Week 4 - First Exam and the Food in the Dining Hall

Another week has passed. I just had my first real exam (before I had several quizzes) 2 hours ago in psychology - it was way easier than expected and I really studied too much for it even when I did not that much :). Apart from this this week had not that great highlights. I really looked forward to the trip to Chicago. We would have departed at Friday at 9pm, but on about 7pm we got an email that the bus has broken down and that the trip was canceled. It will now take place in two weeks on the weekend. So I hope that everything works fine then.

The activities during this week which i can remember now: On Thursday we watched "The amazing spiderman" and played pool afterwards, on Friday we went out to a bar called "Jake's", a small sports bar. The next day we borrowed some bikes from the Recreation Center of the university (I had to run, because they had only 3 bikes at this time) and went to a nearby park and spent the day there. We played "Ultimate Frisbee", a real American game which is like football only with a frisbee. The goal is to reach the end zone of the other team and the player who holds the frisbee is not allowed to move. It was harder and more exhausting than expected. On the evening some Brazilians and other international students went out again to another club in the city and I tried to imitate some Brazilian dance moves :D. On Sunday I had a tennis match and by the way I will learn how to climb next week. I signed up for a climbing lesson, in which we learn how to secure each other and also the basic techniques.

Today (Monday) I went on a run to the Ohio River. Here a few pictures:

I also want to give you some information about the food they offer on the dining hall of the university. The good news I will not die of hunger :), I have an unlimited meal plan which means I could eat 900 times a month!!! There are two dining halls on the campus, one is directly in my dormitory, but I usually go to the other one which is only a few hundred meters away because the qualitiy of the food is there usually better. The food itself is sometimes really American.

Breakfast:
At breakfast most Americans eat scrambled eggs, bacon and some kind of grilled meat. Other options are bagels or toast bread with some kind of spread, cereals, waffles, fruits (pineapple, melons and sometimes strawberries), some kind of cakes or sandwiches. I usually eat a bagel with spread, cereals or occasionally waffles, cakes or fruits.

Lunch and Dinner:
At lunch and dinner they offer almost the same food. There are various options which differ each day. But they have pizza, burger, hot dogs and fries every time, so it is very easy to eat unhealthy. But that does not mean that you have to take this every day, you also have the option to eat salads, fruits and self made sandwiches which are much healthier. Almost every day there is also a international dish (mostly asian or pasta) and one dish which changes every day. For desert they have brownies, muffins and pudding. You can have a lot of different drinks too, you have options from coke, fanta, powerade to orange and apple juice. I really cannot understand why some Americans drink coke at breakfast and put so much ice in their drinks.

The quality of the food really varies a lot. Some of the dishes are really good whereas others sometimes taste like nothing. On weekends there isn't the possibility to have breakfast, instead you can have brunch which will be offered from 11:00 to 2:00.

I hope I will not grow the American size :).

Third week - Lasertag and Mechanical Bull

In my third week in the USA I already developed a little daily routine. Now I know how everything works here. My typical day during the week looks like this: Breakfast at 9:00, then classes, then lunch at 12:00 then (on some days) again classes and at 6:30 dinner. I usually have breakfast, lunch and dinner with the same students every day. In the breaks I study, go to the Recreation Center or attend some activities on the campus.

On Tuesday, there was a mechanical bull at the university and I tried to stay as long as possible on it. I held the record at the time I did it (but I don't know if someone broke it afterwards). I managed to stay 78 seconds on the bull.

On Wednesday I played laser tag in a rather small tent. You get a vest and a gun and should try to hit the others as often as possible. I played twice and was on the second place both times (5 players play at one time).

On Saturday we watched the football game Marshall - Ohio. Marshall won the third game in a row with 44:14. It was a good game, but it lasts too long in my opinion. 3:30 for a football game is too long! After the game we had a barbecue in a park near the university and afterwards we went to a fraternity party. We arrived there at about 11:00 and they ran out of beer and other drinks, but we stayed there until the police came (at about 12:00). When this happened everyone just got away. The policemen didn't even have to come out of their cars. After we got away from there we went to a few bars and had a funny night.

Next weekend I will go to Chicago for one day. We will travel by bus (the trip is organized by the university).

Second Week - Free Climbing Fridays and First Football Game

After the trip to Nashville I had to return to the hard part of life. In this week the courses started with the real lectures and exercises. I had my first three quizzes in Spanish (that's a small kind of test, where you have to translate 20 English words), my fist assignments in Natural Language Processing and GIS and Data Systems and the Software Engineering project started. Furthermore I have to read about 80 pages for my psychology classes on Monday. Here is how my schedule looks like:

During the week I had a lot of things to do for my classes. Besides of that I often went to the Recreation Center which is very large and you can do a lot of different kind of sports there. I played racquetball very often, but you can also play volleyball, table tennis, badminton and much more. Furthermore there are two floors with many machines for muscle training and there is also a running lane inside. Until now I've never used the pool, but I really plan to go this week.

On Thursday I went the first time out in Huntington. A few Brazilians, the guys who went with me to Nashville and I went to a bar called Black Sheep. It was very funny and the beer was also good :). On the next day we went to another nice bar which had a lot of other beer brands.

Before we went out on Friday we also went to the "Free Climbing Fridays". On every Friday at the first 8 weeks you can climb at the climbing wall of the recreation center for free. It was really exhausting, but it was fun and we plan to go there again.

On Saturday the first football game took place and I was really excited to go there. The stadium of Marshall's football team, the so called "Herd", provides place for about 25.000 visitors. Unfortunately it was raining and there is no roof over the tribunes, so we all got a little bit wet. But this was no reason to be sad, the atmosphere was really great and there is always great entertainment during the breaks. Football itself is also rather interesting even if I only understand the basic rules. The only bad factor of the game was its length. It lasted about four hours!

Trip to Nashville

As this weekend was longer than usual because Monday is Labor Day, a few other exchange students and I decided to make a trip to Nashville, Tennessee. At Friday afternoon we got our rented car and started our 5 and a half hour trip to Nashville. We went from West Virginia over Kentucky to Tennessee. Our first stop was at Kentucky to have lunch.

We arrived in Nashville at about 9pm and because our hotel was not in downtown we decided to go to bed early. The next day we first went to the Nashville Parthenon. This building was built in the 19th century and as a full-scape replica of the Parthenon in Athens.

Afterwards we went to the Broadway, a street which has a lot of attractions, restaurants and bars. The focus hereby lies on definitely country music. Nashville is famous for this style of music. In nearly every bar/restaurant play live country bands the whole day long. We spent the rest of the day there and enjoyed the music in several bars.

On Sunday we went to the Country Music Hall of Fame. You could see items from Johnny Cash, Dolly Parton , Elvis Presley and many more.

Afterwards we went to the Ryman Auditorium a great concert hall, where famous musicians played and still play.

At our last day in Nashville, Monday, we tried to solve the Escape Game. In this game your friends and you are locked in a room and have to find hints and solve problems to unlock the door. We almost escaped, we only missed the last problem. It was really fun and I can recommend this to all of you. There are also a lot of Escape Games in Europe.