Bring on the Night

14th July 2007 Yilan

Hellooooooo hangover. Long time no see? Back to catch up on old memories are we, eh?

I was wasted yesterday and it was my own fault. If I hadn’t been so set on getting C’s uncle’s respect at drinking, I could have faced another exciting day instead of spending the whole morning in bed feeling sorry for myself. Well, I had to do it. I had to prove that C didn’t marry a wuzz, didn’t I? I was way behind on the drinking part. My stomach issues had kept me from taking up the sword and rise to the challenge.

I’m an idiot. I didn’t have to prove anything, but my freaking pride was hurt by the many days of excusing myself from taking a real turn at the table. So instead of doing it sensible, I overdid it. Stupid is as stupid does. At least I came off well yesterday. Guess that only sticks until they hear I had a big hangover today.

C was up and about at 7.30. That’s the same time as we were woken up by someone knocking on the door. It was the first of C’s sister’s students who was ready for some teaching. I was not though. My mouth was dry and my stomach rumbling. I swallowed a pair of painkillers and chucked down some water and headed back to bed. I was done for.

After the expected “I told you so and promise not to drink again speech” from C, I decided that more sleep was what the doctor ordered. I tried to, but it was hard. At 8.00am the apartment was swarming with noisy children that came to learn to draw. Even though the door could be closed the noise was still too big for me to sleep acceptable. In the end the extra time in bed helped my recovery nevertheless.

When I stepped out of the bedroom at 10.15am the children finally stopped shouting. For about 5 minutes or so. That’s how my appearance affects most children here in Yilan. At first they are amazed to see the grand yeti, and then later its changed to helloing and laughing.

C made this a “Peter recovery day” and declined another invitation to a restaurant. She also planned that the most of the day would be held here in her sister’s apartment and that’s cool with me. I’m not worth a lot anyway.

Nevertheless, we still headed out to the computer school where I could log on to the net and post yesterdays entry. The net is extremely unstable, but also it’s Sunday, which is not the best day for “netting”.

It was cool to get away from the curious and noisy children at our temporary home. I like children, but not today when my body is recovering from yesterdays adventures in Chinese liquor.

I told C yesterday that when we invite all of her family on one of our last days here, I would like to make some sort of a thank-you-speech. This involves C of course, since I will have a hard time coming up with something useful from the few words I can say in Chinese. “Sorry, I’m hungry, It tastes good, Very good/very bad, This/that, Look, I do not understand” and similar phrases will not compete with “Ich bin ein Berliner” will it?

I wrote the speech in no time and soon it will be C’s turn to work. She has to translate and I haven’t been nice to her and written it in easy Danish. I feared it would limit my freedom to get it down right, so I looked away from that option when I began. Poor girl, but I think she’ll be happy when she sees it anyway. Lots of praise to all of them here.

Later we went to C’s parents where C finally got to cook her famous Coca-cola chicken for her family. Tasted yummy, though not as yummy as she normally makes it back in Denmark. I think it was the fake Cola thingy that was the difference.

Then a short stroll with C’s sisters and their 2 boys and then back home. Watched some episodes of Scrubs and decided to turn in. Hopefully I will be completely rid of my hangover when I wake up tomorrow.

Tags: China, drinking, family, hang over, speech