Carlos-CP2

On Saturday, I met with my second conversation partner for the first time. His name is Ali Alshehri from Saudi Arabia. Ali is the only CIES student assigned to me that is the same age so I knew this would be quite interesting. I decided I would bring him to Momo's to show him a real Tallahassee spot that I felt like he would enjoy. We had lunch there and started to get to know each other. Immediately, I noticed that communicating with Ali would be much more difficult in comparison to the other new friends I've met through CIES. He seemed somewhat timid at first and almost disinterested in our conversation. I really had to force alot of the dialogue, but eventually, things started to flow a little better. Ali plans to pursue a career in international affairs and hopes to attend an American university following his TOEFL test. My interactions with Ali gave me some first hand insight on the differences between American culture and that of the Middle East. Though Ali carried himself regularly in most circumstances, I could tell he was still getting used to being directly involved with females all the time. He seemed extremely interested in our waitress as well as any other female that we spoke with that day. We eventually saw a movie after our meal, and the way he interacted with females continued. I look forward to spending more time with Ali and getting to know him a little bit better. Hopefully he becomes more and more comfortable speaking with me as time goes on.