). We then met a friend of hers for a few drinks and it turned into 10pm, when we were too late to catch a bus home! We ended up hitting the town at a bar with a great live band and dancing the night away before crashing at her friend Pepe's. Sunday we woke up early and came back to Suzhou. We went swimming (my first time in 5 months!) and then came back to watch some World Cup action with a bunch of her friends and make dinner.

In between those full weekends Kymberly moved into my apt because her contract is up, I finished classes for the semester, I signed another contract (I'm here til Feb. 2007), and I bought a ticket to Thailand for the summer!

I'm still in Suzhou now, but will be home tomorrow... I am having a lunch party of KFC for some of my kids that won a contest I gave them, so that should be pretty fun.

More to come...