My Life as I see it!

I hate it when....

2010-03-04T10:21:00.000-08:00

You spend 30 minutes writing a cunning and witty post about wour fabulous upcoming wedding and include amazing photos and website links only to accidently erase it after it is complete....errr.

Stay tuned for when my patience returns and I find time to write again!

Here is a small preview...

New Year, New Blog

2010-02-22T15:46:00.000-08:00

Sooo, I know this blog has been a bore for the past several months/years but I will make a sincere effort to start entertaining you again with my witty life updates. There is a lot going on with the wedding coming up, volleyball, work, and all that fits between. Plus I am jealous of Lora and Emily's blogs so I am going to try to keep up!

I am at work, so I will keep this first post back short and sweet and leave you wanting more.

See you soon!

Well Hello there...

2009-08-09T16:08:00.000-07:00

Sorry it has been forever....I swear I have been terribly busy..which is nothing but the truth. I can't believe it is already August??? WTF?

A couple things....the last post talked about my current job situation which isn't my current job situation anymore. At the end of May, my boss pulled the 5 remained production staff at my old firm into his office and let us know he was finally going to have to let us go!! Perfect timing....Summer vacation. ha! We all knew it was coming. So from 33 people a year and a half ago to 4 still there. Sorry, but the economy is not all to blame.

Soooo I moped around for a few hours...Ben was out of town and I was staying at the house for the first time by myself that night...great timing. And it was my dad's bday...go figure. So I went and got some greek food by myself for dinner and came home and started a "To Do" List. Things around the new house like finish painting the basement...yard work, etc. Also, preparing my resume for both architecture and a volleyball coaching position, because seeing at this point that there are a bazillion ( I am not exaggerating) unemployeed architects in denver, I should probably get a non architectre related job to hold me over for a little bit. Oh and one last thing, maybe I should email my old boss that now works at RNL.

Ring Ring....literally 5 minutes after I emailed Brad (old boss) he called my phone and said " I think we might have aposition here for you...oh and maybe Sarah and My DO too!" This is literally 4 hours after I just got laid off. SERIOUSLY!!! Awesome...don't burn your bridges is all I can say. So I had a week off to enjoy my "summer vacation" and then started at RNL the following Monday! Oh and Sarah and My started with me! AMAZING!!

Anywho so that was a contract job that was supposed to last until June 20th...no bad, except for the fact that I am still there going strong. We finished the proposal that we were working on and then got put on antoher project already in CDs. We are paid hourly of course and it is okay to work overtime...so I am raking it in right now. Now come tax time....i will owe a ton, but i am living it up while I can.

So that is that. Other things that are going on are Ben and I are doing a lot of crazy things for birthdays and anniversaries...main thing is we got back froma week long Alaskan cruise a couple weeks ago. Amazing. We went hot air balooning and ATVing the past week, we are also headed to a Kings of Leon concert tonight. AND...I am going to see Michael Bolton in Beaver Creek in a couple weeks!!!! ahhh! I am sooo excited about that.

We went whale watching in juneau, AK, and ziplining in Ketchikan (sp?) We have been rafting, which we do every summer. Also I am a new Godmother to my high school and childhood friend's new son Jace! Awesome. I have been to a couple weddings a baby showers, and now some more weddings are coming up. Also some Bachelorette parties, which needless to say I am excited for!

SO all in all, i think I have proven that I have been one busy bee. I have started painting again now that I have some actual space for it. I will write again sooner than later I promise!

Ciao!

And so it goes...

2009-03-04T12:03:00.001-08:00

I think I have mentioned before that I don't talk a lot about work. But...at this point there is good enough reason. We are down to ten and a half people. We were as high as 33 people in the last year and a half. Sarah and I are still going strong, but it is all a bit scary.

We both have maintained second jobs that definitely help. All the remainging employees also recently got a pay cut as well...so the second job is key. Sarah of course is a Denver Broncos cheerleader and I coach a 16 year old girls club volleyball team!

Anywhooo...just thought I would make my comments on the economy.

In other news, for those of you that watch the Bachelor...i watched the last hour of it with my hands to my face in amazement of what I was seeing. Good tv...(entertaining that is) but probably bad for the soul. ha!

Okay back to work. I am plenty busy, but nothing around here surprises me anymore. I think the downturn in the economy has caused me to be cynical about work...another downfall.

oh. and we are in the house now! An update on that. Getting unpacked and just bought a closet, yes a closet.

A Great Day...

2009-02-20T13:00:00.000-08:00

I just had my day made by 2 things....

Free Ice Cream....and yes that is two things

1 being the "free" part

and 2 being the "ice cream" part!

the end!!

People watching....

2009-02-20T10:36:00.000-08:00

So just a random few instances of my beloved people watching from lately...

-Wednesday night of this week we went out to Home Depot and bought a bunch of paint,etc for the new house..yippe...anyways we had a late dinner at Falafel King (love Greek food, probably my favorite now) and we were sitting at our typical two top when a man started to walk in the door...it took him about 10 minutes (not exaggerating) to get through the airlock...the whole time talking to himself....so we kinda glanced at the other 2 patrons in the place (it was late) and they had the same look....was he drunk or homeless, probably both? But it isn't an area where there are a lot of those. Anyways so the lady behind the counter came to him and asked if she could help him and he just asked for water (quite clearly and without slurring) and went and sat down at the stools facing the window. The whole time, non-stop talking to himself. So anyways the real point to this story is I saw the lady from behind the counter go in the back and bring out something in her hand and then she proceeded to buy the Man baklava from with her own money. Ahh....I love Falafel King and that was a good deed to see!

Same night...reverse people watching...apparently people people watch me as well. As I was sitting there trying to decide between Squirrel gray and Pueter finish....i held up many (okay tons) of paint samples up to the white column near the paint samples. I did this continuously for approx. 20 minutes before the guys behind the lumber counter came up and said "you are cracking us up over here...if you need any help, ask Jan....she is great!" ha...thanks! Didn't think anyone was paying that much attention except for me! Who knew!

Now it is time for a bus story. It is random sometimes what people talk to each other on the bus but I thought this was cute. There was a guy that looked like this.... and a guy that was physically handicapped and was quiet and timid until the other guy got on the bus....and they were having the most in depth friendly conversation....it reminded me of one of those posters that have have the dog and cat with their arms around each other. Another good people story!

Anywhooo...just some random thoughts. Also Ben and I close on the house in 4 days. Next Tuesday and have the movers coming next Saturday. Ahhh it all came ups o fast, but we are really excited and we are pretty sure we are going to get a tax rebate of 8000 dollars with the what Obama signed in Denver this past week, so we will keep our fingers crossed!

Happy Friday!

Fast forward...

2009-01-21T09:28:00.000-08:00

Well hello!?

So the "fast forward" title refers to the quickness of this whole home-buying thing. Last Monday we met with our agent, (enter plug here ) Randi Goldberg from LiveUrban Real Estate in Denver, and spent two hours going over the process and what to expect and what we were looking at, etc. Then looked on her database online for places we were interested in seeing.

So we spent Saturday looking at 7 homes in the Highlands and Sunday looking at 6 homes in Capitol Hill/Uptown area. And guess what...we found 3...yes 3 that we really liked/loved. That wasn't supposed to happen inteh first weekend. The one we really liked and we very curious about was this one.
http://www.liveurbandenver.com/search/property_details.asp?ID=720011&ds=METROLIST
It is huge and awesome for the price...so we, as well as Randi, thoguht there has to be something wrong with it....so we walked around and found some small stuff...cleanup and touchups and cosmetic thigns that needed to be done, but the comps in that area go for at least half a million and we were just thinking what a great investment it would be. So she ran the history and called the seller's agent and there are 5 offers already on the table...the lowest being the askign price...so thats a no-go. But we are glad that made our decision easier, that would have been hard to give up.

So the next 2 our the ones we are still consdering...close to each other and within 5000 price range, they are both great.
http://www.liveurbandenver.com/search/property_details.asp?ID=731517&ds=METROLIST

http://www.liveurbandenver.com/search/property_details.asp?ID=731590&ds=METROLIST

They are both brick bungalows in Highlands and they both have their perks...so we are waiting a little bit to make our decision.

We are looking at 4 more tonight and then will discuss what we want to do. Those two are pretty hard to beat though so it wil be tough. Ben was ready to make an offer on the Emerson house before we found out it had 5 offers...so this whole thing might be fast forwarded a little bit.

Who knows, we could be in a new house within a month or two....eeeeee!

I will keep you posted!

I apologize...

2009-01-10T19:34:00.000-08:00

for the last post...I was having a bad day. I am back to normal, don't worry.

Today was the first time in a LONG time where I sat at home all day and did nothing. It feels good and bad. Good because I haven't had the time to do that for a long time...months...maybe 6 months. Bad because I feel worthless...but I think I deserve it.

Also new news....Ben and I are officially starting to go through the home-buying process. We have been casually looking for about a year, but we think the timing is right now. The market is great for buyers...we think we can get an interest rate as low at 4.75%. And we think some of the sellers are getting desperate and will accept lower bids.

So we are going to start looking with an agent and also get approved for a loan. So....that is crazy. Our lease is up at the end of May so we have about 4 and a half months. I will try to keep you updated.

Anywhoo....that is about it for now. I have my first volleyball tournament tomorrow in Colorado Springs with Amy and the girls. I hope all goes well.

Ciao for now!

WTF?

2009-01-07T13:36:00.001-08:00

Ummm...something must of happened somewhere in the universe to make today happen. For some reason, people that are in my life or have been in the past are finding it appropriate to tell me what is on their mind and what they think of me. Good and bad, but still why all today? 4 people...seriously...I am just sitting at work doing my job....

and they come to me.
wtf?

getting to know me

2008-12-02T07:37:00.000-08:00

So....I have been tagged by Nicole....aka Life of Nickle to write 6 random things about myself. This shouldn't be too difficult seeing as it is my life, but narrowing it down to which 6 random things could be the hard part.

The rules are:
-link to the person who tagged you.
-post the rules on your blog.
-write 6 random things about yourself.
-tag 6 people at the end of your post.
-let each person know he/she has been tagged.
-let the tagger know when your entry is up.

So, here you go!

1-in regards to Nicole's random thought number one, I too have had hardships in figuring out words to songs. For example, I used to believe that "Secret Agent Man" was "Secret Asian Man" (not lying) and that the Bee Gees "Staying Alive" was "Stay in a line." That must of stemmed from my childhood goodie tooshooness (yes I made up that word) anywooo...

2-I just started eating stuffing at thanksgiving umm maybe 2 years ago. The reason for this was because my mom had always put oysters in half of our at Thanksgiving and therefore i thought all stuffing had oysters, which grosses me out. Also with weird food relations, this is a true story, ask my mom, I didn't eat Buffalo wings until after i was in college because yes, I thought it was buffalo meat. i know, very Jessica Simpsonish of me...but if no one ever tells you otherwise, why would you know. Ironic seeing as now that I live in Denver they serve buffalo a lot of places, and it is very good. Buffalo meatloaf at Wynkoop Brewery is amazing!

3-Okay, enough with the things that make me look silly and on to making someone else look silly. :) My middle name is Gail, named after my mother's deceased father. He died when she was 6 weeks old. But my mom spelled it wrong. He spelled it Gale. oops.

4-I use to want to be a nun. I am sure it is solely because of the movies Sister Act and Sound of Music. That only lasted for a few years when i realized you had to be catholic...that didn't work out, and i am pretty sure they wouldn't accept me at this point.

5-I have an OCD complex when it comes to turning off lights and shutting cabinets in my apartment. Also with putting stuff away as you are making food instead of afterwards. It drives me crazy...just ask Ben, he knows.

6-i have a weakness, and it is called ex boyfriends. (this is newly released top secret information, but it is true)

Okay, I tag:

-Mackenzie
-Laura Indihar
and that is all I have. Sorry. Mackenzie you can tag 3 more for me since I am a slacker. Also I don't know how to link people, so i will just you guys know!

All i want for Christmas is You!

2008-11-26T11:46:00.000-08:00

Sorry it has been a while, but I have been severely busy with work and life and everything else that fits in between. Let's see. Since last time, I have:

Started coaching volleyball again for a 16s girls club team. I thoroughly enjoy coaching volleyball. if it paid enough I would make it my only job! :) But I am not that lucky.

I went to Sand Diego and Beverly Hills for two days for work. it was a blast. I went with my boss and another associate principal. I love San Diego. great city! And not to mention the meetings there went very well too.

I went to Jenna Brown's (now Watson's) wedding in Topeka and it was great to see her and everyone else. I can't believe she is the first of the 1229 Crew to get hitched. Who'd have thunk?

I am trying to figure out ways to save money and additionally make money. We had lay offs at work again. From 32 at our highest point, we are down to 18 i think. Sarah and i are still here, but it is getting scary. I am just trying to make myself indispensable at this point. it has worked thus far. I am the office BIM Manager, LEED coordinator, and Party Planner. Not to mention intern architect.

Back to the making money part, I am working 2 jobs and thinking about a third. I have also thought about selling my paintings...soo.

For Halloween Ben and I were a monk and a pregnant nun, very classy, I know. We weren't the only ones who had a halloween outfit.

Hmmm. Other than that I just can't wait to get home for the thanksgiving holidays! To see the family and have the first annual Beardmore Drinking Games event. Should be entertaining to say the least.

Also, regarding the title of this blog, I have been listening to Christmas music straight for the past week, and I can't get enough. Our Christmas tree, stockings and decorative door bow are already up in the apartment thanks to my mom's lovely hobby lobby donation (see below in previous post)

Anywhoooo, I'll see you after i have ingested loads of goodies!

I could call this post "Shopping" but then guys wouldn't read it...

2008-10-23T14:19:00.000-07:00

Shopping! :)

So I got a Halloween card inthe mail the other day from my mom. it had a Hobby Lobby gift card in it for me to buy Christmas decorations with. (Last year, she sent me a REAL freaking Christmas tree in the mail...seriously?) Guess how much is on that gift card...just guess. Two Hundred Dollars.

My mom is ridiclous (this is similar to the time she sent me 100 dollars to the Yankee Candle store) I don't think she realizes I live in a tiny one bedroom apartment. I don't haev room for a hundred dollars worht of candles and two hundred dollars worth of tinsle and stuffed santas!

Dad, if you still read this thing...don't tell mom you know she sent that to me. She would kill me and then proceed to never send me anything. (thats a lie, she will always send stuff, but you get my point)

Oh and I bought my dog a pumpkin outfit! She loves it!

Oops!

2008-10-03T08:49:00.000-07:00

It has been a couple weeks since I posted. Could be the craziness going on and the work schedule. But nothing too new.

Next week will be hectic. My Parker project will be done finally. And by "done" I mean we are supposed to be complete with 100% CDs. but that is not happening. So eithe we will be getting some more time or our CA will be pretty hectic. For being a small building it is complex and has several detail issues that still need to be designed and worked out. We will see. So I am on to Palomar which is an 11 story 4 star hotel in DTC. So far the exterior consists of precast paneling and PT slabs. A pretty importnat project so I am glad I am on it. Kimpton Group os good to work for. The Monaco that we did for them is awesome....so I can onyl expect the Palomar to be.

Anyways I hardly ever talk about work, so there you go. Next week is full, even after work. Monday and Tuesday I am have interviews for my assistnat coach. I hope I can get someone that is easy to work with. That way it is still fun. Tryouts are in a month or so and I am excited. Who knew I would be excited about a second job? Wednesday I have an "appointment" and if you know me, you should know for what. And then Thursday is our office's First Annual Art show. I am putting ion a couple pieces. A water color, an oil, and a nude sketch fromwehn I was in Europe. So that will be fun.

