Bobby_CP_#1

Yesterday I met with my first conversation partner, Badah Alajmi, at the Starbucks on Tennessee St. We are both new to the area, so we shared our impressions of Tallahassee and its inhabitants. We agreed Tallahassee is underwhelming, and Badah seemed rather unimpressed. He’s only seventeen years old, so many of the local watering (alcoholing?) holes would be closed to him. Not that any age restriction has deterred the undergrads from worming their way into the bars somehow anyway. However, Badah didn’t seem like one to want to “get shwasted” on the weekends. We spoke about the FSU culture of tradition, Greek life, and drinking, and how the student body seemed to comport themselves. We agreed on many things, and if it weren’t for the language barrier I feel an agreeable conversation with the young man would have gone swimmingly. Not to confuse the point, though, his English was almost perfectly intelligible. There were a few instances when he was at a loss for words and had to resort to the translator on his phone, and his grammar was a little shoddy, but he seldom didn’t get his point across. He has plans to travel to San Diego and Orlando, both of which he was excited about. Badah is from Kuwait. I asked him about Kuwaiti culture and how things are around the Arabian Gulf. He said he was content to stay there, and didn’t have much interest in traveling around the rest of the world at all. Judging by his description of Dubai, I don’t blame him. I hope the conversation was as informative for Badah as it was for me.