CP#8 Alice

Yesterday I met with Luichang in the CIES lounge before class. Her birthday was this past weekend so I inquired about her weekend festivities, if any. She said that her roommates and friends treated her to a dinner at a Chinese buffet (I can’t remember the name). Afterwards, she began to show me how to play a Chinese game that was similar to tic-tac toe, but instead of getting three circles or squares in a row, you had to connect five. Once we played a couple of rounds of this game, I noticed that Mel and her conversation partner, Raphael, were at a table near us with a deck of cards. In earlier conversations, Luichang had mentioned to me that she liked playing poker so I decided to ask Mel if we could join her. Mel graciously accepted our request to be a part of her roundtable. Neither Mel nor I knew how to play Texas Hold’em. Subsequently, her conversation partner attempted to teach us how to play the game. I ended up winning a round, but I still have only a faint idea of how to play! Mel’s conversation partner, Raphael, is such a character! He kept us laughing the entire time. At one point in the game, he showed us his Venezuelan currency. Mel commented on the pictures, one of which was a pair of armadillos. Raphael responded that he liked skittles. Mel agreed with Rapheal’s statement and said that skittles where delicious and that she liked eating them (I thought that he said he liked mosquitos). Raphael exclaimed, “What?! You eat skittles?!?”. It turns out he meant to say squirrels instead of skittles. It has been a long time since I laughed that hard!