There are a lot of springs near Gainesville, so it would be a shame not to go to any. Two friends and I made plans to go to Devil’s Den. This place is an underwater cave with scuba-diving options. But we rented snorkeling equipment instead, it was such a beautiful experience! It was also captivating to see glow-sticks in the deep in the middle of darkness underwater.

The day after, I tried a very American thing: S’mores. Which looks like simple marshmallow roasting, but then the upgraded version. Two honey coated crackers with marshmallows and Hershey chocolate in between. I already had two dinners at this time. My diet has changed, but maybe not for the better.

A lot of classes/workshops/opportunities(writing program etc..) are offered on UF for free for students. I used this opportunity to see what the Salsa lessons are like at UF, and in particular, the Rueda de Casino Salsa. This is a dance-style I used to dance for more than a year at my home university. I was a bit disappointed that the actual time dancing to music was very limited, and that instead there was more focus on technique, making it more slow-paced than I’m used to. It was a lot of fun nonetheless. Ironically, the social media Instagram page of the club organizing the classes captured the one class I attended to, even though it has been going on for the whole semester.

On Thursday, another very American food: Mac ‘n Cheese. After a super productive team project meeting, a friend saved me some of it. She made Mac ‘n Cheese for all of us, to prove how good a cook she is.

Since I missed GatorNights previous Friday (when we went to the cornfield maze), I of course had to go to the one this week. However, my mentor Gina invited both me and Dennis (the other Dutchman) to a 21-sign night party. Which was apparently a common thing in sororities. All the friends of this girl who turned 21, made a sign together that lists 21 tasks she had to complete that night. With for example items as: sign twenty-one people with a permanent marker, or, say wingardium leviosa every time someone says happy birthday (she’s a real Harry Potter fan).

Homecoming is finally here, but I’m nowhere to be found in the Swamp stadium, what happened? First of all, I have been to all other games, and no I was not sick during this one. Truth to be told, I sold my ticket for this game because I would get most of my investment (the season ticket purchase) back on this. For me, it was not worth more than the money that I would get back, so that’s what I did. This day I tried going out downtown as well, but it was too messy, crowded and pricey, a direct result of winning from the Auburn tigers!

On Monday, we went to see the Joker movie. The thing that surprised me the most were the reclining seats. A foreign concept to me, but amazing nonetheless! For me, it felt like the watching experience was improved a lot by almost laying flat while watching the movie. But that could also only be the case for the first time you experience something like this.

The day after, Keri and I decided to go to Reitz plaza after going to the gym. There was an plant drop event happening with 250 plants, previous year they were all gone withing 2 minutes so we waited for 30 minutes this time. Totally worth it!

EVS, the official organization that creates activities for UF exchange students, posted an event where we could join to the Newberry Haunted House and Cornfield Maze. In the end we ended up going by ourselves by cars. It was not too scary but I enjoyed that night. The cornfield was high enough to not be able to see everything, and there were masked people with fake chainsaws to scare us. Which resulted in Jessica giving one of them a phycho-analysis/ therapeutic session back to one of them. After Newberry we met up at Hurricane BTW for burgers and milkshakes.

This game was one I knew was going to be one of the most boring ones. The game against Towson had a 97% chance of winning on the ESPN site. It was fun nonetheless, and I met some amazing people before the game started. And they had an amazing half-time show with fire!!

I was very lucky that I could go shopping with Didier, a good Haitian friend of mine who luckily owns a car. I did my shopping at Walmart (as I do from now on since I can purchase my groceries beforehand with the app and then just pick it up with the car). After this we wanted to get a cheesecake from the cheesecake factory, however the line was waaay to long, which is probably because a lot of families moved into Gainesville for the Homecoming game next weekend. Also: Didier had a longboard which he wouldn’t use at all so he let me borrow it for this semester, which means I can finally be a skater boii.

The first of October, a friend of us had her birthday. Of course, we wanted to surprise her with a birthday part one day before this date, on a Monday. I used my Spanish roots to make a nice tortilla (not the wraps) for this surprise birthday party. We gave the Weaver basement a makeover, and we all had fun until the Resident Assistent came by and wrote down ALL of our UFid’s, just because two of us (21+) were drinking beer.

On Friday, no one had classes because it was Homecoming, a holiday put in place just because the day after there was going to be the biggest home game of UF. This game against Auburn made a lot of families go to Gainesville, a week before the game itself. This Friday there was a parade, with high schools as well as different clubs and other parties participating. It was funny to see some floats with a tiger being fed to an alligator (the mascotte of Auburn is a tiger). Also, I saw a friend dancing in the Colombian group in the parade.

After the parade we went to the Oaks mall nearby, where I visited the Spencers shop, which is an alternative-like shop with sketchy/dry humor products.