November

How do you feel about celebrating "the season" right after Halloween? I know the majority of people will cringe in horror and say "what about Thanksgiving?" I know, because I used to be that way! But here are my thoughts on listening to your favorite holiday tunes days, breaking out the Christmas Starbucks cup & thinking about decor following the end of October:
•Situation - it's very soon after midterms and most likely you wish to be brain dead but instead Mr. Brain needs a break. Enjoy and relax to the sounds of the most exciting time of year.
•Feelings - in the past celebration meant being with that significant other. Now it's about learning how to celebrate accordingly - alone. Not letting those adorable holiday activities from the past get to you, so you gotta start learning how to enjoy them alone.
And lastly,
•Happiness: if Christmas time makes you happy, gosh, celebrate all year if you'd like! It makes me happy, so why not happify myself now?
People say I'll get sick of all this holiday stuff by the 25 of December. I promise you, I won't. It never will.

Think about it.

Thoughts

It's not the fact that I'm single. It's the fact that I know what loving and being loved felt.
That juxtaposition makes the difference.

El viaje por Peru

I write this on my Kindle Fire as I have become to realize being on a laptop needs to be cut back, as well as for the iphone. Anyway, I write this on meine Omi's California king size bed after a siesta followed by a million attempts to guess and then retrieve my password for this account. Yesterday, I flew to Lima, Peru with my parents to visit my grandma and uncle, in addition to a little R&R. Funfact 1: the last time I was here was in 2004 and I was a fat bitch about it. Fact 2: the last time I traveled with a parent was in 2004. With both parents? 2001. Fact 3: I almost prefer flying alone. Our trip began at 10 AM leaving for the Phila airport. We arrived in ATL by 3:30, and were on our way to South America by 5:30. Arrival at grandma's was 12:30. Between leaving the airport and getting to grandma's the driver took us through a scenic route that is parallel to the Pacific Ocean, you know, just like in Cali. What a trip. As we know, my dad and I love to drink and on the international flight we got free drinks. Dream come true. Let me tell you, mom bought at dutyfree an abundance of alcohol and we were beyond tempted to start the party early. As we were arriving to Lima airport, one of the airplane flaps wasn't opening and we were just circling the Pacific until it fixed itself. Mom was losing it. She can make an entire room freak out over nothing at all. Anywho, it was pleasant the my tired and not feeling so well grannie woke up (dressed to the tee) and had the table ready for a little midnight grubbin'. She's the cutest. Haven't seen her in over 4 years! Well today we did a little car tour, ran errands, and ended with a siesta. Of course I'm up and everyone is napping/doing their own thing. Wish the little bro could have came to explore with me. Oh well. Ill have few pictures from today to post later, I hope I can get an update on my surfing lessons! E - lil miss world traveler

The end of summer

I never finished my story of my endless summer in Europe because it went by too quickly and with so much detail. Here's the rundown after I returned from Germany.
• became close with the otter Intrax interns from around the US. Sad I met them so late in the trip and actually got closest by the end.
• went to Toledo once more to visit family friends and they took me to a Spanish royal park and "castle" located between Madrid and Toledo
• I stopped working at Forocio the Tuesday before departing Europe because was really slow and I wanted explore the places I didn't get the chance to go to.
• also there was a Japanese intern who worked with us for about a week an then blatantly told the owners that it was borin and sh was finding another place to intern. She was weird because she didn't like to travel nor was she open to new things (and she's interning abroad and learned a foreign language?!)
• bought last minute presents and souvenirs of course!

All in all, it was an amazing experience. It had it's ups and downs, but definitely unforgettable. I made so many international connections and traveled so much in one summer. I know this will look great on a resume and be a fantastic talking point in both my professional and personal life.

Ps. Exchange rate was terrible = broke for my jr year at Pitt :)

You know where to check out albums for photos on my Facebook!

