On Tuesday we got a free dinner with Culver and his work crew. He is a guy I used to work with who works in another group now who I still stay in touch with who was in Beijing for work purposes who brought quite a few co-workers with him who… cannot think of anything else.

They decided that they had had enough Chinese food so we went back to Metro café which proved to be awesome again although this time it took us a little long to get all of our food.

The one Chinese national in the group was not very excited about getting Italian though. He kept mentioning how weird it was to be in an Italian restaurant in Beijing (a comment I made repeatedly to Yachi a couple of nights before). He was not terribly excited by me either because I was the one who had caused us to eat at this place in his eyes. He mentioned the Sichuan place near my house though that I always go to and I told him it was my favorite restaurant. He did not believe me at first (probably thought I was just being a kiss ass) but after I was able to rattle off some house specialties and my favorite dishes he cut me a lot more slack and actually talked to me. Which was nice considering I was sitting next to him.