Red Sauce

For dinner last night, my flatmates and I went to an Italian restaurant called Roma. The restaurant was really small and cozy; red walls, dim lights, and candles everywhere. We ordered some garlic bread for an appetizer, and I ordered the tagliatelle carbonara: pasta with cream, bacon, black pepper, parsley and parmesan cheese. It was by far some of the best pasta I've ever had! While we were waiting on our check, we asked a precious old couple if they would mind taking our picture. We ended up talking to them a bit, finding out a little about them, and places they recommended going while we were here. I can't remember where they were from, but they said they came to Sunderland about once every two weeks and got dinner at Roma. I loved everything about the restaurant, even down to the bill: they brought us the check in a small treasure chest, which had chocolate mints inside. So cute! The small wait staff was exceptionally friendly, we ate good food, in a good atmosphere, and at really good prices.

Afterwards we had a girl's night out to see The Vow at the movie theater with some of the other international students. Tickets were cheaper than what I'd normally pay for a Friday night movie back home, which was a good thing! The movie was your typical, sappy chick flick (and I may or may not have cried a few times), but I thought it was good overall. Since 10 people couldn't all fit in the large taxi, I walked home with 2 other girls from another flat. I think I'm starting to get used to this whole "walking" thing :)

Today was a much-appreciated lazy day. Doing laundry took a bit more time and money than I expected, and I'm very thankful I'll only have to do it every two weeks or so. After laundry I watched some Harry Potter and spent too much time on Pinterest. A lot of the other students went to the football (soccer) match at the Stadium of Light, which I heard was a good game but Sunderland lost in 5 minutes of overtime. I know I'm going to go to a match at some point while I'm here, but tickets cost about 25 pounds (so about... 40 bucks?). I'm not used to having to pay (especially not that much money) to go to a university game; at App, students get in for free for every home game played, whether it's American football or basketball or anything. Once it warms up a little I'll go to one; I just didn't like the sound of paying that much money to sit in 30-degree weather to see a team that I didn't know anything about play another team I didn't know anything about (I promise I have loads of school spirit, just maybe not for this uni yet!).

Tomorrow we go to Newcastle for the day! I haven't a clue what there is to do there, but I'm hoping to get some sweet pics at some point. Stay tuned! :)

- At the movies, you're given an assigned seat when you buy your tickets.

- Ketchup is called either ketchup, catsup, or red sauce. And most of the time if you ask for it, you get a teeny tiny amount that you have to pay for. Laaame.

- I think I'm going to start naming my blogs after some obscure word that appears in that day's posting. That way I won't have to worry about being creative (hence, "Red Sauce").

- "Digestives" are really common and delicious cookies/biscuits/things, that have absolutely nothing to do with being easily digestible (or at least I don't think they do).

- Emma Watson was apparently in London yesterday for a meet-and-greet with fans. It's so cool being so close to all these famous British actors!