oh yeah, we actually have to go to class while we're here...

i LOVE my roommates, from left to right:
Josep - He's from Barcelona. He looks like a dad but he's actually the kid of the apartment. Every time we go by the 7-11 he has to go and buy some chocolate milk. And we've decided he slightly resembles Winnie the Pooh....or a turtle....or a combination of the two. He uses the word "incredible" to describe just about everything.
Edouard - He's from France. He's kind of the leader of the apartment. I would assume that when other exchange students talk about us they would refer to us as "Edouard's apartment". He's a very typical french guy in the sense that he's very romantic and always swooning the ladies, and he constantly teases me for being American.
Leslie - She's also from France. SUCH a sweetheart. Her voice is high and her french accent is strong, making everything she says adorable. She never calls me Beth, she only calls me "baby." She's sort of the mom of the apartment. She's more fashionable than I will ever be.
Kevin - He's from Argentina. He is absolutely hilarious. Definitely provides a lot of entertainment for the rest of us. Some examples of his hilarity: making the woman giving us a tour of the school library take a picture with him; trying to tickle our taxi driver; putting a lizard in our mailbox; blasting "ladies night" and dancing all over the apartment while us girls were getting ready to go out. He's great. (and also quite the ladies' man).
Alba - She's from Barcelona. She's the one I share a bedroom with. We get along extremely well. Our senses of humor are very similar and she makes me laugh constantly. When she's frustrated she always says "shit" but with her accent it's more like "sheeet" and for some reason I just can't contain hysteric laugher every time. She thinks I'm making fun of her but really it's affection!

The down sides of the apartment:
-we still don't have internet and we were told we would have it 3 days ago
-we've heard bad things about our agent such as she's extremely hard to get a hold of if we have issues (such as internet) and we probably won't get our extremely expensive security deposit back
-mine and Alba's toilet has been clogged with toilet paper since the New Year's Party we had and neither of us are willing to fix it
-it's a 10 minute walk to the MRT station so I'm sweaty everywhere I go
-last but not least, we have LIZARDS. We've spotted about 3 lizards in the apartment, each about 3-4 inches long. They're actually kind of cute and I definitely prefer them to mice or cockroaches, but I still scream whenever we spot one.

Monday was the first day of classes. It was so nice for the first 10 days having no obligations and just doing whatever we wanted every day. I'm trying to change my schedule to be more similar to my roommates' so it'll be easier to travel together but it's difficult. They have this bidding system for classes and I'm still trying to figure it out. It's risky because I have to drop my current courses in order to bid for the same course at a different time, but there is no guarantee that I will be awarded the new course. I'm not sure if it's worth the risk but I would really like to have the same days off as my roomies to avoid having to travel alone. We'll see...

I have fallen in love with sushi. I would eat it every day if I could. I still go with the safe stuff like salmon, crab, and tuna and it all comes with rice. There's a place that's super cheap by our apartment too. A full meal of it is about $5USD. It's going to be disappointing when I go home and the price probably triples and the quality probably declines.

We're hoping to plan a trip to Kuala Lumpur in Malaysia for this weekend. It's like a 5-7 hour bus ride so we'd leave thursday and come back sunday or monday. I'm excited to start traveling but I'm also nervous because these Europeans seem like they have money to burn and I feel traveling with them might be difficult. They're definitely still planning to "rough it" and go for all the cheapest flights and hostels we can find, but I still feel kind of nervous about it. Either way, this weekend should be fun and I hope the weather is nice.

In my short time here I have come to realize that public transportation in Minneapolis is shit. Here we take the MRT (subway) everywhere and I am amazed at how fast, efficient, cheap, and easy to use it is. Within 48 hours I knew how to get basically anywhere in the city as long as I knew the nearest MRT station. Driving a car everywhere seems ridiculous.

I've tried to start uploading my photos on facebook but the internet here in the library was taking a long time so I'm going to wait until I have it at home.
Off to Marketing 101 now...