Kari_CP2

Today I went to the 4^th of July celebration that was being hosted at Tom Brown Park, and it was fantastic! I was able to meet up with my conversation partners, my tutees, and a lot of other international students, particularly from Saudi Arabia and South Korea. Getting to know them all was so much fun. One of the things we did was go to the playground and pretend like we were all teenagers and five year olds so that we could have a reason to play on the swings. I think the guys from Saudi Arabia had a really good time on the swings…since that was where we spent a lot of time. We also talked about dating in different cultures, and how the customs work. In Saudi Arabia, apparently it’s up to the mother of the boy to find a girl, then she basically tells her son, “Go check this girl out and have dinner with her family.” So the boy will go over to the girl’s house 1 time, and if they like each other, they get married. They only date after they’re married. Also, apparently in certain areas it used to be common for a guy to have 4 wives, but that’s usually if the guy is really wealthy, but nowadays apparently they stick to having 1, which I found really interesting. Also, one of the Saudi Arabian kids brought this amazing dessert, I have no idea what it was called (the name was really, really, really long and hard to pronounce) but it was delicious! It looked like little doughnut holes all in one pan, with sesame seeds sprinkled on top with a cream glaze, and they were filled with this really rich creamy butter. And to go with it, they had brought Arab coffee (which is also really amazing). It has spices in it like chai and pumpkin spices. I also brought a chocolate-raspberry coffee cake. I’m pretty sure they liked it since the entire thing was inhaled in about 5 minutes.