Major Update

Hi all! I know, I know, 'You haven't posted in ages!!'... I've been busy with the wonderful university life :) Even now, I'm enjoying one of the luxurious features of that same life - mmm, laundry. Doesn't get me as excited as university food, but is still pretty extarordinary! Time passes slowly, the washing machines are either out of order or full of other people's clothes, so I'm basically stalking on them, waiting for on of them to free up... oh, and then I'll have to wait for the dryers... Bottomline is, I have a long night ahead of me, which is the perfect time for writing another blog entry.

Now here is what has been happening here in the past few weeks.

First off, there was Thanksgiving. (Happy Extremely Belated Thanksgving, everyone!) That Thursday was such a busy day for me, but I managed to survive until 3:00 p.m. when we had decided to have our very own Thanksgiving lunch at Montford house (one of the student dorm houses 2 minutes away from campus). Alison, Katie-Coral, Kat, Marcie, and Rocio cooked all the meals for the rest of us, which was pretty impressive considering the fact that they had 11 people to feed. It was very tasty and we were all happy to say how thankful we were for being at Richmond, having such wonderful friends, eating home-cooked meals, and having hot guys like Johnny Depp around. Rocio, Paulie, and I had to leave at 4:30 because we were going to the Presidential Scholars Dinner at the President's house. A coach picked us up from the university and took us all the way to Royal Albert Hall. The President's apartment is right next to Royal Albert Hall, in the Royal Albert Hall Estates, which were the first multi-storey buildings in London, so it was an amazing historical site. The reception at his home was great, but what followed was even better! We went to the Classical Spectacular which is a 200 year-old tradition in London. It's a spectacle that combines amazing lightning effects with classical music. Of course, with the advance technology we have today, the show was magical (I'm not sure what it looked like 200 years ago...). There were also fireworks, musket shots, and canons in the hall itself - loud, dangerous, and super cool! When you get a chance, definitely go to that event!

Then, before we knew it, we were up decorating Marcie's room for Christmas. Her mom sent us all decorations and gifts. We all got stuff for our rooms, and then we'll also have gifts to put under our cute miniature Christmas tree (also sent by Marcie's mom) for our Christmas party on the morning of Dec. 9. Why Dec. 9? And why morning? Cause that's the day I'm leaving London... I don't have any finals because my art classes don't have final exams, so I get to leave one week early and go to Vienna to visit our friends there. I'll miss my Richmond pals that week and then for one month after that, but I'm happy that we'll be back together in January! (except for Katie-Coral who was only here for a semester.. :( )

The day after decorating, we went ice skating with some people from school. That was on December 1. It was so funny! I hadn't actually skated on an open rink yet, especially not while it was raining! But it was all good; we had fun trying to balance on the ice. Jessica had her first skating experience (amazingly enough, she hadn't done that in the Bahamas... :), and was, therefore, very excited ;) Ice skating ended, then we went back to Rocio's room and had a Disney movie night. We also saw "The Notebook" which was a very touching movie that made me cry :'(

Saturday night was Italian pasta and more Disney movies night. Jonathan (an Italian guy) and a couple of other Italian people cooked the most Italian pasta I had had. It was tasty... Mmmm...

Now, for all of you who know how I feel about kids, the next paragraph will sound kind of weird... I am babysitting now... It's for the Vice President of Enrollment. He has two kids, a boy and a girl, aged 8 and 11 respectively, and they are both sweet and well-behaved. Kesley and I are now taking turns babysitting on different nights and it's working out well.. plus, it pays extra cash which no one can turn down.

All that's left for me now is to survive through the last week of school, then go to Vienna, have a great time, and finally go back to Bulgaria on the 15th and have the time of my life with all my best friends!!! I'M SOOOOO EXCITED!!! :D Ah... and drive!!! And visit ACS again!! And see the new campus puppy!! And eat more home-cooked food!! And pet my own favorite doggy!! If you could only see the grin on my face as I was typing this! :D Yaaay!

Ok.. my clothes are actually done now... perfect timing as usual... I'm about to go to sleep soon (probably at around 2:45 a.m.), and I have to prepare for tomorrow and then all the other days to follow... Whew... I love you all! I'll see some of you really soon; others - later... Kisses from me! And, erm, London sends some raindrops to ya'll!