Battle of the Stairs

The one thing I completely forgot about in Beijing was that it's not guaranteed that the floors are even. You could be walking along and come across a small bump on the concrete. Or a corner piece of cobblestone is poking up from the sidewalk. That isn't saying that the construction workers are bad at what they do. The way some of these places look around here will tell you otherwise. If anything, there was probably a reason the ground wasn't level.

Unfortunately, the biggest offender of that is the stairs. And because of this, I've found that I'm in a never ending battle with said stairs. Countless times, I've found myself tripping, falling on my face, or catching myself from doing so because of these stairs. Either they look like they're part of the floor, or they're ridiculously high, or they're low enough that when I go to catch myself I end up falling.

I'd like to think that I managed to catch myself gracefully while the trippings were happening. That I'd grown into my clumsiness, and now I'm as graceful as the next person. The stairs make me look like that clutzy twelve-year-old again; failing in ways that no one would've ever guessed was possible. It's a humbling experience when the stairs make you look like a dumb foreigner.

Beijing picture of the day!