"We are from all over Europe."

Howdy again!

It´s been a while, since I last had chance to tell about how it is going.
Loads have happened last week, so I will catch up a bit.

On Wednesday, we had our first day of international student orientation. There is total of 51 exchange students and app. 2000 international students in whole OSU.
In the morning, I got know most of the new exchange students and we have already formed our small "European group". Students from Belgium, Spain, Germany, Italy and UK have been extremely nice and although we are also from different cultures, we share the same experience, which makes it easy to get along.
In the orientation, there where mostly this bureaucratic stuff about immigration, health care, public safety and cultural issues.
Immigration here is quite serious issue. You have to have a good reason, to be in this lovely country of freedom. We have to maintain 2.0 GPA (Grade point average), which would be around 2.5 in 1-5 scale. We have to have at least 12 credit hours registered (app. 24 ECTS). What was kinda funny, that we have to be culturally involved. This is required by our visa status. This means, that we really need to go to cultural events, for example rodeo, football game etc.

You can see it clearly, that the state of Oklahoma is very conservative. People are very friendly here, but the social issues can be quite different. People here are very reserved about certain issues, like open relationships, having fun without boundaries and homosexuality. When you think about it is obvious. We are in the most republican state of the country.

On Thursday we went out with bunch of people. Our regular hangout place have been bar called Stonewall. There is nice patio and some pool tables etc. Only minus is that, you are allowed to smoke inside. Thursdays Stonewall is full of people. They have this "Trance night", when people dance on the tables and everybody are there. The whole yard was full of people dancing and having fun. Like in Finland, alcohol is not the main issue, but having fun is. Our European group partied so hard, that we broke one table!

Friday was the exchange student orientation, where I met the rest of the students. We have people from Mexico, China, Japan, South Korea and all over Europe of course.
In this orientation, we mostly just got to know each other and had a tour of Stillwater.
Quite interesting fact about Oklahoma is that when Europeans came here, all the Native Americans needed to move to Oklahoma. Wanted or not.

Saturday morning we went with International Student Organisation, to Oklahoma City Memorial. In 1995 happened the largest domestic terrorist attack in US soil, made by an American citizen, Timothy McVeigh. In Federal Building bombing, 168 people died, which includes 19 children. Memorial was very nice and sad of course. I post some pictures to facebook.

Saturday evening, we partied A LOT. We have got very close with Europeans, but I have got friends also from Mexico, South Korea and India. Where ever we also go, people asks "Where you guys are from." There is more than 10 nationalities all the time, so we basically response "All over Europe."

Tomorrow the vacation is over and the schoolwork start. I have five courses. Four of them are being teach on Monday, Wednesday and Friday. I have only class on Tuesday and Thursday. So they are going to be my exercising days. I really look forward to see, how educations in higher level here.