8
Location: Beijing --> Xi'an
Today we traveled to Xi’an using an overnight train. Therefore, today’s service was cut about an hour short. Everyone made the best of the time we had doing our service. I spent my time at the baby home with Mia, Mara, Lauren, Grace, and April. While Mia, Mara, and Grace were downstairs with the toddlers, Lauren, April and I were upstairs with the younger babies. I was lucky enough to have a sweet baby boy fall asleep in my arms today. As tiring as it was rocking back and forth and bouncing up and down for what seemed like half an hour, it was incredibly rewarding and worth it to have him sleep peacefully in my arms. I almost didn’t want to put him down in his crib.
Since our arrival in Beijing, anyone who was assigned to work in the school worked with the group home kids instead. However, today, Bryn and Emery were the first two in our group to experience working in the school.
We had packed our bags for Xian the night before. So, when everyone was back at the apartment, we were ready to head to the train station. On our way there, the group stopped at Jenny Wang, a Western store where we bought many snacks for our thirteen-hour train ride. With such a long train ride, of course, we needed snacks! I stocked up on a lot of chocolate foods. Some of us bought a lot of food while others barely bought any. However, I wanted to take advantage of all the new foreign snacks and bought more than I probably should have. At least, that’s what I like to tell myself as an excuse.
Upon our arrival at the train station, we passed security and situated ourselves in the waiting room ready to board our train. The excitement was continuing to build, for few of us had ever been on an overnight train before. Throughout our train ride, April did her deep tissue massage magic on many of us. Some slept the entire journey from Beijing to Xian, me included. All in all, the train ride was filled with riddles, jokes, games, hours of sleep, laughs and much more!