Playing Catch-Up

Hello lovelies. It is October 31st so HAPPY HALLOWEEN!!!

Unfortunately time had gotten the better of me and without further adieu I shall attempt to update the last month of my life.

AUSTIN ADVENTURES

Dinner at Kerbey Lane Cafe

Friday movie night

Shopping trip to The Domain

Dinner at Suzie's

She's such a sweetie :)

Apparently you can take a Segway tour around Austin. Must try!

Tomomi's 21st! お誕生日おめでとう！

Halloween came early to this Japanese restaurant

Amazing HEB cake!

Lady Bird Lake. Must come back to visit during the day. 

GONE TO DALLAS!

Bollywood night!

Downtown in Dallas

Texas State Fair, where you can have ANYTHING fried!

With Sarita's awesome parents who fed us and let us stay at their house.

Goodbye Dallas. Will be back soon.

Only In America...

In the Perry-Castenada Library students are studying intensively for upcoming mid-terms, group assignments, papers or doing the usual homework. Little would you know that just over 2 weeks ago it was home to a major crime scene that caused fear, panic and university lockdown.

It is always one thing to read about a campus shooting in the news and another to actually be in one. 20 minutes into my first class of the day, Japanese, students receive a text message alert from the university.

"Armed subject reported last seen at Perry Castaneda Library on 9/28/2010. Details to follow." 

What?

Oh. 

And then it hit me that someone was carrying a gun in the library across the street. We barricaded the door, turned off the lights, closed the blinds and continued on with class. Then the next text message came. 

"Again, armed subject reported at Perry Castaneda Library. Shelter in place. Stay where you are at. More information to follow." 

The university alarm went off and everyone moved indoors and into shelter. 

Things just got serious. 

All I can say is thank goodness for modern technology. We were able to Facebook, Twitter and listen to radio to find out what was happening. There was a man dressed in black armed with an automatic weapon and shooting on campus who then shot himself on level 6 of the PCL. Then, there were suspicions that there might be a second shooter on campus. There were police, SWAT teams, reporters everywhere and there was even a tank. We were evacuated and the campus was eventually given the "all clear" but classes were cancelled and the university remained sealed off. Luckily nobody was injured or hurt. It was definitely a hectic morning but I'm very impressed by the way the police and university handled the situation. 

Now, two weeks later, everything is normal again thankfully.

Unluckily, another first time has been added to my list.

TEXAS FIGHT!

HOLA! I am currently "studying" finance in this amazing architecture library on campus that makes me feel like I just walked into Hogwarts. Cannot believe I've been in the States for almost 2 months and I have since had many of my first times. First time to an American college football game was crazy. The cheerleaders, the band, and the atmosphere were absolutely awesome. I was completely lost for the first quarter of the game but there are so many rules. Let's just say at least I knew when they scored. It wasn't until after the game that I realised the offensive and defensive teams had entirely different players. The crowd was amazing. The fight song is Texas Fight which comes with all these chants like "T-E-X-A-S TEXASSSSSS FIGHT!" or "Texas fight, Texas fight, make 'em eat sh*t". Baking in the 100 degree heat for 3.5 hours was well worth it because guess what? WE WON!

Eager Longhorn Fans

Snow cone!

Sea of Burnt Orange

102000 dedicated fans

♫ It's a jungle out there. Burnt orange everywhere ♪

We don't actually know the guy behind us but who cares. Go Texas!

Le awesome band

With Wendy!

Stay tuned, more to come in the not very distant future!