New Friends, Aldi, and Guinness

Today was pretty interesting! I woke up at 2:35 local time, thinking it was just noon. I figured out that my alarm clock, which I brought with me, was clearly not working (for some reason it goes really slow-a digital clock that runs slow...). I had my outlet converter on the "lo" setting, so I switched it to "hi" thinking that was the problem...nope, then it changed two minutes every time a minute passed. So I just unplugged it. It takes a battery, a 9V, so I put that in...doesn't work at all then. So I just gave up altogether and am not using my ipod as an alarm for the time being.

I ended up going to the grocery store with my housemate, Tara, and a friend of hers. Turns out, this friend (his name is Joe), is a sophomore at Iowa State, and went to Rosemount High School. He knows (and is friends with) a kid named Tyler, who I was told to find because his mom works with my dad...I am starting to get creeped out. Anyways, he lives a few houses down, and his parents came with him for a little mini vacation (his dad works for Delta, so they had free flights -they were also given all day bus passes, 4 of them, so I didn't have to pay the bus fare). We went to Aldi. That is honestly the first time I have ever been in an Aldi, but I might try the one in Woodbury when I get back, the prices were pretty decent. It was actually really nice outside, the sun was out, and everything was green like I pictured it. I will get a picture of our house tomorrow and put it in my next post. 

After we got back, we were introduced to all of Joe's housemates. One was from Texas, one from Michigan, one from New York (the city even haha), one from Sweden (I asked her a bunch of questions, after I told her I was Finnish :)), and one from Hungary. All international students in that house, but from some pretty cool places. We all went out to The Stables, the pub/restaurant on campus. It was fun! We mostly compared Europe to the USA, with the Swedish and Hungarian girls. We compared pop culture for the most part (we ranted about Twilight equally, who was cute and who wasn't-we disagreed about Chuck Bass from "Gossip Girl". Antonia, the Swedish one, thought he was the cutest of the boys...I respectfully disagreed. haha), but we also learned a lot! Turns out, "lutefisk" is not pronounced the way we hear it in the US ("loot-uh-fisk"), it is actually said "loot-fisk". When we asked Antonia about it, she didn't even know what we were talking about until I spelled it for her. I have officially had my first Guinness, a must-have in Ireland. Not a fan of beer in general (not that I would know... ;)), but it was required of me. I don't expect to have many more of those while here, still not a big fan haha.

It was another enlightening and great day! Orientation is tomorrow and Friday.