Catching Up

Looks like I have to catch up a little on the events of the previous days. 

Tuesday, I met Rene in front of the John Calhoun Baker University Center in order tocomplete our immigration registrations. The building looks nice from the outside already, but once you go inside you think it's a friggin' mall. The picture makes you think the center has two floors. Turns out that the apparent ground floor is the fourth floor of the building since it's located on a steep hillside. And it's big. Escalators and elevators take you to the different levels where you find a cafeteria, a merch shop, an ATM, a tech shop, conference rooms, offices, a self-service blood pressure test, and so much more. And everything blinks and glitters and shines. This shows why studying in the U.S. is so much more expensive, and so different from studying in Germany.  We went to the third floor to sign up for registration which was scheduled for 2:30pm. So we checked the building out, and later I grabbed a burrito at Chipotle. Since it was my first time there, it was free! And it was good. (New York was already junk food heaven, and proportionally, Athens might just have about the same amount of bars and grills). We then registered, which took about 1,5-2h all in all. 

Bowling scores and Forehead

In the evening, I went to the Center again for immigrant bowling (that's not what they actually called it, but I like to refer to it that way). We were about 20 exchange students from all over the world, and maybe 6 or 7 OU students who work for the ISFS, the guys who have registered us earlier. Among the internationals was Sophia, another Leipzig student! Neither of us had heard before that there might be other people from Leipzig, so that was quite a surprise. Bowling was fun, and I can proudly say that I scored 162 points, which I have never achieved back home in Leipzig.

Wednesday, we had to be at the Baker Center at the ungodly hour of 8:30am. ISFS hosted an International Student Orientation where we met BA+ fellows Rafael and Julia from back home at ASL, who've arrived in Athens on Tuesday (right?). The orientation was about some organizational things, health insurance, and so on. They'd even invited an officer of OU's very own police department, a very nice guy, to tell us what's okay, and what isn't. Drinking alcohol is ok if you're at least 21. Sexual assault isn't. Later, there was a resource fair to grab some goodies. Oh, and to get informed, of course. At the raffle after lunch, I even won a Donkey Coffee and Espresso gift card! Then, I roamed the streets a little more and went home, finding that hmmhhh, there's water on the kitchen floor which is not supposed to be there.

Me plumbing

Due to the cold, the plumbing wasn't quite all right over the last days; the upstairs bathroom has no water, and the ground floor drains are kinda stuffed. But the puddle of water I just stepped in was new. So I check the sink and the dish washer and see that the entire bottom of the latter is flooded. OK, I screw around with the pipes under the sink and get them loose, managing to release some water but finding that the blockage must be deeper. It's got to be ice. I call the maintenance guys and they say I'm not the first one, they'll come over. 5mins later, they turn off the water and tell me that they'll take care of it tomorrow. Okay.

For the evening, the really nice and helpful guys of ISFS had organized a bus tour to the Fun Barn, a kind of arcade and bumper car and cinema combination just outside of Athens. We watched the ridiculously funny Anchorman 2. Plug out your brain and go see it! It has its weaknesses, but also a great pet shark named Doby. Riding back into Athens, some of us compensated the mush left in our brains from the movie with a bit more serious talk, really good. Then, Rene, Sophia, Waseem, Majeed and me went to Jacky O's to meet Justin who'd been to Leipzig with Natalie last year, but whom I did not get to know. With him were his friends Ben and James. Once again very nice guys to talk to and have a drink with. James told me a little about some English professors at OU, and well, I can't wait for my classes to start! Later, Clint and Trent joined us (no, they're not a team) and took us to Lucky's for another drink. The bars were really crowded already. Students begin to come back to Athens. That's a good thing.

Thursday I was finally able to catch up here and write about at least some of my experiences. The maintenance guys were just here again and told me the whole street is without water, a pipe cracked. So the city takes care of that, and afterwards, I might have water again. Now I'm about to go and meet our professor at the GLC. Thanks for reading. I appreciate that. I hope you're good.