Anitha's visit

*anitha and me in dc!*

Last week Anitha (from my EMCL program) came to visit me (and another friend) in DC! It was the first time we've seen each other since our courses ended in July, and we were very happy to see each other, even though it was only for a couple of days. We had a nice time hanging out, eating, walking through DC and chatting. Anitha invited me to have lunch with a friend of hers, Mukta, and another friendship was born! Julian and Anitha finally met, although they didn't get to spend much time together. Next time, since Anitha is living in Philadelphia for awhile. We're planning to visit her something this spring :) Here are some pictures from our time together:

*after a delicious lunch-- mukta, anitha, me*


*anitha, me and Julian*

*anitha in front of the white house*

*anitha and the national christmas tree*

*anitha and the washington monument*

*anitha and the capitol building*

My thesis is complete!

Woohoo!! My thesis has been officially accepted and I received a good score, so I'm happy :) Finally, the days and days of reading, studying, analyzing and writing are over! Now I just have to mail the bound copies and wait for my diploma in the mail. It's strange to not have any more corrections, any more articles or statistical tests to run. But I think somehow I'll manage to go on with my days!
The job hunt is still on... but I'm supposed to hear back from one place today, so we'll see how it goes..... please pray for a job for me!

Even while working on my thesis, I was able to make room for a lot of fun events and friends! Here's a sample of photos:


Our friend Corrie celebrated her birthday with lots of salsa:

*julian and corrie dancing at her birthday party!*

*with good friends (herber, zuzi) at corrie's birthday party*

We went to NYC for Thanksgiving weekend to visit my friend Olga and to go to the Macy's Thanksgiving Parade:

*with kermit, Macy's parade*

*thanksgiving day in central park*

*eating hot dogs with our lovely hostess in central park*

*radio city music hall!*

Then Leah Vincent came to visit:

*leah's stepmom designs the national tree, so i was luckily invited to the white house tree lighting ceremony-- here with leah in front of the ohio tree*

*all lit up*

*with leah v*

With SonMas, our salsa rueda group:

*julian, zuzi, me, sarah, mein!*

I was a wise man in a live nativity:

*live nativity*

*julian gaining some wisdom from the wise "men"*

*all the animals were christmas-y*

*Residency*

Yesterday we had an interview with the USCIS (US Customs and Immigration Services) in order for them to check if our marriage is legitimate. We brought all of our forms, pictures, letters, bank statements, etc. as proof, but our Immigration Officer didn't need to see much of it. She asked us random questions, such as Julian's mom's name and birthday. Then she asked how we met and why we wanted to marry each other. She was very friendly and funny and approved our case without any hassle. Julian is now a resident! SO, the looong and sometimes stressful paperwork process is over (for two years)!!!

In other news:
9 days left for my thesis......... It's going to be tight......

Happy Halloween!

Happy Halloween!

On Tuesday night we went to a salsa club for a Halloween party dressed as Neo from the Matrix and a fairy. It was fun to see all of the costumes (Sarah Palin won) but it was difficult to dance because of all of the people and because of my fairy wings which kept hitting people... But it was a nice time anyway.



On Friday we were going to go out to another Halloween salsa event, but we were running late and after we missed the free entrance time, we decided to go out for milkshakes instead. That night we were the Matrix couple-- Neo and Trinity.





On Saturday we went with some friends from church to a corn maze. We split into teams and raced through, trying to find all of the clues to a puzzle in order to win! Unfortunately, it was a really difficult maze and Julian's team was the only one that found all of the clues. The other teams gave up after 2 hours of searching in corn. Afterwards we went to church, then to a friend's house for chilli and Catch phrase.






It's been a nice weekend :)

Happy Birthday Julian!!

HAPPY BIRTHDAY MI AMOR

Last week was Julian's birthday (32!! the opposite from my age!)-- on October 23/24. Yes, he has two dates, ask him sometime-- it's a fun story :)

On the 23rd we went out for dinner with our wonderful roommate Nereida and her parents, who are here visiting from Puerto Rico, and then did a little shopping. We had a really nice time together: Nereida's dad especially loved the chicken at the restaurant and would eat nothing else, and Nereida's mom (who is lactose intolerant) enjoyed a BIG bowl of lactose free ice cream!

On Friday we went out for dinner with friends to a restaurant called Caribbean Breeze which also has dancing later in the night. The food was good, and Julian was surprised with a birthday dessert. We were lucky to have the dance floor to ourselves (mainly because it was sticky...) and got to dance salsa rueda. Unfortunately, the DJ had a very large mix of genres, so there was a lot of 80s dancing, the electric slide and so on in addition to the Latin dancing that we had been
looking forward to.

*at dinner: Sarah, Herber, Corrie, Julian, me*

*Sarah, Julian, Herber*


*me, Jannett, Julian, Mustaq*

*excited*

*mmm cake!*

*the men: DeMonta, Herber, Julian, Mein, Mustaq (everyone is from a different country-- I love it)*


*the ladies (minus Jannett): Sarah, me, Zuzi, Corrie*

All in all it was a great time to spend with friends!! Happy Birthday Julian!

October in DC

This month has been full of working on my thesis, searching for jobs, a little wedding planning here and there, and a lot of fun. Although I really enjoyed living in Europe and traveling over the last year, it's nice to put away the suitcases and not buy plane tickets every three months.

Mom and Dad came to visit earlier this month, and although their trip was short, it was filled with a lot of nice memories. Mom and I went wedding dress shopping and bought a beautiful dress, we walked around the national mall, saw the WWII memorial, walked along the river basin, went to a live butterfly exhibit, ate at Union Station, etc. It was a fun-filled weekend!

*eating dinner at their hotel (Julian and I cooked)*

Last weekend Julian and I went hiking with a couple from Peru, Gio and Carlos. Julian knew them at Ohio University and they've been really wonderful friends here in DC. We spent a beautiful Sunday afternoon at Great Falls National Park: