
Monday: Today we had to wake up early and schedule our classes. We all came back from our appointments around 10:30 and went back to sleep until 3! We went shopping again for some more food. It's hard to find stuff to feed 4 people every day. So far we've just eaten pasta and chicken and ordered pizza and stuff. This is a picture of the food store that is about a block away from our apartment. Then we went on a tour of the University of Nicosia. The campus is pretty small because there are only around 3000 students that attend it. The buildings are all very modern and the classrooms look a lot like American classrooms. Out of the 3000 students that attend the university, 20%
of them are international students! How exciting. I think Pitt is like 3% international or something like that. Speaking of internatinal students, we were cooking dinner when 5 r 6 people knocked on our door of our apartment to invite us to a house party that they were throwing that night. These students also are studying abroad at the University of Nicoisa like us, but they are from ther countries. They are here for 1 year. They said they had so much fun with the Americans that were here last semester, so they wanted to get to know us too! We ended up taking a taxi to one of their houses and went to the party. Parties in Cyprus are a big different than parties in the U.S. While everyone was drinking, getting drunk was not the main purpose of attending the party. Everyone was genuinely interested in meeting people and having converstations about their lives in their home countires. Everyone was sharing stories! It was interesting how much everyone that we talked to was alike. We met people from London, Spain, France, Italy, and we even met a guy from the U.S. who is here for pro. volleyball. Again, we were out super late. I guess that's just the way things are done in Europe. Going to bed as late as 6 a.m. is not out of the ordinary.

Tuesday: Today we forced ourselves to wake up for a presentation on the history of Cyprus. Needless to say, we all fully regretted attending this lecture. Just too boring to listen to a guy with no personality talk for an hour aboust history! Having said that, it is interesting to know that the history of Cyprus dates back to 10,000 B.C. The U.S. is a baby compared to that. Tuesday night we were invited to our friends house to watch the inaugeration since we don't have a tv. The international students are way more interested in American politics that American students are! They all know all about it and it seemed like every1 in Cyprus was watching it. They had it on in the school cafeteria, at the local bar, and at everyone's apartments! They said that the Cypriots we
re celebrating Obama's victory. Now that I am here, I am glad that Obama won, because it seems like it will actually cause my classmates to have a better attitude toward America in general : ) Later that night, our friends took us out. We just hung out and played pool for a little while in downtown Nicosia and actually got back at a decent hour. They have cars here so I got to ride in the front. It feels so awkward sitting in that seat without a steering wheel in front of me! Also, the funny thing here is that instead of looking out for deer when driving, you have to look out for cats! It's true! There are cats freely roaming the streets everywhere. Some of them are actually very cute.

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