The day started with the closing awards ceremony, and to my surprise I won first prize! In the chaos of the day, our volunteer got confused and sent our whole team up to collect my prize, so in this way, I won for all of team USA. Then, as we were coming off stage, Elizabeth also got called up again because she won in her category!
Satisfied and accomplished, we then started our journey to the Great Wall…except the air quality today was the worst yet. Nevertheless, our delegation, along with Australians we recently be friended, began the trek up one of the Seven Wonders of the World. The stairs were steep—and endless. Just as we thought we reached the top, there were more, some almost half my height each.
At last, after an hour of stair climbing, and according to Elizabeth’s watch, 92 flights of stairs, we reached the top of the wall. We took some pictures with our new friends and headed down a tram ride this time with some Mango Ice Cream in hand. Tired but happy, we returned to our hotel for dinner.
Although the rest of the delegation went to sleep soon after, I went down to the lobby for some last fun times with the Australians, Israeli, and Danish delegations. I play cards for nearly two hours and learned different games like Yasef and Slam. We said our goodbyes, and thus ended the best day on the trip thus far. I’ve attached a picture of Alex, from Australia, and I on the Great Wall.
