This weekend was pretty cool...

Friday I experienced my first bout of homesickness (ever). That wasn't so cool, but definitely an interesting experience. I didn't feel like I missed anything in particular; I just had this empty feeling inside like something was missing. So yeah, that was friday...

Saturday I decided to do just a little exploring by going to Tyson's Corner. The week before this last I checked out the Potomac Mills mall, which is closer, but after looking at the directory I found that they didn't have a store that I needed. Tyson's Corner did. Both of these malls are huge! Tyson's corner is probably about the size of the Topanga Mall, if not larger. I'm not so sure about Potomac Mills because it's all spread out on one story, broken into 8 "neighborhoods" and I didn't have much time to look around while I was there. It may be just as big...

Saturday evening I had dinner at the home of a family in the Quantico Ward. The father of that family is one of the stake presidents and is a friend of one of my new friends, Jeff. They had a couple of missionaries and a few others over and invited us too. It was way awesome! Aside from me, the missionaries, and one other member, everyone was from Africa so we had African food. Yeah, beat that! REAL international night, lol. ;) Here's a pic of the food we had:

I don't know all the names of the dishes, and they have multiple names anyway depending on where one is from in Africa. I shall try to describe them though...
There was eggplant with tomato, plantains, avacado, and chicken. Then there was this white stuff that they were trying to figure out the English word for and decided it was cornmeal. It was kind of bland but had a nice texture and I ate it with that green, soupy leaf stuff pictured to the left of it. That brown blob pictured above the cornmeal is like this doughy bread that I ate with the spicy (pinto?) beans that are to the right of the avacado chunks. Then there was some blackbean salsa type stuff that I didn't have because of the onions in it lol. Here I go eatin' all this African food and I won't eat onions! There were also burgers and dogs, but I didn't touch those either. Psh, who needs American cuisine when the rest of this stuff is around!?
Anyway, that was a great dinner and great company! They were all wonderful people. So much fun! My cheeks hurt from laughing and smiling all evening. Well worth it.

Lastly, Saturday night I played some pool with a couple guys from the YSA branch. I won like 4 out of the 5 games we played even though I was the worst player there, lol. Somehow my balls were always the last on the table though. I think it was because I had 6-10. My theory is this: Because in a regular 8-ball game you always want to hit that in last or you automatically lose, the other players didn't think much to hit that in while the other balls were still in play. They just kind of subconciously avoided it even though it was one of my balls that needed to be hit in. Yeah, just a thought...

Then today, I went to church, of course. After church my friend, Jeff and I had planned to pack a couple tuna sandwiches and juice and go take it easy at the Marina, enjoying the beauty of the Earth - the water, the sky, the landscapes, etc. Here are some pics from today's little excursion:

Haha, I just realized this is two dragonflies . . . . . oops. Still a cool pic.

I just have to mention that the clouds out here are amazing! I noticed this on the way to S.Carolina last weekend. I looked out the car window and saw these ginormous, fluffy, white, cottonball clouds hanging so low in the sky. Absolutely gorgeous. Now it's like I consistently take notice of just how beautiful the clouds are here. And the random rain, thunder and lightning we get is terrific too! Love it.

So yup. That was my weekend. Next weekend's plans are: extreme (laser) bowling Friday night, and the Branch water games-activity-thing (lol) Saturday. I may also go to a benefit rock concert that a fellow YSA's younger brother has put together for his Eagle Scout Award (or w/e it's called, sorry idk). Yup yup. Good friends, good times. :)