Done and over with…

And your little dog...


Told you they had fun


The Emerald City

This is a post that should have gone up on Friday of last week, but I simply didn’t have time. Now that I do have some time I don’t have any internet access so I am writing this in Word and will post it ASAP along with the relevant pictures. Chances are also good there will be an update post shortly following this one.

Finals are done and as usual I am just glad to have them over with. It will be a month or so before I get my results back and know how I did. For both classes there is a non-mandatory curve on which the grading will be done. That means that they will curve grades up if everyone did poorly, but they will not curve grades down. The reason for this is the class size was so small (11 people) that curving grades down would be unfair especially since we may have all done well.

Even more interesting than the fact that my finals are done with is what I did after my finals. Finals were over with by noon and by three I was in a bar drinking with about half a dozen people from the program and the hostel. After a handful of drinks I decided to head back to the Hostel to grab a bite to eat at Rockys with Emily and our Italian friend Laurie. As usual the pizza was outstanding and I took a picture of the place to remind me of how good it was.

After the pizza I went back to the hostel to meet up with Liz, Devon (guy from the program), and Peter (works at the hostel). From there we went out to the Imperial Hotel (a gay bar) where we watched a drag show version of the Wizard of Oz. It was a 4 “man” show and I have to say I have never seen 4 people enjoy themselves so much.

The funny part about it, to me, was that if you had told me one week prior that after finals I would be sitting in a gay bar with a beautiful girl watching a bunch of gay guys run around in dresses, I would have told you that you were nuts. Another part that I liked about going to the show was it let me know I am still attractive, because I got hit on more than once. The only question is how am I supposed to respond to a gay man saying “hey cowboy”. I guess it doesn’t really matter since I don’t swing that way.

Halfway through the show we were joined by my cousin Hidde. He enjoyed the show just as much as I did and insisted on taking us up to Kings Cross after the show for more drinks. Kings Cross is the home of the seedy strip bar. We ended up hanging out there till almost 4AM. From there Liz and I went back to the hostel.

I was still up at 6AM to help Emily take her bags upstairs so she could catch her shuttle to the airport. I was also still up at 7AM to say goodbye to Devon when he left for the airport. Thankfully not everyone left so soon after the program ended because it gave me a chance to say goodbye to the handful of people who figured that they should take advantage of the fact that they were here and stay a bit longer.

Also included below are pictures of people from my program. I realized the day before the program was scheduled to end that I hadn’t taken any pictures of the people I had been spending the past month and a half with. They are a great bunch of people who I will definitely try to stay in touch with. It may be made a little easier by the fact that most of them are in North Cacalaca (North Carolina) which is a bike ride away from NYC. I hope to be able to go down and pay them a visit my first free weekend after classes start back up.

My next post will be all about the four days Liz and I are spending up here in the Gold Coast. Until then…