U.S.

Hello again!  I am here in Kunming and have been for about three days now (since the time I'm writing this).  Sorry it's taken over a week, but it took some time to get settled in and get my Internet set up in my Kunming dorm.  It was pretty complicated.  Anyways...I write a lot.  So...I'm going to put these out in a few different posts, which I will send whenever I have time.  Before I begin, I would like to thank my sister Bernie (it's short for Bernadette...people tend to wonder) for posting these on my blog, seeing as I cannot at this time get at it myself.  These few posts are about my trip all the way to Kunming and then getting set up.  If all goes according to plan, you should see one post a day...I have a lot of posts backed up because I had no Internet.  And since it's the beginning, so many things are happening all at once right now.  Don't worry, things will definitely slow down. Eventually.

US:
I think that for me this was kind of like the kick out of the bird's nest.  I was pretty excited to go, but kind of sad and slightly fearful of leaving home.  I don't know if that's how everyone feels when they go someplace, but that's generally the case with me...even if I'm like going back to college or something.  But very soon (like within a couple minutes) it goes away.  I got the sad/fearful feeling at 4 am when I hopped into the car to go to the airport, watching my house disappear in the distance.  I got the feeling when the airplane took off in Philadelphia and I watched the area where I pretty much grew up disappear in the distance.  Funny thing...the song "I Will Always Love You" by Whitney Houston had been playing in my mind all week, and so it didn't help things when that was the song playing in my head as I left.
BUT ANYWAY...all those feelings went away quite fast and gave way to some other feelings.
Immediately, I started having these conflicting thoughts pop into my mind: "OMG, WHY IN THE WORLD DID I JUST SIGN UP TO GO ALL THE WAY TO KUNMING?" and then, "OMG, THIS IS SO COOL!  I'M GOING ALL THE WAY TO KUNMING!" If you've ever watched the movie Tangled, it was pretty much exactly like what happened when Rapunzel left her house for the first time.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Nh54kvLALhA

(Now everyone, go on Youtube and watch that scene, haha. Youtube in China).

But those feelings soon went away as well, and I feel asleep. That was pretty much the ride to the San Francisco airport.  Not much happened at the airport (that I can remember), and after a little over an hour my dad and I got on the plane to Shanghai.  Now nothing too important happened on this tedious 13 hour (maybe more) trip to Shanghai...we flew north over Alaska and over Siberia and THEN down to Shanghai...I wonder why they do that...why not just fly straight across the Pacific to Shanghai? BUT THEN AGAIN, I'm not an airplane pilot so I'm sure they have a good reason.  But I have two things that I would like to record that were fairly interesting to me.  One: the lady that I was sitting next to happened to know the entire family of the first roommate I had in college. (I don't know how blogs and names work, so I'm going to keep names to a minimum because I can't afford to have any extra problems while I'm in China...but 1st roommate, I hope you're reading this)!  This lady happened to be a fourth-grade teacher at Concordia, a well-known international school in Shanghai.  Had I not known my first roommate, we definitely wouldn't have been able to connect half as much...we talked for a great deal of the flight (when we weren't sleeping, of course) and it was really nice.
Second thing I want to note: I'm slightly scared of heights...I have been for as long as I can remember. I have taken great pains in my lifetime to conquer this fear, but it's very much like exercising to lose weight: you have to work on it regularly, or else it will come back.  So...I didn't mind the taking off too much...it was a little scary, but no problem.  HOWEVER...it was the TURBULENCE on the plane that nearly made me die of fright!  A few hours into the flight, the plane started rumbling and vibrating and shaking.  Ok.  No problem. The rumbling and vibrating kept on for five minutes.  Ooo, not so good.  The plane started rumbling even more.  The overhead said: "Please all passengers and flight attendants return to your seats."  I clutched both handles of the seat, closed my eyes, and began singing hymns, thinking I was gonna die!  Hahahaha.  I could feel my heart about to pump right out of my chest.  As all this was happening, I opened my eyes and looked around.  Can you believe it?  There's people chilling out, watching their movies on the screens in front of them, feeding their babies, and SLEEPING.  I'm there thinking, HOW IN THE WORLD ARE YOU PEOPLE CALM????? The one thing on my mind during the rumbling was 36,000 METERS ABOVE GROUND. 
But with time, I came to realize that rumbling happens from time to time, and when it does, it doesn't mean we're all going to die. Win.
Other than that, it was a nice smooth flight to Shanghai...and my one night in Shanghai I will write about in the next post.