Familiar Faces

This weekend was so much fun! We finally had some ATL peeps come up to visit for the weekend, and it was so nice to see some familiar faces again. We had three visitors: two of my friends from nursing school, one of whom brought her husband. They arrived Thursday afternoon, and the weekend took off from there.

Thursday night we went to what I think has become our favorite casual seafood place up here. It's a cute little crab shack that's on the waterfront called Barking Crab. It's one of those cozy, casual, good food, good beer, good friends types of places. Plus, it has an old wood burning stove in the middle of the room where they make fires in the winter. Pretty much any place that has a fireplace has me sold! Anyway, I think I decided that I like lobster OK, but crab legs are sooo much better!

Friday was the absolute coldest day I've experienced up here! With the wind chill factor, it was all of 5 degrees! But it was cool because it snowed a little bit, and I was glad that my friends got to see a little bit of snow. Since it was all cold and snowy, we figured it would be appropriate to go ice skating in the park. It's funny, I don't remember ice skating being so difficult or so painful last time I went. I think part of the problem was the rental boots that I'm pretty sure were the same ones they were using when the rink opened in the 1960's. But hey, what do I know?

Anyway, we had a little excitement just before we were about to leave, when my friend's husband decided to take a nose dive directly onto the ice. Unfortunately, the ice bit back, and he emerged with a deep gash on his head. Lucky for him, he had three nurses on hand! We bandaged him up, and sent him to the ER, where he had to wait 4 hours and got seven stitches! Poor guy. I feel slightly responsible because the only reason he was taking this one last run around the ice was because I made everyone skate around one final time so I could take some pictures. My bad.

Saturday was history day. We decided to walk part of the Freedom Trail, which proved to be quite interesting. We saw the U.S.S. Constitution (AKA "Old Ironsides"), complete with the extremely hot Navy tour guides that us three girls totally drooled over. Then we checked out Copp's Hill Burial Ground, the Old North Church , and Paul Revere's house. After all that walking, we had a lovely Italian dinner in the North End, and then stopped by Mike's Pastry for some cannoli. I hadn't ever had cannoli before, and I thought it was pretty good, but I'd still take cheesecake over it anyday! That night just the girls went out to a bar nearby. It was fun to catch up with each other and have time without the boys.

After a quick lunch this afternoon, it was time to say goodbye. The weekend just went by a little too fast for me! It always does.

After they left, I went back to the apartment. I was alone, and it felt so quiet. I was watching the weather channel, and they had a picture of Atlanta on there. It looked like such a beautiful clear day. As soon as I saw the picture, I realized how homesick I am. I love it here, but I can't wait to go back to Atlanta and see all my friends and my family. I can't wait to hang out with everyone, play games, and drink beer. I can't wait to eat Chick-Fil-A and Pancho's. Most of all, I can't wait to give hugs to everyone I care about and tell them how much I miss them.