This weekend though I can't wait for. One because I have worked too much this week but also becuase Julianna, Laura, and ERIN KAY are comign to visit. I can't believe Erin is actually finally coming. Can't wait! Julainna and I are going to the Bronco's game on Sunday and get to wave the big flag on the field before the game. So look for me! Other than that just partying and showing them what Denver is all about. My boss offered me ticketrs to the UT CU gaem on Saturday, so that is a bummer I can't go...maybe next time.

Alrighty..thats it for now. Oh and since I now have guitar hero...I am working on perfecting me Rocker skills. I will keep you up to date on that!
Ciao!

Here I go again

2008-09-12T09:10:00.000-07:00

A couple of things...

I found out today that a guy at my office (TOM) read my blogs last night. haha. So I should probably sensor them a little more. Ha, just kidding Tom!

I am going out of town AGAIN this weekend for yet anther wedding! Pete and Mal's, Bens college roomate. I am glad to be going to KC, but if you recall, Ben and I aren't really together and I will be staying at his parents house with him. Flight cancellations coast $150 plus the change in fair...so i wasn't really excited about paying that. Plus it is a chance to see Caitlyn! :)

Thirdly, I got accepted by the HOA for the condo I was wanting to live in. No I am not buying, but I am renting from the owner. 12th and Humboldt. RIGHT on Cheesman park, and there is an indoor Pool. SWEET! Winter swimming parties. Not to mention the closet space is huge! So...I am moving out of the apartment Ben and I will have shared for a total of 4 months (that lasted long) and will be moving in to my new place at the beginning of October where I will finally be LIVING ON MY OWN. Ahh I can't wait. I have wanted to do this for a long time. Oh and Ema will be there too, but she doesn't count.

Thats it for now.
Ciao!

I'm going to Wichita?

2008-09-04T12:54:00.000-07:00

So, short blog, but I may be headed to Wichita this weekend to watch my little sis (she is actually taller than me) play in her first season of Division 1 Volleyball.

I can't decide yet if I should go. It would be a 7 hour drive tomorrow (Friday) after an 8 hour work day. But my parents and g-parents will be there and it would be fun.

So i will most likely decide tonight on a whim if i am going or not. Most likely I will say....1, 2, 3, GO and be off like that driving through oh so scenic Eastern Colorado and Western Kansas.

Woohoo!

Random Thoughts

2008-09-03T15:59:00.001-07:00

So a few of these things are just things that I always said I would like to write, and others are just...well...random thoughts that pose questions to which you should respond.

Are you a reader? I feel as if there are those who love reading and books and going to the bookstore, and there are those that don't do it at all. Even in relationships, it seems there is one person who is a reader and the other simply is not? What are you?

Random thought uno...this is more like an observation, but seeing as I ride the bus to and from work (most of the time) I have come to find that people observing is the best on a 15 minutes ride to my house. There is the Subway guy that gets on at Colfax and smells of meatballs. (seriously) Then there is the girl my age who reads and smiles to herself the entire time. There was also this one time where a man in a wheelchairs got on and his wheelchair was rather large, so he literally had to do an "Austin Powers" and go forward, backward, forward, backward, a little bit at a time. i felt bad for him because the bus was full and everyone was waiting. A little humourous still, even though it shouldn't be. There was also this Santa looking guy who talked to himself the entire time and one of the first sentences ended with a loud "suck my nuts." Glad there were not any kids on that bus, or they might not look forward to Christmas anymore. Anywho, there are several characters and it is entertaining to pay attention. But those are some of the good ones I remember.

Also, my friends and I had a RAD 80s party the other weekend and I truly enjoyed dressing up and doing my hair. I decided I should have lived through more of the 80s. I think I should go back. It may be my favorite decade.

Also on the verge of everyone I know getting engaged, my thought of when it would happen for me keeps getting postponed and pushed further and further. Not that this is a bad thing at all, I am actually in no way ready to settle down, but if you would have asked me when I was 18 when I would be getting engaged and married, I would have been terrifed to hear that I would be 24 and single and not looking. WTF Allison? I would prefer to have kids before I am 50, but i have plenty of time!

On a similar topic, with my recent life changes, what do you think happens more often. or what is your experience from friends and yourself? Do people ned up with someone they expected to and imagined they would be with, or do they end up with someone completely different. I have now been with someone whom i thought would be perfect for me, but just isn't. So now what? I can only imagine who i will end up with next, and if you know my past significant others, you can only imagine as well. They have been as different as care bears and godzilla. (you figure out who represents who)

Okay, well I think that is all for now. Respond to my questions if you'd like. It is Wednesday and I can only hope that teh weekend gets here SOON!!

Loves and Kisses!

Let be truth be told...

2008-08-28T20:14:00.000-07:00

So I have always been honest with this blog, so i don't feel the need to hide anything at this point. But things will be changing shortly. If you know me at all, then you know I don't do serious and I try to be optimistic in what i do, but some people change and some people don't.

The situation simply put is Ben and I are over after 2 years and I am moving out of the apartment that we have only lived in together for 3 months. We never should have moved in when things were rough before, but there definitely was a defining choice that made this decision concrete.

So...as much as I would love to stay in our apartment seeing as most (90%) of the stuff is mine, I can't afford to stay here myself, so Ben is staying and I am moving out. I let him know last night that I was signing a lease and moving out, and although I had mentioned it before, I am not sure he actually thought I would do it.

Sometimes as much as you want something, it isn't meant to be!

The size of an Egg!!!

2008-08-13T09:21:00.000-07:00

What? I know, that was my reaction, but before I get to the best part of my story, I will start from the beginning.

So as I think most of you know (ha, mac and Nicole), I had surgery Monday. For the two lovely lady lumps that I had in my right breast. So here is my run down of how Monday and the following day went.

I got to the pre-op office at 8:30. Here is where I would be getting a wire placed in my boob to guide the surgeon's way to the smaller of the two "lady lumps. This is the same office and room that I had my ultrasounds and biopsy's 9 months ago, so nothing new. They cleaned me up and numbed the right breast and started by taking the ultrasound to find the lump that needed the wire. Then they proceeded with the wire placement. AAhhh! My breast tissue is particularly dense (it is cuz I am tough) so they had a hard time and had to (what I like to call) jam the wire down into it. ahhh! I couldn't feel anything but the pressure, but just knowing what they were doing is bad enough.

So then I had to go get a mammogram with the wire in there. Boys, that is where they put your breast in between two flat plates and press in order to make your breast a pancake. Only I had a wire in there....again. Ahhh! So pretty shortly after that, I sat down and was waiting for her to print the images and I started to feel woozy and nauseous. So the next thing I know, i am ont eh ground and have the 4 nurses around me with a wet cloth on my forehead. I never pass out....ahhh! So I got to ride in a wheelchair down to the hospital area where my actual surgery would take place and for the rest of the day, the nurses and doctors kept referring to my "earlier incident" which meant I passed out.

So they don't let me wait in the waiting room for the 2 hours until my surgery. They go ahead and put me in my bed and attach my IV. Fluids which I needed seeing as I wasn't allowed to eat or drink anything this morning. So I wait out the rest of time watching new patients come in and go out. I talk to several nurses and my anesthesiologist, and my surgeon. They all check to make sure I am the correct patient and we are doing the correct procedure.

Oh forgot to mention, at the wire placement, they all thought it was my LEFT breast...WRONG! I had to keep telling them it is my right. The one with the big X on it now.

So finally they wheel me in on my stretcher to the operation room. Ahhh, bright lights. And my Anethesologoist tells me she is going to give me the "magical cocktail" now, that is what she actually said. So as I am awaiting the drowsiness to kick in....

I wake up and the surgery is done. Ahh, I love drugs! ha! I look at the clock and realize it is 2 something and that Ben has been waiting for over an hour and a half. oops! I am covered in several blankets and can't really feel much. So the nurse sees me and realizes I am waking up, gets me some juice, etc. The doctor comes by and says everything went well and that the big lump...here it goes, was the size of an EGG! What? There went half my boob. Take it all if you want. I was hoping they would take a little out of the left one too. No such luck!

So anyways, Ben comes in and they wheel me down to the car and I have no problem scarfing down an entire schlotsky's sandwich within and hour. Oh and a chocolate cookie! oh and a fudgecicle. (sp?) I was hungry, what can I say?

So I felt pretty good the rest of the day. By the time I got home it was around 3 and I lounged around and took it easy. I didn't even have to take my vicatin until i went to sleep that night. And really no pain so far. I DO have to wear this ridiculous 1950's grandma support bra for 2 WEEKS. 2 WEEKS! ahhh!

It is awful i sware, I have actually taken some pictures of it on, so if I get enough courage I will post the picture of it. I am going to have to plan my outfits for the next two weeks around it. Today it is a turtle neck. Not to mention I still have tons of gauze (sp?) in it. HOTT!

And I can't shower or drive for 48 hours. Gross! I took a bath last night and did the whole sink hair rinse too cuz I couldn't take it. I am just kinda drowsy now. And trying to actually get some work done. So it is interesting.

Yup, but that is about it. I get to take the gauze off tonight and see it. Ahh! I will let you know how that goes. As for now, just trying to make it through the work day without falling asleep at my desk. And did I mention I forgot my pain pills today. bummer!

Signing off,
One egg short of a dozen,
Alli

I survived, although my joints

2008-08-05T12:31:00.000-07:00

There should really be two separate blogs today for what has happened in the past week or so, but we will just stick to one.

So my trip to San Fran was a success. Fun, good weather, and the race on Sunday morning wasn't as bad as I had built it up to be. I took my camera ont he run with the thought that i would take a picture every mile. That lasted for about 2 miles before I realized I didn't want people to actually see these photos. I did get a small picture of the de Young Museum in the Golden Gate Park while I was running though.

So as I promised I am going to give my mile by mile recap and see how it compares to my pre-race expectations. Here it goes!

Mile 1- Kinda chilly, good thing I have this jacket on. Found my good pace and can still see Mac and Sarah.
Mile 2- The park is pretty and is keeping me entertained, I should have taken that short cut back there.
Mile 3- oooh a refuel station and some good music...Kanye west, make me stronger...Gatorade and water and gel...ummm vanilla, this tastes like pudding.
Mile 4-5 - kinda a blur but more park running and still haven't stopped to walk! Oh I ran past the finish line for the first half of the marathon and wish I had decided to go with that because I would be done already!
Mile 6-7 - ahh the edge of the park! yeah! Still running and half way there! The altitude thing definitely helped. I am not complete out of breath yet, but the legs are getting a little tired.
Mile 8- okay some exhaustion and boredom and out of shapeness is kicking in. My legs are starting to feel funny, more or less the joints and stuff.
Mile 9 - BOYS DON"T READ - i started this morning (WTF, are you freaking kidding me?)and now my cramps are killing me. I think I need to stop at a porta potty and go, but I don't want to stop. My ankle joints are getting stiff. Oh crap that is a huge slope down hill...awkward!
Mile 10-11 - these and the previous mile are the worse miles. tired and still aways from the finish line, not to mentionthe cramps in my stomach and joint stiffness in my knees and ankles.
Mile 12- getting close, I can see the stadium and know I am soo close...this helps not to mention the guy next to me running that just passed by and said "your so close, keep going" that helped, honestly
Mile 13- ahhhh almost there, so many people! I think i will pick up the pace, oh shit there is the 3:00 hour pace runner ahead of me, I need to pass him....HERE I GO!
Finish line....sprinted past the 3 hour guy with all the energy I had left...stopping running was awkward my feet wanted to keep going. ahh water, banana, and Gatorade...sweet. Now where are Mac and Sarah? ahh getting massages!

I DID it! and finished under the time I wanted too. I can proudly say I am glad I did it...and what, i think I could and would do it again! What city next?

SO that was it. The people that stood by the side of the route the whole way cheering us on helped tremendously, not the mention the refueling stations and the music in my ipod. Michael Bolton was lovely to hear. Someone said my name once and I got confused and then remembered it was on my bib. Bib number 24384! sweet! My final finish time was something like 2:55 I think but I subtract like 3 minutes for the potty break and the time I had to stop to stretch my tight calves. So not horrible for my first one and not great but I was never much of a long distance runner.

I could sprint with the best of them. Next time I will shoot for under 2:30 and hopefully make it. So that was it for the race. We had to hurry back to our hotel to shower and get out before check out time and then hung around the park next to the Modern Museum of Art until our flight at 8pm. We got a lot of free stuff too which was nice!

Next blog: when I got back Sunday night from all of this, i had some unfortunate news which is changing g a lot of things and deals with the relationship status change on y facebook profile! Stay tuned...

Countdown begins...

2008-07-31T08:17:00.000-07:00

So...here I am, a day before I leave for San Francisco and excited and nervous both. For the run of course. If there was no half marathon, then I would be nothing but excited to get away with the girls for a much needed vacay!

Here is how I see the race going. (Oh and by the by, I am going to attempt to take my camera so I can document my slow and tortuous death, mile by mile, so be awaiting those photos.)

Mile 1- good, feeling good about myself and glad I trained at a much higher altitude
Mile 2-3 - About the same. By now I have found a good pace and I am still in the park!
Mile 4- Getting a little bored and probably no longer see Mackenzie and Sarah. (my pace is slow) plus my excitment and adrenaline is running low.
Mile 5-6 - getting a little tired and which I was a lot closer to the finish line than i was
Mile 7- contimplatine stopping and walking for a quarter of a mile because I have made it half way, but i won't...yet!
Mile 8-9 Really thinking I might not make it but trying to not focus ont he excitement of me seeing the each Mile marker pass.
Mile 10- my slow pace jog has become a REALLY slow pace jog but I only have 3 left to go!
Mile 11- Thinking I might need to throw up of fall down or pass out or something, my body is telling me this is not right, you didn't prepare me for this. I also stop caring about all the people passing me.
Mile 12. one more to go, but I am afraid my legs and knees will give out on me. Right now I am concentrating on making my legs work correctly!
Mile 13...ahhhhh .4 left to go. I might make it. I might beable to say I did this. Oh look there is the Giants Stadium!
Finish line- I am predicting a collapse or a fall because my legs won't know what to do once I stop. Now it is time to find my compadres and take a gross but congratulating picture of our first half marathon. (and maybe last) we will see how it goes.

So anyways...I plan on keeping a mental record (and a photo of myself and surroundings) for every mile so I can blog about the actuality of it all when I am back, so look for those! And we will see how unrealistic I was about things.

So if I don't seriously hurt myself I will be on a plane Sunday night (late) flying back to Denver and probably have a severly hard time going to work on monday morning! At least Sarah and I will be together on that one. Hope no one expects me to produce anything for Monday!

In exactley 72 hours I will be preparing for the race and probably already be at the start location. I might start to pray! (and well I don't do that often)

Wish me luck!

And so....I just ran!

2008-07-24T13:18:00.000-07:00

So an update on the running since I haven't been very good about talking about it. Sooo, i was worried for a long time...mostly because I procrastinated starting training until it was pretty late. So I attempted to cram 2 and a half months training into one month. We will see how that works out when the time comes for me to run 13.2 or whatever it calculates out to be miles!

So I have been running everyday except maybe a day or two each week now and am feeling a lot better about it. I found my perfect running speed to where I feel like I can keep going. I ran too and from volleyball last night and still had plenty of energy to play which felt nice. I have found my good running paths. The only thing I am weary of is the hills. I pray they aren't bad...and even if they are I hope that the elevation decrease will help me overcome that.

I run down 7ths street to Colorado Blvd and back for a good 4 mile run and I will run to and from Monaco this weekend. (a little over 7 miles) Probably saturday night before...drum roll please...the Dark Knight in IMAX. For me I am all about the weather and time of day when I run! So anywhoo, I am slowly trying to piece together how my body prefers to run. Like what I should eat...how much and how long before, and what time of day, etc. Haven't figured it al out yet, but hopefully soon!

