Getting Used to the City

5/30

I feel like I’ve finally gotten into a little bit of a routine now that I’m here. There’s definitely a lot of walking. All three of us walked again to the school. It’s not a boring walk but my legs are finally starting to hurt. I had about 4 hours of classes today; luckily our teacher gives us a few breaks in between so we don’t fall asleep. It’s interesting to see how little I know about Middle Eastern studies. Everyone in the class has been assigned a particular portion of the class readings that we must present to the class. I chose to do Islam in Germany and I’ll be giving my presentation sometime next week. Once class was over I walked with Paige to go to the grocery store that’s near our house. It took a while to find it and then we couldn’t read any of the French signs in the store so we had to search for all of the things we were looking for. Overall the trip took about an hour. I was feeling pretty tired at this point and we both returned to the house. The people that I came with from Western Kentucky were planning on meeting in the main part of the city for dinner and I wasn’t sure if I wanted to go. But finally my stubbornness was changed because Dr. Kiasatpour (the professor that came on the trip with us) said he was trying to get everyone together to celebrate my birthday which was the day before. So I got on the closest bus to go into the city. It took me a while to locate my group because it was a busy time of day for traffic and people. I ended up having to borrow cell phones from two people to figure where my group was, but it was a great chance for me to practice the one French phrase that I memorized which was asking if someone knew how to speak English. Eventually we found each other and we walked through the streets looking for a good place to eat dinner. I had found out that it was also my friend Asia’s birthday the next week so we were celebrating those together. We had a very good dinner, I had Spaghetti Bolognese. It was a very good night and I got to spend time with all of the people from the WKU group as well as a few other study abroad students. I eventually got home late at night and went right to sleep so that I could wake up for my internship the next day.

In the Royal Quarter area of town

The beautiful garden at the Royal Quarter