The weekend before last AFS held a fun weekend for exchange students and volunteers in Charlotte. I stayed with three other students in a house-- Gianluca (from Brazil), Isabel (from Switzerland), and Deniz (from Turkey). They were all really awesome!
On Friday night, I drove to Charlotte and picked up Gianluca (we stayed at his host family's house) and went to the Nelson's for a pizza party. I met some of the exchange students but I didn't really get to know many of them. I was driving my mom's van so I took Gianluca, Isabel, and Deniz back to the house after the party. The three girls stayed together in the 3rd story bedroom, we talked a little bit, but we were exhausted and fell asleep.
We woke up early on Saturday, ate breakfast with our host family (they were really cool!), and drove to the Charlotte transit to meet the group. There was about 60 or 70 exchange students and we all got on the public transit to go to downtown. There we went to an art museum and then they gave us maps, told us to go eat lunch and meet at the corner of Trade and Tryon at 2pm. Everybody broke into smaller groups and went off.
My group decided to eat at Five Guys, mmmm so American. :) Afterwards we watched a guy make fudge and ate ice cream. The BEST part of the whole weekend was what we did next. We happened to notice this guy who was homeless or something sitting on a bench playing a drum. The group gathered kind of close to him and then started to show each other cultural dances. Deniz was showing us a Turkish dance that looks like knife throwing. Artem represented Russia, Kevin (who's american) showed us a Belgium dance that is popular in Egypt, a few people salsa'd, and some of the exchange students were teaching the American students how to jerk. It was sooo cool! We were all dancing along with this guy drumming and we gave him a couple of dollars. I actually video taped the whole thing and I'll upload it on Facebook soon.
When the entire group formed back together we went to another museum (about culture and civil rights) before getting on the transit back. There was a dance planned for the night but in between we were free to do whatever. So I packed me, Gianluca, Deniz, Isabel, Irene (Italy), Hector (Mexico), and Antonio (Italy) into my van and we went to the mall.
Gianluca went jean shopping, the girls went into Forever 21 (except for me because Hector and Antonio looked like they were in pain in there). I took Antonio and Hector to Finish Line to find some shoes before meeting up with Gianluca. After the mall everyone went home to eat and get dressed for the party.
The AFS exchange student party was at a country club in Charlotte. The cool part was that they played foreign music along with the popular American songs (which of course even the exchange students knew every word to). Sometime during the night I got out my hip skirt/bangle thing that I got in Egypt and started dancing (to Spanish music). This isn't something I would USUALLY do, but there was nobody from the Middle East there who knew that I was a terrible Egyptian dancer. :) Kevin accompanied me to show the full Egyptian experience of dancing. It was a ton of fun and by this time I had gotten to know a lot of the students pretty well.
The next morning was sad. Everybody had to go back to their own cities. But the AFS leader told me I could come to the exit orientation in June to say goodbye to everybody. That's going to be great, but super super sad. I'm sure I'll see the students at other events and a few live pretty close to me so I can visit. This weekend made me realize that I NEED to host an exchange student. I sent in the request, now all I have to do is convince my mom!
