There’s a blog challenge that a lot of 20 something bloggers are participating in. It’s “The Best of 2009 Challenge“. Basically it’s reflecting on your 2009, with a writing prompt for each day. There’s no way, I am going to post every day. I’ve tried and failed (remember NaBloPoMo?). However, I will write on a few prompts each week!
What was your best trip in 2009?- Florence, Italy! It was my first trip of the year! I actually spent my New Year’s Eve here. I was completely alone for this trip, but had a blast. I enjoyed exploring the city, visiting museums, getting lost, seeing beaaaautiful sites, running from Italian men, and eating lots of pizza! I stayed in a really cool hostel, met some fun people, and also met the most beautiful man I’ve ever laid eyes on in my entire life-Francesco.
Restaurant moment. Share the best restaurant experience you had this year. Cheese Fries at Huey’s! The day I moved back to the states, I had the food I missed the most while I was away-Huey’s Cheese Fries. mmmmmmmm!
What book – fiction or non – touched you? Where were you when you read it? Have you bought and given away multiple copies? The Brief Wondrous Life of Oscar Wao. I borrowed it from my boss and read it in two nights. I loved it and even though I haven’t given away copies, I definitely recommend it to everyone.
Night out. Did you have a night out with friends or a loved one that rocked your world? Who was there? What was the highlight of the night? I had tons of fun nights this year. I can’t choose a favorite!
Blog find of the year. That gem of a blog you can’t believe you didn’t know about until this year. Color Me Katie! I love this blog. It’s full of really cool art and photographs. I never skip a post!
Hey! I’m back! Was on vacation for 2.5 weeks. I’m exhausted. Who know vacationing could take so much out of you!? I had a great time. Specifically at the tail end when I traveled alone to Florence. Here are links to pictures on my flickr!
Back in cold, grey, Amsterdam. The water’s frozen! Know what that means? It means you can actually skate on the canals and ponds. Everyone (the dutch are pro at skating…it’s what they do!) is excited and I’ve been hearing about it for a week now. It’s good to be back in my own apartment and my own bed. Unfortunately, I had to come home to an empty house. In fact the empty house will be the norm for me for a while. My roomie Devynn moved back to the states while I was on vacation. I miss her already! We spent a lot of time together(in and out of the house) and even though we only met this summer, she became one of my best friends. Miss you Devynn!
And Manon! My other bestest friend, Manon, is moving back to Australia this week. Woah! I’m really getting emotional just typing this. However will I wave her goodbye at the airport? Manon has been here the majority of my time in Amsterdam! We were roomies for about 4 months and even though we don’t live together anymore I see her at least every other day for coffee, a chat, whatever. She’s been my emotional strength, comfort, best friend, dancing buddy, EVERYTHING! I can’t imagine Amsterdam without her. She’s opened my eyes to jazz/blues/funky stuff and vintage style. I will never ever forget her or the memories I have of our times. Planning a trip to visit her in Australia for December this year.
I wonder how many people in the world are dreading going back to work as much as I am. :/
Tomorrow I’m off to Italy.
Goodbye Switzerland! I’m gonna miss the view of the alps from my window. Your delicious chocolate, your millions of yummy cheese, your weird italian/german language, yummy swiss food-raclette, fondue, rosti, and most of all your chocolate.
*I’m aware I said chocolate twice. I’m REALLY going to miss it!
Still in Switzerland! Still having an okay time. There’s not much to do here if you don’t ski and aren’t super rich. St. Moritz is an exclusive resort town and they make sure you know it. I wanted to go shopping the other day. Guess what my choices were? Chanel, Gucci, Dolce and Gabana, Prada, and other stores that I could never afford to even buy a keychain out of! My family went to a restaurant a few nights ago where the most expensive bottle of wine was 1600 euro! Crazy! So, instead of going out and shopping I’m just tking in all the scenery. Every morning I open my window and stare out at the beautiful mountains! I’m going on a ski lift today, but as you might have guessed, I am not skiing back down. I’m just going to ride the ski lift back down. HA! I have no desire to learn how to ski. :/ I’ll take pictures, but I won’t be able to upload them until I get back to Amsterdam or buy a new card reader.
Hope everyone is having a Merry Christmas! It’s my first Christmas away from my family. I thought I’d be alright. I mean, we don’t really do anything for Christmas except eat and sit in our pajamas watching movies. I was wrong! I missed it so much! I think things would be better if I was in Amsterdam with my friends, but I’m here in a little snob town with no one to hang out with. Everyone in my house has at least a 15 year age difference with me. I’ll stop being a Grinch for now. MERRY CHRISTMAS!
I’m here! I arrived in Switzerland this morning after my long, but lovely train ride. I departed from Amsterdam last night around 8:45 PM and arrived here this afternoon. I didn’t sleep very much on the way over. Instead, I entertained myself with episodes of The Office. (I’m finally caught up to the current season) The train ride really was beautiful. Not the long, dark, part through Germany, but the lovely 4.5 hour morning section through Switzerland on the Glacier Express. Even though I was exhausted at this point, I could not fall asleep. My face was pressed against the window, mouth open, as I zigzagged in and out and over and under of the snow covered Alps. It was breathtaking. I remember at one point, going over a bridge, looking down and not being able to see the ground and then looking up and hardly being able to see the tops of the mountains!
OOh! found a pic of that very point. Just imagine it covered in snow.
