2 weeks left ...

Wednesday was rugby day as usual. Actually, it was my last match ever with the Newcastle University 2nd team. We traveled about 3 hours by coach to Bradford to play in the nasty, cold, cloudy, misty weather. But we have such a great time on the bus that time passes quickly. Just the 18 2nd girls had the whole bus to ourselves, so it made for great chit chat and fun. I played the entire 80 minutes as usual at hooker. No, no one stepped on my dead leg, but the other one got pretty banged up. And a slight knock to the head put me on the ground for a bit, but I kept playing. No biggie. I swear I had the best game so far, and I gained a whole lot of ground in the penalties just taking the ball into contact and driving through the opposing front lines. Sure I got bashed a bit, but if you gain 20 meters for the team it's worth it. And ... I got "Forward of the Match" again. What a great way to close out the year. I might not get to play rugby again here, unless I get called up to the 1st team for their home match next week. We'll see what happens. All the girls were really sad to see me go, and we lamented on the bus for a little bit, only to cheer up and go out as usual. The theme this week was Pink. We all actually got huge matching pink T-shirts, which I promptly sliced up on the bus and wore as a dress with leggings and a cute polka-dot belt from Rome. Adorable. Sure, rugby girls are hard-core, but we sure do know how to clean up well! Put 18 girls, pink clothes, and drinks on a 3 hour bus ride and you got yourself a proper party. We met the 1st team girls out on the town when we got back, and it was great to have all of us together again. I'm just as close with the 1st girls as the 2nds, which makes everything so much fun. I think the friends I've made on the rugby team and the travels we have together will be the part I miss the most about England.

This Thursday brought a whole busy day of seminars and lectures as usual. Nothing too exciting at all, really. I then spent half the evening writing a huge archaeology essay (which happened to be due Friday by 4pm ... plenty of time, right? Hey, last time I did an archaeology project at 3am I ended up with a 97/100. Not bad at all. I work best under pressure. Plus, I can't spend all the prime social hours being studious!). Since my paper was almost done anyway, I went out with my flatmates to the infamous BluBambu. It's been sooooo long since all the flatmates went out together as a group and not separated on different sports and club pub crawls. We had a great time, plus Lauri and I can get everyone in for free since we're both on sports teams sponsored by BluBambu. Great night of Newcastle craziness.

And that just brings us to today ... I got up early to finish the archaeology paper and *shock* turned it in 2 hours before the deadline. I finally got all my muddy rugby gear washed (last loads of expensive laundry I'll do here) and just sat around icing my bruises all day. We're having just a chill pizza and movie night in hosted by my flat tonight since we're all dead from the week of shenanigans. Tomorrow I've decided to hop on the train to York, explore the town and go Christmas shopping. Then on Sunday I'll be a tourist and take pictures of Newcastle. O yeah, maybe I should work on my essays and biochemistry before exams this coming week. Plenty of time for that later. I'm just trying to squish everything I wanted to do into the last 2 weeks here. I'm really going to miss this place ... in 2 weeks, I'll be home. Weird.