Tube Station

Beijing Foreign Studies University is enclosed by walls and fencing, which means that we enter and leave through a number of gates. There is one breach: a slat missing from a metal fence behind the dorms on the East Campus. The students found it early on and suggested I wouldn't fit through it: thanks a lot, guys. I do, and quite easily. I don't know what they were thinking. Slipping through the opening saves about ten minutes of walking through the campus and out a gate into an alley that leads to the main street. The alley itself is fascinating, though, and among its pleasures is an Internet Cafe called the Tube Station. It has excellent western-style food, including subs - Tim suggests the name is a play on "Subway" - and fancy coffee drinks. The boys recommend the roast beef and turkey subs, on excellent crusty bread. I just had a small bowl of pumpkin soup and milk tea late this afternoon. It was a little surreal: I was listening to the Buena Vista Social Club, reading the New Yorker (hand-delivered last week by my kind husband), drinking hot tea with milk, which is what my grandmother used to serve me when I was a little girl and which I never drink at home. It tasted just the same as it did in 1960.

Another surreal moment: you can see "The Mail" page of the New Yorker: one of the letters is about Richard Brodhead, currently the president of Duke and a distant relative. (Here's the definition of distant: I've heard of him and but he's never heard of me or any of my immediate relatives. We both belong to the Brodhead Family Association, which is, trust me, a small group of people who get a newsletter.) The letter in the New Yorker is not complimentary: it's about the Duke Lacrosse team.