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Christmas

Posted on Friday, 30 November 2012

Christmas is right around the corner.
In less than a month, I will be sitting on the floor, patiently waiting for my parents to wake up and to open the beautifully wrapped gifts under the tree. In a really corny way, I will be more looking forward to the fact that I will get to see my family's expressions when they open their gifts. I also won't be able to wait for Christmas dinner with the family, and champagne being acceptable to drink at 11am.

Christmas is definitely a time of love in England. Everyone cosies up and has fun. Playing games and spending the whole day together.

Another major part of Christmas - DOCTOR WHO! This episode looks spectacular. I don't want the Doctor to move on from Amy and Rory but I guess it was inevitable at some point. Oh my Doctor Who geekiness. I remember the first episode starring David Tennant on Christmas Day - I literally did not sleep the night before, purely for Doctor Who reasons.

But America seems a bit slow on the uptake. I mean, I complain that Budgens has mince pies and advent calendars in August but where is the Christmas stuff.

There are a few decorations littered around here and there but i-walk is where you get to see the real Christmas stuff, you know why BECAUSE WE ARE INTERNATIONAL STUDENTS. Europeans celebrate Christmas. For Americans, it seems they are a bit tired after Thanksgiving so Christmas is no big deal, and because they eat Christmas dinner on Thanksgiving, it doesn't really mean that much.

I hope once December hits this changes. Although, Americans do not even have advent calendars! Or Pantomimes! Clearly Christmas is not as important!

Saying that, my lovely friend Laura seems an exception to the rule. She has even given me my Christmas present already! A beautiful tea mug! So me! My other friends got quite interesting presents.....thanks god that wasn't me.
x

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Happy

Posted on Wednesday, 28 November 2012

Wow. So by popular demand (not from Mum) I have been asked to write another post. Frankly, I am flattered. So thanks so much :)

However, the few people who have asked me to write kind of want me to write about a particular thing (Or as Laura says - write about something juicy). And I can't possibly write about such a thing on the internet. Just in case it falls into the wrong browser.

What I will say though is it makes me blissfully happy. To the extent that I am so scared that it will end and I will feel utterly horrendous, and consequently I try to stop myself feeling so happy. But hey, you guys will pull me away from a cliff edge right? When it comes to it?

So what's new to tell? Well, I spent all of the thanksgiving weekend cooped up in Andy's apartment with my friends. We watched countless foreign films (on one day we watched only foreign films) and ate a lot of turkey and pop tarts (classic Geneva combination). We talked about relationships, parents, friends and trust and it was one of the best weekends yet :)

As of this week,
I received a lovely hamper from my Mum, full of fruit, crackers and shortbread. I also received my Christmas Advent Calendar! So happy! Now I can say it is Christmas. It is definitely time to start getting excited.

Now for some reason my friends wanted more of the videos from that Sunday...because they want to know what we are saying. Um, so I'll add some below to make it interesting. Maybe one a post...I don't know....you odd readers now having demands.....



Background: A lady nearby asked us if we were on a church tour and we were finding this ridiculously funny. 

Below: The bus stopped and I said "no this  is definitely not our stop I am 300% sure." And then I realised we could have got off there, so I got us off at the next one even though the bus would have looped and taken us to a location slightly closer if we had waited but I was worried my friends wanted to get off the bus then and there, and I thought it might be closer than the other way....it wasn't. 



Don't understand why this is relevant to you though... x

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Portuguese People Do Not Joke

Posted on Monday, 26 November 2012

Ok, so imagine your most embarrassing scenario....got it? Triple the embarrassment by a few hundred. Yep? Got it? Now maybe, just maybe, you will be able to understand why I was trying to conjure up black holes in my friend's apartment the other day.

Do you remember in a previous post I may have mentioned my amazing Portuguese friend Betty had been filming my friend Andy and me when we were out in La Jolla Shores. Yeah. She threatened to turn it into a movie. Yeah. I laughed along thinking this was an empty threat. Little did I know that Portuguese people do not joke around! When they say they will do something, they will do it. I was in Andy's apartment when Betty came in and told us she had a video to show us.

