it's study time, alas

well, my nicole has started her trek back to kansas. we had a great time while she was here! on wednesday (after philadelphia with the huge traffic jam), we decided to go to the movie 'finding neverland'. we both really enjoyed it and cried sufficiently. yesterday, we stayed around princeton and i showed her some sites. we went to the university and i didn't really know how to give the tour because i don't know which buildings are which. so, it was basically "here's the book store, here's a pretty building, here's the famous tigers, another pretty building, the chapel, pretty building, etc." it was kinda funny when we had an argument about where 'a beautiful mind' was filmed. i won, of course. then we ate at the annex restaurant. it was good. very nice establishment (fancier than i thought it would be) with very reasonable prices. next we went shopping downtown. highlights = landau's, lindt chocolate, the papery, and halo pub. finally, went to the tba and got some princeton seminary merch. all this in the stinking rain!! then, because nicole has fallen in love with dsw, we made a mad dash there. we seriously had about seven minutes to look around before we had to leave. that's okay. seven minutes is long enough to find the coolest zebra stocking hat in the world! not to hard to convince nicole to get that one!

we went to the russian orthodox church in rahway for a christmas eve service (some orthodox churches are on a different calendar than other christians so christmas is thirteen days later). we had a traditional russian christmas eve meal first. lots of horseradish, cabbage, and fish. but there were some manageably palatable items! had my first taste of garlic and honey. no matter what, garlic is always going to overpower honey . . . just so you know! the service at the church was very good. i was glad that there was more sitting than the last time i went because i was dumb and wore boots with a heel that hurt the heckfire out of my feet. on our way back from rahway, there was another traffic jam. we decided that nicole brings rain and traffic jams! to finish out the evening, we went downstairs to have some hot chocolate and schnapps and watch 'almost famous'. good times, good times.

today, i took her to the airport. luckily, we were able to stop at mcdonald's for breakfast. love mcdonald's breakfast!! made it there with no traffic jams or rain, thank goodness. now she is either in atlanta eating ben and jerry's or on her way from there to icy wichita. i must study now for my scary old testament final. study all day. study all night. hopefully manage better than i did on the midterm. if you are in princeton, please help me not to get distracted, if possible, i know that is an insanely huge task;)

(p.s. lots of links on this post because linking is a great way to procrastinate once the blog entry is finished!)