The Working Weekend

Wednesday May 1st is the Chinese Labor Day holiday so people were required to work on Saturday and Sunday this weekend, then in return they will receive Monday, Tuesday and Wednesday as holidays.  I'm still struggling with this concept of "making up" days on the weekends so you can have days off during the week.  I'll get there eventually but it just really seems odd right now.  It's like- we will give you a "holiday" but you need to make up the days on the weekend.  So technically Bill was suppose to work yesterday and today.  He did about 1/2 days both days and he will work from home Mon, Tues, Wed so it'll all even out.  His 1/2 day yesterday allowed us to go for lunch along the lake and to just enjoy a beautiful Saturday afternoon.  We ended our afternoon with a pint at Hofbrau.  It didn't quite taste like Germany's beer, but it was an escape from the apartment and a nice day to sit outside.

 Our compound is the block of buildings on the far left of the picture below.

This morning we interviewed 3 potential drivers for the 2nd time!  The first time Bill's company decided the cost was too high so we've been researching/jumping through hoops of fire to find cheaper companies and we finally are getting close to having a full time driver to get Bill to and from work vs taxi, train, taxi and then again taxi, train, taxi!  It will take a lot of stress out of his day so we are really looking forward to having a full time driver.  Our decision right now is between Mr. Fu and Mr. Wang, I will keep you posted on the outcome!

And now we have hit 5pm, it's still 80 degrees here and our brains are fried as we had a 2 hour Mandarin session.  (We typically go Monday mornings but again the holiday so we made it up today so our teacher can have off Mon/Tues/Wed.)  This stuff is hard!  The more words/phrases we learn the tougher the piecing together of sentences and memorization becomes.  We have 10 more sessions to go in Survival 1, I'm not sure if we'll graduate or not!

HAPPY SUNDAY TO ALL!