Ok so here are some of the last pictures of the Great Wall. The Great Wall trip was an optional over-night excursion with only 35 of the 70 IES students. We took a bus from campus at 11:30 Saturday morning and headed over to the wall for an excruciatingly long 10km hike (about 6 miles I believe). I was not prepared for the physical activity on so many different levels. First of all we were told it would be cold on the wall so I was wearing winter boots and flannel. I was really hot and I should have worn tennis shoes. I was also carrying a purse when I should have brought a backpack. In addition to all that I was dumb enough to think one bottle of water would suffice for an afternoon of really intense climbing. Parts of the wall are really poorly maintained and bricks of falling of all over the place. You also have to be really careful where you step because some of the bricks slide even though they look like they are firmly set in place. I just had no idea how steep sections of the wall are either. Most of the time you were either climbing straight up or climbing (falling) straight down. Just imagine trying to walk up stairs that are so steep your stomach is touching the stairs in front of you.... yeah. Then "walk" like that for 6 miles. It was rough to say the least. We had beautiful weather (would have been nicer if I was properly dressed), and luckily the wall was basically empty the weekend we chose to visit. Basically this experience was about accepting the good with the bad. The wall was indeed beautiful and breath taking, but 5km in I was ready to keel over and die. We also had to maintain a hardy pace so we could catch a bus to a village before nightfall. More on the village later :)
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