My second conversation partner meeting was with CIES student Bao Han. Bao Han is 18 years old from Vietnam and has been in the US now for four months. She is here with her twin sister and says she loves having some family close because she misses her family back home dearly. She was expressing the diffuculties she faced when they first came to the US, and said it was a difficult adjustment being so far from home. However, she said now she feels more adapted to life here, having made several friends at FSU, and doesn't plan on returning home anytime soon. She was very giggly and positive about the USA, having visited California before coming to Florida and said she loved every minute of it. She visited Oakland, San Francisco, Los Angeles, and San Jose. She said she liked California better because there was more of a Vietnamese community there compared to Florida. She said she found it frustrating how there is so many Vietnamese restaurants in Florida, specifically Tallahasee, yet such a small Vietnamese population. It was also interesting to hear her opinion on how restaurants here make Vietnamese food different than the way they make it back in Vietnam. She said she likes the Vietnamese versions better. She said she wants to get a major in Social Work and hopefully do something in the nursing world because she wants to pursue a rewarding career helping others. She had an adorable obsession with American pop culture and talked a lot about artists such as Cardi B and Ariana Grande. I explained to her the concept of concerts and music festivals, and hope to maybe one day take her to a local concert here in Tallahassee! I really enjoyed our meeting and am looking forward to the next one.
My third conversation partner meeting was with Josue, my conversation partner from Paris, France. He suggested that we go to a restaurant for this meeting, and recommended the Colombian restaurant on Tennessee St. called "Super Perros". I had never been to this restaurant before, so it was interesting to not only converse with someone from outside of my culture but also at a cultural restaurant with an atmosphere and menu different than what I am used to. Most of the menu was in Spanish, so we were able to bond over trying to figure out what the menu was saying, and ended up sharing a lot of laughs over it. During our meeting, we caught up on how he was doing at CIES, what he's involved in in Tallahasee, and discussed deeper topics such as the current political affairs going on in France. This led to a grander discussion about American politics, and it turned out we had similar views. It was interesting to connect our ideas across border lines, realizing we all want the ...
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