So if I make it to the finish line, I am going to buy myself a present...don't know what it is yet, but maybe a bike! Who knows. I am also going to try to run the whole way which means keeping a good pace.

I will definitely let you know!

Sooo, I will keep my promise

2008-07-21T09:32:00.000-07:00

So if you reference a couple entries ago called "I am going public," I said I would keep ya'll (Nicole and Mackenzie) updated about my "lovely lady lumps."

I had an appointment last week which was supposed to be a consoltation on what i need to do to have the things removed...well it was more like a "get ready for surgery cause here it comes" appointment. My specialist said she didn't blame me for wanting them out because they are rather large (the lump, not my ya knows) so she said she would schedule me in a soon as possible to have my out-patient surgery. Ahhhh! so...drum roll please...Aug. 11th which is a Monday will be the day that my right (ummm...how do I say it?) friend? becomes a little bit smaller. Yeah!

I have to do some pre-op thing too where they put a wire (that is what she said) in my ummm...friend to kind of lead my surgeon to the smaller of the two. That is in another office. So I have that "wire placement" at 9 in the morning and then I have actually surgery at noon. (it is supposed to take an hour) Where the put me completely under...(yea!!!) and when i wake up, I am in recovery for about an hour extra.

And I already have a Vicatin prescription. Yippee Skippee! and no, you may not have any! ha! jk!

Ben is taking the halfday to come drive me home and make sure I don't do anything silly while still under the infulence. They say they will bandage me up and it will look similar to someone after they have an augmentation. Like all bandaged and sports bra-ed up. I will take pictures!

Anywhooo...just thought I would inform ya!

Oh and they might put a titanium marker (size of a pin head) in there so in case later in life I have something else, it will mark where my problems/scar tissue is for future doctors.

Sweet!

Thats all for now!
Cheerio!

Stressed.

2008-07-16T15:47:00.000-07:00

I am stressed. All my preplanning and deciding to do a bunch of things is catching up to me. not to mention at work where our schedule is about 6 months less than it should be, and it is only a 9 month project to begin with. Ahhhh!

Anywhooo, I am stressed, and if stressed spelled backwards didn't spell "desserts" it would make it worse.

I feel an unusual crankiness coming on and I don't like it.

Thats all, thank you.

I survived...

2008-07-15T12:25:00.000-07:00

So just thought I would let you all (Nicole and Mackenzie, since you are the only two that read this) that i survived skydiving. And rafting as well.

Actually we were running late to the skydiving and i thought about how ironic it would be if we got in an accident before jumping out of a plane.

But anywhooo...it was fun and I never had time to get nervous. The most nerve-racking part was during the freefall when you have 120 mph winds blowing at your face and it is hard to breath. Other than that, it was a lot of fun. I would do it again in a heartbeat if it didn't cost an arm and a leg.

So if anyone is thinking about doing it, I say go for it!

On Sunday I went white water rafting too with my sis, dad, and ben. We had a cute guide from USC names Zach and had good water so that was fun as well. Not to mention I looked hot with my sleeveless wetsuit (which caused a uni-butt), helmet, and sunglass strings. Hot! Yes that is the word I will go with. Lucky for you, there are no pictures of it. ha!

But now back to real world and the office. Even though I didn't have any days off it felt like a vacation because we drove to Boulder, then Idaho Springs, adn then Louisville allin one weekend. And of course my family was there.

But this weekend I have the train ride and salsa lesson on Saturday and then all day concert on Sunday. Not to mention I need to fit in a long run on Sat. Boo.

Ciao for now.

I DO have will power!

2008-07-11T10:12:00.000-07:00

If you know me at all, you know that my will power has a tendency to be weak when it comes to a couple things:

-boys (all of them in general)
-exercise
-early morning things
-anything that I can procrastinate on
-staying off of facebook
-spending money I don't have
-shopping in general

and many others. So seeing as two of those things are included in what I did yesterday morning, I am very proud.

I got up at 5:30 (early mroning) and ran 2 miles around Cheeseman Park (exercise)

I just thought I would brag a little. Now as long as I can keep it up, I am golden.

Thanks and have a great Friday. I will be jumping out of a plane this time tomorrow, so wish me luck!

Oh and PS. I for got to mention Julianna's bday in my post about being busy until the end of the year! So I would like to shout out that I also have Julianna's bday on Nov. 17th! So there Ju! :)

Dos Anos!

2008-07-09T14:57:00.001-07:00

Today is Ben and I's 2 year anniversary! Not that I remembered this morning when he woke me up. But I sent him an edible bouquet of chocolate covered apples and strawberries at work! ha! And of course I am taking him skydiving this weekend. His gift to me is a late night romantic dinner train ride through the Royal Gorge next weekend. Should be fun!

Did I mention I love Colorado and all its things that keep me busy enough with! Anyone wants to visit, just say the words!

Also I am still coaching volleyball every Tues. and Thurs. nights in Littleton which means a second job keeps me busy enough without all of these great things that I am blessed to be able to do!

Happy Wednesday!!

Oh and on Mackenzie's note. I attempted to get up this morning and run but if you know me at all....mornings just aren't my thing. Some day soon though. It is the only time I can fit it in these days!

Half Marathon count down --3.5 weeks AHHHHH!

I am going public...:(

2008-07-03T15:01:00.001-07:00

So on a more serious note...at least more serious than my blogs, let alone my life, usually are.

Around last Octoberish, I discovered I had some "lovely lady lumps."

Translation: I have a couple lumps in my right breast. Really I had just felt one, one night while I was laying in bed. I panicked because it wasn't one of those, is this a lump or it kinda feels like something there. It was a "oh holy crap, there isa lump in there." no questions asked.

So I made an appointment the very next day to see my "lady doctor" about my concern. And sure enough, she said, yes there is a lump. That is about all she told me. So then it was off to a specialist, yes a "brest specialist" to see about my lovely lady lumps!

The did an ultrasound, yes an ultrasound, and found that there was not one, but TWO lovely lady lumps in my right girl. I wanted a picture like you get when your pregnant, but no such luck. So then the doctor came in, not to be confused with the ultrasound technician. and let me know that they were going to have to take a biopsy of the mass.

So I had to schedule my out-patient procedure and go get a sample taken out of the lumps to test to make sure it was benign. So that day came and I went (by myself) during the work day (try explaining these appointments to your man boss) ha! Basically they took a huge needle, the size of a straw and "sucked" out some tissue from the mass to run tests on.

So a couple days later, I recieved the news, good news, the lumps are simply put "fibre abernorma" which in translation means Abnormal Fiber of course. However the lumps don't go away, they remain there indefinitely. Which is a bit weird, not going to lie.

So that all took about a month or so. I didn't let my family or friends know until after I found out it was okay...no need to stress people out, but the purpose of me bringing it up at this point is that I have decided to have the lumps removed. The one large one that I can actualy is rather annoying and I feel it almost daily. So with recommendations from my "lady doctor" I found a lady lump removal doctor (that is the technical name of course) and I have an appointment on the 17th of this month.

It is only a consoltation, but I will then make an appointment after that to have them removed. Yea...freedom, that way 18 years down the road when I feel a lump, I won't be like " oh that is the same one I had years ago" when in reality it is a new one that isn't so normal, or abnormal, whichever way you want to look at it.

But anyways, I thought I would go public because come to find out this is more common then not, and if the few people/ladies that read this understand that it isn't really a big deal and it usually turns out all right, then that is great.

So i will keep you updated. Also I am thinking about asking the doctor to take a little more out then need be....ha. If you know me at all, then you understand!

Happy 4th!

The next thing I knew, I was 94.

2008-07-02T12:12:00.000-07:00

So this past weekend I was in Huron, SD for a lovely wedding of Matt and Kristina Porter. Had a lot of fun, met a lot of great people, and ate a lot of great food! Weddings scare me, they are rather intimidating.

Life in next few months;

July 4th weekend-Wash park all day with gang
-keep up my running for the half marathon
-take car in for "maint. req'd" light
July 12th weekend -skydiving
-dad and sis in town
-whitewater rafting
July 18th weekend-Rockies game with the office
-Mile High Festival all day Sunday
-Sis and dad come back through
July 26th weekend-Film on the Rocks
- Rafting again a possibility this weekend with the office
-Camping with the girls
Auguest 1st weekend - SAN FRAN half marathon
-see long lost British friend Laura
-Find Mackenzie's future husband at the finish line
August 8th weekend - mom and sister driving through for college
September 12th - Pete & Mal's wedding in KC
October 18th - CU vs KSU gmae in Boulder
October 24th - OU vs. KSU in Manhattan
Nover 13th- Greely to watch emily play Division 1 Volleyball
November 22nd - Jenna's Wedding
November 28th - Thanksgiving

And then Christmas of course
So to those of you who are coming to visit (Ju, Juan, and Maddie) please schedule accordingly!

Kisses!

June Bug

2008-06-23T09:44:00.000-07:00

...update...

birthday was great, Ben ended up giving me....drum roll please
Salsa lessons for the two of us! Yea! I can't really believe he agreed to doing that, but that is why it was such a spectacular gift!

So in a few months I am going to be a Salsa pro...no autographs please!
We also went to Ruth Chris's for dinner! Yummy steak and butter! mmmm!

Lesson 1-salsa! went great. Ben is better than we all imagined (all=me, ben, and salsa instructor)
We are also going to attempt the Cha Cha and the Meringue. Cool!

my birthday weekend was great; the girls surprised me and took me out to Encore (superfab little restaurant on colfax, yes colfax) and then out for a night of A LOT of shots. Sarah kept telling me to dress in a bright color, so I bought a bright red little number and showed up to dinner where all the girls were dresses in black! sweet! and they bought me princess jewels to wear all night!

I got home, got sick, and had a late night snack of warm biscuits with cold mashed potatos (courtesy of Ruth's Chris). Fabulous drunk food I might add.

Anywhoooo! Not much going on after that. Ben and I are going to South Dakota this weekend for Porter's wedding (Ben is a groomsman). Tiny airplane to fly in, going to be interesting!

umm and in July for Ben and I's 2 year anniversary (ahhh!) I am taking him SKYDIVING! Ahhh! So if I don't make it (knock on wood) I would like Sarah to get my car and Ben to get my dog! jk! hopefully!

So I will keep you posted....

Half Marathon count down, San Fransisco, 1 month and 1 week away! that deserves another Ahhhh!

Ciao for now!

disclaimer: that is not me in the skydiving photo

Happy Birthday to MEEE!

2008-06-11T07:39:00.000-07:00

Today is my Birthday. So far I have received:

-fresh made breakfast of eggs, bacon, and biscuits from Ben
-hot and yummy starbucks from Sarah Ann
-best friend card from Sarah Ann
-purple Happy Birthday Balloons and pink ribbons decorating my desk at work from Sarah Ann
-Happy 1-year at work Anniversary decorations at my desk from my work of course
-happy birthday text from Amber this morning
-Happy birthday email from Laura Kay!
-numerous birthday messages on facebook!

So far, so good.
Happy Birthday to me!

Sarah Ann

2008-06-03T10:09:00.001-07:00

and just to let people know, Sarah is alive and well although not on facebook. she recently made the Denver Bronco Cheerleaders, i may be her number one fan. and she also began dating someone i think is particularly fantastic; so just a brief update for her, since she is not on the facebook! oooh and she has bangs!

I am sorry, It will never happen again!

2008-06-03T09:49:00.000-07:00

Sorry, it has been too long. again. 2 months. well, I think since then some things have happened. hmmm...let's see, i passed my LEED exam! thank heavans I only had to take it once...it kinda sucked, not going to lie, but it is done and now Sarah calls me Alli AP.

I just moved last weekend...oh wait, i went to Vegas a couple weeks ago and had a great time for my sister's 21st bday and my moms' 50th. that includes Bealtes LOVE Cirque de soliel show and CHippendales! yippee! and yes i have pictures ladies! Unitl I tried to get home which meant for me 27 hours straight in airports and airplanes...now come on people...isn't it yor job to get people from here to there...or in my case Vegas to Denver. I could have driven in half the time, and believe me I considered it.

But back to moving...so I just moved into a new place. it is super cute a huge old victorian house rightnext to Cheeseman park; the house has been divided into to units and been updated and the yard and porches are amazing. I am on the second story with a great porch. small thing..no AC...I know I know but actually it hasn't been bad so far. even during sunday when I was moving stuff around. but other than that, not too shabby. oh and did I mention, Ben moved in as well?

umm, other news, i am headed to Houston this weekend for Emily's hs graduation. and then at the end of June to Huron, SD for a wedding....yes Huron, SD. and big news....

Mackenzie, Sarah, and I recently signed up for the half marathon in SAN FRAN at the beginning of August. ahhhh! I am trying to train but with moving and Vegas, I haven't kept up to well to me training schedule. So after this weekend I HAVE TO buckle down, so i don't die in San Fran. Also we will be seeing our lovely lady British friend Laura there as well, so it should be an eventful trip.

Other than that, just normal work and play. I will promise to keep this up to date more even though i am not sure anyone is actually paying attention, but if so, have a great Tuesday!

Mean Adults Can Kiss me A**!

2008-03-20T10:41:00.000-07:00

So...I have always had a large pet peeve of mean adults. How old are you, seriously? Don't you know if you treat total strangers this way (which can only mean that they treat people they are close to similarly) NO ONE WILL LIKE YOU.

And how can you stand being disliked? What incident caused this raving of ridiculousness you ask? Sunday evening, while my family and I and Ben hopped in his car to go downtown for dinner, we were circling to find a parking spot. We saw someone backing up but there was a car in front of us. Well it looked as if he was going to take it, but he passed it and started making what looked like a u-turn ahead of us, so we pulled in. (Ben was driving).

Anyways, so we parked and saw him throw it in reverse an back up and give us a death look. So that is when I started laughing and put my head in my lap so as not to be seen. Little did I know when I was doing this, he was getting out of his car. (Side Note: he is by himself, and we have five people in the car) He walks up to Ben's window and Ben rolls it down a few inches. (you can never be too sure at this point) Then the guy proceeds to say "If you value your car, you will leave this parking space." WTF? I of course still had my head in my lap and was oblivious to the fact the guy had even gotten out of his car.

So when i looked up a few seconds later I saw him walking back to his car and from the reaction of everyone else knew he had said something. So I rolled down my window and asked "What did you just say?' He responded "I said it twice and I am not going to say it again!" Ahhh my blood was boiling. So I asked my compadres what he said and when they told me I was livid.

I did NOT want to leave that spot but nobody else agreed. What was he going to do. We have his license plate # and five of us had seen his face? If he would have touched his car there are I am sure plenty of legal things that could have been done.

Who says that? Is a parking space on Sunday night really worth it, or a damage of property lawsuit worth it. I just wanted to stay int he spot and prove that (pardon my french) BASTARD a lesson. If I would have been paying attention to when he came by the car and I was as witty as I hope I am, I would have followed his "If you value your car, then you will leave this space" with "If you value your nuts you will walk away and not touch anything" But seeing as I came up with that as we were driving aways, I doubt it would have been as grand as I imagined. Now if he is as rude and egotistical as he proved to be in the five second he spoke, he might just have the nerve to hit a girl. Oh well Black eyes can be stylish, right?

Just kidding, but anyways so i do truly despise Mean adults who feel like they are right and they can get their way with everything. How long have they been on this planet, none of that is true with anyone, okay maybe Oprah, just kidding, but seriously!

It's Beginning to Look a lot like Christmas?

2008-03-03T14:08:00.000-08:00

WHAT? Yeah I know, that is what I am thinking. I mean I know I moved to Denver, but seriously?...apparently (as always from my very reliable source) we have had about 140% of the snowfall that we normally do here in Denver (of course my first winter). Now in the mountains is fine when i am skiing and there is fresh powder, that is great. But when I start sliding off the freeway and my breaks lock...it is not cool. If you do not currently live here, it was only one day but it was snowy and icy weather about a day after it was 70 here in Denver? And I thought Kansas weather was schizophrenic...who knew?

