Start of classes

I think I'm finally getting adjusted to my new time zone! On monday I woke up at 6:30 and couldn't sleep anymore! I got go meet my buddy, Wei-ting that morning and Melanie and I went to Starbucks with her for breakfast. Coffee there was a bit more expensive with smaller cups than in the US. I was glad I got iced coffee, because after that we walked to the neuroscience building and it was so hot! It's about 95 degrees here every day and super humid, and the. It usually rains for a couple hours around the same time every afternoon. They don't Lea e the air conditioners on when theyre gone, so once we get into a new room it takes a bit for it to cool down again.
At the neuroscience building we got to tour the labs and meet our research advisors. The labs are smaller than they are at uni. We got to see the rats too, which was pretty cool. After that we went to an orientation that was for all international students on campus this summer. We met 2 american boys from Illinois, and some from the UK, Germany, sweeden, and Poland. They all speak English so it's cool to talk to them. At the orientation we learned all about how to get around the city and good places to eat and shop near campus.
We started our first Chinese class Monday as well. It was quite overwhelming. Us uni students got split into 2 different classes... The other class has been playing games most of the time, and pursues been really hard! I guess we're learning slot more this way though. We were just expecting to be in the lab spot more and in in language class's slot less I think.
For dinner, we went to look for a restaurant to eat at with our friend from Poland. He speaks decent Chinese, and also had his buddy with him. She took us to a restaurant where they walked our group thru the kitchen and down into the basement for a table! It's nice having someone who knows what they're doing with us.
Monday night when we got home we decided to celebrate the 4th, and Simon, a guy from the UK decidedto come with us, even tho we were celebrating independence from his country :)
We got a taxi to downtown Taipei ( which was super cheap). It was so cool to be there, there's so many big buildings that they light up with moving bright colored lights. Taipei 101 is tight in the middle and way taller than any of the other buildings. We went to a restaurant in a tall building that had really pretty bars and restaurants on each level. They gave us a bowl of what we thought were just peanuts on our table, but im pretty sure they had some kind of dried insect in them... Gross!
This morning inhad to get up early to practice my presentation we had to give in Chinese in front of our class already. Then we went to a lecture at the neuroscience building(we don't actually start in our labs til next week). The professor had to say everything in Chinese for the students that were there, and then everything over again in English. It was over a really easy topic. So do far the Chinese has been hard and the biology easy! I thought our second day of Chinese went better than the first tho. Other people are really worried, but I think I kind of enjoy new languages.