The First Day!

So, I'm in China! And have been for a bit more than 24 hours. So far everything is very good--except my Chinese, which is terrible.
I had a very good flight over (Amara and Caroline, I watched "The Boat That Rocked", and it was amazing). We flew over the North Pole, or close to it, and I took pictures out the window of the beautiful ice. Upon arriving in Shanghai, I was met by two of our tutors (Chinese students at the university), who escorted me and another girl from the program into the city. My first taste of Chinese traffic was surprisingly sedate, mostly because we moved at a crawl most of the way from the airport into the city. We thought that we were being taken to a dorm in which we'd stay during orientation, as that is what an email from program staff had said earlier in the week, but instead we suddenly pulled over at a curb and BAM there were our host families! Or, in my case, my host family's servant, who helped me bring my bags up to my family's apartment. At first, I thought he was my host father, and was a little worried, as he was incredibly reticent and aloof; when I saw that he and my host mother interacted very stiffly, I was worried that I would be spending three months in a broken home. Jet lag, I guess? But in reality, my family is lovely (and clearly very well off...they have a nanny, a servant, a beautiful TV and sound system, a western bathroom, and a very nice apartment. We also eat dinner at this roof-top canteen type place each night, with at least 6 dishes for the 4 of us, which is actually a bit overwhelming). My host mother is very glamorous (although I'm a little sad that she doesn't cook, as I would have loved to have learned from her), and she and her husband helpfully speak fine English, although I can't wait for my Chinese to improve enough that we won't have to keep reverting to English when I can't figure out what to say. They also have a 10 year old daughter, Jiaxing, or Judy (her English name). Judy is clearly the "Little Empress" of the house. She is very sweet to me, but is pretty abrupt to her parents, and is pretty much waited on hand and foot. She gave up her room for me to stay in, however, and seems to be taking it very graciously. She likes sports and speaks pretty good English for a 10 year old (the parents are pretty intent on having her practice English with me, which is working out well, since she speaks in English but I ask her how to say things in Mandarin). She rides her bike to school each day, which I think in the US would amount to criminal negligence on the part of her parents, since the traffic here is UNBELIEVABLE. It's everything you always hear about--no rules, vehicles on the sidewalks, a sea of cars, bikes, mopeds, trucks, and pedestrians.
Orientation today was interesting (The scariest part was when they told us about an international student here a few years ago who got hit by a bus while crossing the street spent a month in the hospital, and ended up losing an eye. The traffic really is BAD, over 100,000 people die in traffic accidents each year in China), and it was fun to meet the other American gap year students (are we students? hmm). We are 4 girls and 4 boys, 2 from New Jersey, 1 from Maryland, 2 from the Chicago area, 1 from Oregon, and 1 from San Francisco (plus me). We talked about cultural differences (culture, apparently, is like both an onion and an iceberg--think layers), our expectations, logistical issues, etc. We take a language placement test on September 8, start classes the 10th, and until then, we're doing sightseeing and orientation activities in Shanghai. We seem to get along pretty well as a group, which is great. After orientation, we went as a group on an exploratory mission to find a gym that some of us can join, which we eventually did, although it's sort of expensive. Luckily, my host mother mentioned this evening that they were taking us to the "fitness place" where we can get a "fitness card" tomorrow, so I'm hoping that the gym membership will be taken care of. Fingers crossed. The gym we went to today had a tone of yoga classes that I would love to take.
So, what about all the things I fretted about before leaving? Well, the air is pretty bad but not intolerable (we spotted some blue sky today!), there's a Western toilet in my house, which is reallyreallyreally good, my host family seems nice and has been very welcoming, the food so far is good (although very salty, something I didn't really focus on before), my family has NesCafe (another reallyreallyreally good thing!), there's air conditioning in my room, and all is well.