UMass: the final week!

I’ve just finished up my very last week at UMass. I had a brilliant week, given that I didn’t have any exams. Some highlights...

On Monday Dirk showed me his robots! Dirk is a friend from Germany, and possibly the biggest nerd on the planet...which is awesome. He showed me how they put together the robots, how the programming works, and showed me a few cool tricks the robots can do.  Overall it was very impressive, but made me feel incredibly stupid because secretly I only understood about 2% of what he was saying. 

Both Tuesday and Thursday night Allie and I stayed in, making the most of eachother's company before I disappeared! On Thursday we were joined by a few boys from our floor, and Joe, a really sweet kid from Allie’s acting class. Good to hang out with them all before they headed home!

For dinner Wednesday night Allie and I went out, to “Amherst Chinese” (such an imaginative name!), because I’m getting SO sick of the food at the dining halls. Plus it’s my last week here, so I might as well try out some of the restaurants.  It was DELICIOUS! The dumplings were the best thing I have eaten in a long long time. We should’ve just got like 5 plates of dumplings, so so good!!! 

With a group of girls we had organised to do Secret Santa. I got a gorgeous “Welcome to Amherst” mug from Izzy! I love it! The best present though was for Julienne, from Allie. A Wonder Woman snuggie! When you wear it, you look like Wonder Woman. It’s brilliant!

Fagne & Nate..gonna miss them!

Allie & I decided that for our last night, we shouldn’t eat at the dining halls.. We concluded that the best food in town is wings (from Hangers) and dumplings (from Amherst Chinese) so we ordered both. Lisa and Julienne joined us for a huge feast..which was DELICIOUS. Allie gave me an assortment of knick-knack-type Christmas presents, which included a little Mario pull-back toy (because we play a lot of Mario-Kart...). We made an awesome game out of this little toy, and spent the next hour or so trying to aim it at a target; harder than you’d think. Some boys from down the hall came around we said our goodbyes! Then we headed out to a friend's house, which was super fun! It was so great to be out with everyone, not so much saying goodbye as just having a good time! The night ended in one of the dorm rooms, where  a bunch of boys were having a "paint party"; which essentially just means you wear an old t-shirt and get covered in paint! Again, just good to see everyone!

Despite going to bed at 4am, I forced myself out of bed at 8am on Saturday to finish my packing. Allie’s Dad had invited me to his Christmas party, so we aimed to leave at 11am to get there and help set up, but didn’t set foot out of the building til 12pm. Not a bad effort. On the way Allie insisted we stop at Outback Steakhouse- an “Australian” restaurant. Allie’s been saying all semester that I need to go there, and we finally made it! There was lots of Australiana-stuff in there, but it wasn’t too tacky. I had a steak, which was AMAZING, cos I’ve barely eaten meat since I’ve been at UMass; I just don’t trust the stuff from the dining halls! Saturday night was the Christmas party! Met lots of Allie’s relatives, while eating more delicious food.

Saying goodbye to my empty rooooom!! 707 forever!

Goodbye UMASS :( It’s been fun....

 

Today (Sunday) I’m off to Tornto!