Old Friends, New(ish) Cities, and Halloween! (Oh and Thesis Update)

So...two of the items in the post have really nothing to do with each other, but since it took me so long to post this, they are just going to all go in the same post.

Last weekend (not the one that is currently finishing up, but the previous one) I went to Washington DC for the weekend!  I went down because my friend had a conference there and I wanted to go see her.  I hadn't seen her in like 2 years!  Now, this is kind of a big deal because we've known each other since we were 5 years old....that's 19 years!  Crazy, right?  Anyway, I also got to see my other friend who's going to law school there which was also fun.  Somehow I didn't take any pictures with her though.  But anyway, DC was very fun, I got in on Friday, spent Saturday doing some touristy stuff in DC, and left Sunday evening.  On Saturday we walked alll over!  We went to the museum of natural history, the museum of the american indian, and then pretty much walked the length of the mall and looked at the various monuments.

I have a lot of pictures of myself now with the Washington Monument...

19 years of friendship!  Now would you believe I'm actually older than her?
(Ok, by 4 months...but still!)

We had Smores at Cosi hehehe

This was my dinner at the Spanish Tapas restaurant...I miss Spain!

So that was DC.  It was definitely a fun break.

Oh, I promised a Thesis update so I'll do that now.  I successfully turned in the first draft of my thesis to my advisor (yay!) and she sent it back with comments.  So far it is roughly 13 pages double spaced.  I'm going back through it now and reorganizing some of the elements and figuring out what should go where and all of that.  It's looking good though!

On another side note, it snowed here yesterday!  It seems super early for snow, but the weather will do whatever it wants to do I suppose.

Snow!!

Last night I also went to a Halloween party for a little bit thrown by some friends which was fun.  I didn't have a costume because I just didn't bother this year.  I didn't have the time or the energy to organize a costume.  But that's ok.  I ended up just wearing a Halloween shirt I had and went for the "Halloween Chic" look.

I guess that's all for now.  I'll try and update a little bit sooner next time :)  Especially because I have some fun shows coming up I'm planning on seeing!

A Rhode Island Weekend

Yes I know, I should be working on my thesis.  This is what I plan to do starting after I finish this post ^_^ Oh well.  It'll get done, right?...right????

Anyhooserwhatsits,  last weekend I got to go with my friend to see where she grew up in Rhode Island!  It was such a fun and relaxing weekend and now that I'm back I feel rejuvenated and ready to work on my thesis.  (Why does it always seem to come back to my thesis?)

We arrived on the train on Friday morning and left Sunday night.  So it was a quick trip but we managed to cram some awesome adventures in there.  Friday was spent eating (my friend's mom is an awesome cook), visiting my friend's high school and college and going to the mall.  The weird thing about the mall...it's in Massachusetts.  That's right, the better mall is not in the same state!  Oh, the east coast.  Anyway, this mall was huge!  It had 3 floors!!!!!!  Some of you will understand why I am so excited by this.  Yes New York is awesome and I love it here but there's no real mall!  There's just something about a mall thats so amazing.  But I digress.

Part of my friend's high school.  Isn't it a pretty campus?

Inside her high school :)

Dunkin Donuts...the mecca of New England

Saturday we went to Plymouth to see the infamous Plymouth Rock.  It was...small.  Well, not as small as I actually thought it would be.  They also keep it in this vault type cage because people used to be able to chip parts off of it and it got smaller and smaller until they decided they needed to do something to keep it safe.  But as it looked like from my perspective, they clearly had to keep the rock caged up so that it wouldn't escape in the middle of the night and terrorize the villagers.  Plymouth itself is a really cute little beach town.  You can see a recreation of the Mayflower (we didn't go on it but we saw the outside) and there are tons of cute little gift shops.  We also walked on the original street that existed when the pilgrims were here and got a tour of their first church and also toured the court house.  The best part was that the weather was GORGEOUS!  That night we also got to go to a Portuguese restaurant, which was really yummy, but I forgot to take pictures so oh well.

The Mayflower II

Two little gift shops by the Mayflower

Where they keep Plymouth Rock

The Rock!

The rock inside its cage

Famous Pilgrim

My feet

Cool statue that also acts as a sundial

The church at the top of the hill

The old courthouse

They have it set up like it would have been set up when it was still a courthouse
(view from the back)

Courthouse view from the front

Looking down at the original Pilgrim street

Inside the church

The stained glass was really cool

It depicts historical events

There's a cemetery behind the church that has some of the oldest gravestones in the USA 

The oldest gravestone from 1681

View of where the rock is housed again

I just thought it was funny that this restaurant was called Al's

Basically the weekend was really awesome and it really was nice to get out of the city for a few days.  I do enjoy coming home to New York though :)

Dressed up to go to the Portuguese restaurant 

Hanging out before the train ride home

My Weekend

This is how I have spent/will spend the majority of my time this weekend: