Opening Ceremony

My second (and last) Opening Ceremony was on Friday the 13th of October (haha). The only time throughout the year when everyone wears their national costumes together, and thus we have a lot of pictures. There isn't much else to talk about besides the pictures - speeches, choir, more speeches, music scholars playing, more speeches...anyway. There was good food afterwards, and we went on little "cultural visits" in the afternoon, exploring the surrounding area.
Nik and I wore national costumes, and were very proud of the result:

Other random pictures:


this is my prime and I: the two American girls, Lucy (Colorado) and Sarah (Virginia) and my adopted prima, Keleigh (Canada).

Speaking of adopted primi, these are two of my three adopted primi: Keleigh, whom I adopted because she is so very similar to me and the ways in which she's different are really cool - she's been doing Highland dancing for 14 years and she headed a "lights out canada" program to conserve energy and reduce global warming etc. at home, which is awesome. Lorenzo is the guy who hosted me in Milan at the beginning of the summer, so I adopted him because of our pre-college connection. There third adoptee is Nkechi, a girl from Nigeria who lives in scholtz (my residence) and has american citizenship, so she's my prima as well. I like my nicely diverse family.

This is Ximena, my rooma from Uruguay. Isn't she cool? I'm so lucky with roommates...

And this, as you can probably recognize by now, is the Weird Sisters: Nidhi, Vanessa and I. (All in blue, I might add. we have excelent taste.)
Afterwards, on the cultural visit, I had a strange encounter:
I was walking along the river when I saw a woman who was dressed like me - in 100-year-old clothes. I laughingly said to Nidhi, "hey, look! I have a friend!" and the woman came up to me, saying, "do I know you?" in English.
Apparently she's dressed this way all her life, and she just retired from her job as a seamstress. She's been to America multiple times to sell her dresses to others like her (I don't think she's amish, but she's something very similar) and she thought I was the daughter of one of her clients. She was very nice and we had a wonderful conversation, and before we left, I got a picture with her:

Isn't that great?