Tour of China

Travel-

Sep 6^th- Getting to China was a nightmare.  I was supposed to leave on the 6^th and get there on the 7^th.  It takes a day and a half to get there if everything goes right.  I left Atlanta on the 6^th on a delayed plane, and arrived in Washington/Dulles with 10 minutes before my connection to Beijing.  I ran through the airport, looking like an amateur…Missing my flight my 5 minutes.  My solution from there was to stay the night in Washington, and catch a flight at noon the next day to Beijing.  I got to the hotel at 3, and never left the room.  Ordered food to the room and everything, felt pretty good too.  Did a little Skyping and T.V. watching, just chilled. 

Sep 7^th-The next morning was pretty chill, as my flight did not leave until 12:40.  I caught a shuttle to the airport and in short, made my flight.  This flight was so long I started to not know what to do with myself.  15 hours on a plane is torture, especially when you only have one seat with people next to you. 

Sep 8^th- Yes the flight took me to the next day.  By the time I had landed, I had been up for 24 hours with 1 hour of sleep.  Getting through the Beijing Airport was quite an experience, but I figured it out after staring at signs trying to figure them out.  My next flight was to Xi ‘an, and was a 2 hour flight.  Needless to say this one was easy, and I slept through most of it.  Arriving in Xi’an would have been a relief, if I had a ride waiting on me to take me to the hotel, but, well I didn’t.  So I walked around the airport looking for the guy that was supposed to pick me up for a good hour and a half.  Keep in mind I have now been up for about 32 hours with 2.5 hours of sleep.  I finally found him, and of course, no English.  Now we have to wait an hour for the next group to arrive, I am miserable and don’t even feel human by now. 

Sep 9^th- Yep it’s now midnight and the next day, after an hour and fifteen minutes of more waiting, we leave the Airport.  The drive to the hotel was about another hour, but we finally got there.  Although this should made me happy, I felt no emotion. I was so tired at this point I couldn’t even fall asleep.  The prologue is in the morning at 10.

Prologue- The prologue didn’t count for anything but you get 90 bucks for staring and it was a good way to open the legs up.  After 3 or 4 hours of sleep we got up and ate breakfast, then headed to the race.  It was flat and fast out and back.  I think I was 39^th or 40^th, not sure…but not so bad after coming off that travel.

Stages 1-3 updates coming