Anyways so if you didn't know now...I am ready for summer, but this past weekend I was on a ski trip with my firm for the annual Ski Race Fundraiser for Athletes with Disabilities (don't quote me on that but it was something similar.) Anyways we raced and got second in our heat which isn't enough to move on to the next round...but it was fun and we had VIP passes for the whole weekend which meant for us (Me, Sarah, Mackenzie, Katie, and Ben) we had free booze and food all weekend. (that equalled one cheap drunk night Saturday night) But the skiing there in Winter Park was great and my skis fit correctly this weekend which made it all the better.

Anyways, quick work update. Since I started at JG Johnson Architects in June (June 11th to be exact...people should know that is a very important date) I have been working on two projects mainly. One being 20 3-story townhomes in Avon/Vail/Beaver Creek, CO. It is a small project but a lot of fun and the clients are pretty cool so the design should be pretty awesome. More contemporary than most "mountain architecture" up there. But seeing as they will be too expensive for even my boss to afford, I have no hopes of ever owning one...which is sad, because they will be sweet! And similar to our 24 Walnut Townhomes.

Second project I am working on is the new "W" Hotel in Lower Downtown Denver. Sweet again. The hotel company is again pretty badass and is all about sleek modern design, with a lot of emphasis on the interiors. We are just moving into DDs but are pretty ahead not to mention the project is done completely in BIM which rocks my socks off. It is a huge project for our firm so I feel lucky to be on the team. When it is completed I will be honored to have been a part of it. (Picture is of a rendering for the Atlanta W)

Anyways that is all for now. I am really busy at work with both of these projects not to mention I am currently coaching a 5 week volleyball coach for middle shhoolers. I hope to pick up more volleyball coaching jobs after this seeing as I thoroughly enjoy it.

My parents and little sister come into town in two weeks and possibly my grandparents which I am very excited for. I will try to convince my sister to move up here. And in May i am hoping to make a 21st birthday trip to Vegas with Maddie and my mom. That could be one crazy weekend if you know my sister and my mom at all. Also in June I will be heading home for Emily' graduation and at the end of June I will be in Huron, SD for a wedding. So much traveling which I will take as it comes.

Well...other than that HAPPY MONDAY and question for the day is:

-how do you answer your phone at work? "This is Allison" is my response, however, most people know who they are calling, so i am not sure that is the best response. Let me know.

Darling in Denver

2008-02-18T12:08:00.001-08:00

Topics of the Day:
-my ever so exciting weekend (sports game for you guys)
-chapstick users?
-H2O?
-girls and their rings?

So I will start with the most obvious: my weekend, cause we all know I enjoy discussing myself. :)

Mackenzie emailed the girls on Friday afternoon at work and let us know she has some free Suite tickets for the Denver Mammoths game (Denver's Pro lacrosse Team) Exciting I know. Now I will go ahead and let you in in some top secret knowledge of mine. Denver has the most professional Sports teams in the counrty. Argue or whatever (as my boyfriend often does, letting me know that obviously New York has Denver beat) but I heard it somewhere from a very reliable source that I can't put my finger on this second, but I promise.

Anyways back to the game. We had a suite with all the alochol you could ever imagine or want, and there were probably about 12 of us including Mackenzie's brother (the source of our great tickets) and a slew of his friends. Now seeing as it was my first lacrosse game EVER, I determined with some obvious input from Ben, Sarah, and Mackenzie, that lacrosse is a mix between hockey, soccer, and basketball (yes there is a shot clock). Most common with hockey. But anyways the most surprising part was the crowd. More packed and rambunctous than a Nuggets game, and again from a reliable source (Mac's Bro) the Mammoths sell out more often than the Nuggets. Who'd have thunk? So by the end there were some drunk people and we stayed into the suite well after the game was done and left only when we were forced to. After that we meandered to teh Highlands were we had a few drinks at the ForestRoom5. A trendy swindig of a joint that played several projections of a random display of movies and as Sarah and I saw...50s cowboy porn? what? don't ask! ha!

Saturday during the day not much exciting going on except for the fact that mac and Sarah borrowed Ema for a hike and Ema had to poop a little too often for Sarah's liking. Ha. But thanks to them Ema was too pooped out(no pun intended) to be at all rambunctous the rest of the day. She is working on her figure. (a little sausage as some people...cough...would say).

Saturday night consisted of my two loveliest lady friends (sarah and mac) and I heading to Cherry Creek to watch 27 dresses. A very predictable, and in that same fashion, entertaining and romatic. We liked it and Katherine Heigl and James Marsden (sp?) didn't hurt, both easy on the eyes.

Sunday consisted of napping, IHOP, and some LEED studying, so you will understand if I do not elaborate on that day! :)

So three questions for comments on this blog?

1. Girls, I have been informed that what fingers we where our rings on (fashon or family or significant other, it does not matter) says something about us. So the question is on a daily basis which fingers do you where your rings? This is of course if you are not engaged.

2. ArrowHead Water has come out with a new Eco Friendly and Green plastic bottle for their water. Does anyone see bottled water as an antithesist of the green movement?

and 3. Are you an avid chapstick user? You know the kind. Always a chapstick in your pocket ready for the dry, peeling, and parched feeling? Curious for a couple of reasons: one being my past two boyfriends fall into this category, and until recently (recently refering to my move to a very dry state) I haven't paid much attention to the whereabouts of my chapstick.

And Finally, Sarah Karlan's 24th b-day is on Monday. ahhh we are aging at a ever-rapid pace and I am glad to say she will always be my OLDER, wiser best friend, and I love her for that, not to mention the fact that she will always listen to and enjoy my stories, that more often than not she has already heard! So Happy Birthday a week from today Sarah Ann!

Rewind 1.5 years

2008-02-14T15:22:00.000-08:00

Yea, sooo. I haven't written in 1.5 years. So here is a brief rundown of what has gone down and what is currently happening as I frolic around town. (town now refers to Denver, CO, where I currently reside and reek havok.) I am trying to get this thing up and runnign again...I will try.

Past 1.5 years:
-continued to procrastinate my way through my last year of college
-ate some pita pit
-spent time with bf and bfs (ben, sarah, ju, katie, etc)
-started looking for a job and finished my portfolio(I wonder if portfolio rhymes with polio for a reason)
-missed Europe and all of my frolicings.
-found a real job in a city called Denver
-gradimitated and managed not to trip across stage
-got drunk to celebrate
-celebrated birthday #23
-celebrated ben and I's one year
-went to Disney World and loved all the whonannies!
-started real world
-I am more broke then when I was in college
-broke my car and got a new one
-took up painting
-got a dog from the local shelter. I call her ema. (emily, madison, allison)
-my dog is magic
-got promoted to Event Planner/Party Girl at work (Yes!)
-decided to go the LEED route and am currently studying
-tried snowboarding
-quit snowboarding, returned to skiing
-love my job and all the people (rare I know)
-am currently working on the new "W" Hotel in Denver LoDo
-am also working on some million dollar townhomes in Vail/Beaver Creek, CO
-enjoying Denver's amazing public transit
-hanging out with the ladies (Sarah, Katie, Mackenzie, Lauren, Melanie)
-bought a zebra chair

Okay, so that about sums up my last year and a half. I am still with Ben and he recently moved here and we are looking to buy a house together in the next year or so. I do seriously love my job and the work I do and my dog.

Reasoning for starting this thing back up:
-honestly I was reading Nicole's blog and found it terribly entertaining and telling and thought "i know people love to hear about my life" ha! no but seriously blame or thank Nicole Ellis, soon to be Semple.

I am currently contimplating the following:
-getting a bumble bee tattoo...i just don't know where...ideas anyone?
-taking a random vacation to somewhere like....I don't know...ideas anyone?
-actually working on what I am supposed to be working on (I am at work)

Happy Valentine's Everyone...singles included!

The Summer is almost over ahh!

2006-08-07T11:00:00.000-07:00

So once again I apologize for the long delay for the blog...I don't actually know if anybody reads these anymore...but I will spend some time at work to write one anyways. I have been incredibly busy this summer with little time to breathe! Last time I left you I was about to head to Manhattan for the weekend to see a few important people that I hadnt seen in a long time. I saw Sarah, Jenna, and Caitlyn whom I hadn't seen in around 6 months....ahh...and I saw Ju who I hadn't seen since Orvieto, and I saw Ben whom I hadnt seen since he left Prague so around a month. It was a blast of course...how could it not have been...with all my favorite people!

But the weekend went by too fast and before I knew it I was driving 12 hours home on Monday morning....blahhh! So since then, I had a bachelorette party! Wow that was a crazy good time. The first night we stayed at Erin and Michaels' new house in Siewnna Plantation and did girly things like have a penis pinata, a blowup doll, and have sex talk of course! Then Saturday morning we(meaning 12 girls) headed to Lake Charles, LA....yes!! We stayed at La'Berge (sp?) hotel and casino...and to make a long story short didnt end up paying for anything the entire weekend because we ran into a 5 man bachelor party that was staying in a 10,000 dollar a night villa, so needless to say they had to means to pay for all our Grey Goose and Crown and Red Bull and whatever else our drunk hearts desired! It was basically exactley how a bachelorette party should have been! We came back, Sunday, hungover and with our pockets full, so it was a huge success!

Since then, I have been cleaning, packing, and preparing for Erins wedding, not to mention starting to freak out about ht enext year of my life! It has all come so fast and I know that it will soon be over before I know it. I have some very important decisions to make soon and some important people that I need to include in my future plans! Speaking of...

I will give you a brief understanding of my new boyfriend...just because i like him that much and I want everyone to know it! For those of you who know...we started seeing each other in Prague and decided after coming back that we didnt like being apart, so we made it official and I couldn't be happier. I trust him completely which is something very difficult to do for me. He treats me fabulously and likes me for who I am...all the imperfections included! It has gotten serious pretty fast but neither of us have a problem with that and are super excited about this upcoming year! Everything has just been falling into place and I seriously couldn't be happier! Okay sorry that was a little corny and gay, but I wanted him and everybody to know how much a sweet and selfless guy is appreciated! hahah...he meets my friends and family in 3 days so we will see if he sticks around after that...haha..hopefully!

Okay well I will write again after the wedding and when I am back in Manhattan about to start my final college year! AHHH again sorry! Okayu well I hope everybody is having a fabulous time and leave a comment if you actually still read this thing so I know! Miss you all!

Oooops! Sorry...it has been too long!

2006-07-17T10:47:00.000-07:00

Okay well lets see if I can give a biref run down of my last few weeks in Prague, not to mention my 5 days in Barcelona because I totally missed that! well we will start with Barcelona.
First of all I loved it....warm weather, beaches, the spanish language, the spanish people, the pier, the shopping, etc...basically everything about Barcelona I loved...nothing to complain about...oh except for I got my wallet stolen two days before I was supposed to leave...long story short...we were on a train headed towards the beach and and when we got to the beach I noticed it was missing. Well silly me had my passport , my credit cards, all of my ids, and a bunch of other things in my wallet, so needless to say, I was in quite a bit of a pickle! I called my parents at 6 in the morning back home and started balling of course...and they canceled the credit cards, and I tried calling the consulate, but the guy didnt speak english..yeah I know the US Consulate, and he doesnt speak enlgish. Well in the end, the Consulate wasnt open til Monday morning and I was supposed to fly out on Sunday night, but without a passport I coulndt, so the guys, Ben, Ben, and Dan, all left Sunday night and I stayed an extra night in teh hostel, borrowed a couple 500 some dollars from Ben and got my passport the next morning. I was lets just say a little bit stressed out...okay maybe more, but once I got to the airport and made it home in time to tell the guys bye before they flew home to the US I was good. I actually missed Barcelona after I left though...I will be going back!

After that I had about 10 days or so in Prague. I had to cancel my Austria and Hungary trips because I had no form of money excpet that which I had leftover from Ben, and it wasnt enough for hostels and trains tickets to those places. In another turn of events, Annie, my roomate had to leave like 2 or 3 weeks ealrier than she had planned becasue her grandfather became really ill...so I was left with a room by myself and all I could do is wait around til I got some form of money, which ended up being my dad fedexing my credit card over night to Prague...cost a pretty penny. But for the last week I did some souvenir shopping, and shopping for erins wedding stuff! And the last two days we actually got kicked out of our dorm and had to stay in a hostel in Prague...rather inconvenient, and all this chaos still didnt really make me ready to leave yet. I mean i wish I could have stayed and all my people could have come and visited...or I couls have flown home to visit easier. But it doesnt really work like that, so I had to go home. I made a 4 day pit stop in Atlanta where my mom, dad, and little sister were to watch my little sister play volleyball in the Junior Olympics. A good couple days...and then finally I flew home to Houston. I was tired as one can imagine, and I got to see Erin the first night and have a Caesar Salad. So I was glad to be back!

Well since then, I have attended three wedding showers for Erin, started working at the firm again to make back all that money I spent, and have added a awesome person in my life...ahem..Ben, thats you! So right now I am pretty darn happy and can't complain about much, especially since I am going to Manhattan this weekend to see Sarah, Ben, Julianna, Jenna, Katie, Annie, Caitlyn and maybe Mac...so I am super excited. And cant wait to go to Aggieville, I am sure it missed me! But I promise I will write more and keep you up to date. The rest of the summer includes, a bachelorette party, and grad party, and a wedding, so I will by no means be bored. Once again sorry this took so long, but here you go...that about sums it up! Talk to ya'll later!

Spain adventure: Chapter one: Madrid!

2006-06-21T02:15:00.000-07:00

Sorry it has been a while since I blogged. I was in Spain for eight days....not seven...and I was recovering for a couple days after that...all in all a fabulous trip, with a few slight setbacks and disappointments, but I survived!

Here it goes. We arrived at the Prague airport...we being Ben, Ben Jr., Dan, and myself....and right away waited in a three hour line to check in....no exaggeration. We boarded our Smart Wings plane 3 hours late and got into Madrid around 4 or 5. We found our Mad Hostel...good...and wondered around to grab some food. The next morning we got up ealry and headed out on the town...we took a Audio tour of the Royal Palace, and wondered around for a bit...then we headed out to make our journey to the bull fight in Villalba, Spain. Okay here we go. Villalba is 50 minutes outside of Madrid, so we hopped the wrong train and had to back track a little, so we got to Villalba about an hour and a half into our trip. We then proceeded to wonder around to try to find out how to get to the Plaza de Toros. We found a bus stop but no Plaza de toros...so I used the crappy Spanish skills that I still possess to pick up a guy that took us onto two different buses. He then told us to get off and wander down the street for a bit towards the Plaza de Toros. Ha! So we wandered down the street...haha...into some street vendors...no Plaza de toros. So again i used my spanish skills to ask a relatively civilized looking woman where the plaza was. She told us to cut throught the carnival...yes a carnival with rides and cotton candy...and vear off to the left. So we walked through the carnival, which was just random i might add, and headed to the left. Wait Wait..what is that...yes a Bull fighting arena...arena at this point meaning a painted plywood arena that stand probably only 15 feet tall and could be blown down by any Kansas wind. But we got there....3 hours later, and super excited we weren't too late! We got to sit in the front row..dont get too excited there were only like 4 or 5 rows...and we right in front of most of the action. We got to see 6 matadors and 6 bulls get killed. Only one of the matadors got hurt but not enought o stop fighting. I didnt mind teh gore...it wasnt too bad, and the guys and I enjoyed it all the same. So after two hours of watching a Spanish historical sport we heade back through the carnival, thought seriously about some cotton candy, and got back to Madrid about 3 time quicker than we got there. We were exhausted, and we had to catch a flight at 6 in the morning,...meaning we had to catch a taxi at 4 am. So we caught a taxi and got to the airport in plenty of time to catch our Vueling flight to Barcelona...a nice little Spanish airline...! From there the story continues...but it will have to be in another blog...soon I promise...and also dont miss my adventures in Barcelona...the for sure top that of Madrid! Talk to you soon!!