Yeah.

Well I'll let you be the judge of the finished product, shall I?



Below are some of the videos Betty used to take the footage. The first one is me catching on to what she was doing and at the same time Betty asking Andy and I to repeat ourselves so she can get a shot from a different POV (this was the last time she asked us to do this, she would then just proceed to secretly film us)


And then below this is me being very tired (as u can see by my eyes) and Catalina telling a person on the bus that they were filming a romantic film and me quickly interrupting.

Yeah,
x

Oh but I do love her :)

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A Calm Weekend

Posted on Saturday, 24 November 2012

The evening of thanksgiving was lovely. 

I went over to the boys apartment whilst my housemates went to their host families apartment. Andy, Victor, Eduardo and Cesaere were all playing Wii with beers and it was really fun. I was so bad at it but it was hilarious. The turkey was in the oven till 10. And even then the middle was a bit raw. But it was yummy. It was HUGE but yummy. By that time Catalina and Betty had come back and also joined in on the thanksgiving turkey. It was a very yummy turkey. And there is still LOADS left. We didn't have anything with the turkey but then we ate chocolate brownies and pumpkin pie (provided by the hospital - um can we get pie in England every time we go to the hospital). 

The next day consisted of me taking a very long walk to clear my head before heading home and counselling my friend, where I was found by Andy and Catalina and asked to come and watch a film we had been watching the previous night. It was such a fun night. I was taught how to play the Ukelele (I want one so badly!) and then we were joking around, laughing a lot about computer viruses (yeah crazy times) and jumping out at people from our window (everywhere was covered in a thick layer of fog so we would jump from the sofa to the window and swing back the blinds - we thought it was funny). 

Two spanish boys from UC Riverside came to visit San Diego later in the evening - not the most alive time to come and visit I-House - and watched a movie, drank and played Wii. It was fun but I got extremely tired and ended up falling asleep on the floor.   I woke up at 4 with a blanket over me and pillow under my head. 

It was fun. But rather bizarre. 
x

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Thanksgiving

Happy thanksgiving!!!
Excuse me whilst America just shuts down.
Seriously! I have never seen anything like it! I-walk and I-house is pretty dead, there is no one about, and everything is shut for the next few days. It is like it is America's time to hibernate.
It is odd for me especially as I don't celebrate it at home, although everyone continually asks me if I do and if I am going home for Thanksgiving. Alas, if I was MADE OF MONEY then maybe I would fly home for four days but right now, no.
It is also weird because it is celebrated like Christmas. Everyone comes together to celebrate and eat food together. It is a lovely tradition. However, it is so not like Christmas on all over levels. It is not cold. I have no underlying feeling of excitement and I am not with my family. It is bizarre. It is sunny. I went for a run in the morning and then sat round the table and had lasagne for lunch with a bunch of possibly the nicest people ever!

So what am I thankful for?
I am thankful for the amazing friends I have made here (and yes, I am talking about those who also had to fly and see their families today). Everyone is so lovely. Everyone is so kind. I can't get over how genuinely nice these people are and how they will look out for you even when they don't know you that well. My thanksgiving plans kind of fell through because I didn't double check that the Cheesecake Factory was open. yet after Lasagne with my friends, the boys apartment from Geneva said I was welcome to come to their thanksgiving and that they had, last minute, decided to cook a turkey. Catalina also said I was most welcome to come to their host family's thanksgiving but I felt guilty at having to tell Mikey that the Cheesecake Factory plans had fallen through and now I was going off with another person's host family. So I am going over to Geneva tonight. And I am sure it'll be amazing. Because the people are amazing. And even when we were eating lasagne out of Cafe V bowls (that I had managed to assemble together over the last few weeks), and we were squished around this teeny table, I felt overly happy.

I love you International House.