Sweet Frog with Jinn

Jinn and I had our sixth meeting today at Sweet Frog. We both got some ice cream and then sat down to catch up.

Jinn leaves for Greece in a few weeks (May 4th to be exact) to visit her boyfriends hometown and meet his family. She can’t wait to leave, she even asked her boyfriend if he could book an earlier flight. After spending some time in Greece, Jinn's going to Italy and Spain for the remainder of the summer. It's so weird to me to think that I met Jinn only a few months ago and in a few short weeks, I will probably never see her again. She doesn't think she will be back in the United States any time soon, so sadly our next meeting will be the last time we ever get to talk face-to-face.

Somehow we ended up on the topic of zoos (don't ask me how). I have never been to the Fort Worth Zoo before (its definitely on my to do list), but Jinn had been a few times so she told me all about it. She doesn't really like zoos because seeing animals in cages makes her sad. I told her about the San Diego Zoo and SeaWorld, both of which she had never heard of. I knew this shouldn't have surprised me being that shes from a foreign country and all, but I was shocked that she hadn't ever heard of Shamu! 

She told me how much crocodiles (she calls them “cocos”) and gorillas scare her, so she always avoids those exhibits when she goes to zoos. Ever since she saw King Kong, gorillas have terrified her. Her boyfriend, ironically, is afraid of mice. She made fun of him about that for a little while.

Next we talked about our plans for the weekend, and I told her a had a formal I was going to on Friday. She didn't know what that was, so I explained it to her as a prom type event, but then realized she didn't know what prom was either! I felt stupid for assuming she would understand these things, and tried to explain it to her as best I could. Jinn and I talk so easily about so many different things that sometimes I forget she’s from a different country, weird as that sounds.

We then talked about the differences between what girls wear to formal events in China and what they wear here in the U.S. Jinn said that when she and her friends would go to a formal event, they would get all dressed up in long dresses and heels. She noticed that it seems more normal for girls here to wear short dresses to formal events. She informed me that in general, people in China dress much more formally, even if it's just for regular day-to-day activities. 

After we had finished chatting, we parted ways and decided to meet up next Thursday for our last meeting. I’ll be sad when these weekly meetings are over!