Chapter 6: “Thank you, Alex,” she said

We all sat down and began dinner, chatting and conversing gaily. We talked about where Alexa had lived, what her favourite places to live had been and funny things that had happened to her. She was sitting between mom and myself, often reaching over and touching one of us on the shoulder or forearm as she talked, a very European thing to do, I’m told.

She asked about what my mother and father were working on, their projects over the summer and what they’d be teaching in the fall. She seemed genuinely fascinated to hear about everything they had planned and clearly looked up to them for their accomplishments as scholars. She then beamed a smile at me.

“What about you, Alex?” she asked, giving my shoulder another squeeze. “What are you going to do when you go back in the fall?”

“I’ve been back and forth about that,” I admitted, pausing in my annihilation of the food my mom had presented. “Since I’ve got the scholarship, I could possibly live on-campus, but that might not be ideal, since I might get idiot roomies in a dorm. If I stayed here, it’s a reasonable drive, not more than thirty minutes to the campus where most of my classes will be held.”

“That makes sense,” she mused. “Not to mention the occasional home-cooked meal as opposed to cafeteria food or the stench of ramen noodles throughout your dorm.”

I made a wry face. “Didn’t know you had ramen noodles in Europe. Well, I knew you had them, but I guess I just figured that Europeans knew better.”

She giggled. “We do, but the real horrid part was the universities in Stockholm or Berlin when we visited those. The dorms reeked of boiled cabbage. Affected proletariat students everywhere. If I had a Euro for every Che Guevara poster I came across...”