The Bend.

After "getting over my hill" from yesterday (which sadly included my laptop hard drive to have a seizure & die last night), I can give a much-needed recap of the weekend's events. Reliveable? Hopefully in the future. Because I thoroughly enjoyed not only seeing the amazing group of people (a majority of them at least) I studied abroad with but also to experience what it was like to bleed blue & gold (No, not you, University of Delaware. Indeed, you are fun, but you are not an experience like ND is. And you don't include amazing people as stated before).

If I could I would spell out every word, laugh, joke, occurrence, and epic moment in this little blog o' mine but I shant. Memories are sometimes not worth blogging about but meant to remember on one's own (mind you, some memories aren't worth remembering either, considering I didn't remember asking my loverly Ginger friend/fellow blogger/one true follower to smack me across the face when I was reaching that point of intoxication).

Our friend Anthony aka DJ Pauly D (who resides in Strong Guyland) accompanied biffle nugget and myself. We left lovely New Rochelle around 10:30pm on Thursday night. But before our road trip commenced, Anthony hit a car. Yeah, like backed up into our neighbor's car. "We haven't even left yet! WE HAVEN'T EVEN LEFT YET!" he screamed as he did this sort of whine as he banged on the steering wheel. It was raining kind of hard...

***SIDENOTE***
Oh ma ga, this really super duper cute RA walked into the student union. I have such a frickin' hey-i-dont-know-you-but-i-like-you crush on him. God, he's dweamy. 

So it was raining pretty hard and I saw that someone next door was standing on the porch outside. But I wasn't sure whether he was facing us or his back was turned. That's how hard the rain was pouring.*
*Like it was earlier that day when I went to practice, which was outside and before we got onto the water it was drizzling and by the time we finished our FIRST trip out there, I was already drenched. Nice. One long-sleeve shirt and Soffe shorts later, and I was pouring rain out of my sneakers. Went home, changed into dry clothes and showed up a minute late to night class. Damn, I did work!

At this point we didn't know what to do, whether we should tell the person on the porch or just book it. "Fuck it, I'm leaving," DJ Pauly D said. Luckily, nothing was done to his car except a little scratch and as for that other person's car (which shouldn't have been blocking our driveway in the first place) was totally fine.

We drove through the night, with Ant taking the first shift from 10:30-2:15ish in the morning. I took us through the rest of Pennsylvania, got flipped off by a trucker in Ohio for having my high beams on (oops!), and shook my head numerous times for my last hour of driving around 6am. Kayla drove the rest of the way and saw the sunrise through Ohio/Indiana. How precious.

We got to our friend Nicky's house around 9:30am. Awesome finish with the road trip on the way there. Our friends said pretty blogger from before and another friend (who oddly resembles Zac Efron abd wears Donnie Osmond-esque jeans) came over and the 6 of us went to the Original Pancake House, which I saw featured on the Food Network for their epic pancake dishes like "The Dutch Baby" (something I did NOT order). I opted for an omelette - that was fucking large and in charge. Woof. I still ate it allll :)

Said Dutch Baby. 

Yeah, we toured that shit. 

Our other friend Ranga Fitz came to visit us at the Pancake House (hung over of course) for a bit. Afterwards, we hung out at Nicky's, played some beer pong, and then were off for our tour of the beautiful ND campus hosted by K-Rob & PBerry. We saw some highlights like the Grotto, dormitories, spiffy Science & Law buildings, the Reflection Pond, the book/merch store, the stadium, and Touchdown Jesus (originally known as The Word of Life but the mosaic is facing the football stadium and looks as if Jesus is saying "Touchdown" with his arms...thanks Wikipedia).

The campus was booful. Stunning. Immaculate. Well, at least compared to our campus that consists of not much: some dorms, a cool building where I have all my MCO classes, and the rest of campus across the street including our "everything" field that many of our sports teams use, our gym, the student union, the Business school, and a parking garage. Yeah, I'd like to say I'm jealous of ND.

After the tour, and learning a lot about the campus and student life - which seems so much more fun than our student life, we went back to our Donnie-Osmond-jean-wearing friend's apartment for a good ol' fashion community dinner. It was great to see everyone again as if it were a Monday or a Wednesday in Port Lodge. But we didn't scarf down appetizers. Just sat around and caught up with everyone. Hell, even the Notre Damers didn't even see much of each other. So it was like we brought them together this past weekend.


After dinner we did that thing where you drink a lot and get funky. Funky in a sense that we were belligerent and laughing heaps. Donnie-Oz-jeans got a bunch of shot glasses. Okay, that's fine. But then he whipped out a bottle Patron. Ahahahahahaha. What? We cheered to the reunion before the debauchery commenced.

