The bad news: people smoked at dinner, and in the bar, so I washed those clothes and have to wash my hair tonight; have been airing my coat out on the enclosed balcony. Not too bad, though.
The bar is called “live”-something b/c they frequently feature live music, though the bands don’t usually play very late, as it’s in a mixed business/residential neighborhood and the neighbors object to late noise. I’m guessing this would be especially true on a Tuesday night, so the band only played until about 10:15. They were a drummer contributing occasional backup vocal, a singer on rhythm guitar, and a lead guitarist, all young and male, wearing jeans and plaid flannel shirts. Good music, strong voice, guitarist has a nice shy smile. No idea what their songs were about, but I’m guessing (as Douglas Adams would say) boy-creature meets girl-creature.
We drank a couple of rounds of beer (and I had some water) and talked. Zach talked a lot of trash (in a good-natured way) about cows being violated by aliens on his home farm in Arkansas and about his good dawg saving him from a timber rattler. We quizzed David about his love life. Emily wanted stories of my misspent youth, so I told some. Matthias doesn’t drink but took part in the conversation (perhaps making more sense that some others of us were at times).
After the band quit I went over to the lead singer and said “Ni de yinyue hen hao” on my way to the bathroom. Later, when the canned music was on, I asked him “Youmeiyou yinyue Grateful Dead ma?” He repeated “grateful dead” and asked me to type it into his phone. He then went up to the muzak station and, in minutes, we were listening to “Truckin’.” In Lanzhou, drinking German beer at 1am. Life is indeed good.
Today I had class from 10:40 to 12:20, collected papers, and then came home and got
serious about organizing/packing, marked the papers, organized my gifts for giving away tomorrow. At 6:30, went to taco Christmas/farewell dinner with the American crowd. Tacos all homemade and really good; Christmas music; small Chinese children showing off – one small girl, three-ish, has moves worthy of Toddlers and Tiaras.
Tomorrow will have last class meeting with my students, give presents, take class photo. : ( And tomorrow night at about 8pm, will take overnight train to Yinchuan to visit Lily. I think I can get train to Xi’an on 25th for about $50 US and then a flight back to Lanzhou for about the same, on the 28th. Will have one more night here to rearrange bags and make sure I have everything (am only taking two small bags on this week’s tourist trip, leaving large bag here in apartment) before getting on the plane, the morning of the 29th, for HOME.
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