I'm exhausted off the heels of 4th of July weekend and a 2 day excursion to Shanghai. There are tales to tell and shots to show, but like always I want to humor myself and talk about a couple things. First, if you haven't heard about Paul the Octopus, google him immediately. The octopus, who lives in a German zoo, correctly predicted every single game Germany participated in this World Cup, culminating with choosing Spain to knock them out. So he went 6 for 6, a 1/64 chance if we assume that this octopus is just guessing (or 1/8 if we assume each leg is just guessing). But he also went 5 for 6 in Euro 2008, so basically what we should do is give this guy a couple of NBA teams and whoever he chooses is where LeBron James is going to go. We don't even need this 1 hour ESPN special tomorrow.

Also a humorous story I never informed this blog occurred in my initial flight to China, from IAD to PEK. My dad and I sat exit row, directly across from a male flight attendant whom I ascertained to be Chinese-American. I later heard him walking down the aisle alternating between English and Chinese. Eventually at the end of the flight we talk to him and learn that he was from Hawaii with a mixed but mostly Chinese background but only learned Mandarin in high school, college, and a few years in Beijing. He asks about us too, and as we land at the airport, my dad tells him that I just graduated from Georgetown. Our flight attendant cracks up and unexpectedly says, "I graduated from Georgetown too." Yep, SFS '91 or something. And he says "look at me now working on a plane." Not that I'm judging, he gets free flights almost whenever he wants it. We had a good bonding moment over that.

Another random thing I've been thinking about ever since my trip to the Lugou Bridge is about the best bridges in the world. Bridges are important especially in ancient times, where large rivers were hard to cross and stable bridges were hard to build. There have probably been more bridges destroyed than currently exist. Bridge is also such a strong English verb, a core strength exercise and a card game! With that, in rough order of how much I like them, I think the best bridges I have been to: Charles Bridge in Prague, Tower Bridge in London (way better than the more famous London Bridge), the Golden Gate Bridge in San Francisco, the Ponte Vecchio in Florence, the Zakim Bridge in Boston, the Brooklyn Bridge in New York, the aforementioned Lugou Bridge (Marco Polo Bridge), the Tsing Ma Bridge in Hong Kong and O'Connoll Bridge in Dublin. I did some research and apparently I've been to the Sydney Harbour Bridge which is pretty awesome but don't remember it. Other bridges I want to see include the Magdeburg Water Bridge in Germany, the Oresund Link between Denmark and Sweden, the Octavio Frias de Oliveira Bridge in Sao Paulo, and the Kintai Bridge in Japan.