Dinners

After we returned from the Philippines it was time to “focus” and to have the best last two weeks possible – which was kind of difficult to do all at the same time.

Big Dinner

We wanted to plan a big “goodbye” dinner with everyone which ended up being relatively successful. We tried to go to a hot pot place, but it was too expensive so we ended up at an old favorite, Fat Angelo’s. They arranged for a huge table for us all in the back room and everyone enjoyed Italian food and wine together.

Silly girls - Maria and Benedicte

Beso and I

It was a Friday and so of course I had to end up at Ned Kelly’s to hear Michael Srey play piano. Andrew and I walked to Ned’s and made it in time for the second set. I stayed until the very end with Michael and Charlotte and a crazy guy. This random guy had been screaming obnoxiously the entire night and by the end came and sat beside me. At first he didn’t say anything and then he started talking to us. He was from Russia and was trying to have a conversation, but then could not understand what we were saying and he kept trying to touch people. Michael came to my rescue to protect me, but the guy just kept on. Finally Colin, the bandleader, stopped the band and called out to the guy to stop harassing people because he had been watching him bother people all night. The guy tried to talk back to Colin, bad idea, and Colin got so angry that he ended the set early and almost threw the guy out! Afterward Colin told us that when we saw the guy bothering Michael and I he had had enough! This was the craziest thing that we had experienced at Ned’s and after that episode I was ready to get home!

Michael, JB and I

Charlotte and I at Neds

First Goodbye

Michael Missale was the first of our group to leave. Everyone was hanging out in the common room before heading out to the bars for his last night in HK before his adventure into the rest of Asia. Although The Trio was working on a project, I made sure we took a break to go spend time with Michael before they went out and to say “see you” before he left. We were all enjoying ourselves and I looked over and saw Michael saying goodbye to the German speaking girls, hugs and maybe a few tears. Then everyone was ready to go out so that meant I was forced to say goodbye. Everyone knows I love hugs so Michael and I just stood hugging for a few minutes, repeating to each other that we were going to miss one another.

Micha

I HATE goodbyes (although people kept pointing out it was not goodbye, it was see you later). We collectively decided that we did not want to say goodbye yet and that we would wake up (at 7am) to see Michael off. I stole his scarf just as assurance that we would wake up and be there. So the morning came and we had not heard from Michael, supposedly he was still sleeping. So we kept waiting and eventually we had to get to class so we decided to walk up to his room. There was Michael, with about 3 hours of sleep, still packing, the check-out man knocking on his door and all three of us in his room, with Christian still trying to sleep in his bed. We said our official goodbye and Michael continued to scurry around and finish throwing stuff together. We later learned that Michael missed his flight to Thailand and his girlfriend that was meeting him there was not too happy! At least he had a great last night in Hong Kong!

My favorite picture of the boys

Goodbye Dinner

We started the day out with an exam, followed by… HARRY POTTER 7 MOVIE!!! Although we had lots to do, I convinced Debs and Andrew that it was a great idea to go see Harry Potter 7 with some of the French crew. We took up two whole rows in the theater and Andrew and I enjoyed glasses of wine during the film. The movie was wonderful, obviously, and we had a terrible time trying to find taxis so thank goodness we even got there in time!! Then we had to come back to the dorms and try and work some more on our project so we could go to the next event.

Michael trying to find us a taxi

One goodbye dinner was not enough for the HK crew so we decided to have another dinner in the common room at the dorm where everyone could bring their own Asian take out and sit around to eat together. This was a great plan except for the fact that The Trio had that assignment we had been working on that was due at NCSU that night and we had to finish before doing anything fun! After we submitted our enormous document on our findings of Asia, we headed to the 11^th floor to see how the dinner was going. 

The girls

Felizia and "mom"

Everyone had finished eating, but was sitting around discussing plans for the evening. I wasn’t planning on going out, neither was Andrew, Debbie, Sam, the German speaking girls, Margaux, or Felix, but we all ended up at the bar. Everyone had a great time dancing and trying to push our way through the crowds. The most fun was when Melissa and I had to wait for our jackets at the coat check for literally 2 hours. There was no system and they had just thrown the jackets in the back with no order, so the people would start calling our random numbers in no order. People were pushing to get to the front (even though that was not helpful with the lack of system) and many people were yelling. I made a friend and got his jacket for him and finally we got Melissa’s fur coat and my very cheap jacket. Although it was a fiasco, it was kind of fun in the coat mosh-pit. What really topped off the evening was when we found out that Andrew, Jon, and the boys had been at the upstairs bar getting free shots all evening. 

Samuel and I

Jon Cordiano