Cappaccinos are supposed to have lots of foam...

As some of you may or may not know, I have been working (well volunteering really) at a student-run cafe here at the University. At every faculty on campus (Humanities, Math and Natural Sciences, etc) there is a student-run cafe-by-day/pub-by-night where students from that faculty can go and hang out, do some homework, catch up with friends, etc. Most of the time the people that work there are in the respective faculty (thus providing a means for fellow students to meet others studying similar things)...I however have been working in the Social Sciences cafe/pub called U1. I started there on a recommendation from a friend, and I can safely say that it is one of the best decisions I have made. I work in the cafe every other week on Friday afternoons serving coffee, tea, lattes, cappuccinos, americanos, etc to the faithful patrons. And while my barista skills are improving (at first there was absolutely no difference between the cappuccinos and the lattes I made), it is the people I have been meeting that are truly making my time there wonderful. I know I have talked about "the people" before, but I dont think that I can stress that element of my experience enough. Just this past week, one of my "bosses", Marianne (she is on the board of directors for U1, and is a champ...one of the nicest, most fun people you will ever meet), had a few of the international students who work at U1 (there are maybe 6 of us) over to her apartment and made us a 3-course, traditional Norwegian meal....it was amazing! She absolutely did not have to have 10+ people (some of the other Norwegian U1ers also came) over to make a traditional meal...but she did because thats just the kind of person she is. Or there is another one of my "bosses", Carine (she is one of the two people in charge of the cafe), who after a conversation about the financial crisis a few days before, saved an article she found in a Norwegian newspaper about it and translated it for me (she also works at a bank which is how the original conversation got started). Or there is Peter, who is one of the DJs at the pub on some Friday nights, who will come in once and awhile to the cafe and we will talk shop about new music, or politics, or whatever (he also studied last semeseter at UC-Berkley and spent some time in Minneapolis this summer, so we talk about some of our similar experiences in CA and MN as well). These are just a few examples of the awesome people at U1....none of whom have to take time out of their day to make international students, like myself, feel welcome...but they all do, and because of it I am making friends that will last a lifetime.