Taylor CP #4

On Thursday night, Jose and I went to Aj's for karaoke night and met up with Sam from TEFL class, Hasan, and Jackie from CIES. Usually, karaoke night at Aj's has a few amazing people that belt some classics and a lot of funny people that can't really sing. I thought this would be a funny experience for Jose. However, the "usuals" were over thrown by a group of obnoxious guys on stage. Honestly, I felt a little embarrassed having all the international students see the way these guys act, because they pretty much fit into every American stereotype possible. Jose even said they were ridiculous!

I also got to meet Hasan and Jackie. It is crazy what Hasan is studying here and I really did not understand completely what he was going to do at Penn State (or UPenn, I get the two mixed up) but something with the human eye and a hawks eye with the zoom. I also had some interesting conversations with Jose about Chavez, the US army, and culture differences. He told me Chavez keeps taking land and kept asking me what I thought about the US troops in Iraq. I really did not expect him to be so political but they were interesting conversations to say the least! I also asked him if there was anything shocking about the US compared to Venezuela and he thought the amount of cars here is ridiculous. After awhile his friend from Spain showed up. I don't remember his name because I tried to talk to him but he was so quiet! Well, quiet until Jose got him a drink and tipped the bartender ONE dollar. Then he kept calling Americans capitalists and did not understand that this is how people make their money here. I was trying to keep it light but he was still oddly angry. Eventually a few of my friends showed up and they kept cheating and talking to Jose in Spanglish but everyone seemed to be enjoying the conversations and songs. Sam and Jackie got up and sang and we cheered them on and Hasan even got up to sing! But, Jose and I were too scared and just cheered everyone on! Eventually the crowd died down and we decided to leave.

So I parked my car in what I thought was the "overflow lot" at Aj's. I have parked there before and everything was fine. However, this time, my car was gone! A fresh tow-away zone sign was on the curb covered by a short trees branches! I did not know what to do because I needed to take home two international students. After about 20 minutes, my roommate picked us up and got everyone home. I felt so bad that they had to wait! Anyway, I hope they had a good time, it really was an authentic Tallahassee experience with the karaoke and towing situations.