Happy Valentine's Day!

Today was an absolutely gorgeous day! The sun was out, and the weather was actually a little warmer than usual - very nice! On Monday, I spent the day working on my paper. I also received an wonderful Valentine's package from my family - People and US Weekly magazines, and Girl Scout cookies! :) Yum! I made some more banana pudding on Monday, and it's all gone now! This morning, I woke up early to turn in my paper, and then my class met to read over a play that we're studying. After class, I ran a few errands, then went to a Valentine's Tea Party at Hannah's house. Hannah is from Seattle, and she invited some girls from school over for tea, scones, and all kinds of yummy cakes. It was so much fun! Hannah even gave us tea cups as party favors...mine is adorable! Ellie, one of the British girls we go to school with, and Marfo had never heard of party favors, so we had to explain the concept to them. It's so funny when you mix a bunch of people from different cultures together in one room...you really learn so much and get totally different perspectives on things. A silly example: Sara, a student from North Carolina, and I were talking about the show "Designing Women," and how they're selling episodes of it on DVD now. Ellie asked us what show we were talking about. Sara explained that it's a show about interior designers living in Atlanta, and it's really funny. Ellie said, "Hmm...that sounds a bit bizarre, really." It's true, though...each culture has their own sense of humor, and sometimes the humor is universal, but other times you have to actually be from the culture to get it. There's a TV show in England called "Little Britain," and it's a little bit like "Saturday Night Live," but the humor appeals to the British society, so sometimes the skits aren't always funny to Americans or other foreigners. After the tea party, Catherine, Marfo, and I went back to our house for a bit, then headed to Pizza Express to meet Natalie and Hannah for our Valentine's Dinner. Although Pizza Express may sound like a fast food pizza restaurant, it's actually very similar to Old Venice. The pizza is amazing! Michelle had booked us a table there, assuming she would be our waitress, but they have a rule that employees of Pizza Express can't wait on their friends or family. But she did get to come chat with us every now and then. We had a delicious three course meal, because Pizza Express was offering a cheap Valentine's Special. We ended up staying and talking for three and a half hours! It was so much fun, though. We talked about all of the different countries we've been to...Hannah's been to Israel, Natalie's been to Japan, Marfo is FROM Greece...so neat! Tomorrow, Catherine, Marfo, and I are heading to London to spend Wednesday and Thursday night. We'll be back on Friday afternoon! I'll post then, hopefully with some fun pictures from our trip. I hope everyone has a wonderful day!