Chicken's Arse

Map of Slovenia - with Chicken Outlined

Ben so accurately pointed out that Slovenia is shaped like a chicken and that holding true, Klavze 28 is in the Chicken's Arse (see yellow star).  So I've taken a map and marked up a few of the highlights of our stay there.  I'll be referring back to this frequently.

Hey, speaking of arses, Day 2 in Slovenia is when all hell broke loose.  Our meticulous schedule was shot to hell as well.  Upon waking up (rather late considering the number of bottles of wine we tossed back the night before) I had an incident in my bedroom that involved what was later to be discovered as a pinched nerve in my back.  It sent me to my knees in incredible pain and I wasn't quite sure 1. how i'd get up off the floor and 2. how i'd make it down both sets of stairs to let Ben and Luey know what was going on.

So i sucked it up and stood up...pain!  Then got down the stairs...more pain.  Downstairs I thought I'd move around a bit and see if the pain would lessen any.  It didn't.  We decided I needed help.  Ben started calling to see if he could find a chiropractor for me to visit.  One that was relatively close couldn't see me until the next day at noon (no good!), then there was an option or two in Gorizia, Italy just across the border.  We decided to head out and try to find someone there.  We found ourselves in a residential area and after talking to some neighbors were able to determine that there was a chiropractor....we called him and he was in another town and could try to get back that evening to see me.  At this point, I was going to have to opt for an emergency room if no one could see me.  I couldn't sit without hurting, laying hurt, everything hurt. 

We finally found a physical therapist via Ben's iphone.  This guy could meet us at 3:30 or so.  It was about noon, so we decided we would kill time waiting for him.  We had some lunch, of which i was standing up for a lot of since sitting in a chair hurt me.  Then we walked for some Gelato, but walking hurt me (get the idea here).  We got back in the car and drove around.  I decided to lay down at this point.  Luey and Ben found a castle and decided to tour it.  I stayed laying in the car.  It sounded like a lovely castle and a lovely town we were driving through.  The pictures I saw later looked like that too!

3:30 finally rolled around.  So we went to see the Physio (PT).  He was a really cute guy, and his office was very small.  He only spoke Italian, so Ben had to stay to help translate as best he could.  So before long he has explained that it's a pinched nerve because the pain is shooting down into my legs.  I have to lay on the table and drop my pants.  So here I am with my arse in the air and Luey and Ben are sitting in little chairs at arse level.  It was a practice in humility for this modest girl...however i was in so much pain that i was certain i'd get over the humility if this worked.  Cute Physio started doing his electric shock therapy on my back, butt, legs.  He did this for quite a while.  Much longer than my chiropractor at home would have allowed for.

It was magic when he was done.  I hopped right off the table (pulled up my pants) and was able to stand up completely...without much pain at all.  In fact, my back probably felt better than it had in quite a while.  Thank the good Lord!!  It was probably 4:30 or 5 before we finished.  I had officially derailed an entire day of vacation!  I felt so awful. 

Luckily Ben was able to recover some of it by driving us through the Brda wine region - which they liken to a Slovenian Tuscany. They aren't far from the mark there, or I can only imagine they are not. The landscape was breathtaking. Mountainsides of wine vines in their perfectly organized rows!

We stopped at a winery where we were able to taste some wines.  Ben bought a 10 ltr bottle of wine. And we picked him up a new decanter for wine at the house.




We drove a little more and found a lookout point that we could climb for panoramic views of the region.  I can't wait to get home to my photo software and stitch together some panoramic pics.


We listened to good music from Ben's ipod and enjoyed the crisp breezes blowing through the car on our way winding back down the mountains.  It was a great drive.


Kudos (many, many kudos) to Ben for helping me find a dr. and still recovering the day.  He truly is the perfect host!


We headed back to the house with promises of mushroom risotto for dinner and a ton of wine we picked up along the way - both at the Mercato and at the winery we stopped at.  Bottles of wine are so dang cheap there.  The bottle of Prosecco that we drank the most of was only 1.40 Eur/bottle!  I picked up an assortment of red wines as well - none of which were more than 4 Eur per bottle.

The risotto was delicious.  Luey and I took turns "helping" care for the risotto while it was cooking.  Ben used porchini mushrooms he had on hand along with an assortment of other mushrooms as well.  It was really good!

We dined outdoors again and enjoyed the food, drinks, company, and music again!  Another great night at the house.  Ben had a friend to call to set up a canyoning trip for him and Luey the next day.  I boughed out graciously given the back complications.

