i spent the whole day cleaning and waiting for cristina to arrive (9pm). around 5:30pm she sent me a text via whatsapp, saying her flight will be delayed by 1:30 hours, so she won't arrive in boston (from washington dc apparently) until 9:30pm, and from there another hour or so to take the subway to my place.

the extra time gave me some breathing room, even though the house was pretty much cleaned up by the afternoon. i was going to make some vodka sauce pasta for dinner, but it was too hot and i didn't want to cook so i heated up two boxes of frozen birds eye instant vegetable meals (my father had purchased them when my parents lived at my place for a few days while i was away in china).

cristina finally showed up by 11:30pm, pulling behind her 2 medium suitcases. i showed her to her room and gave her a tour of the place. she was excited about the backyard deck, but it's one of those places few people ever use, including myself. we chatted, i found out she's done a lot of traveling, including to china (with her mexican boyfriend, who was there on business, beijing-shanghai-hong kong), japan (10 years ago for a medical school related exchange), and india (for vacation). this was just her 2nd time in the US, her first time being a few years ago when she spent 2 weeks in new york city right after thanksgiving. she also speaks a bunch of languages besides english and spanish, including french and german.

the olympics committee suspended chinese swimmer chen xinyi for failing a doping test. the illegal substance she was using? hydrochlorothiazide. that sounds familiar because that's one of the drugs i take for my high blood pressure. hydrochlorothiazide AKA thiazide is a diuretic, which makes you want to urinate more. i take it to flush out the salts from my body. the effects are fairly innocuous, but why a healthy 18-year-old would be taking it could mean she's using the medication to mask additional performance enhancing drugs she might be taking. but i never realized i was taking a banned doping substance!