Us, not from Notre Dame, learned a new drinking game called Boom, a combination of Beer Pong and Speed Quarters. I hated it at first because I was sucking and Kayla nug kept making me drink more. But after the weekend, I was liking the game. I just have to practice my boom smack because I tend to flick the cups delicately (you have to play the game to understand what I be saying).

Another party at Ranga Fitz's house, kegerator included, spotting Australian footy coach in America AT THE PARTY, and a slice of Papa John's later (thanks, red blogger), Kayla & I hit the hay @ Red blogger's apartment. We woke up around 8ish to begin more debaucherous activities.

Papa Smurfs. 

Showered, sobered up, got these cool blue drinks called Papa Smurf's at a nearby watering hole, and went back to Nicky's for Kegs n' Eggs (& Eggos). These drinks were intriguing. So blue, yet so potent. No one knows what's in them except the little marashino cherry that eventually sinks to the bottom, forcing the drinkers of said drink to have a slight freak out sesh before realizing no one stole the fucking thing and that it is sitting at the bottom of the drink. Another excuse to finish the 16 oz. power house of a drink.



It took me a while to finish. Props to the biffle nugget who finished hers way before I did mine and THEN on top of that played more Boom, got owned by ND "domers" (usage correct?) while playing, and successfully completed a beer bong. Good on ya, nugget. And she didn't even get sick. Double props.

Tailgate soon after with K-Rob and her Papa in the library parking lot. The fact that ND can tailgate in their library's parking lot is sauce. Fun sauce. I abstained from shotgunning beer but socialized with fellow study abroaders, got my face licked by Ranga Fitz who earlier dragged his sticky lollipop across my face and proceeded to clean the stickiness with his tongue. He sure is Clifford the Big Red Dog. Saw a drunk alumni who actually was in Freo while we were there as well. He did the study abroad program years prior in Oz and often showed up community dinners. He offered me a Coors and then I forget what he said to me but we were both having fun to say the least.

ND owning Western Michigan. Final Score 44-17?

Football time. We get into the student section and go off in different sub-group bubbles occasionally seeing each other in the crowds. I got push-upped (Red blogger and our friends Sierra & Erin are who I sat with and they said I had to experience being pushed up). Every time ND scores a touchdown, whatever number the score is, is how many pushups they do...to a person. Picture yourself crowd-surfing but you're body is being pushed up in the air numerous times. I was confuzzled at first because they didn't tell me what they were doing to me until I was up in the air being pushed up twenty times. IT WAS SO MUCH FUCKING FUN!


Blogger, Sierra, & I thought we saw Kayla down below. Sierra had skittles so we proceeded to toss them at who we thought was Kayla ("Yeah, it's her. I can see her roots," I said). Blogger had great aim, hitting her head 3 times. On the third time the girl who we thought was Kayla turned around confused. "It's not her!" Blogger and I scream. I duck, Blogger laughs herself to a sit down on the bench and Sierra stands there trying not to laugh and look like she was a culprit. Still it was a fun game to play.

Blogger & I sobered up and left shortly after half time ended. We met up with our Portland friend & Kayla. Went to get grub (Kayla & I got bangin' ass Bloody Mary's that were frickin' cheap. Yum). Chinese food (that shoulda been to-go considering we were being rushed out by the proprieters) with the crew after the gamed ended, a power nap at Blogger's house, then some more game's at Nicky's.

The crew was slowly dying after the long, intensive day of drinking and tailgating and game-watching. Some goodbyes to peeps we weren't going to see the next day when we left was uber sad. Saying goodbye to Blogger & Sierra was really sad considering I feel that out of the biddies we saw, they truly understand my humor and can tolerate me...for now. Saying goodbye in the first place was something I was not looking forward to.

Campfire & cornhole at Stevie Wonderful's casa then beddie bed time at Nicky's. We finally got a taste of Studebagel's the next morning before trekking back to the east coast. I talked music with DJ Pauly D while our child Kayla sat in the back and napped/read from her e-Reader (trendy nerd). I truly enjoyed this past weekend and have even gone as far to admit that it was by far the best weekend of this semester. For me at least. It'll be hard to beat. Seeing this amazing group of people was so great. Like I don't even know how else to describe how frickin' awesome it was to see them. DJ Pauly D said on the ride back that we've kinda turned into this sort of family even though we only knew each other for an unforgettable four and a half months. He's absolutely right. I plan on seeing these amazing people in the future. And I'm sure I'll blog about them as well.

I LOVE YOU ND.
I LOVE YOU STUDY ABROADERS!

I gotsa get a taste of this place called The Feve next time I go. But I have to find my moral compass first. I left that somewhere in the NYC. But who needs one of those in South Bend?