"Welcome to Stillwater, Oklahoma."

Howdy!

I´m finally here! The fly-over state, the bible belt, the home of rodeo and cowboys, Oklahoma!
Last 36 hours have been quite crazy, let´s go back a bit:

08/06

So I flew from Stockholm to Atlanta, which is the busiest airport in the world they say. In the plane, I sat next to Swedish exchange student, Mikael, who was going to California to play football(the European one). In Atlanta I had only less than two hours to catch my flight to Oklahoma City. Luckily border control went smoothly and Mikael helped me to go through customs and security control.
I was on time in Oklahoma City and OSU greeters where there to help me get to campus. I came together with British and Ethiopian student. It was clear, that football is big think here. First American who I saw, the taxi driver asks: "Go Pokes!", which refers to the OSU football team Oklahoma State Cowboys. They start their season in one month. Expectations are big.

In OSU I got my apartment right away, although we were there around 11.30pm. Residence advisers helped me to get a pillow for a night. Blanket I did not have, so I slept with a towel. I didn´t care, I´m in OKLAHOMA BEIBI!

08/07

After some night sleep, my first stop was at the Student Union and Study abroad office. The Student Union building is huge, largest in the world. In US, Student union has a different meaning than in Finland. Here, it basically means student services, like Finland we would speak it as a organisation.
I met exchange student advisers, who were extremely nice people. I signed forms and jumped back and forth medical center, computer science department and study abroad office.
In my first hours in OSU, I met immediately other international students. Sandra from Germany and Juan from Spain. I have been hanging out with them all the time. I have been very lucky, to get friends in my first day. I also met one European, Giovanni from Italy, who have been here before.

After formal matters, we went to Wal Mart. That is insane store. It is like we have Prisma or Citymarket in Finland, but three time in size and it is open 24h!
There we saw once again the friendliness of an American. This one lady heard us talking English with some foreign accent. She introduces herself as Esther, who have been knowing many international students at OSU. She helped us out with the shopping and gave us even a ride back to campus.

In the evening we went to Giovanni´s place to have italian dinner. Afterwards we went to check out Stillwater night life to a pub called Stonewall. Beer does not taste like beer in here, but it is cheap. Can of two litres was 6$. Bad thing here, is that bars close around 2am. Well anyway very nice first day.

There is couple things that get your attention at first:
Transportation, there is now proper public transportation here. There is campus bus, but most of people are not using it (read, only international students). Today we were walking to nearby store and were the only ones. Nobody is walking in US, expect to his/her car and back. We even saw drive in beverages store, can you imagine?

People, I´ve been stunned to see how friendly people are here. Simple things, like saying "hey, hello, thank you, how are you" you can here from almost everybody. If you are lost, everybody helps, stop to talk with you and welcomes you to Oklahoma. It is nothing special, but it makes you feel welcomed and safe, when people around you are treating you well. Although many things are better in Europe, this is something we should really learn from Americans.

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