Drive to Slovenia

We got an early start to Slovenia Monday morning. The drive time between Milan to Slovenia was showing at 4.5 hours and we wanted to stop in Verona along the way. The timing ended up working quite well.

We've now named the GPS Neverlost to Sybil. I've had to break up several fights between her and Luey at this point. Those two do not travel well together at all. We rented a Fiat 500 and it was during this driving day that we realized I have some mad Italian driving skills. If you all are going to straddle two lanes and drive up on everyone's arse, well so am I! A large portion of the street signs were difficult to decipher (if we ever deciphered at all) and the toll booth system was an absolute guessing game on numerous occassions.

We found a parking spot pretty easily in Verona and headed into the center of town. The coliseum was really cool to see and by looking at it from the outside, it's hard to believe they still hold events there today. Noemi and Paolo had talked about seeing an Eagle's concert there. It truly looks like it's crumbling apart...not quite the same experience as seeing a show in the reliant stadium if you ask me!

We saw Juliet's balcony and then went into the town center. We climbed the bell tower and got a nice bird's eye view of the areas surrounding Verona. It was really pretty. We stopped for lunch and Luey made me try to take photos of the cute little waiter...I'm pretty sure he was only 12 years old and told her she's going to have to start taking her own pictures of very young cute boys!


We headed back to the car so we could get to Ben's house. We decided to sit still in the car for a bit while Luey fought with Sybil again and I spent 20 minutes trying to get comfortable in the little driver's seat. A car was waiting to pull into our parking spot and he ultimately decided to get out of his car, walk up to the window and proceed to ask us in Italian if we're planning to leave (at least that's what I think he said). When he read the confusion on my face, he repeated the question in English...at which point Luey responded with "Un momento" and I replied with "Ja!" The man then asked us if we were American. How on earth did he get that we were American when we threw out responses in Spanish and German?? He's really good...

We got another hour down the road before we had a good laugh about that one. It took us an hour to get over my new Italian style of driving that included a u-turn on the major road into Verona's town center (lots of stares came with that one) and last minute crazy driver decisions at each fork in the road while trying to understand what Sybil was telling us to do to get back on the highway.

Crossing the border from Italy to Slovenia was very uneventful. We just flew right past the country line. It was raining while we were driving and once we hit Slovenia the roads started getting smaller and smaller (in width)....the inclines started getting more and more steep and the bends in the road were more and more sharp. I could tell the scenery around me was beautiful, but I was more focused on not getting into a head-on collision with a car barreling around a curve on the mountain. I was really appreciating how small our Fiat was in those moments. Sybil was becoming less useful to us and this was a really bad time for her to do this. It turned out that it was partly my fault, as I thought Klavze 28 was the street and house number...but Klavze (pronounced Clause (sounds like house) - Sha) was really the city name we should have put in. We got that straightened out with Sybil but I was still confused with where the house was. Much to my dismay, it was down a steep unpaved road that I was trying to will myself not to have to drive down in the rain. We did have to drive down it in the rain.

I'm not sure that we can call what was done driving...it was more like a Hail Mary down the driveway...I'm pretty certain both mine and Luey's eyes were closed for the full length of this drive (i'm horrible with estimates, so let's go with 2-3 football fields?...someone can correct me later if i'm wrong here). There were a few things in play here that are very difficult to capture in words...mud holes due to the rain (so fear of getting the little car stuck); narrow driveway that looks straight down a cliff to the portion of river that runs through Ben's property (so fear of driving off a cliff, especially with closed eyes); and sharp steep bumps/hills in the driveway which caused the little car to bottom out. So. We creep down the driveway apprehensively for a short little bit, but start encountering the mud puddles pretty quickly. At this point, we still have room on both sides of the car (no cliff drops just yet). I didn't think we'd get so lucky as to stumble upon a lil'mule to help us get out of the mud if we were to get stuck, so I start coming up with the brilliant plan of gunning it.

What happened next is a bit difficult to remember because it was as if we were filming an episode of the Dukes of Hazzard. Instead of Bo and Duke Luke, you had Toby and Luey; and instead of the General Lee you had, well a Fiat 500.

We slid, we flew, we stared down a cliff wondering if we were going over, we probably lost the exhuast system due to dragging bottom so badly toward the end of the driveway. We pretty much just turned the car off and peeled ourselves out when we saw the house. I'm sure Ben would have appreciated us pulling up a little closer to the house at any point over the next two days...but we just had to walk away from the car at that point.

