Jan 18th – Day of Exploring the Mall

When I woke up, Ana teasingly asked ‘Have a good time?’, I told her yes and she had asked which club I went to. When I told her, she laughed because she used to go there. Eating with Adrian, he was snacking on Bugles and wanted to show me how to eat them by putting them on his fingertips. After I went to meet my friends at the plaza so we could take the bus to the mall….Michelle and Katy would meet us there since they lived right by it. Getting off at the stop, Michelle and Katy were waiting for us and we walked over to the mall. It is so nice and really modern…and I was so tempted to shop, but we were there to hang out and see it first. Once we know our way around, we would be more comfortable…which won’t be long. We went to eat at this pasta place in the mall which was like an actual restaurant. We all got something different so we could share. Sadly I couldn’t tell you what I got but it only tasted okay….I would try something different the next time we went. Sitting with my friends we were talking about how not knowing each other previous to this experience, how we have kinda become really close with each other. My friends like to make fun though and say our group of close friends is Slippery Rock and Addy (since my friends are all from Slippery Rock University). Funny. Then we talk about our plans for the next weekend…we have a four-day weekend coming up so we’ve decided to go to Barcelona! At first we wanted to visit Ireland, but we need to plan further in advance (only 2 or 3 weeks) since tickets are cheaper that way. Excited to start exploring Spain and the rest of Europe we talked about where we wanted to go. After we finished eating, we walked over to Michelle and Katy’s dorm to hang out for a bit and then we took the bus back to the plaza. All of us were due back for dinner with our families and so we went to our host homes. Dinner with my host family was funny since Adrian was trying to teach Pepe how to say ‘hang ten’ by hand signaling. But he didn’t know what it meant what he was saying or how to really do it, so I showed them. I told them it’s what you do in Hawaii to say ‘Hi’ which they thought I meant to make the hand signal and say hi. So Adrian kept walking around with his hand up saying ‘Hola!, Hola!’….he’s such a cute kid. And it felt nice to actually teach my family something since they spend so much of their time teaching me things. After Pepe wanted to ask more about my culture (Pepe always has new questions to ask, as he’s really interested in learning about where I’m from. Ana is interested in getting to know me personally and what my life is like). After talking with Pepe, I feel pretty tired and so I excuse myself and go to sleep.