So last weekend was quite eventful. After I arrived home from Paris I went through my week as normal. Charles' birthday was the 25th, and he turned 18.. A real adult. I got him the Great Gatsby from Shakespeare & Co. (Signed, stamped, delivered.... Jk only stamped and delivered), and a Starbucks gift card because he REALLY likes hot chocolate. Nothing else except a lot of work happened that week, except, oh yeah... I GOT AN A- ON MY GRADUATE INSTITUTE MIDTERM..... What?! I'm in undergrad! Anyway... Cool. Yes. So. Week as usual up until Thursday aka Thanksgiving. Thursday evening, we all got dressed to the 9's and set out in search of the HOTEL that Smith had RENTED OUT A DINING HALL in for us.... It was a hotel called "The Richmond" and it was SUPER classy with some guy in a cape and top hat to greet people. A real doorman... So fayancy. We get in and there are BEAUTIFUL and totally elegant Christmas decorations, warm lighting, couches and carpets. We all got served great tasting red and white wine as we casually all lounged in the waiting room that consisted of tables with hors d'oeuvres, couches and a grand piano. Everyone was fabulous. We fit the bill that night. Then we headed in to our rented room that had a sign for "smith college thanksgiving" omg so cute. Naturally we all took pictures of it. And each other. And the food. And the bathroom (yes, the bathroom I swear it was nicer than my bedroom with l'occitane lotion and soap and a couch). We got in there and sat at the two huge tables. There were swan napkins in the wine glasses. Naturally we snapped a ton of pics and were all feeling pretty tipsy at that point (keep the wine coming). The starters were great. There was some sort of DELECTABLE pumpkin and squash soup with hazelnut something, some chicken thing, bread, and salad. And wine. For dinner, the chef (in his giant chef hat) came in and posed with the turkey before carving it for us. And wine. We had turkey, the YUMMIEST mushroom risotto I've ever had (have I ever actually even had that?..), potato gratin, and Brussel sprouts. And wine. For dessert there were mini pumpkin and chocolate tarts. Delicious, but after expecting a hearty pumpkin pie, a bit disappointing. And wine.

After this, a few of us went to a bar with one of my friends who was going to meet with her gender studies friends. I don't know why, but I decided Jameson was a great idea. So you know, that's never a great idea. Ew. At midnight, we all sang happy birthday to her and she got a free beer. Woo!

This brings us to Friday, her birthday. We had planned a party to which her roommates, us (the smithies), her roommates friends and Charles would be going to. My other friend and I made plans to bake her a fig cake since she is allergic to nuts and she LOVES figs. Charles came and helped us, as did the one guy on our program. I let Charles do pretty much everything (with mine and my friends supervision) since he'd never baked anything and really wanted to be involved. He was terrified of cracking the eggs, so we each did one and it was fine, if not a bit messy. It was quite comical to see all of us attempting to bake together since the smithies (including the guy) are fabtastic and simultaneously all had our sassy pants on. The guy kept trying to take over and we were having disputes over the best ways in which to do pretty much in around near and about the cake. It was hilarious. I'm sure Charles was a bit (and by that I mean a LOT) frightened. In the end, though, after adding WAY too much rum to Carmelize the figs and having to add a crap ton more honey and water to ensure people weren't taking a shot with every single bite, the cake was a huge success. The party was great and the cake was gone in about 10 min. Charles finally got to meet all my English speaking friends, and we even got him to dance for a hot second. The rest of the night was great, filled with dancing and laughing, and ended around midnight for me, since I had to get up to do all of my work on Saturday, because I'd be going to Gruyères on Sunday. That, though, needs its own post.