Germany

I went to Germany for 5 days to visit my aunt and cousins. It is always a fantastic time, and I really did not want to leave. I am looking forward to returning to my birth country :)

Thursday: My flight left from Madrid-Barajas a bit past noon and I got to Germany a bit before 3. Perfect amount of time to not be tired and still enjoy the day with my family.Her house is so cute! She had a chocolate cake sitting on her kitchen island that she made for me! She decorated and bought new furniture for her new place and it is absoultely adorable. I lover her patio that she constructed herself and her kitchen table and seats were so comfy. During Sunday family lunch, we all just layed there because it is so incredibly comfortable!
My aunt decided that we were going to go on a few bike rides, so we went and borrowed a bike for me from the city lost and found. After we picked up one of my cousins and his gf from their apt and we all walked to get some delicious and ENORMOUS pizza from a cute Italian restaurant.
Friday: Woke up to breakfast on the back patio with my favorite cereal! Only in Germany they have these delicious chocolate potatochip-shaped cereal. mmmm. Then we rode bikes to a mini mall with my aunt in the morning. Kicked my butt and almost ran into an old lady riding her bike, heh. We bought some groceries and I showed her my favorite new makeup company called Kiko, and I got her hooked! Affordable and great quality. (I think I may go there today). When we returned we lunched. She is a great cook, like all of my mom's family, and she made a delicious pasta with creamy sauce. I also finished my the rest of my 13 inch pizza pie from dinner the night before.
After, my aunt, her boyrfriend, I rode our bikes to the old city center where we walked into a church, then went to this structure where people find these rings to spin for good luck. We then got our bikes and rod them to another area where we went to an Irish pub and had some bier and food. We had to ride our bikes back fast because one of my cousins was going to pick me up from the house and take me to his apartments where his friends are meeting to pregame before we went to a club. (him and his twin brother conveniently live next door to each other) The night was fun, but I was falling asleep because I had not taken my siesta like I am used to in Spain haha. The club was called Mach 1. Then I slept over at one of my cousin's and my aunt's boyfriend picked me up in the morning to start our day because we were driving to Neuschwanstein early! (and my cousin had to study because it was his finals week).
Saturday:We visited Neuschawanstein. It was absolutely breaktaking! We did a lot of walking (to get there is 1 mile uphill) and then we had to pass some time as we waited for our tour. We had about 3.5 hours to kill so we lunched at a cute restuanrant on the way up, then explored different trails. The bridge was awesome. Got great views of the castle and the surrounding town! I did the tour in German with my aunt and her boyfriend, and my ticket was free - because we said I was 12 years old! So funny! Ended my awesome day by going out to a club with one of my cousins and his girlfriend for the opening of one of its new rooms, "The Party Room"...omg, try more like 90's, middle school dances type music. But it was fun, as always! Got back around 3:30 a.m. Luckily, I was driven back.
Sunday: Woke up to another awesome breakfast of the back porch. Stayed in the house all day. It rained and it was cold, ew. It felt like fall already. I stayed in my pj's all day, watched TV, napped, played Sudoku on the back porch. Lunch time is when everyone came for family BBQ. I totally had some bratwurst, delish! When my cousins left, I decided to go up to my room here I had the huge iMac at the foot of my bed to watch a movie. I watched most of Dr. Strangelove, but got really bored of it so then I watched Dinner for Schmucks. It's funny, but sorta strange. As twilight began, the sky had cleared of rain and it was beautiful! Pink clouds and blue sky <3
Monday: I was so sad it was the day of my departure. I woke up at 8, all the other days I woke up before 9:30 which was good, and had breakfast on the back patio again. Then my aunt and I went to buy some last minute things, which is went I saw the crackle nail polish and got a macaroni color base to make cheetah print nails! The we had some fantastic German bread at a place that I relate most to a "Panera" in the states. We also got extra bread for my trip back. We then went to a mini mall that had a grocery store to buy some Greek wine for me to try and take back to the states for my mom and whatever else I needed. We then went to the old city center and got HUGE ice creams, mine looked like spaghetti (gelato) and sauce (strawberry syrup) and she had an enormous cup of yogurt with banana ice cream and strawberries. We went into this this department store and they had a little section of dirndls, and my aunt made me try some on, and I ended up loving one. I have 2 or 3 at home but they are very snug since they are from when I was 12 or younger heh. We got some meat and headed back. Stopped by a street stand where they had bratwurst and I ate it all. DELICIOUS. Apparently, I am not a vegetarian in Germany, haha. I finished my packing, painted my nails, then we started our drive to Munich drop me off at the airport. WAHHH, I didn't wanna go!

