Me again...

Saturday (5/22/10), we had a fun afternoon. My brother and I now have made our second friend here in Europe. He is called Erik. My parents met his Mom over the internet (they are Americans living in Frnace just like we are) and they arranged a get together at their house that Saturday. The neighborhood where Erik and his Mom lived was close to where David's place was, so it was not hard to get to. The neighborhood itself was quite good looking, with its interestingly designed houses and hedge walls. The inside of the house was no different, for it was quite beautiful to the eye as well.

My brother and I then met Erik, who like David, shared a lot of the interests (video games, net videos, films, books, etc.) that Kian and I share. While our parents and Erik's Mom engaged in conversation on the 1st floor, Erik took the both of us to his 2nd floor bedroom, which was quite the entertaining set up. He had a Nintendo Wii console with some games and he even let Kian play his Super Smash Brothers Brawl game, which Kian really liked doing. But the real cruncher of this fun period was when Erik busted out this little video player machine that plays videos from the internet (the name of the thing escapes me right now) and he showed us some hilarious internet review videos. I had not laughed so hard at a net video in a while and I expect we will do some more with him in the next visit.

In fact, we were having so much fun up there we even forgot about the snacks our parents brought along for the visit. All in all it was a great afternoon. We hope to invite him to our place after we get transformer adapters for our game systems.

The following Sunday (5/23/10), we had another very fun afternoon, making two in a row that weekend. David and his parents invited us to join them on a picnic in a park right next to the Seine River. We gladly obliged to have another outing with them. It was also the first picnic that Kian and I have been apart of in ages. The spot we picked was absolutely beautiful. It was all green, there was some good shade from the trees, and there was a lot of cotton stuff from the trees being blown around in the breeze and on the ground looking a little like snow. My brother and I had our usual lunch packed with us while Mom and Dad had their own. The lunch itself was quite enjoyable along with some good conversation to go with it. Afterwards, while Mom and Dad did a little musical stuff with David's parents, Kian got out his Kingdom Hearts 358 & 1/2 Days for his Nintendo DS and played that for a while while I (and David for a little) watched him, and that was fun.

After some time, David invited me to play some rugby with him, something I knew little about and had never seen before. He gave me the basics and I guess I did pretty well at it. Kian would join in after a few minutes and he got the hang of it as well. I must also say that David was and is quite good with the ball himself. Kian and I had a little break following a good time of playing. A short time later, David and his parents taught as a new type of game called pentanque, where we had to throw and roll metal balls tot he small wooden ball and the player who has closest metal ball to it wins. It was another game I was very unfamiliar with, but I got the hang of it in a hurry and it was a great game. Following that, our outing came to a close and we had to head home. We do intend to get together again in the future. And as I have said before, as soon as our game systems are fully set up, he can come to our place and we can have some more fun. All in all, it was an exhilarating Sunday afternoon.

On a separate note, I have now reached my 8th week of my Strayer sessions. I have completed and submitted my first research paper and I did quite well on it. I am pleased to say that I am continuing to do well with Strayer.

Niall