1.) For starters, I live in a 2 story townhouse where you can literally hear everything. I hear every door-slam, drawer-close, toilet-flush, leaf-crunch, skype-convo, etc. etc. etc. In fact, right now my 3 housemates (I have 3 housemates on the first floor, and 4 more upstairs) are on skype and I'm hearing a crazy mash-up of stories. It's weirdly fantastic.
2.) I tried to heat up my leftovers from last night's dinner, and when I walked to the kitchen, I realized that there is no microwave in sight. Seriously? No microwave? How am I supposed to function? For those of you who don't know, I'm not a good cook (mostly because I've never put in a real effort to learn), and usually 1 out of 3 times that I use the stove for ANYTHING, whatever it was that I tried to make gets burnt in some way or another. SO, I was a bit distressed, to say the least. The good thing is, I have 2 French and 1 German housemate, and they seem to know how to cook, so I'll get lots of practice and good food.
3.) I went grocery shopping today. My program allocates 230 Euro per student to buy groceries each month. First of all, staying on that budget might be hard, since I'm not a seasoned grocery shopper. It's actually quite difficult to find items for a good price that I can make stretch out over several meals (I should take tips from the RAT--they seem to be really good at making last week's chicken stretch on into this week's chicken&tortilla soup...just kidding)..
ANYWAYS, like I said I went grocery shopping. This entails walking several "blocks" to the grocery store. The walk there is actually quite nice. The walk back, not as enjoyable..
When we get to the grocery store, we walk in, and discover that the carts are all outside and we have to walk to the exit (like clueless Americans) and get carts. Then we discover that you must insert 2 euro in a lock to release the carts. Don't worry though; you get the 2 euro back once you return the cart. What a genius way to make sure that carts are returned to their proper homes!
The grocery shopping was a success, I'd say. When I finished paying, I loaded my goodies into a cloth bag and trekked back to the townhouse. My shoulders now have knots the size of miniature golf balls, but I don't mind. I had fun shopping with my housemates and fellow university students; it was a great bonding experience.
4.) Family dinner-can you say Best Idea Ever?? One of my American housemates cooked pasta with veggies and chicken, and it was delicious! One of our French housemates got lost in translation and thought she had asked for her to cook dinner, so we ended up with two heaping bowls of pasta AND a pizza. Classic. The dinner conversation started out slow, but soon picked up and before you knew it we were talking about everything from French cuisine to types of camping to halloween. My French housemates got lost many times as the conversation jumped from topic to topic, but we had fun trying to explain what we meant by smores and bon-fires and campsites. Our plan is to have a family dinner once a week or so, with different cuisines being featured. What am I going to cook? (since I don't really cook)? Well, my foreign mates have NEVER had good ole mac n cheese and they've NEVER heard of smores, so I'll be making blue box mac and smores. :)
Tomorrow I start my first day of orientation. I'm more excited for Friday's orientation, mostly because we get to make our schedules and choose our classes. Oh, I forgot to mention that the campus is only about a 5-10 minute walk from my townhouse. It's a wonderful little walk. I'm very excited about it (ask me if I like it in four months and I might have a different opinion since I'm used to my tiny campus in Memphis).
That's all for now--here's an Irish wish to keep you company:
Wishing you a rainbow
For sunlight after showers
Miles and miles of Irish smiles
For golden happy hours
Shamrocks at your doorway
For luck and laughter too
And a host of friends that never ends
Each day your whole life through!
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