So guess what! My parents are here! You all knew that. That wasn't a surprise really. Especially because 25 percent of my blog audience is my parents so they already know they're here anyway.
It's been interesting having them here. When they showed up on Sunday, Mr. Pipp didn't give us much warning before the bus rolled up and they popped into campus. I helped them take their stuff up to their room and then helped Mom find a spot to do her laundry, and gave them the general tour of campus. Mom and Dad actually went on another tour later that day, and the administrators actually showed them all the locked-up places I couldn't show them, so I guess my tour was just sort of complimentary.
Mom and Dad brought some very special gifts for me this semester - pens and highlighters. If you go down to Gertrude's, getting a single highlighter costs about 6 euros, and a ballpoint pen is roughly 3. That's about 5 dollars for a pen and 10 for a highlighter. So I wasn't about to pay that. Now I'm all stocked up and ready to go.
Mostly on Sunday it was just settling them in, we went to mass, there was a social that I dropped my parents off at, and then I picked them up again at 5 and they took me to dinner at Chinese restaurant where the entire menu was in German. We just sort of had to guess at what most of the menu options were, and we managed to pull it off beautifully. I got pork fried noodles, mom and dad got chicken and shrimp fried rice respectively.
I took extra back to Clare and she said she'd never had real Chinese food. Do you know how crazy that is? How can someone survive without ever eating real Chinese food!? Or Mexican food for that matter? Washingtonians, count your blessings that you've had a burrito or a chimichanga or whatever your personal preference is.
On Monday I went to class in the morning as usual, and then after that I put my nose to the grindstone and started getting all my reading for Monday and Tuesday also done, so I wouldn't have to do it after my metaphysics class and would have time to spend with Mom and Dad.
After metaphysics there was a social with peanuts, pretzels and wine for the parents and students together, so I went to that, and then they served us dinner.
On the menu: prosciutto and some weird green melon, risotto and medium rare roast beef and vegetables, and also cake with eggnog drizzled in chocolate sauce. We had the president of the University sit at our table and I got to talk to him a little bit. He asked me what I thought should be done to improve the university, and I told him he had already fulfilled my biggest dreams - the gym got upgraded, and they put Wifi in all the main campus dorms.
After that Mom and Dad and I went back to their room and we talked for a while, and then when ten o'clock rolled around I went and grabbed a shower and then went out to a bonfire some students were putting on. They have bonfires every once in a while but I haven't ever gone out there, because I can never tell who's going to be at them, because you just look out and see silhouettes.
But Monika told me that Clare would be out there, so I headed out and talked to Clare for a bit, then talked to some other kids, and eventually Sudie grabbed me and whisked me away to the swingset where we had a really nice deep talk, which was something I definitely wasn't really expecting out of her. So that was really nice.
Overall the last couple of days have been good and I'm glad my parents are here. It's making me miss home a little more though - I'm ready to go back and have Christmas and see my family again!!
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