5:49am
Wake up and realize the Packers kick off in a few hours. Smile. Fall back to sleep. Drool.
7:00am
Wake up, shower, make some instant coffee, don’t floss.
7:38am
Meet the ladies (Becca Balge, Heather Korb, Megan Ziel) at the Zhichunlu subway stop to ride downtown to the best sports pub in Beijing – Paddie O’Shea’s (Irish owned. Irish operated. Irish tempered.)
8:17am
Swoop upon an unsuspecting taxi waiting at a stoplight (like capturing a wild mustang while its taking a wee) and persuading the cabbie in kindergarten Chinese to take us to Paddies.
8:29am
Find Paddies, sprint to the door with a racing heart and green and gold blood coursing, only to find the doors locked.
8:30-8:32am
Yank on doors and knock while silently cursing myself for not calling ahead.
8:33am
A kind custodian opens the door and I plead with him to let us in to watch the game we’ve traveled over an hour to see. He consents.
8:34am
We enter an empty Paddies and start futzing with the TV and remotes to find the game we’re dying to see.
8:37-9:15am
We fruitlessly futz but the channel won’t deviate from some crappy soccer game. Someone spots an Aaron Rodgers’ jersey on the ceiling. We are frustrated – it’s like a man who hasn’t eaten for three weeks has a Big Mac placed inches away from his face. He can look, he can even touch, he can futz with it, he can smell it, but he can’t eat it.
9:17am
Call Emily Heidtke to look up online another sports bar in the Jing. She gives us the number for Frank’s Place.
9:19am
I call Frank’s Place and the woman gives me the name of a foreigner named Wish who works there who could help me out.
9:21am
I call the Wish and wake him from a drunken slumber / coma and in a groggy Middle Eastern flavored accent he tells me that they are showing the Packers as we speak.
9:22am
Sprint out of Paddies. 
9:24am
The kind custodian tells me I forgot my backpack inside.
9:27am
We pounce on another unsuspecting taxi and he drives us to the Place of Frank.
9:40am
Spring down the road and giddily hop the stairs to the bar and swing open the doors to hear the voice of Al Michaels and see the Green and Gold on a flat screen TV.
9:41am
Group hug.
10:05am
Meet Gordon and Big Miami, the only fellas there, play some pool and watch Randall Cobb be a man.
11:49am
Leave the bar in ecstasy of a win.
2:00pm
Ride the san wen che (3 wheeled bike, with a little trailer on the back. It’s what garbage men and poor people use to lug their goods) to Haidan Three Self Church and buy 2 boxes of BOOKS. Conceal the boxes with a bag and bike home. I got a ton of looks and laughs. I guess seeing a big blonde gringo pedaling this little bike was the equivalent of seeing an Amish dude driving a Hummer with Jay-Z blasting from the speakers… It was awesome!
6:18pm
The Professor (Tim Malchow) and I go to a hole-in-the-wall Xi’an restaurant and eat some fantastic vittles – a noodle dish that I adore and Chinese spicy sloppy joes.
7:38pm
Buy a nai cha (milk tea) with tapioca balls - nectar of from above. I’m addicted to this stuff… If I could have a bubbler in my house that spouted any liquid (ala Mr. Deeds), I would choose green tea milk tea with the occasional tapioca ball (just to keep me on my toes).
7:42pm
Walking past the noodle shop, I see the owners six-year-old son named Chen Zhao Ming playing guns with some other kids with cigarette boxes. I met this xiao pengyou (little friend) on Tuesday while eating chuan’r (lamb kabobs). So I snuck behind him and when he turned around he exclaimed with a smile, “MI JIA!” (my Chinese name).
8:00pm
Planned Saturday Study, part one of a four week series on DISCIPLE.
11:38pm
Went to bed a happy man.
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