JIF IS JIF IN ANY LANGUAGE

Day 5 - Wednesday August 14, 2008

We spent the rest of the morning familiarizing ourselves, best we can, with the city. There is little to no English spoken anywhere except The USA House - It's hosted by the USOC for athletes and their family and friends. It's much like the AT&T Global Village for those that were in Atlanta & Sydney. Fortunately we're able to get access to it since Scott's an Olympian. It's nice to have some Americans to be with and the food and Vodka Cranberry's were fantastic!

Scott, the early riser, scoped out our new neighborhood. He takes such good care of us! We treated the girls to an American Breakfast at the Sheraton (and ourselves truth be told!) All great until the bill came and it was $100.00USD! Interesting the good was so much, seeing as how our taxi rides have been $2-$4.00 and we've logged a lot of miles in Beijing already!

The view from our 21st floor apartment

We made a trip to the Supermarket today and it was fun! Sydney was able to tell the difference between the Jif crunchy vs. smooth and we successfully stocked our refrigerator with food for the week complete with Cocoa Puffs! Ahhhh, vacation treats!

I'm sure the girls would tell you I've been mad at them the entire trip. We (me mostly) are constantly making them hold our hands, reminding them of their manners and that children are seen and not heard here, to use their hand sanitizer and so on. I'm even tired of hearing myself. I finally gave myself a timeout at Tianamen Square!

A bit of sightseeing trying to see the Cycling Time trials but no luck. We'll head back to the Palace to see touristy stuff later in the week.

FUNNY FORTUNE STUFF: We resorted to taking a picture of our street sign and address to show cab drivers where to take us home. This only after Scott and Sydney's efforts to draw it out in Chinese letters didn't pan out!

Most of the time it has worked!

HIGHLIGHTS OF THE DAY:

-All the Fortune girls successfully executing the restroom without wetting ourselves in any way!

-Being in our apartment and hanging out.

Tomorrow we take in our first events - Men's Indoor and Beach Volleyball. We still haven't spotted Grandpa Handler. Baba Elena, we'll be thinking of you during your surgery and happy early b'day Kenny G!

Everyone is doing great! It's so hot here that you sweat constantly and then get chilled to the bone when you go inside with AC's so I'm fighting a bit of a cold. Better me than the girls. We love your comments so keep 'em coming. Handlers you are right, not many dogs around! :-) And Shelly, Sydney loved hearing about your new furniture!

Feeling right at home!