The Doomed Ride.

After I woke up, I knew it would be a bad day.  My head was hurting and I couldn't fall back asleep even though it was only 7:30 and I didn't have to be at training until 1:30.  Yet, I tried to think positive and when a few girls invited me to go shopping at the market Yashow, I agreed to go with them, even though I had already personally sworn off the market madness.  (It only makes me exhausted and regretful.)  

After a cab ride across town, I shopped for two hours, purchasing a Coach wallet (getting the pengyou/friend price) and beef and pepper slosh that tasted worse than the cafeteria cuisine.   Ready at the prescheduled meeting time I waited in fuwa heaven in the Olympic store to meet two other girls to leave for the Olympic Green Tennis Venue.  Still waiting on their fitting for their custom made business suits, I left alone, anxious to get to training on time.  Only that part didn't happen, despite my effort and haste.  

Feeling annoyed, I hopped in the idling cab waiting by the sidewalk of Yashow.  In my lack of Chinese language, I pointed to the Chinese characters on the back of my press credatation.  With my arms, I made the motion of tennis racket swing.  The driver still looked confused, but my arms stretched out in archery form convinced him enough to start the fare and move into the conjustion of traffic.  Onward bound.  We glided in the cab, for what seemed like a long extent of time, on a roadway toward Badaling.  The same one we took for the Great Wall, out of town.  I let my doubts rest in the back of my mind until I saw the tennis grounds pass by under the overpass and the driver looked at me in utter shock.  Now what do we do?  

He decided to pull over on the future exit of the Olympic green.  The one that isn't open.  Speaking in harsh Chinese he explained to me for five minutes what I could only guess meant, get out of the cab.  I wasn't going anywhere, not even when my parents were mad at me could they kick me out.  I could hear the ticking meter adding up.  This was going to be an expensive tab.  

Finally after my friends called me back, I got the number of my bi-lingual Chinese supervisor on the phone and she explained the correct way.  75 kuai (double the largest amount I have ever paid for a cab with others splitting) fare later I was a 15 minute walking distance from the security gate and already 15 minutes late.  

Outside the ticket gate, a rainbow of umbrellas sat on the blocked off road, waiting to purchase tickets for the tennis finals.  Even though the wait would be more than 24 hours until the release began for the 31 available tickets.  Already there were more than 50 people looping around the decorative shrubbery.  

Usually I don't get overwhelmingly homesick.  Today I wanted to cry for familiarity.  Mom, Dad, Ingrid, Kelsey, stay close to your computers and expect a phone call from Skype very soon.