What a nightmare

We were supposed to be in Hengdian, I was supposed to be unpacking my suitcase for the first time in 2 months.  Supposed to lay in my bed that I will have for the next 10 months.  Instead, we got a call this morning that nobody can pick us up from the train station today.  In fact they can't pick us up for FOUR days because every single person from the college that could pick us up was gone until then. So we could either stay in Shanghai 3 more nights or go to Hangzhou and stay at a hotel there.  We chose the latter because I was ready for some peace and relaxation.  Hangzhou seemed like the place to do that.

So, we made it to the train station, we amazingly found somebody who spoke English at the train station to help us get on the right train just in time before it took off.  We carried our six heavy suitcases down the stairs, one a a time and got the last one stowed away on the train just as it was taking off.  Stressful...oh my, and that was just the beginning of it.  When we got off the train we had to carry our suitcases down 2 more flights of stairs and then walk with them to a cab.  It looked very promising.  At the train station there is an underground tunnel where taxis are just lining up to take you.  Problem is, the taxis in Hangzhou are way smaller than the ones in Shanghai.  They kept trying to take us in two taxis but they all have a bunch of crap in their trunks so we couldn't even fit one of our suitcases in the trunk, we would have had to take three taxis to fit everything.  We were in the tunnel for what felt like an hour, trying to find a taxi that didn't already have his trunk filled with junk. We had no luck with that.  I thought I was going to die in that tunnel with all the taxis, it was blazing hot down there, filled with exhaust fumes, every single one of the 100 taxis down there were honking constantly. I was tired, sore, sad we weren't going to our apartment that day, tired of not understanding ANYTHING around me that was spoken, and worried about how we were even going to pay for 3 more nights of hotel because we really didn't have much money left at all.  In short, it sucked.  I cried in the tunnel for a good couple minutes.  I had a not so-mini meltdown.  Finally we found an illegal taxi-van who way overcharged us to take us to our hotel.  But we were there.  And Simona graciously agreed to help us and pay for the hotel online, and so we kept our remaining cash for food and the like.  Anyway, bad...bad day. Hopefully there won't be many of those. eep.

 The train schedule.  Helpful, right?