A few weekends ago, Tommy celebrated its students who have been living at the college for 2 or more years, and who are leaving the college at the end of the year. Valete, which is Latin for "farewell", is the last annual formal dinner held at Tommy. So for the last time, everyone gets to dress up and shine their dancing shoes in order to celebrate and send off the departing Valete students. This year, Tommy celebrated 28 students, 2 of which included Max and Erin, two of my best Aussie friends.
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| Erin, me, and Max |
Valete was another amazing night; it started off with Mass which honored each of the kids who would be leaving Tommy. It should come as no surprise that I started crying when I saw all the people leaving--so many of them are people I'm lucky to be able to call my good friends, and even though I won't be here next year, the thought of Tommy without them is pretty unbearable. I think the realization that Tommy will never be the same place for me after this semester really hit me at Valete mass, which is bittersweet. Selfishly, I want this place to stay frozen in time so that I can come back and visit whenever, and have everything be the same so that I don't ever have to really say goodbye.
Sad thoughts aside, after mass we had a cocktail hour, formal dinner, and then an afterparty (all at Tommy!). Dinner was wonderful (and delicious) and the time was passed with speeches from different Tommy employees who spoke about all of the Valetes. One of the most popular valetes of the night was Pauline Ibbs, Tommy's Rector who is retiring after working here for 17 years. So she had quite a send off along with all of the Tommy valete students.
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| Pauline! |
The best part of Valete was the afterparty. It was the first time that Tommy has hosted an official party on campus, and it was a BLAST. Honestly one of the best nights I've had here so far--I think what made it so fun was that every single person there was one of my friends, and it was all about good company, good times, and goon (the cheap boxed wine everyone drinks here). To quote my friend Kevin, "Goon Times" pretty much summarizes the night.
Here are a few pictures from Valete!
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| Julien and I! |
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| Unintentionally matched color palettes |
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| Erin and I |
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| My good friend Ben! |
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| Valete Dinner! and Kim :) |
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| Valete Dinner Date <3 |
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| My friends Blade and Kurt at the Valete after party |
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| Valete after party! |
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| Me, Nugget (I'm not kidding), and Erica :) |
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| My favorite boys Gangnam-Styling like professionals |
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| Erin, Max, and I! |
All in all, VALETE WAS AWESOME.
The day after Valete, I was lucky enough to go down south for the rest of the weekend with Erica, Alanna, and two of my Aussie friends, Sam and Amber Cochrane (the best brother and sister pair ever who both live with me at Tommy!). Sam and Amber live about a half hour from Margaret River, so I was able to spend the weekend with their family and get some much needed R&R and family time!
The second we got to their house, I couldn't stop hugging their amazing mom ("Mum" in Australian) because I needed to get enough Mommy hugs to hold me over until I get back to the US!
The Cochrane family took us on a tour of the area, where we went wine tasting, cheese tasting, chocolate and fudge tasting, and to various beaches in the area. It was so so so much fun!!! Margaret River is an incredibly beautiful area, and I'm so happy I was able to go and see it!
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| Breathtaking |
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| So beautiful! I love this one |
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| Me, Amber, Sam, and Alanna |
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| Panorama |
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| Vineyards! |
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| Wine Tasting! |
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| Wine Tasting! |
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| Leave it to me to find a wedding.. |
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| The Busselton Jetty -- the longest jetty in the southern hemisphere (reaching 2 km out to sea) |
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| Busselton Jetty |
After a long, incredible, and exhausting day of being full-on tourists, we went home, had a homemade dinner, and all cuddled on the couch in our PJ's where we ate cake and watched Toy Story :) It was the perfect day!
The next morning, the Cochranes took us out on their boat to go dolphin watching! While we were on the boat, we saw dozens of pods of dolphins, and they were so beautiful! I see dolphins all the time at home in Virginia, but getting so close to them in the boat was really exciting; they would swim right up to us! It was another amazing day :)
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| Sam and Mojo! |
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| View of Bunbury, WA |
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| Bunbury lighthouse |
Our trip down south was another amazing weekend, very well spent. Thanks so the Cochrane family, we were all able to get our family-fix and enjoy time at home with them. It was wonderful, and just what the doctor ordered!
Lastly, I need to tell you all about Halloween. Halloween is not a big holiday in Australia, so when all the Americans started making Halloween plans over a month ago, the Aussies were a bit confused. When we realized Halloween wasn't really celebrated, we went to work, and some of the amazing people at Tommy organized a Halloween party for residents to attend before going to our favorite bar down the street, called Captain Stirlings ("Cap S"). The Aussies got really into Halloween, now that they had a reasonable excuse to celebrate it. It was a blast! Me and my group of friends dressed up as "Party Animals"; we were each a different animal with various party decorations all over (ribbons, noise makers, bubbles, glitter, party bags, that sort of thing). So it was pretty punny...Get it?! I was a teddy bear, Erica was a cat, Alanna a lion, Max, Erin, and Kate were zebras, Ben was an owl, Glenda a koala, and Leon was a kangaroo.
Anyways, Halloween was a ton of fun. Tommy set up a haunted house, organized a pumpkin carving contest (my team definitely won), had kids go bobbing for apples, etc. Here are a few pictures of us from the night!
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| The "Party Animal" Family |
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| Kevin and I (Squints from The Sandlot) |
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| Max and I |
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| Erica, Ben (SCARY), and I |
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| Omar and I! How good is his face paint?! |
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| A very cuddly teddy bear and a very cute kitty |
It was another amazing week!!! Now I'm headed off for a 5 day road trip up north, all the way to Exmouth. I'm going with a group of about 12 people, but I'm in a car of 5 (me, Erica, Alanna, Max, and Ben). It's going to be an amazing trip--I'm so excited to see this part of Australia! I've heard nothing but good things, its supposed to be absolutely beautiful. We'll be camping along the way, going cliff jumping, snorkeling, swimming, you name it. Its going to be an incredible few days, and I can't wait to tell you all about it!!
Talk to you in a few days :)
Cheers,
Becca
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