His name is Irfan (to my non-Indian ears it sounds like Earphone) and he was actually in process of moving out of the student residence and to an apartment closer into the center of Rouen. Unfortunately something went wrong and he wasn’t able to move out. He knocked on my door looking depressed about the whole thing but I was in the middle of dinner so I told him I’d drop by his room later.
I found him in his half moved in/half moved out room later. He offered me a drink and we watched Cold Case together in French. It was in his room that I met another person from my program. He’s also from India and his name is Gobi.
He came by wondering why Irfan hadn’t come by his room for dinner (it was almost 10pm at this point – I guess the Europeans aren’t the only ones that eat late). Despite my protests that I’d already eaten dinner they insisted that I come along. Who knew it’d be in France that’d I’d have my first homemade Indian food?
Dinner was delicious if not a bit spicy (apparently my face turned bright red) and I learned more about them. Irfan’s background is in Electrical Engineering and Gobi’s is in English and law. I checked out some of his reading material and realized his vocabulary is probably better than mine (I kept that fact to myself).
And now it’s 1am and I’m half way between food coma (having had two dinners) and caffeine rush (they kept filling up my glass of coke and I was too polite to refuse). I guess it was worth it in the end to get to know them a bit. Irfan’s a very happy go lucky type and Gobi’s older and more serious. Both are extremely kind and generous.
Turns out there are only 6 students in the program. Three Indians, one Indonesian, one Canadian, and me. Oh yeah, and I’m the only girl.
Should be interesting.
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