First Day of School

I have had many of these days in my life so I really have gotten used to finding new classes in new buildings and schools. But nothing could prepare me for my first day in Latvian school. I decided that I needed to improve my academic Latvian and thought that the best way to this was to audit a class in Latvian about Latvian politics. So I went in to talk to the secretary in the political science faculty about classes they were offering this semester. I explained to her (in Latvian) that I wanted to get a copy of the course listings and she said well we only have one course in English this semester and I said no I want to take a course in Latvian. She gave me a weird look and said ok..then I asked if they have had foreign students take courses in Latvian before and she said no never. At that point I knew I was in for a big treat.

I decided to take a master's level course on the Latvian Political Process so I got all of the permissions that I needed and went to the course last night. Luckily one of the other exchange students said that she was also interested in taking the course. When I walked into the classroom the girls stopped chatting and all turned to look at me. So I sat down and waited for the other exchange student to arrive in class. When she did we started chatting in English and people kept turning around to stare at us. Eventually class started and this girl in front of us kept turning around to look at us every couple minutes or so. I think she was waiting for us to realize we were in the wrong class (which we were not) and get up and leave. Class proceeded on like this for three hours with people continually staring at us when we look up words in our dictionaries or they would giggle when the professor would explain something in Latvian and also give the English definition to a word like rule of law or something. I have never felt like that big of a freak in my life.

Then after class I was waiting at the bus stop and one of my classmates was there and said to me in English where are you from. I said is it that obvious that I am foreign and said the US. Then he said where in the US? I am always skeptical when people ask me that because many people and have no idea just how big the US really is and normally ask me if I know someone they know who lives there. So I said the middle of America by Chicago. He persisted and said what state and I was like MN..then he said he lived in Wisconsin for one year and I said oh I did my undergrad in WI and he was like where and I said Eau Claire (thinking there is no way this guy has any clue where it is). Well it turns out he studied there last year in the political science department and knows all my professors and some of the people I still know from good old UWEC. So it turns out no matter how far I am away from home I always manage to find people who remind of it even in Latvia! Plus now I have one less person staring at me in class.