School's Out For Summer!

2006-06-10T08:31:00.000-07:00

Okay so the last real blog I had was the Pirate party...and there have been a few significant things happen since then...sorry it has been a while. The first reason I have is that my studio work is now done...I have been busy finishing that up and so one, I havent had time to blog, and two there was nothing to blog about...but before my two day intensive work...We had our Green Line Pub Crawl....yes that is correct lasies and gentlemen and Prague pub crawl. If you look at my facebook you have seen the aftermath in the pictures and whatnot. We start at one end of the Green Line Metro...it had 13 stops. We began our little journey at 3 in the afternoon and we got off at each of the 13 stops and had half a liter of beer...at least that was the idea, but If I had drank that much my parents wouldnt be too happy with the shipping fee across the Atlantic for my dead body. Anyways needless to say I didnt drink that much, but I did drink plenty for me... and the guys, ben, carl, chris, and landon, did drink all of that. So 11 hours later, we made it back to Masarykova alive....we had tons of fun, and a lot of pictures.

Shortly following that is when my school work kicked into gear. I basically had to put all my drawings into CAD, draw perspectives and photoshop them into pictures and what not. I also had to update my model...which wasnt a big deal. None of it was really a big deal....but I have a conscious. SO 6 A1s later and a small portfolio of process and layout....Im done...and mackenzie is going to pin it up for me Monday morning becasue.....IM FLYING TO SPAIN! yeah i super excited....and not to mention tomorrow..Sunday is my birthday! whoopie...I keep forgetting, because I am not expecting any presents of course! I am getting to use the rents credit card for some extra cash in Spain, and thats my present..and I cant complain at all because...Hell I am Europe!

But anyways, the other thing that was quite entertaining is that we had a birthday celebration last night, for Ramon (mexican), and Kate (british). A bunch of us..the British, Scottish, Mexicans, Spaniards, and all the Americans...oh and the Canadians...all cooked out at the grill outside our dorm. We grilled eveything from cabobs to steak to fajitas and everything in between. Good and of course there was drinking into the night....a very fun evening...made me feel like we were back home grilling out with all of our good friends...ahh living the high life! Anyways the rest of the weekend I plan on relacxing, packing, and preparing an itinerary for our Spain trip, which remember I am going with three guys.....ahh could be interesting. Ben, Ben, and Dan. Well see how it goes....but I am super excited, this is the most highly anticipated trip of my European vacation....ooohh I meant study abraod...haha wink! Okay well the next time I should write will be after my trip from Spain....so get excited! I am! Hope everybody is having a fabulous summer and I will see most of you in a couple months or so!

Tag...You're It!!! My Top 5 Fives!

2006-05-31T08:01:00.000-07:00

I've been tagged so here I go...

in my closet(storage cubbies in prague dorm room)
1_black Vagabond Pumps (Prague)
2_black and white polka dot dress (H&M)
3_Crazy Horse 1000 ton rolly suitcase that will carry anything and everything
4_jason fedak's grey oversized sweatpants...love em!
5_black victoria secrets bathing suit...i will be using in Spain

in my purse
1_digital camera...a must
2_my metro pass for Prague
3_wallet....
4_black hoop earing from Pink
5_Prague cell phone

on my desk
1_Dell laptop
2_face mirror
3_dvd collection for stay in rainy nights
4_800 elevation and plan drawings on trace for studio
5_my headphones that I use on Skype everyday to talk to people back home!

things at home I miss...
1_chicken caesar salad...large...with lots of dressing
2_free ice and water
3_my car
4_my sisters and family..including Copper
5_Sarah Ann, Ju, Jenna, Erin Kay, Laura Kay, Caitlyn, Karpa...and so much more!

things in Prague
1_BOHEMIA BAGEL...ahhhh
2_the cute little couple downstairs that runs the club
3_the 51 tram
4_Professor Huta (ornament), and Professor Snape (sculpture)
5_green and cream! ( a shot)

there you go....and I tag MacKenzie Manson and Laura Indihar!

Arrrggghhhh! Farewell Boat Party!

2006-05-28T07:46:00.000-07:00

Okay so by the sound of the party..."Farewell Boat Party" it makes me.you think that my semester here is almost over...which depending on your definition of "almost over" could be true but technically I believe that it still has plenty of time as well as potential. I still have a little over a month left in Europe, a week of which will be spent in Spain, and the remaining in Prague, Budapest, and possibly Vienna. Not for sure yet but I do plan on traveling after I return from Spain on the 18th of June. I leave the 1st of July and fly into Altanta where my family will be for Emily (my 16 yr old sis) is play vb in the Junior Olympics...she doesnt know I will be flying in there so keep it a surprise...DAD!!! Then I fly into Houston on July 5th... ahhh time has flown by...its crazy seriously! And then I will start working on the 10th for a month or so before Erins wedding ahhhh....real world is getting closer and im not sure if I a ready! I like this fairyland over here called Prague! I would probably have to say this is one of the best times of my life and I will never forget it...one due to my increasingly ridiculous abundance of pictures, and two due to my ever so sharp memory. But anyways I am having the time of my life and I couldn't ask for more!

Okay back to where I started with this blog...the Pirate Party....I guess my entire point to the previous paragraph was to say that although the boat party was technicallly a farewell party...I still have over a month left. Okay well so the day started off like any other...sculpture with Professor Snape...I only call him this because I have yet to figure out his real name and his resemblance to JK Rowlings Professor Snape is uncanny. Anyways, next Wednesday is our last class for that one and we will be getting our grades, which he said may be helped by a little scotch and cuban cigars...ummm...tempting! Anywasy, following sculpture last Wednesday, I came back to my room to prepare for the party. I proceeded to do 4 guys makeup...facial hair and a little eyeliner on Carl...and got dressed so we could start predrinking around 5 or 6ish. We had to leave for the boat at 6:30 so we finally made it up to Mac and Laura's room for Jungle Juice around 6 and hurried to drink a couple before departing. So at 6:30 we headed down to the lobby and met with the rest of the 200 pirates to make our way to the boat...yeah! Imagine you are wondering the streets of Prague minding your own business and you run into 200 Pirates..it might be a little scarey. Anyways we were welcomed to the boat with a little red bull and vodka and preceeded to drink the night away on as the boat sailed down the river. There were two bars on the ship and we got "dinner" served to us too. And around midnight there was a "czech surprise" and we got fireworks lit off the ship..and for somne reason unbeknownst to me we began to sing the star spangeled banner....the Americans of course. I really don't recall this but I have been told that I was present. Ha. Anyways around12:30 the boat docked after a solid 4.5 hours a sail and we dpearted. A group of us headed back to the dorms while the remaining crazies streeked (sp?) the Charles Bridge....ahh..Carl included. Great timesI wish I had my camera for that one. But anyways if you can not tell from the obnoxiously long description, we had a fabulous time. Now it is back to AutoCad for me until june 12th and some watercoloring...ahem...not finger painting. But we are living it up in our last weeks, and I do actually think that the day I get on the 119 bus for the last time to take me to the airport I will have a tear in my eye. No doubt.

But for now I am missing my family and friends back home and hoping everyone is doing great! I love you all and will talk to you soon!!! --Alli

Blood always runs thicker than water!

2006-05-23T09:36:00.000-07:00

Okay well brief update from last time. I have currently finished three of my classes and I got an A in all of them...or an excellent whichever you prefer. So thats, Ornament, Computing, and Photography...check-check and check! The rest is figure drawing and scuplture which are both in class classes so no outside work for those and fine arts which i am halfway done with. Plus studio that is done June 12th...and I am just currently working in AutoCad. Umm what else...

We went to the movies twice this week becasue the first time we went to try to see The Davinci Code or translated in Czech...the Leonardo Code...I guess they are on a first name basis with the guy....but we found out you need reservations for it, so we saw Failure to Launch with Matthew McConahey(sp?) and Sarah Jessica Parker...cute but not the best, second hand to How to Lose a Guy in 10 Days. Well needless to say we made it back to the DaVinci Code, and sorry to say the critics are right. It was by far not what I was expecting. For the first half of the movie the writing seemed a bit slow and Tom Hanks' character was a bit unconvincing..I love him still though. And at the ending they changed a major thing, which was weird, and i was unsure why they needed to change it. Im glad I saw it, but I am for sure it wont win any awards, which is surprising comingfrom Ron Howard...but what can you do?

The Pirate Party is tomorrow and my costume is complete and Annie's boyfriend is getting in tomorrow so he can accompany us to the party...and he is bringing me Diet Coke..yeah! I am super excited! But the party should be fun..it is on a boat and supposedly there is a surprise at midnight...ahhh Czech surprises...who knows what that could be?

But for now I am wishing I was at home with my family, there are some things going on that I need to be there for and I wish it was easier to get home....I love my family to death and I know that will pull through and learn from whatever might happen in the upcoming months. I'm an optimistic person so I am hoping that we will all be able to survive and become stonger. I love my sisters more than anyone can imagine and it brings a tear to my eye as I write this that I can't be there!!! i'll be home as soon as I can!

So for right now I am trying to enjoy my last month and a week of my fabulous semester long vacation....but things are in the back of my mind that I cant forget about...so I aplogize in advnace for any strange emotions I may be going through and agian I love all my friends and family and couldnt be happy without all of them! Ciao for now!

Schoolwork...I love it...seriously!

2006-05-17T07:26:00.000-07:00

This is just going to be a less audio and more visual blog..if that makes sense at all. I am just going to see if I can put some of my schoolwork that I have been doing. PS I got my first grade for a class and I got an A or an excellent whichever you want to call it! For computer graphics..yeah! Cutest little old czech lady teacher ever! Okay anyways here we go...I will try to post my computing project first..we will see if it works as a pdf. So....i tried that and it didnt work...maybe later or here is part of it with out the colors or text..

Okay next will be some photos that i turned it from photography...

And the next set is from ornament...aka doodle class...aka the best/easiest three hours of my college careers! They are pictures of drawings so the quality isnt the best and ignore my shadows!

Okay and next is figure drawing just a few of the ones lately that I have liked the best...Im still not anywhere near being good so just keep that in mind! PS and enjoy the behind shot!
This last one is from fine arts...it isnt my work but it is what I am going to try to attempt to do with ink and watercolor....I am using an image of the Eiffel tower...so we shall see how it turns out....and I already posted one of the images from my latest and greatest (jk) sculpture project so I will leave you for now with this to ponder from the latest book I am reading The Tao of Pooh --"Now, scholars can be very useful and necessary, in their own dull and unamusing way. They provide a lot of information. It's just that there is Something More, and that Something More is what life is really all about."--Benjamin Hoff

Countdown to fun!

2006-05-12T10:19:00.000-07:00

Okay well since last time....a few things (rather boring things) have happened. Um first of all I am trying to finish up school work...6 of my classes will be done by the end of May. I am done with two of them and all I have to do is turn them in and Im done. And I might be done with Photography on Monday...Czech surprise...who knows? And I am finally progressing in studio and all I have to do is produce drawings to finalize them. We have our pin ups on the 12th of June and then Iwill be done with everything! Yeah. Sculpture guy still as crazy as ever! We are done with that at the end of May too! Yeah! So basically the entire second half of June is full of travel and fun! Cant wait!

That leads me to my next update! I booked my planes and hostels for Spain! Yeah! FInally...and I am traveling with Ben, Ben, and Dan...three of the...ummm how should we say this....most party going thrill seeking guys....so I might be in a little trouble! Especially since I am the only girl! Those boys like to party...I should be able to blend right end by the end of the trip...especially since I will be celebrating my sucessful semester at Czech Tech NINE...a little humor that most of you wont get! Dont worry mom and dad it isnt anything too dirty! But anyways I will be gone June 12th through the 18th and will be for sure inMadrid for a day and a half and Barcelona for at least 3!!! Yeah I am soo excited! I will for sure be practicing my perfect Spanish tongue!!

And third of all...I havent failed to go out the past two weeks! As I type Eric Vossman, Katie, and Adam Teefey are in town and we are about to go start drinking for the evening! It is 7:30 here so we will see where that goes! This weekend should be eventful and next week should be productive! Yeah for me! So I just thought I would write a short little blog to let you know I am still alive and kicking in Prague and still having the time of my life! I would like to give a shout out to my mom for Mothers Day and my Dad for his birthday on the 14th and my sister, Madison, for her bday on the 13th and of course my g-pa fo rhis birthday yesterday! I love you all! Okay well time to start drinkin!!! Ciao for now!

Grecian Islands, I will Return!

2006-05-04T03:34:00.000-07:00

SO what can I say?...I loved Greece even though two of the four days it was cloudy and sometimes rainy...I stilll loved it and made it a must to go back someday...maybe a honeymoon...or whatever, I WILL be going back...and this time not on my parents money! Thanks mom and dad!

Okay well I guess I will try to do a brief day by day reenactment....here we go!
Day One: Well we landed in Athens on Friday and it took an extremely long and crowded bus ride to get from the hotel to our hostel, after which we found out we could have just taken the metro straight to our hostel door, but none the less....we got to our hostel and settled in and then wondered down Athinas street to a sqaure to find some food. We ended up at a small cafe where we has some pizzas and paninis. Did I mention you could see the acropolis from our balcony. And yes I did say balcony...our hostel room had a balcony. Oh and it was me, Annie, Dan, Luke, and Laura Torres. That night we just took showers and got ready for bed...oh and decided that we were going to take a cruise the next day to three islands.....yeah...I was super excited! My first cruise!

Day two: Cruise Day! Yeah!
We woke up like at 6 am...ahhh...and got ready to go cruisem...a chartered bus picked us up down the street from our hostel and took us to the port where we loaded onto our cruise ship and settled down at a table on the back of the ship. The sun wasnt shinning yet and the wind was blowing off the Aegan(sp?) Sea so it was a bit chilly, but we hoped that with time came the sun. It did eventually by the time we made it to our first island...Poros. We had about 30 minutes on Poros where we climbed a small hill and took some pictures..of course...and Dan stole/borrowed some postcards. He waited around and asked for somebody to help him and nobody would so he just left because the ship was leaving. So as we sailed on to our next desitnation we took an inside lounge booth that allowed almost all of us to pass out for a good 45 minutes until we arrived at Hydras...my favoirte island! We had about an hour there and they do not allow cars or motorized vehicles of any kind on this island so all you can do is ride donkeys...no no sorry we didnt ride any, we just found a place to lay out by the water...it was a rocky hillside and still a bit chilly but we managed. Oh and I bought a fabulous white floppy hat! for 22 euros mind you...yes that was kinda ridiculous, but what can I say! So then we boarded again and it was time for lunch. After our three course lunch..we had some entertainment. A man dressed up as a woman? and Elvis? and a magician? Dont ask...but he did manage to make fun of Texas in his act. All the way in the Grecian Islands, and people still make fun of Texas? Who knew? The third and final stop was Aegina which is supposed to have some really good beaches but not on the half we were on and about 15 miuntes after we left the ship I realized my camera was missing. Ahhh so of course I wasnt in a good mood and I just wanted to get back to the ship to see if I had left it there. I was afraid someone had taken it out of my bag on the isalnd, but wasnt sure. So the girls went back to the ship ealry to look for my camera and the waiters gave me a run around and told me to come back later? So I wasnt sure if that meant they had it or not but basically all of us passed out agian inside and right before we were to dock back in Athens, I went and asked again about my camera and they had found it!! Phew! Thank goodness I was really worried more about the pictures than the camera, but I was glad to have it back. Geez that was long I will try to make the next couple days shorter...That night we came back to our hostel and watched a Van Dam movie on the tv in our hostel! Hah!