We immediately fell in love with everything we were looking at. The clouds and rain across the landscape just made it that much more stunning! I loved every bit of it. We also met the cats - Harvey and Vester. Ben cracked open the wine immediately and he fixed us up with meats/cheeses (YUM). We spent the evening outside drinking, talking, listening to good music. Ben cooked Garlic Pesto stuffed trout (the trout is a specialty of the area fresh from the river and the garlic pesto is made fresh from the property). Below are some pics of everything! It was a fantastic evening and everything tasted great. I think we polished off 6 bottles of wine as well.

Rain, Rain...go away - Milan Day 2

We woke to a spread of cookies, cakes, nutella and other sweets for breakfast. Your kids would all have loved it! I wasn't displeased myself.

It was still raining when we woke up. We headed out to see what we could fit in despite the rain. We started out with a trip to the grocery. Of course, I was in heaven with this. It was truly a super market, about the size of a nicer HEB (like the one in West Houston on Westheimer/Kirkwood).


They have to pay money to get shopping carts and then if you return the carts to where they belong, you receive your 2 EUR back.

Other interesting facts during the Mercato visit:
1. Don't throw away your receipt when you buy coffee at the coffee bar, you need it to get your order. I dug in the trash to try and find ours, but instead they just decided to trust us after I pulled out three receipts that were not ours.

2. Italians do not trust each other (see point 1 above). This was the first day I was catching wind of this notion. We couldn't figure out where to get out of the actual grocery section to get back to a bathroom because they force you to go through the checkout lines to leave for security reasons. We finally convinced someone to let us out another way.

3. They make you wear gloves to pick out your produce. See pic of Luey for this. I accidentally grabbed my sticker for the produce with the glove...that is not advisible.

4. You can load your credit card onto a wand and then scan all of your items as you put them in the cart. However, they still check all of the contents of your cart at the end to make sure you're not stealing anything...so i'm not quite sure where the efficiencies are here. We had scanned one item twice and forgot one item...so i guess it was a wash?

5. They have an entire row dedicated to pasta. Both sides are filled with every sort of pasta you can imagine. It was maybe like our chip aisle or cereal aisle....but both sides filled.

6. They had great options for freshly prepared food items - pastas, cheeses, meats, dough, etc.

After the visit to the market, we went to a castle. It was pouring outside so we toured the inside. The rooms had great frescos on the ceilings, including my favorite one by DaVinci that looked like a forest inside the room. Very pretty.



We headed back to the house because the rain was too much to have the kids out in. Once we got back, Noemi prepared Spaghetti Carbonara for us at the house. It was cool to see how easily she threw something like that together. We had the huge spread of meats and cheeses again along with the lunch. While we were eating, the sun came out and the weather turned gorgeous.



Noemi's mom came over to keep the kids so we could go back out for more site seeing. We finally made it to the top of the Duomo. It was so pretty because it was later in the day with the pretty colors coming through in the sky. It was really an awesome site of architecture with the gothic spires and engravings on the doors. You could see forever from up there. I'm pretty sure I disgraced the church by doing a few little shimmies for some photo ops up there, but hey...we're friends like that, right?



That might have been why I stepped backwards while on the roof and nearly fell...only to disrupt my back more when I did catch myself. The back had been giving me some problems since the hydro-planing the night before on the wet sidewalks.

We had to get back to the house after that so her mom could head off to church that evening. Luey and I stayed up a little later than the others and knocked back a 6 pack of Italian beer while uploading pictures.

Off to Slovenia tomorrow!

Weekend in Milan - Day 1

Luey and I made it to Milan! We also found our way to Noemi and Paolo's house without too many problems. Once we got the GPS to work in our car and gained an understanding of the toll booths and street signs, we were on our way.

We arrived to a beautiful meal of trofia pasta with pesto, a spread of meats and cheeses with bread. It was perfect.

We went out for an evening walk around Milan. We saw the Duomo at night (in the rain) but it quickly became a downpour! We hadn't taken any umbrellas with us so we were soaked. To top it off, I found out that it is next to impossible to walk on wet marble sidewalks with flip flops on! I was hydro-planing all over the place and almost dragged Luey down to her knees to save myself from falling. I am still sorry about that!

Before the rains came we had what Noemi and Paolo said was the best gelato in Milan. We ordered Baci flavored Gelato with this fantastic whip cream on top (Luey had a bit too much if you ask me...you decide for yourself).



