Apparently we're nightime people now

 This week we: went to a college party, saw some art and went to see an American improv show.

After some attempts to get her started when we went to Big Bear Lake, we took our car into the garage to get her serviced. They replaced a lot of parts, including the front brakes and driver belt and cleaned the engine air filter. It cost a lot, but she should run fine now until we have to leave. 

To celebrate, we took her out for the evening to the monthly Riverside Arts Walk, which is an event where arts venues, cafes and bookstores stay open late to celebrate local artists and an entire parking lot is taken over by vendors selling their artwork. It was pretty cool to walk through and see their pieces, there was everything from stickers and pins to full canvases. They even had a band on a balcony opposite the parking lot, providing live music to all the artists. 


Vendor lot plus band

We've never seen Riverside town centre so busy, especially at night, although we haven't been in so much as the town area near us has eveything we could want. There were a lot of students out exploring as well as regular residents. The UCR Arts Centre which we'd visited before was open so we went in to see their new exhibits. They have some nice photography in there (and some... interesting art pieces) but they had a new interactive exhibit where your shadows were turned into a collection of light bulbs. We also wanted to visit the Riverside Art Museum, but they required proof of vaccination to get in, and while we are both vaccinated, we hadn't brough the proof with us. 

Artwork at the UCR arts centre

On Friday there was a welcome party on campus for new PhD students and faculty in the neuroscience department which I got to go to too! They provided the food, and we just brought wine (and chocolate milk for Mitchell, which they all found very cute). They held it in the botanic gardens, so even on my days off now I apparently spend my time there. It was nice to see everyone and meet the last few people in the lab that I hadn't already met. Mitchell got to drink out of the red solo cups you see in the movies for the first time (yes they really do have them at every party) and gathered quite the crowd to admire his accent. It was scheduled until 10pm, but by 9:30 everyone had gone and they were packing up! 

Performing


We went home and checked the mailbox on the way, and I was pleased to discover that I have been approved for my work visa! The card will arrive seperately (with no indication of time), but it should be soon, so I can start looking at jobs!

The next day, after we'd spoken to some family and I'd checked out the jobs available at the University, we picked up our friends from Switzerland in the evening and took them to their very first improv show. This was the first time we'd been to see this improv group, so we had no idea what to expect, but it was a lot of fun with a very similar atmosphere (I thought) to the collective in Nottingham. They do weekly drop in sessions, so Mitchell will be able to take part and do some improv at last!

Ready to see some improv

We also ventured into LA this weekend, but I'll talk about that next week as I haven't finished writing it up and my mum gets antsy if she doesn't have her weekly fix of our California life (love you)

So, until next week,

Love love love

Emily and Mitchell


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