Just when I was starting to feel completely sick of being on an airplane — and coming to terms with the fact that I am not yet half done — the flight attendants appeared with the one redeeming factor for an eleven hour trans-Pacific flight: ice cream sandwiches. I saw them coming down the aisle and tried to communicate the fact to my neighbour, a middle-aged Chinese guy who I tried a little of my pitiful (so far!) Chinese on.

“Bing <ice>! Bing<ice>… bing<ice>… niunai<milk>… bing<ice>… tang<sweet>, bing<ice>.”

The crucial word I was missing (and have since looked up) was jiling – cream. Ice milk, sweet, probably all with the wrong tones, didn’t seem to get the point across, and I’m not sure he knew what I was trying to say even after they gave us the ice cream. I still, obviously, have a lot of learning to do, and pronunciation of tones to practice, too.

Things I did manage to communicate, though: I have studied Chinese for two months. I will be in Beijing for two months. I can answer affirmatively when asked if I will travel. Things I learned from him: He lives in Seattle, and has for three years — showed me his driver’s license and green card. He is a dim sum cook in Chinatown. He might even have told me what restaurant, but that I didn’t understand. With the addition of my visual dictionary (which is so awesome and I love it even though I’ve only owned it for three days) he indicated that he is going to Gongzhou for — lots of interpretation of sign language — something like the funeral for his parents, which will involve going to a temple and praying a bunch.

But in general, the flight is simply long, and uneventful and monotonous, the way eleven hours of wait for anything has to be. And next week, Alex, lucky soul plagued by government regulations regarding foreign workers that he is, will get the glorious opportunity to fly to San Francisco, get his work permit stamped in his passport, turn around, and fly right back to Beijing. So he will be doubly run through the wringer of international travel, and I will be quickly thrust, at least for a few days, into experiencing Beijing on my lonesome. Well, perhaps not entirely lonesome, as I have high hopes for language partners. We’ll see!