After we survived the rain storm, we headed to a pizza place (L'Universo) and met some of Noemi and Paolo's friends out. The pizza was fantastic! Thin sliced, wood fired pizza. They tasted so great because the cheese was so freaking good. The Buffa Mozzarella had such a good taste...nothing like the tasteless mozarella I'm used to picking up in the grocery at home.



Their friends were so great! Alberto, his wife Alline (she's from Brazil originally but has been in Milan for about 4 years now), their daughter (4 mos old) Nora and then N&P's other friend Martina. She's a trapeze artist who lives in Barcelona, but she and Noemi grew up together here in Milan. I believe Martina also visited Texas for a while when Noemi knew Luey as an exchange student.

Luey and I had not slept on the flights over, so we were working on about 36 hours of being awake straight after pizza. We were pretty beat. That's one way to make yourself adjust to their clock! We crashed and slept like babies the first night.

I'll post about Day 2 shortly.

Ciao!

Brushing off the Blog

Italy, Slovenia, Croatia....here I come!!

Ike

So our luck seems to have run out in Houston. Ike's intensity sent sea levels to incredible heights while he was still hours away from landfall. He is currently barreling toward us, with disaster on all sides along the way.

I grew up in Texas City, just on the mainland next to Galveston. My family first tried to tell me they would be riding the storm out in Texas City. I was forced to throw a small baby fit, which they only patronized...and then leave them with pure disgust..."You're only hearing what you want to hear, there's nothing I can do about that. Fine." Then I pulled the triple Lindy. I called in a favor from my brother in New York.

He left the art opening he was attending long enough to give them a pretty stern talking to. His initial response back to me was that he was unsuccessful, but I had a feeling my mom would stew over it for a bit. He's quite a force to be reckoned with. I was right, she called me back by about 10pm to tell me that my dad had agreed to head to my house first thing in the morning.

I was still a little uncertain if they were just appeasing me again, or if they would actually come. I finally received a phone call at about 8am when they were already on their way. Much to my relief. By then I had several friends who were very concerned and I was able to send out the all clear to everyone.

So now here we sit...My dad has a handgun because "People are idiots in Houston." And not only does he have it with him, but several times I have had to spin the thing around because he has it pointing toward my guests' heads on my countertop. Now, he's pointing it around and acting like he's shooting.

My mom is wandering around the house finding eleventy billion things for my dad to do. He can change this light bulb, he can clean the lint system in the dryer, he can carry the trash to the dumpster for the 4th time today. All the while, she has cooked 4 meals and set out about 5 snacks throughout the day. We've checked the stations on the radios 3 times and have talked about flashlights through four different cycles.

I do not have a seat in my living room to sit on. Instead I'm sitting at the kitchen table singing my blues. Did I mentioned she brought an Aunt and a cousin with them? It's better than the 8 people she originally intended to bring. Instead the others stayed in texas city and now i'm worried about them.

My friends offered to let me stay with them at their house while mine was taken over. Had I taken them up on the offer, I would be a few blocks away from Anderson Cooper right now. Seriously, he's downtown right now.

I've already jumped up a degree of difficulty on Guitar Hero and I set up domains and accounts for a new business venture. This is going to be a long night....

Canadia!

My Country! It's nice to finally visit the land I've claimed for so long.

So a bit about Calgary. Average age in this town is estimated to be about 34. That estimation came from a 34 year old. I'm surrounded by men. And they are all health nuts. Health nuts, and heavy drinkers.

My project is made up of two of us from the Houston KPMG office and two people from the L.A. KPMG office. They are all guys. I feel inadequate with my clothes and personal grooming compared to the L.A. fellows, but I do not have the bank account to make a run for catching up to them, so I've dealt with that fact already.

The partner has a house on the beach that is filmed in 90210. Don't act like you can't remember that spiral staircase. Come on, here it is for reference:

He is a high-roller who lives on Hermosa beach. He is also one of the nicest guys I've met and he gushes about how great his wife is. Very generous and seems to have an open door policy at their house. Some of the people from the client have visited several times and he's extended the offer to us Texas folks.

The client made us leave the office at 3pm on Monday because it was time to start drinking. Luckily they chose a spot next to our hotel, which made for an easy escape for me when the group decided to go on to have more drinks and a proper dinner (I guess the plethera of appetizers wasn't enough for them). I snuck away and decided to wind down (a 4.5 hour flight is taxing) in my hotel room and unpack. I should say suite, rather than hotel room.

