"American Culture Day" or Wo xi huan chi PIZZA!

Wednesday from noon to 1pm was glorious, as it was the first "American Culture Day" at Telestone Technologies in Beijing. Translated roughly, this means Pato and I had spotted a Pizza Hut Delivery BIKE (McDonalds also delivers via bike!) the day before and convinced our supervisor that we should order pizza the next day instead of eating at the Chinese cafeteria they take us to. It was a highly entertaining hour as they couldn't get over the fact that we each ordered our own 10 in pizzas ("You eat SO MUCH in America!" "Your pizza is SO BIG!" "The people at the front desk thought we were ordering for the whole office but it is just you two! *stifled giggle) while they ordered one nine inch to split among 4 people. It's really hard to find anything dairy here (well, un-refrigerated milk in a bag is widely available but I usually pass on that and have acquired quite a taste for a strawberry-banana yogurt they sell at a convenience store next to my McDonalds), so my stuff-crust cheese-lovers was possibly my most appreciated meal yet.

My co-workers (from left to right: Cheryl, Shelly, Peter (who I'm so sad is leaving for Indonesia on Sunday!!! He was my favorite :/, Alica (whose MSN name when we first arrived was "loser" - apparently she didn't know what the word meant; she's since changed it after we asked her why exactly she picked that of all names...), and Pato, whose in the program with me and of whom this isn't a particularly great picture. Also, notice their attempts to eat the pizza with chopsticks...

This is Cheryl, my supervisor. She's a hoot and a half. And was SOOOO amused that we could eat as much as we did. She's also infinitely amused by the fact that I'm the tallest girl in the office. And comments on it pretty much everyday...

AND it turns out they're just as bad at using a knife and fork as we are at using chopsticks!!!

Other recent Western food endeavors:
Tim's Texas Roadhouse - the potential for greatness, but in reality pretty bad :/. I did get a sweet T-Shirt though, and a good long glance of the TX flag, which just needs to be looked at every once and a while for a person to be complete...

A Mexican Food restaurant I can't remember the name of that we went for my friend Jorge's birthday last night which was SO good! Or at least by being in Beijing standards...

Mexican Music, Mexican Friend, Mexican Food (I had a burrito too)...


...but the chefs aren't fooling anyone :).

Since this post has turned out to be food themed, I might as well mention that I'm actually growing pretty accustomed to Chinese food at this point, and have even started craving certain items! Heck, I may even miss it when I get home. Good thing I'm living in Wilbur next year ;).