After my morning class we decided to spend half the day Christmas shopping at Ala Moana, instead of letting me get on with my work. Despite not actually buying anything (except a green flower hair clip, which is for me, which I wanted because it is pretty and because Monday - tomorrow/today - is the 109th anniversary of Oscar Wilde's death and I wanted to wear a green carnation and geek out over Wilde stuff with my British Literature teacher), it was a lot of fun! Discovered an amazing kitchen shop called Williams-Sonoma - insanely expensive, but still cool. There were pots for over $1100. Toasters for over $300. A one-serving-size jar of carbonara sauce for $17. We lusted thereover, meandered for a while, and then watched a high-school band that had travelled all the way from Arizona just to play in a mall in Oahu. Tom giggled about how many guys had probably joined the band just to ogle the female singer, and I was impressed by the male singer's voice.
Thanksgiving Thursday
Okay, so I got drunk. Of course. I hiccupped. A lot. Maybe for up to an hour. And it hurt, and no one cared! But still, I cooked with Eliza, and the food was great, and sorry that there aren't any photos of the actual meal properly cooked. That was probably me drunkenly forgetting.
Turkey!
Mashed potatoes and stuffing under foil.
Many many pictures of Tom and Will sitting like this have been taken.
I'm very sorry for the red face - Will & Eliza's apartment is always boiling hot, and having the oven on half the day didn't help.
Pumpkin pie!
Sadly unappetizing parsnips.
Black Friday
Something to do with the beginning of the Christmas sales, but the day after Thanksgiving is known as 'Black Friday.' It sounds kind of ominous - and it was. I got up early, talked to my parents, went back to sleep and woke up about 1pm terribly hungover. I crouched to avoid the Hangover Hat but it still got me. Anyway, I recovered towards the evening and we went out to have a drink at Duke's Barefoot Bar on the beach at sunset - virgin daiquiri for me and Orange Cream soda for Tom, both of which were unusual but great for people not yet old enough to buy alcohol - which was lovely. Then we watched the Christmas Parade down Kalakaua (that's what all the really blurry photos are of, sorry!), which was crazy, and then we walked to the Hilton to watch the weekly fireworks display. It was such a lovely evening, and the fireworks were astounding!
Fire-baton-twirlers.
The tinsel covering the instruments amused me.
As did the fairy lights.
A maverick reindeer/motorcyclist pulling along a very scared-looking Santa Claus and whizzing about all over the place, ignoring what the rest of the parade was doing.
And again...
And again.
Roller skaters.
Saturday
After a day of not-much-work-or-anything-else-either-really, we went for the 7pm dancing Christmas tree show at Ala Moana. My GOD, what a disappointment! The trees don't even spin - their lights flash. And the lights were too bright and hurt my poor sensitive eyes. I took some photos but after a while we got embarrassed (the only other adults there had small children) and wandered off. The as-seen-on-TV shop was quite entertaining, though.
Sunday
Then it was today! I had a panic attack around 3am and got up to do some work - we've realized that there are only two weeks of class left and crazy amounts of stuff to do. I have 3 take-home exams, 3 long research papers (although I did one today! Yeah!), 1 major presentation, 1 minor presentation, a 10-question assigment, 2 journals and 3 reading responses; Tom has 4 essays, 1 presentation, and 3 exams in the next three weeks. Obviously I got to sleep late and then got up early to do more work (Tom lay in bed - hands up who's surprised!), and as I have mentioned I completed one of my essays, and made a significant dent in another. We went down to the sea and it rained, yet again, as we got there. The rain has been on and off for the last 24 hours and we've been quite shocked by it! There's a REALLY shallow part of the sea about 60 yards from the beach, which we went to for the first time. It's quite funny to have the sea barely lapping around your ankles while you watch people closer to shore properly submerged. When we came home, Tom made a WONDERFUL roast beef meal (ooh, with homemade Yorkshire puddings - below there is a picture of a Tower of Yorkshires), then I washed up, and that brings us to about now. Phew. Bedtime now, I think. Goodnight!
