It’s Saturday, and it’s the day of the first football game at campus. It’s the Gators against UT Martin. What to do on this day? First I will need to buy an orange shirt that will combine well with the blue bandana that my mentor gave me for the game. I already have an orange shirt, with UF ’23 however, which essentially screams ‘Freshman’, so that’s not an option. So I went to the thrift shop, and bought this beautiful shirt with “I-L-L I-N-I” on it, it was either this or the blood donor shirt so the decision was easy. After thrift-shopping, I joined my friends at the tailgating of the surf club. Which was a bit too fun, because I found myself hurrying towards Weaver to meet with a friend to get to the game in time. Something which apparently was not meant to be, since I had to login, already being in the application, to get the QR code. The correct password was not in my key-library and none of my own passwords worked, so I did a hail mary with resetting the password and hoping for a quick e-mail. This resulted in us being 6 minutes late for the game, which was not a big problem at all looking back. The game was fun, even though only 1 hour of the 3.15 hours was filled with the actual game. A lot of nice chants I could sing along (although they said gator bait at some point, which I really understood as Gatorade, confusing me a bit).

September the 8th, a special day for me, finally turning 21 in the USA. This day I had a pita gyros from the local Greek, which made me very happy. And don’t tell this to my parents, but I bought rum and vodka to celebrate with shots/mixed drinks with friends that evening. Gina gave me special color changing bike lights (for the spokes) as a present, a very cool gift!

On Wednesday, Gina decided to join Dennis, Kristen (my fake mentor) and me to the Grogs. A club that has free drinks and you only have to pay 5/3 dollars depending on you being 21+ or not. A very special night because Gina turns 20 at midnight!

A story about my fake mentor…

Before I actually was assigned to a mentor with the Navigators, it had been a couple of days since I applied and a lot of friends already were coupled with mentors. So at the Young Life BBQ event (a Christian organization that does extra non-religious activities), Dennis and I met Kristen. Kristen is a Young Life member who also really wanted to be in the Navigators, but thought she was too late to apply. Since we hadn’t heard anything from the Navigators we just created our own “fake” navigators mentor/mentees group. Later on, Dennis got paired with Sydney, and I with Gina. We asked our mentors if we could merge our two groups into one and apparently they already were best friends, what a coincidence! After this, we asked them to add Kristen as well, and with her and Gina talking in the: “The More the Merrier” group, they found out they were talking to someone they already knew, while walking out a meeting together of a club they are both in. That’s how, strangely, we all were connected somehow!

Surviving at UF is no easy task. For groceries, I’ve tried going to Aldi by bus, which takes very long. I also tried going to the same Aldi by bike, which is perfectly doable, except for the way back… All food turns brown really quickly because of the humidity (bananas turn from green to brown in 4 days). At least shopping at Amazon has been made more easy, since there is a 6-month prime trial for students. The easiness of shopping at amazon is something I miss at Walmart/Target, these places are so big that even the employees have to use an app to find the right division where the products are. For now I think my best bet is to go beg to people with cars to take me with them when they go grocery shopping. 😅
The biggest difference that I notice now, is the luxury of eating whatever, and whenever you want. Daily egg/midnight yoghurt is no problem. I’ve also noticed that I have more time on my hands, since the academic level here is somewhat lower than I’m used to at TUDelft.

It’s the fourth week, and I haven’t found a single alligator. Even though everyone tells me they are everywhere. At least I have taken revenge on this matter, by eating an alligator tail (!!!) burrito at Boca Fiesta, downtown. It tastes like sea chicken. I also tried the Boba Mango milk tea, at Bento, an Americanized Asiatic restaurant. Which had gummy-like “fish eggs”, as a friend put it.

Dayglow Paint Party!! We decided to go since it is free entrance (in heart and kidneys I stay Dutch) and because it sounded promising. And it was! The only worry I had was that it would not be easily washable, so I brought my most expendable clothes and hoped for the best (it turned out to be washable of course).

Tuesday, all classes are canceled because of the hurricane Dorian, as well as the next day. Little did we know that Dorian decided to alter its course and not bother us at all. However, a hurricane goes hand in hand with a hurricane party of course! This party was not cancelled naturally. At my Weaver Hall, on the first floor, a party was organized with different drinking games (BYOB for legal reasons). And here I met the first American with the claim of having Dutch roots, who actually could speak Dutch as well. It is common to hear Americans talking about also being of another nationality but not being able to speak a word in that language.

On Thursday, I had the luxury of being able to hitchhike with a friend to the Aldi, this friend couldn’t stop making fun of the fact that I actually was willing to buy meat etc. at the Aldi, making claims as “are you actually gonna eat that??” or “Ohh that’s gross!”. She, and some other random person at the Aldi, recommended me to go to the Publix supermarket after, so we did. Where I also got to try a Pub Sub. Being back at 7.15PM, we tried to get free shirts before the volleyball game of UF-Stanford. Unsuccessfully, since they came 4 shirts short for us to obtain one. It is a nice feature that all games (except for football, for which I got the season ticket), are free for students at UF.

It’s Friday, which means it’s time for: Gatornights! This day we decided to stand early in the line (more than an hour before it starts) to get a stuffed gator. After standing in several lines we finally got one! Well, half of us did. On this event they had also a mechanical gator for us to try out, this is the first time that I get why you have to sign a waiver before such an event since I arrived to the States (ouch!).

On Sunday, an international food truck market was being held. Problem was, that the location would be at a walking distance of 45 minutes… The solution for me, and compromise for Gina (mentor), was going by bike. However, with Gina on the back of mine, something that was unimaginable for her. While everything went okay, she feared for her life (sorry Gina!) and we got there safely. It was a good thing we decided to go, because I tried a delicious Puerto Rican empanada.

The next day, I got to try a “high quality Subway” as a friend put it; called the Firehouse Subs. It indeed was delicious and a bit out of town (25 minute walk). Then, just when we decided to go back, it started raining cats and dogs, unbelievably bad. Remember those 25 minutes? We also had to walk it back since the rain wouldn’t stop anytime soon. Also, the rain themed songs like “It’s raining men”, “Singin’ in the rain” etc. that the winkelcenter decided to put on, were really starting to annoy us ;). Of course, I had my nicest suede puma shoes on. So we thought: Fuck it, we’ll just put them in plastic bags (thanks to Target Copy) and walk barefoot to Weaver Hall (my dorm).

Sooo happy with the free food that is provided by different associations. Not yet really sure if it’s good for me though, on Tuesday we got free pancakes! Some of them with chocolate chips even.

It’s time to prepare for: Dorian. A hurricane of probably cat 3 or 4 when it hits Florida. Sandbags are already handed out and people are reinforcing their doors. This is a strange thing to see and even stranger to hear about when you ask what it will be like. Water and electricity could fall out, which is why I’ll buy a baseball bat to defend my turf of the toilets (jk). I did do some grocery shopping, now I have enough water and glow sticks to survive this hurricane party.

On Friday we dared to go to the GatorNights, a weekly event with various activities. Besides waiting in line, we also got popcorn here to watch an improv group Shamilton, who had an amazing performance which included rap, dancing and a lot of humor. Also, we felt what it was like to move in a giant hamster wheel, while racing one another on a track with bumps. And of course we also did some board games here.