After, I arrived the family came to pick me up and we had a delicious lunch in Celerina, a small village near St. Moritz. Then we went to the house. We are staying in the cutest little house. I wish I had a friend with me as I have a huge room with 2 beds. :/ For dinner, we had something typically Swiss. Fondue! I didn’t know it originated here, but apparently it did. It was delicious. I know it sounds impossible, but I could taste the collective cheese taste and also each individual cheese that was in it. So yum! My Dutch parents recommended that I taste the la religieuse which is French for the crusty bottom part. Yummier! Switzerland=So far, so good! I hope it continues this way.
oh and the chocolate. mmmmmMmMmmMM
I’m typing from?! Yup, yup! My brand new shiny, aluminum macbook is here! Can I just tell you how much I love Macauly(that’s his name! Shout out to Dev for the creativity). He is simply beautiful! I’m still not to keen on the black keys on the aluminum, but whatever! For the couple of days I’ve had it, I’ve been busy downloading old widgets, programs, organizing photos, and yes, installing World of Warcraft-Wrath of the Lich King. Wish I had something amazing to say about it, but honestly, I haven’t played it very much. It just hasn’t held my interest.
This past weekend I had a wonderful, late, Thanksgiving! Like I said in an earlier post, my friend Tony in Limbricht(a small village in the south of the Netherlands) hosted a dinner for some of his friends. It was DELICIOUS! There was stuffin, ham, macaronni, gumbo, turkey, and lots and lots of wine(special wine that turns me into a tall amazon woman towering over my friends that forgets how to do the middle charlie angel pose)!
Hahaha! We had a really good evening full of eating, gaming, and of course we went out. I wish we could have more weekends like that. It was so much fun!
I’m not very big on Thanksgiving, but this year I am somewhat missing it. Or rather missing trying to avoid it. I usually spend my Thanksgivings trying to get out of the dinners, trips to relatives or whatever boyfriends dinner(those were dramatic!). The past 2 Thanksgivings I’ve been in Amsterdam, so I didn’t really have to avoid them. Kind of takes the fun out of it. My favorite “avoiding Thanksgiving” Thanksgiving was when I actually came home for Thanksgiving break, with a friend in tow, but didn’t tell any of my family I was in town. Ha! It was fun. I think I spent that day playing Mike Tyson’s Punch Out and at a bar. This year I am celebrating Thanksgiving, just not today. Saturday, I’m attending dinner at my friend Tony’s house. I can’t wait! I’ve been promised gumbo WITH OKRA! That’s my favorite food(okra), if you didn’t know.
Nothing else to report. I’m going to St. Moritz for December/January holidays. Holla!
Today is the last day of my vacation home. Before coming here I had so many plans. Plans to travel, hang out with friends/relatives, shopping, and just relaxing. Unfortunately, sometimes things come up, both out of your control(death in my case) and under your control (dude, I play too much warcraft) that screw up your plans. I have SO much to do today. Last minute shopping, visits/goodbyes, and of course eating at American restaurants/fast food places that I won’t be able to for months and months!
Farewell America! It’s been radical.
I guess I should update on what has been going on. I’m in the states for vacation. Been having a good time, seeing friends, family, eating southern food, playing lot of World of Warcraft with my wow friends that I can finally raid with. (Hurrah for being in the same time zone) Planned on visiting Hans and Issac, but that didn’t work out. The night before I was meant to leave my uncle passed away. My family has been a mess and I of course stayed in Memphis. The funeral will be held on Friday. So, friends in Amsterdam don’t expect me home until Sunday night. Instead of Friday. Sorry! Anywho, I don’t feel like typing, but I promise when I get back to Holland, blogging Pinkie will be back!
But for now I shall leave you with hot Elvis! *swoon*
For V-day, I did just what I said I would do. I cleaned the “someone special’s” room while he was out running errands. He was surprised when he got back. Heck, we both we were. There were parts of the floor that I haven’t seen in awhile. On top of everything, I found a favorite shirt that I thought had been lost. Score! He (and his flatmate) were grateful and said it looked awesome. The rest of the day was spent hanging out. We had what he called a “Trashy Valentine’s” (*didn’t think it was trashy, better than previous V-day dates). I didn’t want to go anywhere fancy so we went to our favorite Chinese buffet. Yum! I didn’t complain. After dinner, we stopped by a local drugstore to take advantage of the 50% off chocolate! mmmm. Also grabbed a 40 ounce of High Life(what?! it’s the champagne of beers!) for his roomie who was back at the house valentine-less. We popped a red bow on it before we gave it to him to give it a special V-day feel. The three of us spent the evening drinking, me-red wine(**me and red wine=no fun…for others!) and them-some weird electric green concoction(green apple vodka-yuck!/some green hawaiian punch drin-double yuck!), and talking about the most random things.
*Trashiest Valentine’s Day EVER(though, I loved it!) was last year. It consisted of ordering in pizza and playing World of Warcraft all night! It was days after Blizard releassed the expansion so we were both very anxious to get our characters to 70 and test out the new content!
**the story of me and red wine. I’m not sure what the hell it is, but anytime I get tipsy or drunk as the result of red wine I turn in to the biggest Bitch ever! I start off alright and then about an hour before I’m ready to sleep/pass out, I have some transformation. Kind of like the hulk, but still cute and not all big and stuff! I start picking fights for no reason, bringing up wrong doings from the past, yelling…I’m never like this! An example of this transformation was last night. We got into bed and he fell asleep. You know? That thing you do when you head to bed! I went off on him for that and then I started with the “YOU THINK I’M FAT! Don’t you!?”
There was more, but I don’t remember it (at least that’s what I’m sticking to). I feel awful about it all. I think I finally agree with all the ex-bf’s that say I’m acrazy bitch.
