Sunday.

We started the day out with a morning news meeting, as we will every morning on this trip. The morning part didn’t bother me, since I haven’t quite adjusted to the time change yet and Dawn (my awesome roommate and the only other photo person on the trip) and I woke up about 6am. Our friends from grad school, Reno and Katie, were very nice to give us both these nifty little coffee mugs with a built in press so we could make our own coffee in the mornings. In my intense excitement over getting to use this new toy, I forgot that drinking coffee before I eat breakfast can be fairly detrimental to my ability to focus. By hour two of the morning meeting, I was actually rocking in my seat from over-caffeination. The problem was not helped by the fact that hotel staff continued to fill a tea cup in front of me, which of course, in my manic state, I continued to drink. The one plus to this experience was that afterward, I learned China has excellent breakfast food, including something that nearly resembles a breakfast taco, but with noodles instead of eggs, contained in an egg roll wrapper that’s deep fried. Someone should talk to Torchy’s about this. For serious.