My Great Adventure with Murphy's Law (I)
倒霉鬼游長城（上）
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By Catherine E. Wood
China.org.cn staff reporter
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| The Wall beckons trekers to "Never Stop Exploring." |
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Ever since I can remember, I have dreamed of traveling to China. I have always had visions of scaling the Great Wall, hiking Yellow Mountain, and seeing the Warriors at Xi'an, and finally, at 21 years old, my wildest dreams were coming true. I have been living in Beijing for three months now and one by one, I have been crossing off item after item on my "to-do while in China" list, sadly though, my time is almost up and I only have two more weeks in this wonderful country.
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打我記事以來，就夢想著能夠去中國旅游。我一直憧憬著能夠登上長城，在黃山徒步行走，到西安參觀兵馬俑。終于，我的夢想在21歲的時候?qū)崿F(xiàn)了。我在北京生活的3個月時間里，夢想一個個實現(xiàn)，只可惜，我還有兩個多禮拜就要離開這個神奇的國度。
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Still there was one item in particular on my list that I was NOT willing to go home without completing: hiking the Great Wall.
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但是我的計劃里還有一件事沒有做，那就是徒步登上長城，如果不能了卻這個心愿就離開，我會非常后悔。
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And I don't mean any section of the Great Wall, I had my heart set on a remote, pristine, and crumbling section of the Great Wall, I wanted to be able to enjoy the full aesthetics that Simatai has to offer. So Saturday morning, under a beautifully blue Beijing sky, my friend William and I set out, determined to conquer the Wall and my number one "To-Do" in China. We left our apartment by 9:00 am, fully confident that by lunchtime we would be enjoying the view from the top, the only problem is, Murphy's Law decided to follow us every step of the way…
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我指得長城并不是任何一段長城，我一心想去的是地處偏遠(yuǎn)、質(zhì)樸卻破敗的司馬臺長城，想去欣賞那里的美景。于是，周六早上，在北京湛藍(lán)的天空下，我和我的朋友威廉出發(fā)了，決定征服司馬臺長城，從而完成我在中國的頭等大事。我們早9點離開住所，確信能夠在午飯前從長城頂欣賞到美景。唯一一個問題是，墨菲定律又一次在我身上應(yīng)驗了。
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You see, Murphy's Law dictates that "if anything can possibly go wrong, it will," and as long as I can remember, this has been following me around.
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自打我記事以來，這個定律就屢屢發(fā)生在我身上。（墨菲定律就是“會出錯的，終將會出錯?！保?span lang="EN-US">
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We had our trusty traveler's gospel with us, "The Lonely Planet" guidebook to show us the way. This book has been with us everywhere in China and really been a lifesaver, unfortunately and unbeknownst to us, today was Murphy's Law day and everything was destined to be incorrect. But, with full faith in our guide we headed into Dongzhimen Long Distance Bus Station, and through broken Chinese, found our way to bus 980.
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我們帶著值得信賴的、被旅友們稱為“圣經(jīng)”的《寂寞星球》，讓它為我們帶路。在中國期間，無論到哪，我們都帶著這本書，它確確實實是我們的生存指南。不幸的是，墨菲定律已經(jīng)悄悄地盯上我們，注定諸事不順。但是，滿懷著對這本指南的信心，我們前往東直門長途汽車站，用我們結(jié)結(jié)巴巴的中文，找到了開往司馬臺的公交980。
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Initially the day was going very smooth; we hardly even had to wait for a bus. William and I marveled at the clockwork like efficiency of the bus station in action, two busses would pull up at the same time to accommodate the hoards of people and then within 5 minutes, two more would show up. We took our seats near the back left side of the bus, careful to choose the best seats possible for our journey, and after paying the 15 RMB ticket price, we took off! Out to explore the wild adventure of Simatai! Only, after about three minutes into our journey, the bus was burning up and the downfall to our seats was discovered: no curtain. Out of the entire bus of seats, we had picked the one row of seats that the curtain had been ripped off; just my luck. Of course I justified this with that outside, hiking on The Great Wall, there would be no air conditioning and I was just acclimating myself to the temperature. Although I was sweating on the bus, I decided to make the best of things, throw on my beloved sunglasses, pop in my iPod, and enjoy the countryside.
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一開始一切進(jìn)行的很順利，我們很快就等來了公交車。汽車站如此準(zhǔn)時，讓威廉和我大為贊嘆。每隔五分鐘，就有兩輛公交車同時等候在那，讓乘客上車。我們挑了左側(cè)靠后的位子坐下，買了15元一張的車票后，車便開動了。我們就要探索司馬臺的荒蕪之美。但是，開了三分鐘左右，車內(nèi)的溫度陡然升高，更糟的是，我們發(fā)現(xiàn)座位沒有車窗簾！太倒霉了，滿車的座位，唯獨我們選的座位沒有窗簾！想到待會要在沒有空調(diào)的戶外攀登長城，車內(nèi)這點熱不算什么，既來之，則安之，還是讓自己去適應(yīng)高溫吧。盡管在車上汗流浹背，但是我決定讓自己好過一點，戴上我心愛的太陽眼鏡，打開iPod，盡情享受窗外的鄉(xiāng)村美景。
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