Day three: Sightseeing. I will try to make this brief. We basically wondered around Athens to the acropolis where it was raining and there was scaffolding on the Parthenon but still quite amazing as you may guess. We also wondered around the Agora which held the market and town and governemental building below the acropolis back in the day! And we made our way to Hadrians Arch and The Altar of Zues and several other ancient ruin sites. We found a couple dogs that wanted to hang around. Those dogs are crazy. They have their territory and they know the streets better than we did. They knew when to cross and when not to and knew that if you had food, you were their new best friend. But we had a pair of dogs do a sligh battle for us and so we had a new dog body guard for a bit! It was cute! Anyways I think this day ended with a panini, some ice cream, and some Rummy! haha!!

Day four: Stadium Day
We took off in the morning for the first ever Olympic Stadium. For the 1986 Olympics I believe....and then headed toward the Mystery Hill...meaning we didnt know what was up there but we climbed 19,000 feet in our flip flops none the less. I like to hike, just not completely unplanned and unaware of what lies ahead. We did get some good views and it was by far higher above Athens than the Acropolis....so I shouldnt complain. Next we took the tram to the end of the line to the most recent Olympic Comlex, whihc was by far larger than the first and probaly included 6 stadiums and arenas of some sort. Swimming, soccer, cycling, indoor, whatever you can imagine Im sure! Then we made it back to our hostel again for some Heineken(sp?) and some rummy. And we packed for our flight the next day!

Day Five: Yes Yes we did have a flight at 4:15 which left us with a few hours to kill, so with our luggage in tow we took the tram to the beach because it was sunny again and we wanted to lay out. So we found the nearest beach and dragged our luggage out and layed out and read for about 2 hours. Thank goodness my skin got some sun because it was beginning to be scarey and quite similar to an albino. :( But we had to leave at some point so we made our way to the airpot only to get ticketed because we didnt have the right type of pass...ahh frustrating story! So 10 euros later we got to the airport and boarded. Our flight was only about half full so it was relaxing and I finished The Da Vinci Code which I enjoyed tremendously. But we landed i Prague and the weather was fabulous and we were all in pretty high spirits after our successful trip!

SO now it is time for work for about a week and a half before Teefey, Vossman, and Katie come to visit. I am going to finish two classes this weekend and hopefully another two by next weekend and then figure drawing and sculpture are done by the end of May and then all I have left is studio! Yeah! Geez the time is flying! Okay this was terribly long but I havent written in a while...so...I hope everybody has a fabulous day and congrats on all the graduations! I miss everybody tremendously!! Ciao!

Paleness be GONE!!!

2006-04-27T16:22:00.000-07:00

Lame title once again, but I am just writting a short bleep before I head of to the beaches to toast my pale little body! Yeah! I will give you a short and therefore less boring description of my week.

The days consisted of waking up around noon like always and meandering to class. I found out that my studio final pin up is June 2oth which is a little inconvenient, but arent most classes. I had just wanted to get all my stuff done before I spend a week in Spain in June. But it looks as if studio will not be done yet. I believe all my other classes will be done by the end of May and first week of June which is nice. But anyways...in other news, we went out twice this week and sorry about the shortage of pictures recently I have no batteries for my camera, which i have now so dont worry there will be plenty of pictures of Greece and the nudie beaches ! Yeah get excited! But anyways...where was I???? Yes yes...we went out twice this week, Tuesday and Wednesday of course. After Tuesday night Im not quite sure how I made it out on Wednesday, but I am glad I did. We ended up going to a pub which was quite chill with Annie and I and umm....about 6 american guys and lets say 12 czech guys. We were surrounded. I made it home before Annie...haha...and passed out. But before the night was over there was an invitation to a house party and an invitation to the Red Hot Chilli's concert in June...mmm...tempting.

But anyways in family related news. I got a phone call from my mom this weekend screaming..basically...and being just terrible excited, bacause my little sister... shes not really little, shes 16 and she actually just informed me that she now weighs 133 lbs...and it is 5'7" and a HALF...so anywasy I am sure shell love that I just typed that....but her volleyball team qulified for the Junior Olypics this summer in Altanta...which she has been to for three years in a row now...so it wasnt too terribly surprising..but it was exciting becaasue they got first in the entire tournament which had something like 166 teams. Anyways exciting for my dad and mom...i think they both had a henia just thinking about it! Bad news related to that...that happens to be July 1-4th and right when I will be flying into HOUSTON...not Atlanta....so I may not have anybody to pick me up at the airport...my dads response to that was..."Don't you have friends?" I was like thanks dad! But I might be flying into Atlanta instead and surprising my little sis..which could be fun... I hope she doesnt read this thing! I dont think she does....her life is terribly busy with socializing and shopping and whatnot...jk! Im sure thats how I was at that age.

Okay sorry that was pretty much an awful blog but thats all I got for now....next one should be better lets hope! Just pray that there is little rain in Greece this weekend and that I wont become a lobster....but I DO promise there will be a return of the ridiculous amounts of unecessary pictures shortly! Ciao for now!

Work Week..sorry ...couldnt come up with anything better!

2006-04-22T08:31:00.000-07:00

Okay not really...but it is supposed to be. I mean I am working but still finding time to play a little. Um I am mainly been trying to catch up with school work some this week. This blog may be terribly boring but just letting you know what I am up to. Um Tuesday I had studio and computing class got cancelled because the teacher never showed up. For studio I actually had a lot to show...well at least more than normal...I had done my plans and and some sections and elevations...Now I have to build a model with the small amount of materials I have...a study model more or less at a 1:500 scale so it is relatively small and should be pretty simple...now I just have to do it!

For sculpture we have still been working on the still life of a couple beer bottles, a rag, a mallet and some other object which I have yet to figure out the use of. For photography, which we havent actually done anything or turned anything in, our next topic is weather so, thats what I have been doing. Um, lets see what else. My computing class and figure drawing class are all going to be done in may as well as probably a couple others which is good and makes my highly anticipated trip to Spain in June more open!

I have also of course gone out...we usually go downstairs to the pub or club and play some games or we get together in our room to play some P&A or Circle of Death or some highly intelligent drinking games. Then it gets to late and everybody gets a little lazy and we just stay here! And this week the weather has warmed up greatly like 70-80 which has been fabulous but just makes me want to sit in the park and lay out and read...I am currently reading The Da Vinci Code, which makes me want to go back to Paris and keep traveling to see everything he is discussing in the book...but I think I will just have to use my memories for that.

And of course annie and I have done a little shopping oh and we did laundry again...we dropped it off and let them do it...Annie came back with three less items than she dropped off but we are unable to find them anywhere...so...I think the machine ate them.

Okay I am sooo sorry this was pretty boring but more or less for me it has been relaxing...now all I need to do before Greece is find a big floppy hat and pack my sunglasses and my bathing suit...and Ill be good! Hope everything is going great and I will talk to yall soon I am sure!

Berlin..a trip where I learned too much!

2006-04-17T12:52:00.000-07:00

Well so I am back from Berlin, and I do have to say it was probably one of my favorite cities...including Prague. Those are my top two so far! Anyways...I am going to try to break it down into days and be as brief as I can be....yet informative and entertaining...im tired though so we will see how that goes!

Day One...we got into Berlin around 10 pm on Thursday night and all 9 of us goit situated into our hostel. A very accomodating hostel with beds that I didnt mind sleeping in..which says a lot really. Anyways we decided to get up super early at like 6:30 to get up and go to Reihtstag (sp?) before the crowd got there. So we managed to get there early enough and made it to the top relatively soon. Which I soon found out was the only part of the building you are able to see, so after we saw that we ventured to the Brandenburg gate and found....Starbucks. I got a non fat no whip White Chocolate Mocha with Peppermint. Yummmy! That made my day! Anyways After that we wondered around the group split up and we headed to the Mies van de Rohe Art Museum whose exhibit was "Melancholy" It was nice..had a few Andy Warhols, and Picasso's, and the Thinker, and more that I cannot remember! Anyways after that we found some chinese food in the mall and enjoyed a delicatessen meal...i love germany and they love their chinese food! After that we headed to the Holocaust (sp?) Memorial which was very cool. I liked it a lot...the sun came out shortly following the terenchal downpour which made for a variety of pictures! We also made it to Potsdamer Platz and Alexander Platz later. It begam to ran a lot on us at Alexander Platz so the girls decided to go see a movie at the Cinema in the Plaza. So we bought the tickets and the snacks and sat through 30 minutes of German Previews to see Clive Owen being dubber German. Who knew? ahhh In Prague they change the name if it is not in english. Every movie title had been changed to German except for the Inside Man...so we though we were safe...so 15 minutes later we had our refunded tickets in hand and were headed back to the hostel. Dont forget the Kebabs we got on the way home! That night after some nappies...we headed out with Ian and James (Scottish)'s friends that are studying there and chilled at a restaurant/bar for a couple hours before going home to pass out. A nice, long and exhausting day! Oh how could I forogt we also saw the Berlin Wall today..peices of it obviously...but it was humbling and quite educational!

Day two...We woke up a little later on Saturday and headed out first to the Jewish Museum by Libeskind (sp?)..so im no good at the spelling...sorry! We didnt go in but took plenty of picture s on the outside and even found a fun little playground behind it and wasted some time. Later we met up with the others and ate lunch...I orded schnitzel attempting to get a German dog....but leanred that Schnitzel is different that Weiner schnitzel. So I got some kind of breaded pork that I eventually gave to the guys! After that we wondered around Alexander Platz on a sunny day and took pictures of the Poseidon fountain and the Cathedral and founda huge patch of green grass on museum Isle and layed around basking in the sun for an hour or so! It was most enjoyable! Then we got a ruffle in our tailfeathers and decided to make it to the 3:30 soccer/futbol game in the Olympic Stadium. Yes the Olympic Stadium that Hitler built in the 30s for the Olympics. So we made it and had a terrbile amount of fun. The Germans are crazier about their futbol than the Czechs are about thier hockey! It was surreal and great! The stadium holds around 75,000 which doesnt sound too big but it was huge seriously! Specially for the 30s...and to know that Hitler funded and buiolt it was strange. Anyways it was a good non scoring game. Afterwards we headed back to our hostel and got some Pizza Hut...yes Pizza Hut...we're pathetic I know. But we passed out and spent the rest of the night hanging around in teh club and bar in our hostel!

Umm...Okay one more! So the third day we got up later becasue some of the Catholics went to Church. Anyways it was Easter Sunday and I had completly forgot. But we made our way to the 100 bus that takes us by allthe touristy stuff and it took us to Pergamon Museum that hold parts of the Altar of Zues and the Ishtar gate...which is a bit strange seeing as niether of these originated in germany...but oh well. Everybody was pretty exhasuted so most of us headed back to the hostel to eat and take a nap again and we packed and got ready for the ealry train ride home in the morning! I FINALLY finished my book, the Fountainhead that seems to have taken me forever! But now I am going to speed read the DaVinci Code so i can see the movie when it comes out soon! So this mornign we got up and caught our train after some dunkin doughnuts...i had a bagel....ummm....and got back to Prague around 3 ish and now all I have done is download pictues and email and unpack. But as of now and this upcoming week....I have a lot of school work to do and cathcup one...which always sounds fun! So this weekend I have nothing and the weekend after that is Greece! Yeah! Glad to have a weekend off though and yes I am doing school here I promise...just with a side of lots of travel!

But I hope everybody is having a fabulous time wherever they are and leave me a comment if you wish! Ciao for now!

Merci, Parie, Qui me parle?

2006-04-11T08:24:00.000-07:00

Yes yes, we are back from Paris and had a fabulous time of course...how could we not...Juan, Annie and I. All I can say is cheap wine and a little drinking games done a person good! Well well lets see, I will try to make a breif rendition of the events that happened!

First night annie and I arrived in Paris at Midnight, which i wouldnt recommend, walking around with our luggage trying to find our hostel. Not too bad, but could have been better! We got there and got a room complete with 4 beds? and a shower curtainless shower also lacking a shower head holder. Needless to say showering was an ordeal in itself! But we woke up on Firday and Juan met us at our Hostel! Yeah! My numero Uno! Juan! We decided to just wonder and see what happened so we did the Arch de Truimph first and it took us a while to figure out how to get to the center of it...we almost died crossing the street...then we just started heading for the Eiffel Tower which of course can be seen from all over the city! We decided to go to the top...yeah 11 euros later we were there and we could see the whole city! Dont forget the part where Juan say the Monument of Eiffel and saw the dates below him and asked if that was how long it took to build the thing...we'll excuse him, he isnt American...thats what he says anyways! Oh and then Juan, my dance partner for life, and I danced in front of the Tower until a gypsy lady came up to us asking for money! Anyways that night concluded with some grocery shopping buying only wine and only buying the ones that matched our outfits. Thats how we picked them out. Totally legit way of doing things! Oh and we danced in the aisles! Dancing is a must of course! Annie, Juan and I headed to his hotel and spent a ridiculous amount of time drinking cheap wine and playing ridiculous card games! Too much fun!

Day two consisted of Annie and I on our own which meant one thing! Shopping! So we headed toward the Galleries da La Fayette! We ran into the Opera House on the way! Yeah! The Mall was fun, including some strippers, famous French models, and Prada Burberry and Chanel! Can't really go wrong! We wondered around and only made one purchase which is all we could afford there really. A sleeping mask...and we had no idea what they said when we got them! Yeah French! Anyways we looked for some special presents....;) but couldnt manage to find them. Next we headed to the Louvre of course...which is Gigantic by the way, we didnt go inside to see the museum because it would have taken forever and a day to go through the thing but we wondered around outside and through the gardens for a while! We also saw the Obelisque at the end of the gardens as well as a bride with way too many feathers on her dress! Erin...no MAAM!...No Feathers! Anyways it started raining a bit so we headed back to our hostel with Kebabs in hand and called it a night!

Pwweee...one more day to go! So we met Juan again and started wondering around aimlessly and got to see the Moulin Rouge. Then we took a four hour detour to try to find the Hard Rock Cafe...found it ate some mac and cheese and headed out! Next was the Notre Dame which was a topic of controversy. Annie says this is the one from the Hunchback and Juan said it was the Notre Dame in Spain. Arguement solved when we got back and googled it! Annie was right...Juan you're wrong! Boo!!! I had no idea and I was going to let those Catholics argue it out! Anyways we took some fabulous pictures in front of the Norte Dame on Palm Sunday and watched some really cool skaters do some tricks! Entertaining...we then went shopping on the street markets and got a little something for some special people plus myself! But anywasy then we thought it would be a good idea to go drink some more cheap wine..so we did of course! And htat is how we spent our last night in Paris...drinking cheap wine and listening to some good old Texas Country! Annie loved it! But I guess that is all for now! I am back temporarily in Prague until Thursday when I leave for Berlin! Yeah! and then I have two weeks of freedom! But there is only one thing left to say!...

We'll always have Paris! :)

Pre-Paris Party!

2006-04-06T07:28:00.000-07:00

Hey! Well after the Saturday visit to the zoo, Annie, Luke, and I made it up to Petrin Hill on Sunday! It was a beautiful day and since it overlooks Prague we got some good pictures and took a nice relaxing day! They have Pragues Eiffel Tower which is built to mimick the one and only original in Paris...which coincidently I am leaving for in about an hour and a half! So two Eiffell Towers in one week! I am one lucky girl! Needless to say we had to climb all 500,000 stairs...okay maybe not that many...but you get my point! And we got to see Prague from higher up and experience some closerange czech smellies! Yeah...its April!! Ha, anyways! We ended the trip with a Eurodog which was suprisingly Fabulous and Annie even ate one...and she doesnt eat pork! So Sunday was a sucess! The rest of the week involved some school work and Tuesday night was FacetoFace party...which we were first timers too...at least Annie and I were!

