Birthdays and Movies

The last two weekends have been reasons to celebrate. Christina celebrated her birthday followed by Aurelija celebrating hers. It makes me sad that my birthday was at the very beginning of my exchange when the Erasmus community hadn't really formed yet, but it was great to see so many people coming out to celebrate with these girls. For Christina's we had a nice bbq before spending the evening at the Rasmus Rask Music House (a room you can reserve for parties). For Aurelija's we met at the music house in the evening where her and the other girls had prepared a table full of hors d'oeuvres. They even did a traditional chair lift with her on it! Both parties were wonderful. I've been here for 4 months which in reality isn't that much time. And I've only been friends with these girls for a smidge over a month. But it feels like it's been so much longer and it's going to be painful to leave. But like I wrote in Aurelija's guest book: "It's not goodbye, it's see you later!" Which, in her case, is actually true because she is coming to Iowa/Minnesota again for a few months to work. If at all possible I am going to visit her at a carnival and eat some delicious funnel cake with her! Can't wait! Hopefully she can visit Ames, too, so I can show her how beautiful and how different my University is from SDU and many of the other European universities I have seen. (Our campus is big and spread out over many many buildings with plenty of space between them whereas many of the universities here are smaller and more concentrated on one mega-building with some auxiliary buildings)

The birthday girl Aurelija and her "family" :D 

 

Getting a kiss from the birthday girl! I may not look like it, but trust me, I'm happy ;D

And Saturday I had a movie/pizza marathon with Christina and Julie. We bought a lot more ingredients than we needed, but it was great! We watched Crazy, Stupid, Love first because Christina hadn't seen it yet. I had forgotten just how good it was and how it could make you laugh one second and almost cry the next. Also: The Gosling. He is perfect. After that we watched Iron Man because again, Christina has apparently never seen a movie in her life. I love that movie, it stars Robert Downey Jr. as himself. Then we watched Iron Man 2 because somehow I hadn't seen it. Oh, did I mention that I never knew Coulson was in ALL of the Avenger movies? Seriously? But the way that they tied them all together is amazing. Whoever the brain was that said "ok, let's make several different superhero franchises with some of the biggest actors in Hollywood and tie them all together and make them awesome enough for comic book fans and mainstream enough for a general audience" deserves a high five. Why can't DC do this? Why are their movies not as good? (excepting Batman. They NAILED that). But anyway, we made one pizza and divided it into three and said "Aw, this isn't big enough. Let's start the dough to make another" (oh yeah, we made it from scratch. homemade dough, sauce, fresh toppings, etc). But then we ate it and realized that we definitely didn't need another. Overall it was a good night!

I just had my second exam today! I got a 12 on it, the highest score. It was "project work" and was super easy, but still. I am happy! I am finished with exams next Friday, then I travel a bit (I purchased some of my tickets already! I'll give you all the details next post), then I come home July 13. Too soon. But until then I will continue to make the most of it! Thanks for reading :-)

mmmm homemade pizza. The "meat only" section was mine haha