Day #5 in California

November 17, 2013 – Sunday

On Sunday morning, we went swing dancing in the park. This was almost as scary as Saturday’s trolley ride but swing dancing was more awkward. Apparently in the park every Sunday, they teach you how to swing dance for the first 45 minutes or so and then it’s just a free-for-all of people asking you to dance for the next two hours. It’s safe to say that I was pretty darn anxious about this because dancing with strangers is definitely not on my top 100 list of fun things to do. Sara loves dancing, though, and she was so excited to bring us. Anyways, it was 90% fun and 10% awkward so it was a success. Definitely some serious awkward moments though. Some of Ed’s friends were there, which was nice, because then there were a few more boys to dance with that weren’t COMPLETELY random. At the end of the morning, the announcer woman then asked who was visiting from out of town. She was like “and please welcome Megan and Laura from Boston!” Apparently Sara gave her our names and then we had to go to the middle of the circle with 8 other visitors and then boys would take turns dancing with us in front of every else! So. Awkward. But I don’t regret it because now it’s funny.

After swing dancing, we had to say bye to Sara because she had to make the drive back to Santa Barbara and beat the traffic. It was sad to say bye to her because it was just a few days ago that we met her in the train station! After she left, Laura and I went to the Butterfly Museum and Plant Conservatory (not sure if this is the real name but there were lots of plants and butterflies). You weren’t allowed to touch the butterflies but we tried our hardest to get them to land on us. Laura thought one landed on her but it was actually a dead one.  

We went out to dinner with Ed and his friends at another Mexican restaurant. I got a quesadilla and it was so good! We also got frozen yogurt after. Ed drove us to the airport and we had plenty of time before our flight at 10:30pm. I’m not sure why I thought that I would have a ton of time to sleep AND do homework on the plane. Unfortunately, neither of us slept very well on the plane and the woman next to me kept bumping my arm while she was knitting. Ugh. We arrived in Boston at 7am where Laura’s brother picked us up! It was such a short trip but so so so worth it. I wish Sara went to Gordon although she’s definitely a California girl and I guess I always have someone to visit in California (because I have so much time and money to go there every weekend, right?). Even though it was short, it seriously felt like the three of us had never been apart and it’s so nice to have a friendship that started in Orvieto but can still continue. It doesn’t feel like our friendship is based on nostalgia or anything that would make it hard to be friends after studying in Italy together. 

Swing dancing with Ed's friend

When they asked all of the "visitors" to raise their hands. Obviously,  I was thrilled.