A Fun Weekend

Well it's been more than a week since my last post, so I suppose it's about time for another. I wanted to write about this past weekend earlier this week, but as you can probably imagine, I've been pretty busy with classes. The main reason I wanted to talk about this weekend was because my friend Aaron came up to visit Saturday through Monday. He had wanted to come up here and see what I was experiencing up here, and this past weekend was really the only possibility this late in the semester. Plus, since he doesn't have classes on MWF, staying the weekend was a good option, so that's what he did.

The original plan was for him to drive the 3.5-4 hours on Friday afternoon, and I would meet him in Lexington, KY, after my last class. Unfortunately the weather didn't cooperate with that plan, and he decided to wait until Saturday morning to make the drive. Apparently there were severe thunderstorms, flood watches, and even tornado watches in the area, so it was probably a good decision to wait. So, we planned on meeting in Lexington around 11:30 in the morning at Chick-fil-A (I was going to get my lunch of course). But, he ran into traffic and construction on the way up here, and I had to wait a little more than half an hour. So, while I was waiting, I traveled to a nearby Meijer store, since I had never been in one. (They have one just a few minutes away from here, and it seems like everyone shops there.) Then he finally got into town and I got my chicken nuggets!

About half an hour later, we headed north (I just turned right back around), which took about an hour and a half. When we got on campus, I got him a parking pass, and showed him around the dorm, my individual room, and the campus in general. The icing on the cake was that it was such a beautiful day, so he was impressed with everything he saw. We walked around a little more, and decided we were hungry again! One of the things he had wanted to do was try Cincinnati chili, and since there is a Skyline restaurant just down the street, we decided to go there. I got a 4-way chili and he got some sort of chili "burrito." Everything was great, and he said it was different than anything he had eaten before, but that it was still really good. So afterwards we went back to campus and just "hung out" for a little while. After "hanging out" we headed to Kenwood Mall, which is the one closest to here. We looked in all the fun stores and walked around some more, but there was no eating this time. Aaron enjoyed all the different stores, many of which we don't have in Knoxville, and several of which reminded him of being back in California. (He and his family are originally from Orange County.) But, we couldn't do the no-eating thing for very long, so we stopped at Graeter's, which I have heard has the best ice cream in Cincinnati. Boy, they weren't lying! I got the chocolate chip cookie dough, and it was some of the best ice cream I've ever had! Then we drove back to campus with our sugar rush, and hung out some more.

After that, we didn't really do too much except talk and watch TV. Later that night we had the "Wendy's from HELL" experience! This particular Wendy's was kind of dirty and full of dirty, drunk people (well, one of the women was drunk as far as we could tell). To top that, when I ordered my chicken sandwich, they were out of lettuce and tomato! My sandwich just had a piece of chicken on a bun, which wasn't as good as it should have been. So, we resolved to get a comment card, which we actually have yet to fill out.

After that, it was time for movies and fun! We watched a movie called "She Devil" with Meryl Streep and Roseanne Barr, which by the way was hilarious, and also Ellen Degeneres' HBO special; we were laughing the entire time! We were up until almost 3:00 AM laughing, watching TV, and more laughing, and we decided that Sunday would be the day to do more "stuff."

Sunday morning came around, and we woke up around 1:00 in the afternoon. We ended up getting lunch at Taco Bell and drove around a little bit after that. Mass was at 7:00, so we watched some TV and "hung out" some more before then. Mass was great that night, full of energy and singing, and even a Confirmation! Afterwards we were pretty hungry, and decided to go somewhere like TGI Friday's for dinner. So, since I really didn't know where it was, I looked on Mapquest and mapped out the directions. Cut to us more than an hour and a half later when we still haven't found the place! After stopping at two different locations and calling directory assistance (and getting three different sets of directions), we found out that the place we were looking for didn't exist... Boy was I angry! I was actually more hungry than anything, so even though we didn't find that particular restaurant, we stopped at a strip mall that had a Donato's Pizza in it, which has some of the best pizza I've ever had. So we stopped in there (this was around 10:00 at night) and waited a surprisingly short 15-20 minutes to get some food. We drove back the 5 miles to campus and ate in the room. It was pretty good pizza, although I'm not sure it was worth a two-hour wait... While we ate our pizza, we watched "The 40-Year-Old Virgin," which was hilarious yet again! While I did some homework for my Monday morning class, Aaron watched some Roseanne on TV, among other things, and that night we went to bed a little bit earlier. I have that 8:30 class, so I didn't want to be groggy all day, obviously.

Monday morning, I got up at the regular time and got to my class on time, while he just slept away. I got back right around 10:30, and we got all his stuff together so he could leave. We watched Ellen's show on TV beforehand, and I explained as best I could how to get home (he doesn't have the best sense of direction). Right around noon we packed up all his stuff and he headed out, while I headed off to my 12:30 class. I called at lunch time and he was still on the road, somewhere in KY that I didn't recognize. But, he got home safely and called me around 5:00 after I was out of class and had settled in a little. All in all, a very fun weekend.

Well, so that ends my weekend update. Coming up this week, the last of my Spring Semester classes (YAY!). Coming up next week, my four final exams. I will be sure to post again sometime soon, hopefully this weekend. Until then, I hope everyone can hang in there until the weekend.