Christmas + Football = Good weekend

So the rest of my week went something like this:

- Wednesday: Study for my macroeconomics test.  Break for weekly $0.50 ice cream from McDonalds.

-Thursday: Study for my macroeconomics test.  Take my macroeconomics test.  I think it was definitely easier than what we had been preparing for, which was a nice change from ND.  Thursday night was community dinner, and then me and some of the group went out to a place called the Claremont Hotel, which is now probably one of my favorite places that we've been so far.  It's a shorter train ride, it's literally right next to the train station, the drinks were decently cheap, there was no cover, they played great music, and most importantly...it's where all the attractive Australians have been hiding! Lol.

-Friday: Went to Australian History and tutorial.  Tutorial was great this week because #1: our group won the "draw a typical Australian" contest from last week so we got Tim Tams and #2: it ended 30 minutes early.  After class I did laundry (FINALLY - my room was actually starting to smell...gross) and made sugar cookie dough for Christmas day!  We had footy practice at 4:30, which was fun like always.  I never want to actually go, but then when we're done I'm always glad I did.  It could be that the reason it's so fun is that none of us actually know what we're doing, so we're constantly messing up and laughing hysterically about it.  Friday night some of us went to a bar here in Freo called Newport, which we've been to before.  The music was alright, but there were some sketchy people there that night.  We ended up leaving and coming back though, and when we came back we danced right at the front by the band and they played some awesome American rock songs (plus an Australian one that I love), so it was a ton of fun to dance to them.  Then we went to check out this place called The Clink, which was pretty cool because all you can see of it from the street is one door (it looks like a tiny alley), so once you go in it's a huge hall and then you have to go downstairs to get to the actual place.

-Saturday: Christmas day!  We started watching movies around 10, starting with Elf.  Some of the guys actually made cookies/baked yummy things, so we sat around in our PJs watching and eating, which was fantastic.  After Elf was a Christmas episode of Grey's Anatomy, then Secret Santa.  I was surprised how many people decided to do it - 18 of us.  Exchanging the gifts was a ton of fun and some of them were realllly funny.  For my person I got a personalized Spongebob Squarepants sippy cup, and I got a hilarious mug, two decks of cards, and a picture frame with a picture of a bunch of the group.  After that was Muppet Christmas Carol and helping Betsy get ready for the UWA dance, complete with fashion show in her room to vote on which dress she should wear.  Then later we watched Love Actually (ok, I actually watched it twice).  People were baking seriously all day - sugar cookies, egg nog, an attempt at chocolate covered pretzels that resulted in burned chocolate and eventually just trail mix.  And I had cookie dough and icing that I didn't even bake because there was so much other stuff.  For dinner, our cooking group made chicken/stuffing/gravy in a pan with mashed potatoes....it was SO good.  I think Will and Kate, our RS's, think we are insane for getting so into the whole Christmas thing, but whatever, it was fun.  

As far as Notre Dame football goes, we can't watch the games here until 3:30 in the morning since we're 12 hours ahead.  I should really have napped before since I woke up so early, but instead a bunch of us went to a bar here called Sail & Anchor, then to Hungry Jacks, then Jackie and Erin and I played on the playground for a little while :)  To actually watch the game, one of the girls here had her mom point her webcam to the TV so we could watch via Skype, so the quality wasn't exactly stellar.  It was definitely better than nothing, but it made it sort of hard to really focus on.  We all piled in the upstairs common room to watch though, and I ended up falling asleep during half time (and maybe a couple times before...).  I finally went to bed during the 3rd quarter, and when I walked back to my room it was already getting light outside, which was really depressing.  

Saturday was my first home game at ND away from ND, and it was kind of really sad to think about how everyone was there for gameday and we're so far away.  I really miss it.

Anyway, then yesterday I slept in for a looong time, went to the market, mass, etc.  I have nothing due this week (yay!) but I really need to start working on some of these long-term assignments so they don't all pile up at the end of the term.

I guess that's all for now!

<3