Learning the History of Xi’an

Team Journal for March 22, 2015

On Sunday, Montana skipped breakfast while LuRue went down for her usual egg, bread, juice, and tea. Don happened by, having already eaten and been up for hours, of course. The two discussed a trip to the Shaanxi History Museum. Montana was ready to come, so the three took off on Bus #24 within the hour.

The Shaanxi History Museum Displays items from 1000 years ago

Finding the right place to get the tickets to avoid the “free” line ended in a lively conversation involving a guard, Don speaking Mandarin, a street hustler, and a young man who told us that he had an “interpreter license”. The answer was almost too easy … go to Window 4, which couldn’t be seen because of all the people at Window 1. The conversation also revealed that Don and LuRue could get in free because of their ages–they just had to show copies of their passports.

Once at the entrance, we went our separate ways. Montana and LuRue knew that Don would most likely want to linger longer at the wonderful displays, while jockeying for position to read the explanations. It is truly a remarkable museum, containing wonderful treasures dating back thousands of years. Almost impossible to believe the level of sophistication shown by the artisans of those eras!

Montana and LuRue left the museum and headed back along the Bus #24 route in search of a restaurant. Finding none, they stopped at the first bus stop and returned “home” to “our” street. Having a yen for some good old American food, they began looking for one of the ever-present KFCs or McDonalds. The golden arches won out. But the overhead menus were all in Chinese. LuRue ordered what she thought was a fish sandwich while Montana got the Chicken McNuggets. What LuRue got was a Spicy Chicken sandwich. Two days in a row!! The dictionary is going to have to come out! Not spicy!! A blizzard at a nearby Dairy Queen topped off lunch and helped put out the fire-in-the-mouth.

Back to the hotel, Montana went to the treadmill…LuRue wrote the weekend version of the team journal and their personal blog.

After Don finished exploring the many extraordinary rooms at the museum, he returned to the hotel. He then went to a stationery store where he was successful in finding large paper used for calligraphy, which he decided would work well for the posters he wants to make for class. He did admit to a visit to Dunkin’ Donuts. He said that the coffee there has the punch needed for a successful day.

Now we need to put our teacher caps back on and plan for another week.

LuRue