Mario CP1

My conversation partner experience was very interesting. In the beginning, I didn't know what to expect. I found myself sitting at the student lounge waiting for my CP to find me. After waiting a couple of minutes, a guy came and introduced himself-"Hi, Mario? My name is Majed" after a brief introduction we moved to the terrace because the student lounge was just too crowded and noisy.
To be honest, I felt that most of our conversation was forced. I was asking most of the questions and his responses more often than not did not lead to new topics. However, we managed to find interesting topics for both of us. I mentioned to Majed that I used to have Pakistani and Indian friends and that I knew a bit about Ramadan and other religious festivities. Majed was a little surprised that I knew about this and we talked a little about religion and the differences between the U.S. and Saudi Arabia. I was very careful not to get into sensitive subjects, so I kept my questions simple and my answers short. At some point things got a little awkward when I asked him if his wife works in Saudi Arabia. He told me that not too many women work in Saudi Arabia, most women take care of the kids at home. After that comment I just changed the subject to avoid misunderstandings, so we talked about sports. Majed told me that he likes to play soccer and tennis. I mentioned that I play soccer in the afternoons when I'm not in class and that he could join me if he wants to. I also told him that I like skateboarding and surfing. Majed did not know what surfing was, and when I tried explaining to him that surfing is like skateboarding on the water, he just looked even more puzzled. Thus, I showed him a picture of a surfer dude that I have on my phone.
I was surprised when Majed told me that he got here in February and that he had never been in the U.S. before. In my opinion, Majed has made enormous progress and our conversation was overall simple, but clear. There were a couple of instances when he did not remember the words in English, so I had to "fill in the blanks," but besides that I thought our conversation went very well. We agreed to meet up somewhere near campus and try to have more interesting conversations.