Best trip ever.

July 9-10 Pamplona

We arrived to the Plaza de España at 2 pm for our bus ride to Pamplona for the San Fermines festival of the Running of the Bulls. I sat by my friend, Sarah, who is an au pair from Canada. We had two stops. The second was soley for a bathroom break. It should be a 4.5 hour drive, but it ended up being closer to 6 hours. Our bus was freezing so it was incredibly hard to nap. Napping was important because we all would be pulling an all-nighter.
Once we arrived we followed the guides to the main plaza, Plaza de Castillo. That is where I spent most of my all nighter. There would be music in the square, dancing, a hell of a lot of drinking, fireworks, and restaurants, and bars with some dancing. My first order of business was to find a place for food. After struggling through jam packed side streets, many closed nice restaurants, and extremely full bar restaurants, we found a little sandwhich place. Got myself a hoagie. There were many min parades with marching bands that would cross by on the street. It was cute. Then it began to drizzle. As we continued on our adventure to try and get back to the main square, it started to pour. We definitely handled it well because we walked through the rain for a while until we decided to "bar-hop" to avoid it. Many of the bars were filled with over 30 year olds playing rock music. Only thing I found cool about the places were the matching outfits haha. I cannot explain the stench, the dirtiness, and crowdedness.
Once we found the square, we realized it was going to be a long night. So we deciede to find "cool bars" where we could pass the night. We found a few in the plaza, and also once it stopped raining we explored to the beginning of the bull run, the encierro. Spent a good few hours bopping to music in 2 or 3 places. Sat down at some outdoor restaurants to get a break from standing. We never ordered anything though. It was rather chilly, too. Too hot in places pack to the ceiling with people, or too cold in the north Spain weather. Never a happy medium. We decided to explore some more and found a fairly empty pub called "O´something." Haha. We utililzed their bathrooms and some of the seating in their basement for some rest. Then we went right outside and sat on a stoop. We returned to the pub because it got really chilly during the 20-30 minutes of people watching from the stoop so we returned to the basement seats when Vy realized she no longer had her iPhone. We cleared all bags, and decided to return to the last bar where she last whipped it out to check her email...(while bopping in a dance club, I highly do not recommend showing people you have a valuable item by checking your email on it). We searched the corner were we all stood and nothing. I believe someone stuck their sneaky little hand in her bag when we were squished through one of the streets trying to get out of the plaza. You think its just people shoving into you, but really that's their diversion. Or in the club, one of those sneaky douchers mst´ve seen her take it out and somehow got into her bag when no one was paying attention. But that is crazy because we 3 always kept an eye on the bags. She did at one point have it on her shoulder for a while, so that must've been it.
We walked some more and found a diner-like place to pass about an hour with coffee and a crossaint. We then just walked and walked. Until it was near 6 am, and it was time to grab a spot to watch the Running of the Bulls. Yes, you need to stand your ground at least 2 hours beforehand. That was the roughest 2 hours ever. Sleepy, being pushed, annoying and loud drunk people, and horrid alcoholic and gross people smells, and all for less than 30 seconds of people and bulls running by. Lorrrdd.
Finally, it was 9 am. We were told sharp to be at the bus station because we had less than 5 minutes to board buses. Yeah well they were 20 minutes late. That was fun - not really. Of course, passed out on the bus, had a 45 minute break in the middle, passed out until we got to Madrid. Ate a salad at home, then slept until 9:30 pm. Man oh man. Rough weekend. Gotta catch up on sleep though, Nürnberg from Thursday to Monday!

Well I really blew it on this blog.

I left off right before Milan. Here's the run down.

June 17-19: Málaga/Marbella. Visited my cousin and his girlfriend during their beach vacation. Really fun. I will be seeing them again when I go to Germany.





Week: worked.

June 24-26: Milan.


Week: worked.

July 1-3>: Weekend spent in Madrid. Pretty relaxing.

First week in July: worked...A LOT!

Next post will be about the weekend. If you wanna know more of what I did at work, you know where to go!