That night was a huge success we made it back by three and I managed to drunk dial my mother! She laughed like always! We did some predrinking with Malibu Coconut Rum...yummmy!!! and proceeded with vodka for the rest of the evening!! The club was three stories and had plenty of room to dance as well as music to dance to! By the end of the night we were all eurodancing and eurodrunk which always makes the dancing easier! (ps Eurodancing simply is described as moving about with little or no inhibitions or rythym) its quite fun you should totally try it!

After Tuesday night I didnt think much was going to happen on Wednesday, but Annie and I managed to drink plenty downstiars in the club for hours upon hours with the americans plus ramon! I love Ramon! haha! inside joke really..sorry! But anyways so we got up today printed off our tickets for tonights flight to PARIS!!! And now we are packing and everything! I talked to Juan today and he is there and waiting for us!! I bethe is sooo excited! How could he not be waiting for Annie and I! Hah, well so for now I will just leave you awaiting my Paris trip! Have a great weekend! Ciao!

I Played with the Animals!

2006-04-01T16:23:00.000-08:00

Well this week/weekend has been pretty chill. Annie and are are leaving on Thursday to go to Paris...yeah, so we have been trying to get some of our school work done. We are both taking seven classes and the work is slowly catching up to us. But this weekend, on Firday Annie, Bryan and I wondered around town, shopped a little, and whatnot. It was a beautiful day and all the people are coming out. I know I am going to enjoy the Spring weather emensely! Anyways, so today, Saturday, Laura, Laura, Annie and I decided to make a day trip to the Prague zoo. We left around one.

As we entered the zoo there was a tally of 4000 some people that had entered already that day...anyways we proceeded through the zoo and had quite a day. We took several pictures of course of the animals and ourselves. Although I am not really a cat person, my favorite exhibit in the zoo has always been the big cats so I was excited to see the cheetahs, leopards, tigers, lions, etc. Annie's favorites were the elephants and penguins. I have compiled a small list of interesting/odd things about this zoo in particular, and I hope you find it at least a little bit entertaining:

1. There were pony rides through the zoo with little children?
2. I would say approx. 15% of the people in the zoo had brought their dogs...and it was completely normal? (even though this is expected, Czechs take their dogs everywhere)
3. The zoo is as hospitable to the visiting dogs as to the humans, they provide dog bowls of water placed sparatically throughout the zoo.
4. The fattest and heaviest animals, the elephants, were keep inside with a window of about 2' x 2' by which to view them through. It was a warm and beautiful day and I am unsure as to why they werent outside in the huge play area built for them.
5. The tallest animals were also keep inside with dirty windows with a two foot ledge in front of them so infortunately hard to see. Again they had an entire seperate land area for them that was not being used at all.
6. Everybody had ice cream. We couldnt feel left out, so we got some too!
7. They had two tiger cages completely on seperate sides of the park as well as the leopards.
8. And last but not least, the large cats all seemed to be passed out...sleeping..i hope at least, but evey one of them had a huge rawhide of some sort just laying out in their cage, so we assumed they were all asleep due to the large amount of raw meat they had just consumed.

Okay well most of the day was a success, exceot for the small mishap with the monkey cage. You see I was just wanting to take a picture of the monkey and so i put my camera up to the cage and my hand protruded slightly in the cage, before I knew it, there was a small chunk of my hand missing....i have to get rabi shots on monday.

okay okay fine you caught me....it wasnt the monkey it was a tiger...okay fine it wansnt my hand it was my leg...okay fine fine april fools....none of that happened, just thought i would throw a little lame april fools humor in there...but that is the story i used on my dad today. He bought it but didnt seem too worried and so when I told him it was a joke he laughed and said it would have been better to say the monkey stole my camera. You see my dad is a little stiff on money(he has to be he has three daughters and a wife) and as long as the camera cost more than the rabi shots, he would have been more upset if the camera was gone than if his eldest and brightest daughter's health and well being was put into danger. Oh well what can you do!

Okay well it is almost three in the morning and I think I should hit the sack....tomorrow we are going to visit Petron Hill with Pragues Eiffel Tower and a labrynth and maze of mirrors, which should be interesting to say the least. So Ciao for now and I will talk to you all soon. PS I got a states phone number that you can call me on....785-727-2242. Ahoj!

I was kidnapped!

2006-03-28T14:51:00.000-08:00

Okay not really....but technically. Friday night Annie and I were minding our own business, watching movies on our laptops, and 8 men burst into our room. They kidnapped and took us first to the pub downstairs and made us drink beer! Ugh! Then they took us to the Metro and let us to Meca, a club and bar. Where we spent 4 hours drinking and dancing, it was terrible! Jk jk..it was fun...anyways, the bar cost 12 dollars just to get in and all the people were ridiculously good looking. Including us of course. Jk agian! But it was fun and Ben, Annie, and I took a cab back to Masarykova...our dorm...It was a late, but fun night!

Ummm What else...nothing too much is going on. I am in love.....with grilled cheese sandwiches. Better than the mystery meat in the menza. I am awaiting my moms package that should be here by the end of the week....Oh and I got to draw naked MEN in figure drawing class today. He would have been relatively good looking if he didnt have a RAT TAIL....geez! Anyways I will put one of my drawings up. It was actually a lot easier to draw the guy because of the muscle definition. It allowed for shade and shadow and more lifelike drawings. Thats what I thought anyways. Annie missed it. She was working on studio, I bet she comes next week!! Ha, anyways.

We went to another movie this weekend. Casanova. By far not as good as Pride and Prejudice, it is hard to explain. But I wouldnt recommend it. Predictable and modern humor with classic love story, which could have been okay, but it wasnt somehow. Anyways, my opninon was agreed upon by the viewers as well. Oh well.

Sorry this blog could be terrible boring, but I have sculpture morning, and I have been doing some actual school work so....Photography has kinda started finally and We are progressing in ornament. But once again I cant complain about my classes, I thoroughly enjoy them! We are going out this weekend for sure and Wednesday of course, so maybe some more exciting news then. Oh I went shopping this weekend and bought some fabulous shoes. They are black and high and I love them....sorry Dad! I only live once. Oh and yes speaking of only living once. Annie and I recently booked our plane to Greece, and our hostel, which has a view of the Acropolis. We will be going April 28th through May 2nd, and we are preparing ourselves for a trip to the nude beach. Seriously, we are going to be carefree and go for it, which should be interesting. Hopefully quite far from "Eurotrip." Okay well thats it for now! Hope you are having a fabulous time wherever you are! Ciao!

Mr. Darcy

2006-03-23T15:04:00.000-08:00

Okay well this week hasn't been too terribly uneventful. First and formost everybody back home and here as well (the italians) are on Spring Break, mostly to destinations where there is a variety of sunshine. Also to see that my best friend is living in Australia where she runs around in her bathing suit daily. Anyways this is a slight hinder to my optimism in the cold weather that is so abundant in Prague. However, the warmer weather is coming, and I am the extremelt hopeful that I will soon be frolicking in my bathing suit as well. I might be waiting longer than i hope for, but better later than never.

Anyways, this week has been some actual studio work and getting some stuff done! My project in studio involves an open program building replacing a historical town hall that was destoyed in WWII that exists in Old Town Square, a very important location in the city. Anyways we have began with some obvious hiostorical and site analysis and disiphering what are professor means by his scales, which we learned the hard way are much different than ours. But anyways he will be gone on Monday so no class then, and so Monday I will only have Ornamentation with our Crazy fun Professor, and Photography, which we have yet to do work for.

So last nights party was a success, like normal, right. It was the Spanish, Italian, and Portuguese presentation, which caused enormous amounts of hope for the food and drink samples. We had pina coladas, sangria, vino, and spanish omelets. A success then. Not to mention the hundreds of people and the alcohol, which makes any party a hit. We had fun, and of course took plenty of pictures which is always expected. I braved the cold weather and went with my black gauchos and black pumps. Not too bad, my legs were a bit cold, but my feet braved the cobblestone quite well. Anyways we made it home around 2ish which can be expected, and passed out.

Tonight, thursday, the girls decided to take a break and start of the relaxing weekend in Prague with a movie at the cinema. We saw Pride & Prejudice, which I have only read once, in school , and honeslty didnt remember much of. I loved it, as well as MacKenzie, Annie, and Laura whom i went with. I will be reading that book soon, after the DaVinci Code, which we saw the preview to and comes out in May, so after my current book, and the DaVinci Code, comes Pride & Prejudice. Ill be busy, and I have to fit in my new addiction Sudoku! Amazing little numbers game. I have to give props to ben for helping me figure out te strategy to it, but after that my plentiful practice should make me an expert in no time.

Anyways I have a tendecy to wander with my stories which most of you should know, if you know me in the least bit. But this weekend is going to consist of shoe, watch, and dress shopping, as well as shopping for more art supplies. Oh and scultpure this week was a hit. My professor (which has a remarkable resemblance to Professor Snape in Harry Potter) came and worked with my hand and said if I didnt work so much on the detail it would be a nice sculpture. Illwork on it. Next week we are doing some still life. I am constantly excited for this class which is weird to hear me say, but I am enjoying almost all of my classes here!

Okay for now, I will go, leave a comment, and I will talk to you all soon!
Ciao!

Krakow_Poland_Auschwitz& Salt Mines

2006-03-21T14:54:00.000-08:00

Okay so here is the rest of my travels in Poland. We woke up super early on Saturday and boarded a train to go to Auswitz, which is a little erie seeing is that is how all the victims traveled there. We had a long tour of the first camp by an amazing tour guide. The weather was apporpriate for the occasion, dreary and cold. I got chills several times going through the displays of human hair, shoes, luggage, and artificial limbs. It was very humbling. We saw beds, and cells and execution courtyards. We also saw the gallows, and the crematoriums. It was all really strange to know that these humans had little clue to what they were going to, they would pack up everything including shoe polish not knowing that it wouldnt matter. They had mug shots of a lot of the victims inside one of the buildings and it was just bewildering to see the dates of tehir arrivals and deaths. I dont know it is definitely something that has to be done in alifetime and make sure that nothing like that is ever done agian.

Okay well anyways, I did enjoy it tremendously and i bought a few recommended books on it...so I will be reading those shortly and I will let you know how that goes! But we were there all day and headed back on the train around dinner. Basically everybody passed out and we got back to our "Stranger Hostel" just in time for pizza! Yum! The girls all hung around the hostel and read american magazines and our new books! It was relaxing after a mind numbing day.

The next day we got up around 10 and headed by 20 minute bus ride to the salt mines. Which surprisingly was quite entertaining I thought. It was a cave basically made completely out of salt. The walls, ceilings, and floors were all salt, and our tour guide was again quite entertaining. She told us it was perfectly fine to lick anything we saw and it would be salt.....i took her word for it. But there was a cathedral completley made of salt with carvings, statues, and altar all of salt. 400 some feet under the ground too! We all decided we could live down there, they had restaruants and restrooms too! Anyways that trip was shorter so we spent the rest of the day gift shopping and wandering around Krakow before our train left back to Prague at 1030 pm.

Oh train rides.....this time there was 7 of us in an 8 person cabin. Landon, Ben, MacKenzie, Annie, a korean american, and I. So my first all nighter in Europe and it wasnt to do school work, it was on a freaking train...uhhhh! I slept porbably a total of 45 minutes, mostly Ben taught me the tricks and trades of Sudoku. You know that new trend of number boxes thingy. I hope you know what I mean. Anyways I had bought a book of them, and I did a bunch of those to keep me preoccupied...OOOOh and I think we got our identities stolen. No Lie. We had already gotten our passports and tickets checked , and three guys came into our cabin, asked if we were american, and took our passports one by one..entered them into a machine and wrote our info down. (ps when they check passports, they dont need to write anything down.) They werent wearing uniforms and ben asked for an id and they did nothing. Umm so If i disappear off the face of the earth..look for me in Poland! Ill be with 6 other Americans. Thanks! Im coutning on you!

Anyways...this is a long blog, but we got back Monday morning around 7 and annie and i for sure passed out....we skipped our first classes...oops! But we caught up on our sleep, and took Larry Bowne, our professor from kstate to dinner.

Okay enough for now! I will blog tomorrow probably or later this week for sure! Tomorrow night is party time! Get excited! Leave a comment please...i have had a shortage of comments and it isnt making me happy! So feel free! Love you! Ciao!

Good Morning Krakow!

2006-03-18T14:33:00.000-08:00

Okay well I am actually in Krakow still sitting downstiars on the free interenet in our hostel....The Stranger Hostel...not bad...kinda good...weird name. Anyways I will try to make this breif...if that is possible for me!! We started off Thursday night at the train station and it was my first train ride in Prague....so since Italy I guess. Annie and I were in an 8 person cab with Dan, Bryan, and Ben! So we had some room. Anyways the train left at 9-9:30ish and took about 9 hours to get to Krakow... we slept some and read some and talked some. I was really tired and we all ended up passing out at some point, and I ended up in the fetal position with my head on ben and my feet on Dan, it was as comfy as we were going to get. Anyways all 30 of us arrived at 5:30 in the morning and took a short 20 minutes hike to our hostel...I think we were all too tired to look around, but it was cold..colder than Prague...and snowy a bit. We were given our rooms and told to meet downstairs at 10 am...so we had time for a 1.5 hour nap.

The girls basically all grabbed a room to ourselves with 8 bunkbeds in it. There were already two austrailian girls there....yeah sarah...and hey turned out pretty fantastic! They are super fun and fit right in, and they are coming to Prague soon! Anyways we left around 10 for a day long tour of the city...And by day long I mean day long! We have all our food paid for so we all go to a restaurant and they serve on meal.. Which is nice because it is fast and taken care of, but i wish we had some of a choice. Anyways We finished the tour around 5 and headed to dinner and then back to the hostel where we had ummm like 2 hours to get ready to go out! For St Pattys day of course!!! We all headed to a pretty cool bar/lounge/club and hada few drinks, but we heaaded home pretty ealry because we were getting up at 7 this morning to go to Auschwitz...which is another story in itself...so sorry to leave you hanging, but I will write of that and teh remainder of my trip when I return on Monday! Ciao for now and I hope everyone is doing Fabulous! _alli!

Weekend Ski Trip!

2006-03-12T17:01:00.000-08:00

Well lets see...we took off 10 am on Friday morning and made it to our little Czech ski town around 1 pm where we had to make a short hike up a very icey hill to our hostel. Annie and I managed to get a two person room..how romantic, I know! Annie and I watched some Czech TV, which is so fabulous by the way and passed out. We got up in time to head into town for some last night cruising. When I say head into town I mean ice skate a mile down hill into town trying your very hardest not to biff it on the ice....I managed for now. Anyways we heade to a bar.club/bowling alley and had a couple drinks and smoked some melon flavored tobacco from a hookah. A new experience for me and not too bad. I took pictures of course.

We ended that night semi early and tried to sleep..little did we know we wouldnt make it to bed until around 6 am due to some disorderly conduct from the german/czech boys across the hall. When I say boys what I really mean is 20 some year olds acting like they are in middle school. They were running up and down the halls, and after I stuck my head out to ask them to be quite they persisted on knocking down our door and keeping us up for literaly...no exaggereation, 4 more hours. I didnt get it, they wouldnt go into their room and they opened the fire hose and it started spraying...we were rather ticked off...as ticked off as Annie and I can get. Anyways needless to say we didnt get up early the next day and didnt make it to the slopes til later. We managed to walk through the little town and take pics of the massive amounts of snow that have accumulated over which seems to be years. It was very entertaining. By the end of the trip I had skied without falling...miraculously even though I had flown over some "mini mogals", that is what I like to call them..I am sure they were just small imperfections in the snow accumulations during the days. Who knows but they were almost the cause of several mishaps. I survived however.

