Norwegians

I actually met a couple of my neighbors last night. I’ve been here for over two weeks, and have just now met people living in the same, relatively small, building as I am. A feat made even more interesting by the fact that we are all attending the same school.

Physically speaking, yesterday was a busy day. I am taking a weight lifting course for the first half of this semester, which meets three days a week. I also have returned to kung fu. Then, I played soccer for a couple of hours. Yeah, I was definitely feeling it this morning.

There were a lot of new faces at soccer, last night. Good gracious, I feel old when people ask me how long I’ve been here: over four years, and still two semesters to go. How the hell did I end up on the five-and-a-half-year plan? That doesn’t even sound cool.

There, I met an exchange student from Norway. On the way back from soccer, we discovered that we live in the same building. He invited me out with his friends for a little fun. I’ve been feeling the need to meet new people, recently. I decided that this sounded like a good opportunity.

I found myself in the midst of a band of carousing Norwegians. Thus far, my experience has been that many exchange students from Norway come to the country to party. This crew did not exactly buck that particular stereotype.

We started out at the house of one of the exchange students, where they consumed many cans of Bud Light. Then we went bar-hopping. We didn’t hop far, since we started out after midnight. In fact, we closed down the second bar we went to.

“I missed Perkins when I was in Norway.” Of course, what night out would be complete without breakfast? Since I was completely sober, I offered to drive. Someone else’s car, thankfully, because mine never would have fit six drunk Norwegians. That particular offer is probably going to get me invited out a lot.

It was a good night. I had the opportunity to meet new people and have some fun. It’s something I should try to squeeze in a little more often.