Last Night in St Joseph, Minnesota



                                         

                                         We can dance if we want to

 

In my last post I didn’t talk about my last night! This is because there were so many photos I felt it needed its own post!

It was my last day in Minnesota. Kathy felt like cake. My Pulitzer prize is in the mail for this fantastic writing haha okay, Kathy felt like cake so we went down to the local coffee shop for coffee and cake. The ‘Local Blend’ turned out a treat with yummy coffees and yummy cakes and a surprisingly good food and wine menu! That night’s proceedings were decided upon.

The evening began with skyping Erin! Splendid start.

We then showered and dressed in our finest and had some pre drinks with Lauren and Jake.

                                       

After pres we headed to the Local Blend where it was open mic night and we had a bottle of wine. Dreams of having some food as well were dashed when they told us their kitchen had closed!

                              

After our bottle of wine and some fine local talent, we decided to go to Sal’s, the local pub where we had previously gone for Thirsty Thursday. Tuesday night was buy one drink and get the second for $1. That day Kathy had joked that wouldn’t it be funny if we were the only ones there, us and Sal, the owner. Apparently Sal’s doesn’t go off on a Tuesday night. We were the only ones there. There literally would have been an empty bar if we weren’t there. We had a great time nonetheless! We got to choose our songs from the jukebox and have two drinks at a time for $4.50.

After our night, we went home and ate food and watched Gilmore Girls.



There was a spaghetti incident where Lauren was holding both the pot and the strainer as the spaghetti made its way down the drain

Young Katherine's face is a sign of the pain the following day would have in store. Kristin and Brenna were nice enough to welcome us home.

The next day I bid farewell to the gang and caught my bus to the airport.

Lazy Days

 

Hotties

St Ben’s has definitely been the “holiday” part of this trip. I have watched a lot of tv and spent many hours on my laptop. During my time here, this blog has given me a reason for existence but I love it that way.  This post has no exciting stories haha, it is simply detailing just how lazy my days spent here were.

Tuesday – started watching the Kardashians at 12pm. Episodes just kept going until 5.30pm. I also went to the bookstore and bought some chocolate and chips.

Wednesday – watched more tv shows, took out the trash, returned a DVD and bought milk.

Thursday – read my book at St John’s (the boy’s university where Kathy has some classes) while enjoying a caramel mocha and rice krispy (LCM) and caught an ice hockey game!




Thursday was also my favourite night out as we went to the local pub for Thirsty Thursday which is all you can drink for $6. You read correctly. Good times had by all, unwelcome hangovers the next day.

Friday – On Friday we took the hour drive into St Paul (the capital). We saw another college called St Thomas. The campus was much bigger than St Ben’s (Kathy’s college) and their apartments were also a lot roomier! We spent the weekend here and not that much actually happened. I tried Chipotle for the first time, we went to Macy’s and we also spent an hour on the wrong bus going in the wrong direction and had to wait until it looped around again.

Roadtrip!

Kathy and I doing the Mamma Mia video clip

Monday – went to Subway with Kathy and had a picnic in front of the “Welcome to St Joseph” sign. We also did our laundry together.

Me: Should we separate our whites from darks?

Kathy: I don’t usually.

Me: Have you had any incidents?

Kathy: No

Me: What about that white blanket that went yellow?

Kathy: Okay one incident.

All in all, it’s been the perfect holiday life and I’ve had a very relaxing time. And everyone keeps waiting for me to be bored, but I’m not! Reading and watching tv and facebooking have kept me very busy and I have eaten my weight in chocolate and nachos and Snickers ice creams (delicious). Thanks to Cassie, Kristin and Kelsey for letting me spend a week and a half on their only couch, and to everyone that made me feel welcome in St Ben’s! I really did have a fabulous time and will miss you all!

Kathy's Krib

                  
 So on Sunday we flew out of San Francisco and to Minneapolis. We caught the train to the airport and not knowing that it was a bit of a far trip, we missed luggage check in by five minutes. FIVE MINUTES people! After trying, with no luck, to get the lady to let us check my suitcase in anyway, she informed us that it can’t go on a later flight as I have to fly with my baggage and SO we weren’t allowed on our initial flight but there was another leaving four hours later and the lady could transfer us to that flight but it only opened for us three hours before the flight SO we had to just sit and wait for an hour. And this is before security and getting to the gates so it was just us and chairs right near the Delta Airlines desk with that lady standing behind it knowing that we're waiting for 1.30pm. So anyway, we finally got the new tickets but the main problem was that on our old flight, we got into Minneapolis 8.30pm and caught the shuttle to Kathy's campus (a little over an hour away) but with this new flight we got in at 11.30pm and no shuttles run until 7am. We were looking at spending the night at the airport : ( but thank goodness, when we flew in, one of Kathy's roommates had been in the city during the day and she had stayed behind and waited for our flight so we had a lift home! Thank goodness although I have had experience sleeping on the floor of LAX airport and that was good except I would keep waking up and thinking, oh dear have I missed my flight yet?! And on the flight to Vegas from LAX I fell asleep before the safety announcement and woke up as we were flying in.



Kathy and her housemates as pictures on their front door.
It goes Cassandra, Kristin, Kelsey and Katherine



So we got to campus just after 1am and went to bed. The next day, Kathy showed me around the campus. There is a bookstore which sells some groceries, stationary and, you guessed it, books. Just outside the campus there’s a coffee shop, Subway, liquor store (selling $35 1L Grey Goose Vodka) and a petrol station where I tried a Twix ice cream! Very good. There was also a Snickers ice cream which I will try another day.



Kathy and Kristin's bedroom

 



That night, we went to the Gorecki for dinner. It’s the cafeteria on campus and it’s literally right across the road from Kathy’s apartment. Good stuff. So anyway, this place is like a giant buffet and I was thoroughly impressed! Food being served included pizza, stir fry, pasta, carvery, burgers, chips, cakes, cookies, salad, toast, cereal, sandwiches, garlic bread etc. And drinks! Water, soft drinks, milk, chocolate milk, tea, coffee, this place is insane! Kathy and I took some containers and big bags and Kathy taught me how to grab some food for later. This pretty much means grabbing extra food and placing it in your containers when seated at the table. For those of you who know Kathy, she hasn’t changed a smidgen from Australia. Her favourite things to ‘stock up’ on are pizza and chips (which she loves reheated).

Kathy's building is the one on the right and that's the cafeteria on the left.

Anyway, after dinner we went to the library which is part of the same building and we borrowed ‘The Hangover’! I also got to meet the girls in the apartment across the hall and then we watched the movie, which was fantastic given that now we recognised places and could relate to the Vegas experience! Great first day, looking forward to the next week and a half!

These are just a couple of pictures of where Kathy's living for those of you interested!

The lounge next to Kathy's apartment - used for skyping or homework

 

The laundry where Kathy washes her unmentionables




Kathy signed up and ready to do some laundry


 

"Welcome home Kathy!" on the whiteboard!




The stairs Kathy uses to get to the outside world




Girgen - Kathy's building!