We packed all of our stuff this morning and got ready to leave and had to skate again down the hill with our luggage in tow because the bus could not make it up our hill....so just to make the trip a bit more entertaining I thought I would walk hastily with my luggage down the oh so slippery hill side and bite it in front of all 50 of my international friends. I did it purely to entertain, i sware...well I will say what I said when it happened...it hurt my ego more that my ass! SO I didnt make it through the trip with out a "trip"...oh what a play on words...im a nerd!

Anyways sorry i had no exciting stories of a tree run in or a snow leopard spotting, but it was a fun weekend and I am glad to be back.....I missed my interent, is that possible? I had dreams about it? Is that normal. I am pretty sure it is...just trust me! Okay well it is off to class for 4 days before Krakow, Poland...yeah! Wihs me luck, more naked drawings, and I start scuplture, which should be interesting too!! Ciao for now!

Partytime and upcoming ski trip!

2006-03-09T15:30:00.000-08:00

Hey ya'll! Okay well last nights party was a success! All the foreign students loved our powerpoint of photoshoped pictures...chris, annie and I did them...as well as our jungle juice and jello shots....and our food. Our food consisted of the following:
puppy chow (mmm)
grilled cheese
pb&j
smores (mmmmm)
and little smokies with bbq suace (those were a huge hit)
we figured out that there isnt a lot of food that is orginially american or is readily available in the Czech Republic. So thats what worked. They loved it just the same! Also the beer bong was a hit! It was passed around all night probably envoking a string of illnesses soon to hit Masarykova dorm! But I didnt do it, so I should be safe....Annie on the other hand..we'll find out! Anyways needless to say, Annie and I and the rest of us got very drunk, to show them how Americans do it! And we made it home in the snow on the tram...brrrr! I cant wait for warm weather! I will be walking around in my bathing suit I sware! And avoiding Czech smellies as I have been warned by Nicole! Thanks! Anyways, Annie and I have a balcony since we are on the third floor, so we may stand out there and get sun when at all possible...and I say stand cuz there isnt enough room to lay down! ehh...cant be too picky!

Anyways, I had the rest of my classes this week. Studio lasted all of 15 minutes today! Fabulous! Loved it! And tomorrow morning I will be leaving for my ski trip! Hopefully I will report back with no broken bones, injuries, or tree mishaps! But we will see. I may be attempting snowboarding, and Annie is going extreme sledding and trying to take out as many people as possible along the way, so I am excited to see what is in store! Next week is Annies bday so that should be a fabulous time as well, and then Poland, which may be a more solemn trip this the ski one, but we shall make the best of it! My dad is still in China and my grandparents are in Washington with my aunt and uncle! Hi Grandma & Grandpa! And I would liek to give a shout out to my Mom, Dad, and sisters! Because I know my mom is the first one to read my postings...she lives for them!!! And of course a shout out to Uncle D and Aunt K! and the kiddos! Hello!

Okay well Iam going to pakc now that it is 1 am and I leave at 10 am tomorrow morning. I am a bit of a procrastinator whether in the US or Europe! But I hope everybody is having a fabulous time wherever you are and leave a message! Miss you all!

Ciao! Alli!

Short, Mid-week Blog!

2006-03-07T10:12:00.000-08:00

Okay this should be a brief blog. A few things...first of all my dad is currently in Bejing(sp?). China, I know. Why not Europe? Don't know. He did tell me he would pick me up some chopsticks. How cliche? dad...He's never been. Scotland, Norway, Venezuela, Alaska, but never China. We will see if it is a new trend.. So my mom and little sister are sitting at home in Houston with a daughter in Europe, a daughter in Hawaii, and a husband in China. My family is on three different continents, plus an island. How crazy is that!

Secondly, that was probably the most exciting part of this blog but..I went to figure drawing class tonight for the first time. It was supposed to be the meeting for it, but little did Annie and I know, it would be our first attempt at drawing. I am posting a drawing of mine but only if you promise not to judge. I have taken NO art since elementary school okay. Not even drawing classes in college, just studio....so keep that in mind. It was fun and Annie and I know we have a lot to learn...a couple of the engineering guys here said they may come stand in on that class...ha, we'll see!

And finally, presentation tomorrow. Preparing jungle juice and jello shots for tomorrow night. Highly anticipated event of this week. Hopefully it will be a success. I will write back regarding it. The hockey game was a success. Lots of fun, and there were plenty of penalties, which I continuously refered to as "fouls." Annie kept reminding me with little effect. It was fun even though we couldnt understand the chants. The music they played was all recognizable to us and we wanted to make a hockey game soundtrack, it would have been fabulous dance music for Wednesday night! Not to forget we saw an Australian team coming to watch and I took a pic for Sarah! They even smilied for the picture! Fun week so far, and my illness is failing do to my constant ingestion of vitamin C and calcium!

Have a fabulous week and Ill write soon! Leave a comment! Ciao!

Nothing TOOO Exciting!

2006-03-04T15:53:00.000-08:00

Well, last time I left you, we had underwear hanging in our room, and we were expecting a debut at Wednesday nights Czech student presentation. Well, the panties dried, and I made it to the party Wed night alone without Annie, due to her overwhelming illness that lasted all of four days. She is currently recovering, and I have been so lucky as to retrieve the symptoms that she is getting over. So currently it is Saturday night, and Annie and I are both in our room watching movies. My movie, Ocean's Twelve, just ended and Annie is watching the rest of "Boondock Saints." Terribly entertaining, I know. My illness consists of a headache, one of those that makes you head feel 10x heavier than it is, and flulike symptoms. It is dreadful, but rather a slight nuisance. Annie is feeling bertter, and we hope that we are feeling better by tomorrow evening when 13 of us are headed to a real Czech Hockey game. These Czechs are crazy for their hockey. Annie's czech buddy helped us get the tickets.

Anyways Wednesday night's party was a success, even without Annie. The Czech students had their presentation and handed out shots of some sort at the door. Not my favorite due to the fact that the chaser was a piece of bread with salt on it...ummmm....! Anyways they had a few trivia games and asked students to come up on stage, and seeing as my Czeck buddy, Hanka was hosting it, I was destined to participate. But by the end of the presentation, I had won myself two free rum and cokes. That started off the night quite appropraitely. I decided after that, that I wanted a fancy drink, so I went to the flame spitting bartender and asked for a pina colada. He somehow got a Mojito out of that and so I was lucky enough to enjoy my first ever mojito which consists of some sort of leaves, lots of ice, lime juice, and of course some form of alcohol. I enjoyed it, but I really wanted my pina colada, so I went back and ordered it again. Got it this time only apparently they dont serve it froaen. Learned my lesson I guess...different cultures, different drinks. Oh well, so we spent the remainder of the night dancing. This all takes place at the PM club which we have parties at every Wednesday night. Next week it is the US and Costa Ricas turn to do presnetations. So we are handing out Jello shots at the door as well as teaching beer bong and beer pong. Plus giving some fabulous prizes away and teaching them some culture of the States. Should be quite entertaining. We shall see. I should have pictures.

Until then, I start taking my fine arts classes this week, which is what my schedule is consisting mostly of. I chose my studio professor, Plicka, and I will either be doing a urban design redevelopment in Prague or a Open Program building in Old Town Square...I have yet to decide for sure. But I have for sure picked, fine arts (color and composition), figure drawing (naked people), sculpture, photography, ornamentation, and computer graphics. So my schedule should be good to go. No class on Fridays which I am very happy about.

Okay well next time I write hopefully something fantastic will have happened, more so than this time, but I will have the hockey game to write about and the upcoming ski trip! So Ciao for now and leave a comment pppplease!!!

School is in Session!

2006-02-28T15:15:00.000-08:00

Well the first couple days of class hasn't been bad. We are visiting the classes to see what we like. Right now I have ornamentation, figure drawing, computer graphics, sculpture, photograpgy and studio. I haven't chosen my studio yet, but I will figure it out soon! Around 20 hours..we'll see! The rest of this week we continue going to classes, and tomorrow night we have another party at the PM club that begins with the Czech students presentation, that should include Annie and I's debut...Im a little worried. But next week the Americans have their presentation so we plan on doing something bigger and better, of course!

Um I have made a few more travel decisions. First, after my ski weekend in the Alps next weekend, Annie and I are going to Krakow, Poland to visit Auschwitz and a couple other things. I am really interested in seeing this, and I will probably do some reading and research on it before I go. Also, I am going to see my number JUAN in Paris in the beginning of April. Annie and I will fly in and stay a couple four days and tour the city. It should be a blast, especially with my "dance partner for life!" We are also currently planning our trip to Greece which we are looking for late March or April. We will see how that fits in. The Italian students are going during their Spring Break, unfortunately, we do not have a Spring Break...so we were trying to go with them, but that is coming up soon, so we may not make it. Other than that! Annie and I are expecting a package from her boyfriend soon that includes, ponies with sparkles, tons of sour patch kids, diamonds, pocket aarons, and some other fabulous surprises I am sure. I will let you know all of our gifts...Oh and also Annie and I managed to do some hand laundry. We washed all of our panties by hand in the shower in buckets, I felt like a milk maid. Then we had panties hanging in our room for a couple days while they dried...the boys quite enjoyed it, it was like our own Vickie Secrets!

Anyways enough for now! I will let you know how the classes come out as well at the party tomorrow night! Leave a comment and I will love you forever! or not!! Whichever you prefer! Ciao!

Prague Travels!

2006-02-26T05:02:00.000-08:00

Okay so after getting settled and having a great party, we had to get down to business. There were several things we had to do in order to be set in Prague, we have about 500 ids of some sort, I couldn't tell you what they were for, but we had to get those done. We got a Metro pass for three months, and we had to make a rather terrifying and tragic trip to the police station. This police station is in a rather communist type of building and is rather intimidating. Let me sum it up quickly for you. You must let the Czech police know that you have arrived in their country and therefore make this painful and dreaded trip to make sure we are who we are and so forth. Basically we took a number and waited in line for 4 hours...yes four hours. It was pretty much as close to hell as I ever hope to experience. Dont plan on doing it any time soon. There were no lines just foreigners trying to get by in crowded little hall with a couple hundred people. Loved it!

Anyways, no more negativity! After that was done, this week Annie and I went on a tour of Prague...it was snowy...cold, but pretty! We made it to St. Vitus which you can see from all over Prague. Beautiful, and the Prague Castle! On Friday we paid $12 to go on a tour in Pilsen where the Pilsner Brewery is located. Yeah Beer, I am trying to learn to like it! The tour was fun and we got back to Prague at a decent hour. Then Saturday, we had our tour to Kutna Hora, about an hour away with the bone chapel and St Barbara. I liked the chapel and the cathedral but the rest of the town seemed rather dead. Ahh and Annie and I got interviewed by the Czech students for their presentaion next week. They asked us history, politics, and geography about the Czech Republic, which honeslty we didn't know much about, and I don't think any of the Americans would know. More or less Annie and I think they chose the girls that looked the least bright. Little do they know we really are intelligent girls, just not when it comes to Czech culture. Im sure it will be quite humiliating next week with our faces on the screen not knowing much of anything. Ill let you know how that goes. So we got back to Prague around dinner and Annie and I experienced our first menza experience...thats our cafeteria. I had fried mushrooms, boiled potatoes and bread. They dont have the menu in English, which is strange seeing as it is an international dorm, so you kinda just guess what your getting. Interesting, but not too bad! And then a bunch of us got together to go to Old Town Square where they had big screens set up with the Czech Hockey team playing the Russians for the Bronze Medal. Czech won, and it was a great time. It was an amazing set up and the Czechs had so much pride for their team....there was drinking and dancing and celebrating following their win. Can't complain about the events of that evening.

Well some classes start tomorrow, monday, so we have to do some figuring out of classes. We have two weeks after that to make final decisions about what we want to take. It is much more layed back here, which shall be nice. I will write sometime this week and let you know how it is all going. Until then, leave a comment, and have a grand week!!! Ciao!

Beginnings in Prague!

2006-02-26T03:16:00.000-08:00

Well Annie and I got to Prague last Friday night, sorry it has taken me so much time to write this, I promise I will do better in the future! For the first few days we got organized in our room, and wandered around Prague. Its Beeautiful! Of course! It definitely has more modern technology than I was expecting, but maybe that was because I was in Italy where they don't believe in escalators or elevators. That makes me sounds lazy, but it really sucks when you have 200 lbs of luggage to carry. Anyways the public transportation system here is very nice. The subway is very clean and not very crowded which is a benefit. Plus it is cheap. As with everything in Prague. Very Cheap! Very good for Annie and I. Monday started off with a meeting with the ISC (International Student Club). They help us get everything ready, including setting up trips for us every week or so. This week was basically a travel and party week, so of course it has been fun! Monday night we had a HUGE party for all the new international students. Thats around 200 students I guesstimate. They had rented out a two story club for us with flame throwing bartenders and everything. Crazy. Needless to say we had a fabulous time! We spent the first half of the night drinking and the second half dancing our behinds off! Also, apparently when I have had a little too much to drink I believe that I can speak fluent Spanish. Great for me, I think I had conversations with all the Spaniards, Mexicans, and Costa Ricans that night, solely in Spanish. Fabulous! Anyways that night was great. Hummm...oh yes, Annie and I live in a flat with 4 other girls. Annie and I share a room, Leah(KSU) and Selesta(Mexico), and Olga(Russia) and Mystery girl(Finalnd). We are usually in our room though. Although six girls sharing one bathroom might become an issue. Im sure well survive. Okay well I think thats about it for now!!! I will write later about my travels this week, and feel free to leave comments. I love comments! Also I have tons of pictures on facebook if you are on facebook, but if not just email me, and I will let you know how else you can see them! Ciao!!!

Italy

2006-02-22T04:09:00.000-08:00

Well I arrived in Rome Saturday morning Feb. 12th. Katie and Megan picked up Annie and I at the airport and we headed home to pass out. We stayed with the girls in Orvieto in their apartment. It was cute! We got to see everybody during hte week we were there as well as all the kids at Santa Ciara_Castiglionne Florentino. The two Italian towns they are staying in are small and quaint. I loved the gelati...of course, who doesn't. We made a trip to Rome on Tuesday and took all day exploring, I have fabulous pictures of it! But when Firday the 17th came around, Annie and I were definitely ready to get to our own place. We we tired of living out of suitcases, but were going to miss the Italian culture and people. We plan on returning this semester to see Naples, Florence, Venice, Milan, and maybe more! I complied a list of a few things, I liked, disliked about my first weeek! Here it goes!

Things I liked/loved:
1. gelati (of of course)
2. italian old women with big fur coats and fabulous bug sunglasses
3. the language, which I used when I could
4. the historic culture
5. the Italian kids (under the age of 5, they all have pea coats and little italian boots..I want one)
6. the dogs (everybody as a dog, its fabulous)
7. the fact that you can buy gelati for one coin ( a 2 euro coin)
8. Roma_gorgeous (probably St Peters was my favorite, but i liked it all)
9. the convenience of public transportation
10. white wine cheaper than water

Things I didnt really like:
1. Damn european plug ins (why cant we all just agree on one)
2. the smell sometimes...of the people
3. the dirtiness of the public transportation
4. when i couldn't find gelati
5. when i just wanted water and it was more expensive than wine
6. the sitting fee at restaurants as well as paying for the bread
7. the fact that there are cats roamiung around everywhere without people...ewww
8. when they wrap their babies in plastic covers when they are in strollers???(inhumane)

That may be it! But I did have a fabulous time for 6 days and for the most part the weather was good to us! Ciao!