AUDREY

Sorry guys, I'm running out of creative titles... :(

So last weekend (wow it seems so much longer ago than that), my friend Audrey came to visit me. Audrey is a fellow Scrippsie studying abroad for a semester at University College London (UCL). The Friday before she came to visit, I went to Robbie's sister, Katie, flat for a get-together for her birthday. She's a psychologist so she has a lot of doctor friends. I had a really good chat with one of them about what it means to be Indian having been raised as Caucasian. I think we're probably related in some way because his family is also from Madagascar and speaks Gujarati. Robbie and I also chatted with a really nice older couple. Anyways, then we went to Sam's for a flat party and I slept in suuuppppeerrr late the next day.

But, I dragged myself out of bed in time to meet Audrey at the train station- I had perfect timing, actually. Unfortunately, it had started snowing on Friday night so everything was snowy and kinda hard to walk in.

We had grand plans for what we were going to do that weekend, but then it kept snowing and snowing. I got up early to a beautiful snow-covered meadows and went to mass at the university chapel. I really, really enjoyed it. Then, I reconvened with Audrey and we went to the German market set up on the Mounds. It was rather less exciting than I thought it was going to be. Only a few stalls were really based on Christmas and the rest of them sold things I could find in the States. We did get a pretzel though, which I had been craving for a looong time. Delish! Then it started snowing again, so we went back to the flat in order to study/hang out.

That actually ended up being the rest of the weekend for us- lots of Christmas music and studying. We tried to go to the Castle since it was free in honor of St. Andrew's Day, but it was closed because of the snow. Monday night we did go out to dinner for my friend Sarah's 22nd birthday. That was an experience- we ended up walking back in the snow because there weren't any taxis around because of the snow. It was quite an experience, filled with snowball fights and lots of slipping and sliding.

All in all, I'm kinda glad that we didn't end up doing more of the touristy things. It was nice to just hang out with a friend again. I do feel kinda bad that Audrey didn't get to see more of the city... I guess she'll just have to come back! ;)