Cindy Ma

Today, lots of my classmates go to the home visit. However, our host can only take us on Sunday—which means we will have no activities on Saturday and we cant go hiking on Sunday. All of us were having a long face the whole Friday.
Luckily, Jay helped us out of the plight.
9 a.m., he picked us up at GRC and our trip started!
First stop was the peach farm. We met up Erik there and picked the peach together. It was the first time that I went to a farm and pick the peach by myself. The peaches taste so good because it was me who picked it!
After that, we headed our way to the university. We had our lunch around the campus. I ate the bagles for the first time in the states, and it was the best bagles ever!
In the afternoon, we walked around the campus. It is really a nice campus. The sun was really scorching, but we still kept walking and taking pictures.
On our way back, it rained. The rain makes the highway more beautiful, cuz I can see the foggy mountains surrounded by the smoke and fog. It was really beautiful.
Thanks to Jay, we had a really great day. As he always says: “I’ll figure them out.” He’s always the man who can help us figure things out.

Its Monday today, but we don’t need to go to school. Why is that? Because we paid a visit to Monticello— the home of Thomas Jefferson.
Monticello is really a nice place. Jefferson’s house is on a hill. There, he designed his own house, and planted the vegetable. It was a two-hundred-year old house. But its still well-preserved. It is a shame that photograph is not allowed inside the house. So I tried so hard to remember every corner and detail of the house.
After the visit of Jefferson’s house, we went to the downtown area. It was really a beautiful and delicate street. There were lots of restaurants and shops along two sides. I had a Italian lunch. Though it isn’t a long and big one, I really like there so much.

I have to make a confession: I LIKE hamburgers!!!!!!
My mum was afraid that I couldn’t get used to the American food. So she let me take lots of Chinese noodles and snacks with me. However, I like the food here so much. I like pizza, sandwich, bagels, salads, hot dogs, taco, fried chicken, French fries, wings, and so on. So, I eat as much as I can. I even mde hamburger by myself. Cuz its really easy to buy the materials for the hamburgers at the supermarket here. I eat hamburger almost every morning. My roomie was like “oh! U eat hamburger AGAIN??” yeah…im the burger queen!

Before I came to the states, I totally have no idea of canoe. It was a wholly new words as well as sports to me.
After couple weeks of anticipating, I eventually got the chance to canoe on the James River.
The canoe boat is quite different from other boats. Its pretty small and light, which means, its very unstable. At first, I was quite uneasy on the boat, cuz I was worrying whether it would flip over. But I quickly got used to it and started enjoy the adventure on the James River. The scenery is really beautiful: bunches of trees stand along the river, the water runs still, and nice houses scatter on the hills. Terrible things also happened. Big spiders invaded our boat, the dragonflies flied around us, which made me screaming all the time. And because of lack of experience, we often crash onto the logs and rocks near the bank. What’s more, padding is a no easy job. We kept padding for almost 2 hours. When we got on the bank, my limbs were almost numb…And my skin so tanned…

I think everybody knows the movie sleepless in Seattle. Today, I had a sleepless night in Richmond.
Time flies. Our paper is due this Thursday, but I havent written a single word on it. So, I had no choice but work around the clock. It was really a nightmare for me. I kept writing for all night long. When I finished it, it was already dawn. Fortunately, I could hand in the paper on time with the bags and dark circle under my eyes. RELIEVED! Yay...

We are leaving for NYC tmr. So, our interns gonna organize room party for us. Tonight will be another sleepless night. The night before leaving to the big apple is super exhilarating. We will paint the town red! Finally we finished all the lectures and papers, and the most fun part of the trip to the states is waiting for us. New York baby! Ill see ya soon!