The more time I spend in this city, the more I fall completely head over heels in love with it. Last night, I got to go to the Lake District with my friend, Mike, for a late dinner. The place was incredible. First of all, there were people going crazy dancing everywhere in the streets without regard for anyone or anything else. Then, as we walked farther in, it was as though someone randomly plopped a lake in the middle of the city and built up a brand new city all around it. The outdoor restaurants around the whole lake (which was really more like the size of a large pond), the music, the bars, the colored lights...everything was so ethnic and unique. I fell in love with it the second I got there. And at dinner, I even got daring and tried an aloe and lily appetizer (it looked like lemon Jell-O) and had fried breadsticks with pork in this delicious sauce as an entree. And I even ate successfully with chopsticks! I'm just glad it was dark outside so I couldn't really see what I was eating, otherwise I might have freaked myself out and missed out on a truly unique experience.
Today was our first official day of work at our venues. Let me just say, the Water Cube is so beautifully magnificent that it literally takes your breath away. The thing is massive. We got to go inside to explore for a bit after work and Claire and Shannon and I (all swimmers) literally almost passed out in excitement when we finally got in. The pool is the most incredible thing I have ever seen in terms of pools, and the architecture is so state-of-the-art. And in less than 2 weeks all of the best swimmers in the world will be competing in it! The place gave such an amazing first impression. Even all of the bleacher seats had little bubbles etched onto their backs. 
In terms of work, today we had to set up the NBC editing and broadcasting offices across the street from our venue. The whole cluster looks like they took a movie production set straight out of Hollywood and threw it around the world so it landed in Beijing. There are temporary trailers up everywhere, each one serving a different purpose, and we had to unpack and set up everything inside them to make them into workable spaces. I'm most excited about the editing and voice-over trailers, especially the voice-over one, because that's where all of the talent (on-air people) come in to record their voice tracks to go over their videos of the swimming if it's not broadcast live. So far, even though nothing exciting has really happened, I love my job!
We met up with some other interns after work and decided to go to the silk and pearl market tonight. The place is this 6-story building with vendors lined up everywhere selling everything from jeans to handbags to silk and jewelry. And bargaining is tougher than I anticipated! I got so frustrated with the people sometimes that I would literally just throw them the money I was offering and take what I was buying and run. I ended up leaving with some very ethnic silks and some pieces of pearl jewelry (all real pearls with 14k gold clasps, just like Gordon from United told me to get!) and I spent hardly any money. It was great! We're planning on going back as soon as we possibly can.I love having the freedom to explore the city and take in all of the culture before my job gets really intense when the Games start. And I think I am really starting to pick up on some Mandarin and learn my way around a bit. It's still hard to believe at times that I'm in a foreign city on the other side of the world but, so far, I am certainly having the time of my life!
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