A Magical Night

Instead of "dances" they have "balls" here which will often provide live music a DJ or a Ceilidh band. Each dormitory has it's own ball and so do societies. I attended my first ball on the 26th of February.
My friend (at the time), Stuart (who is one of the people who I sit with at dinner and the guy who played in the snow with me) asked me if I wanted to come to the DRA (David Russell Apartments) Ball with him. However, he did not specify if I was to be his date or whatever. I believed it was safe to assume we were going as friends. Despite that, I was still very excited and somewhat hopeful (since I had developed a crush on Stuart in the previous week). My friend Alana was nice enough to let me use her hair curler and I got ready in her room (which is, ironically, right across the hall from Stuart's room). Once ready, I went and knocked on Stuart's door. He opened the door very slowly and Alana came out of her room saying, "She looks pretty, right?" and he was like, "Yeah!" As we walked down the stairs he said that he really did think I looked good and I told him he looked handsome, as he did. :)
It was a very cold and rainy night and I was not only wearing heels and a dress but still recovering from a cold. We waited on our taxi, which he had ordered at dinner and did not come. Sitting in the lobby, we compared drivers licenses (which was interesting) and talked until we finally gave up waiting and called another taxi. The taxi took us to DRA, where the buses left to go to the place where the ball was held. When we arrived, there were a bunch of people blocking the front door so we ran to the side door. As we were running, I instinctively (and subconsciously) grabbed his hand. He laced my fingers in his. After this, I thought maybe he did like me too, but I wasn't quite sure. We waited inside for a while to stay out of the cold and I met one of his friends who oddly left us alone after a few minutes, which made me just a little more suspicious.
After a while, we finally decided to get on a bus. When we went outside, we saw the line ("queue") was huge! We got in and waited. As we ascended in the "queue", I noticed a bracelet on the ground, which Stuart urged me to pick up. I was inclined to see if anyone dropped it, while he was inclined for me to keep it. It was silver with hearts on it. Upon finally getting on a bus, (many came during our wait), and shouting to everyone if they dropped a bracelet and no one claiming it, Stuart put the bracelet on me and that was when he kissed me. The ball itself was interesting. Upon entering a tent, there were paninis (like subs, but more like sandwiches) being served along with other things and tables. Making our way back, we were looking for somewhere to put our stuff down. Through the tent was the building where ice cream was being served on the right, a bar in the back and a dance floor to the left with a live band. There were two rooms off to the side, a room where coats were taken and another dance floor and where the toilets were. We saw a few friends, got some free ice cream and danced for a while. The band kept loosing power, unfortunately but not much fazed us that night as we were so happy just to finally know the feeling was mutual. We danced until the DJ came on, which is when we left due to Stuart's distaste for the music.
Since then, Stuart has been my boyfriend. He has been great and is very gentlemanly. He likes to make fun of the way I say certain things and has made it his goal to "british-ize" the way I say things. The way I say "bridge", which is already funny to my parents makes him laugh and he is determined to make me say it the right way one day. He also has made fun of me for saying "jelly" instead of "jam", "pants" instead of "trousers" and makes sure that I am saying "chips" instead of "fries", "crisps" instead of "chips", and "lift" instead of "elevator". Stuart said that he hopes that I will go back and say things this way, which will somehow influence everyone else in the states to and so it will be all his fault. What big aspirations he has...
On a side note, another funny thing I learned at lunch is that they still call "curly fries" "curly fries" and not "curly chips". I asked as to the logic of this and my friend, Angus answered, "Chips are thick and fries are thin." Hmmm....interesting...