Something in the Movies

This Tuesday was Kyra and my 2 year anniversary! For the day, we planned two activities for us to do, one that was for me and one that was for her (but really they were two things that were fun for both of us). First, we did a Harry Potter Lego set of Hogsmeade from the third movie.

Hogsmeade! We each built one building. It came with a limited edition gold Ron. My favorite part is the snow on the buildings

Honeydukes, the candy store. Kyra's build (her phone is providing magic light here also)

The 3 Broomsticks pub

Then, we went to pick up a cake we had ordered from this girl we saw on TikTok, who makes really pretty cakes. There was a big trend last year of cakes with frogs on them, so for our requested design we asked her to include two of our stuffed animals, a frog (Paolo) and a buche de Noel/yule log (Babbo). The cake also has a quote from one of our favorite poems, "The Orange" by Wendy Cope. It was a very cute and yummy cake! We just finished it yesterday hehe :')

We squished the front a little in transit, but look at them!

The boys, for reference

Finally, we went to a Taiwanese restaurant in Boston called Dolphin Bay. I don't have any pictures of the food unfortunately, but it was scrummy (new word that combines scrumptious and yummy), and afterwards we went to a concert for Samia, a singer Kyra really likes. I would recommend her song "Something in the Movies" for people interested in checking her out. The concert was really good! I also liked the opener, Annie DiRusso. I had never heard of her, but I recognized a few of her songs from TikTok and she was a really good performer. Also, she's our age and said that she just graduated from college last month, so basically we're friends :')

I didn't take many videos at the concert, either, but this one is from "Something in the Movies." There was a pole in front of us but it was still a lot of fun.

All in all, it was a great day!! We've both been really busy this past year, with Kyra finishing med school applications and interviews, plus an upcoming conference, and me finishing college, so it's been nice that we've been able to spend more time together this past month.

On Thursday, I took myself bowling at this place called Sacco's in Somerville. It was candlepin bowling, which I grew up playing. If you haven't played candlepin, basically the pins are completely straight and thin unlike normal bowling pins, the balls are really small (a little bigger than a softball), and you bowl 3 balls per box instead of 2. It's harder than king pin or traditional bowling because the balls are so small, so it's harder to knock down as many pins. Fun fact, no one has ever gotten a perfect score of 300 in candlepin bowling -- the highest anyone has ever gotten is a 245.

I'm nowhere near that good, but recently I've been trying to get more into bowling (candlepin and kingpin), because it was a hobby that brought me a lot of joy as a kid. I decided I want 2022 to be my year of having hobbies and being active. Kyra got me bowling shoes for Christmas and it was my first time trying them out. I definitely was a little rusty, but I played 5 games and by my last game, I had started to get the hang of it again. I got a couple spares and tens and finished with a score of 100, which is the highest I've ever scored in candlepin bowling :') If bowling weren't so expensive, I would go every week (I can rant about how annoying "luxury bowling alleys" are but that's a conversation for another day...), but when you guys are back in America, we should go candlepin bowling some time.

I was the only one there and I felt self-conscious lol. But it's good to be comfortable doing things alone.

Other than that, this week I made spaghetti aglio e olio (garlic and oil). I used too much oil (or really, not enough pasta), but this dish was very yummy and easy. Apparently it is considered a drunk midnight snack in Italy because it is so easy to make. Will def be making more in the future. And there was a huge storm in Massachusetts this weekend -- 2 feet in some places!! The roads here were not shoveled well lol, but it's very nice to see the snow. Wish I could go snowshoeing some place like Aboni. During the storm, Kyra and I marathoned the Harry Potter movies, and I must admit, it made me nostalgic....

Kyra and I braving the snow the next day to get sandwiches -- in retrospect, a bad idea.

That's all for now, stay warm friends! Oh, and my JET interview got postponed because of the snowstorm so I have no updates on that end lol.