Thursday Night Poker & Pizza

So this past Thursday, Ellis offered to have a pizza night (where we'd make pizza) and invite some people over. I had some other Chinese friends from Huzhou whom I had told about my attempt at making pizza, and they mentioned they'd love to be there for my 2nd try. So I figured this was a good chance to ask them over. So we invited Nicole (a woman from Huzhou who I had met online before leaving the US, and so was the only friend I had in Huzhou prior to my arrival) and Wayne & Jayne.

Jayne was an ex-coworker of Nicole's so they were friends. I had met Wayne & Jayne about 2 weeks earlier; Nicole mentioned they were interested in meeting me since they would be moving to the United States next year. I thought they were really cool people, very warm, very interesting, and very smart. (By the way, all of these Chinese people can speak English, so if my Chinese failed, we weren't stuck.)

Anyhow, Ellis, being a self-proclaimed “foodie” and amateur culinary artist, prepared the pizzas, making the dough and sauce from scratch and did an excellent job:

When the guests arrived they noticed the poker chips out on my table and said they were curious to learn. So, while eating homemade pizza, I taught them and we played poker! Everyone had a great time and our Chinese friends offered to teach us Mahjiang the next time we get together. In case you've never heard of Mahjiang, it is a very Chinese game played with tiles and that's about all I know about it as of now, haha, but I guess I'll know more fairly soon.