So I have a lot of experiences to recount from last night and then I will discuss my first day at work.
One of my friends and I decided to go exploring. There is a road nearby so we decided to walk a few blocks up and down that road in order to see what was going on. First we went south. The area wasn't particularly nice but we did go by a public park.They had a little skate park so we asked on of the kids if we could borrow his skateboard. My friend did a few turns and then almost hit a little kid who did not have the sense to move off the ramp. After that, we continued on and went into a mall. It was not very busy but we looked around in a plant store and we got some food at McDonald's. Apparently there was a different selection of plants at this store than the US. I took a picture of a carnivorous plant. It cost 2 euros for a double cheeseburger.
We went back and we continued past our hotel and went north. This was a much nicer area and it was a lot of fun to look at all the shops. We went to a grocery store that seemed to be geared towards healthy eating. There was a lot of cheese, fruit and vegetables. We continued on and saw a luggage store that was having a clearance sale. I looked around a bit because I wanted to get a case for my laptop, but the cheapest laptop sleeve was around 24 euros, which was very expensive. We walked around the area and took a few side streets. Among other things, we saw a barber shop, a nut shop, a lot of clothing stores, and a few movie theaters. One of the more interesting experiences is that there was a church so we decided to go inside. We watched about 10 minutes of a service. I could understand a few words while the preacher was singing but for the most part, I could not follow him. My friend remarked that in the US, you would not hear clinking in the money collection baskets because people use small bills when they donate. But there are 1 and 2 euro coins so the money baskets did make noise.
So we came back and went to dinner as a group. We spent a long time looking for a place to eat and I had to get back to talk to my girlfriend so I broke off and had dinner on my own. I didn't feel bad about this and I was able to get back fine on my own. I expected to have a boring dinner but it actually turned out to be a really cool experience. So I just went to some random Chinese place near our hotel. I sat outside at looked at people. After I was mostly done with food, a guy and a girl two chairs away from me asked me how I was doing. I told him that I was an american student and he offered me a beer and asked me to tell him about myself. I rarely drink alcohol and I attempted to politely refuse but he insisted. I decided that this was an opportunity that I didn't want to give up. How cool would it be to sit at a restaurant in France and converse with French people. Anyways, it was a lot of fun to talk to them. One cool aspect about the conversation is that I was able to speak mostly in French where they We discussed a variety of subjects. I told them about what have done so far on my trip, my feelings about France, what I think of Obama and what I like about the United States. They told me about their education, what they thought about the US and what they thought about American politics. Also the only place that the man had been in the US was in the Chicago area and the girl was a Spanish student who was finishing her 5th year of French literature studies. She was at cite universitaire, the place that I will be living for the rest of the summer.
Anyways, I had to cut our conversation short because I had a call to make. I had drank about 3/4ths of the beer that they gave me. I didn't realize that it wasn't polite to finish the beer. The guy wanted me to drink all of the rest of the beer in one sip. I didn't do this and took my time. He didn't seem too happy about this besides this, I had quite a good time. I would consider going to a cafe and asking some people to talk. It seems that the socially acceptable way to do this would be to buy them a beer. So who knows. I do feel a bit odd because I basically haven't have anything to drink in the past few years but I didn't really feel any different after drinking.
As for work, we didn't do a whole lot today. My professor and the three of us working with him had a plan to meet at 2 pm. However some of the other students had earlier meetings so we all went as a group to the area where our research is taking place. We spent a lot of time walking around. There is a large area that contains a lot of research. The area is very pretty and I took a good number of pictures. We had a very tasty lunch although it was somewhat expensive because we were visitors. I had apple sauce, strawberries, bread, cheese (the moldy green kind), pasta, salad, chicken, and vegetables. I was very full by the end. My lab mentor seemed very nice. We filled out some forms and he gave us a bit of an overview of the work that is done in his research group. We asked him a number of questions and talked. I expressed the fact that I was interested in doing a more theoretical project and he said that there would be plenty for me to do. I am looking forward to really getting to work tomorrow on my research.
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