I have friends!!

I am finally meeting people here in the International House- I'm so glad I'm living here. I have been hearing horror stories about people trying to find housing. Ugh, too stressful! Last night we rented a movie- from BLOCKBUSTER. I was so upset I wanted to cry!! I traveled over 30 hours for Blockbuster?? And I got my hairdryer at KMart! It is so Americanized!! But there are little differences that make me feel better- like the fact that escalators in the shopping center are flat- they aren't stairs! It's so weird- I'll have to take a picture when no one is looking... :) I decided I have to take all my pictures of the campus this weekend before everyone else arrives next week- just wait until you see the street intersections. They remind you which way to look! I think I'm going to get hit by a bus because I keep looking the wrong way.

I am meeting people from all over- US, Australia, Iran, Pakistan, France, Indonesia, NZ. I love it! Nothing too funny or exciting happened today. I woke up bouncing off the walls at 6:30 am. We had a Daily Arrival session this morning, and orientation will start on Monday. I got my login for the computer system and get this- you pay per megabyte! So that means every time you look at a website, it downloads all these megs of pictures, files, etc. You get 6MB free a day and pay $0.02 for every meg after. So strange. Tonight we're going to try out some of the local nightlife, and I convinced some people to explore the city with me tomorrow. The initial idea wasn't so hard, it was convincing them to walk 4 miles to the beach :) Sure we could take the bus, but walking is so much more exciting. Unfortunately, it is way too cold to go swimming but I need to see the water!

And I realized why people hate the winter here- they don't use central heating! In my room I have a little tiny space heater that takes all night to warm the room. And all of the buildings on campus are freezing cold. Oh well, hopefully it won't be cold for long!