My Weekend

This was a pretty great weekend. On Thursday night, I went to a going away party for some people who are moving out of our hotel apartments to another building where pets are allowed (they missed their dog too much). It was fun to swap stories about our first few days at school, and now I feel like my first two days were a lot more productive than I thought; most people didn't even get to (or choose to) interact with any students the first few days, so I feel a bit ahead of the game.

On Friday, Hector, Jeff, and I decided to throw a little dinner party. So we went to the store, picked out some food for our Valencian rice, then headed back. I worked out real quick, then headed over to get started with preparing the meal. The preparation/cook time lasted about 3 hours, then our guests started arriving. We sat and enjoyed the good food and company for another 3 hours, then some of us decided to have a movie night. We headed over to Graeme's house, where we learned that he has this really awesome sports package on cable. We ended up watching baseball for about an hour, and even though it was a game I had no interest in, it was nice to enjoy one of the comforts of home that I haven't been able to do since July before I got here. Then we watched Zoolander, which I also haven't seen in a long time, so that was fun. Jeff and I capped off the night by going to his place and eating some cheesecake.

Today, I went to the post office to mail about 25 letters, along with a birthday package to a certain brother of mine. That was kind of a pain, since the lady helping me didn't really know any English. Nonetheless, we were able to communicate out what I needed to be done and my mission was accomplished. Next, I headed to the Marina Mall to pick up my new suit. After I picked it up, I went to the bookstore to look at books. I ended up being in there for well over an hour checking out a bunch of different books, and I eventually bought three of them. After that, I went to Ikea, where I picked up some more things to decorate my apartment with, most notably an indoor plant for my living room. Hopefully I am a better with plants than my sister and it stays alive for more than 2 weeks. I'm pretty sure it will.

Tonight, I went to see Inglourious Basterds, which just came out here a few days ago. I thought it was a great film and it was a good way to wind down my weekend to get ready for a full week at school.

Speaking of which, I need to go to bed so I have a good, productive week!

Goodnight from Abu Dhabi,

Matt