This hotel is super nice! The pool has a water slide. I'd snag a picture of me coming down the slide if it didn't require a coworker of mine seeing me in a swimsuit in order to get the shot. Maybe after drinks tomorrow i'll set up the tripod after hours and snag a shot for you (note: don't hold your breath!).

So during drinks the first night, one of the ambitious workout guys suggested that they go for a run through the city at lunch on Tuesday. It turns out that the company allows them to leave at any point in the day to go workout as long as they get their hours in. Very cool. Also very convenient that their building has locker rooms and showers inside. Well, Tuesday rolls around and they made the partner keep to his word on running with them.

Keep in mind the weather is cold. Very cold. Puddles on the ground are ice. It's very dry, so you don't realize it is below 20 degrees outside when you are walking to the office. So they convince the partner to run after a lengthy phone conversation in which the partner is saying "I only have short running shorts." The two Calgarians (i did not make this term up, despite my title above) convince him that he'll be just fine. So the partner gets to the dressing room and changes, then he looks over and realizes that the two others are covered head to toe! Long spandex running pants, double layer long sleeve shirts, mittens, face covers, AND the hand warmers that you break open for instant warming! And there stands Jim next to them in his tiny running shorts! Oh man. good stuff. He somehow survived the 6 mile run.

I reclaimed my daylight savings hour and since I am from Canadia and all, well I've been working out each morning (look, 2 mornings in a row is big for me...HUGE). I have to considering they made us drink Tuesday night too. I called a quitsy for tonight. I called it first thing this morning. They laughed at me, but I refuse to buckle to peer pressure. They are also scaring me with threats of a big night of drinking tomorrow (i can't imagine what a BIG night of drinking is to these guys compared to a typical monday and tuesday night).

The restaurant next to the hotel has a hot calgarian guy working there who looks important (he wears business casual attire and quality checks all of the dishes going out, oh and he walks around with paper work and a clip board). The guys had me point out my type and I pointed to him. Dark hair, scruffy chin, light eyes... My coworkers are waiting on my go ahead to set me up with him. They are convinced that I'll have no problem landing him if they simply walk up to him and say "hey, she thinks you're hot and she has a room next door." Who was I to argue with them on that notion? So I squirmed out and never gave them a green light.

Ok, so that's a long enough report for the first three days. I have to plan my weekend now. I can't wait to start taking some pics! Oh, and the work is good too...it's a really interesting project.

Lunch – last day of project

Early in the week the client invited me to have pints at lunch on Friday. Well today is Friday and I was quite looking forward to the pints after two very successful meetings where I discussed my findings from the week. As it turns out, I get quite a lot of work done in my hotel room when Joni isn’t trying to drag me to bars named “the bugle” every five minutes!
So they drove me to this small town called Sutton that is just east of Reading. We stopped at this old british inn that also has a restaurant and pub attached. It is myself and 3 other guys that work for the internal audit group for this client. They were gentlemen and asked me what I wanted to drink first. I tried to get them to surprise me, but they weren’t budging on that one. So I asked for a pint of Kroenenburg. Slowly the director who has taken us all there goes around the table – orange juice, tomato juice, and water were the other three orders. I was certain I was about to be fired. I think I still hear them across the way making fun of my reaction (and we’re back at the office now).
I can’t believe I got bamboozled like that! They distinctly said “pints” for lunch…and it was reiterated this morning. “are you still up for grabbing some pints for lunch?” Luckily one of the guys changed his ordered after he saw how big my eyes were. I’m not quite sure how the exchange worked…because I saw both of the other guys turn to him and then he changed it…I’m not sure if that’s some sort of british version of “not it.”
So all of the excitement this week is centered around the Tour de France starting in London. I should probably look into the logistics of this race, because last time I looked…England was an island of sort that is not connected to France at all. I wouldn’t want to sound silly in a discussion about how they will get from England to France.
The poor chap who lost the game of “not it” mentioned something about a cycling movie that was just made. He said it was about a guy who broke a world biking record with a bike that he made out of washing machine parts. He drew a lot of blank stares from the other brits, so I felt comfortable when I made fun of him once no one said anything in response. It went something like “Did you guys say you let him drink during lunch every Friday?”
He vowed to google the story when he got back to the office. I told him he was going to get a response from google’s search that says…did you mean…I have no idea what you meant!”
One of the guys piped in and said that when you type “French military victories” into the google search, it comes back with “did you mean…French Military Defeats?” So clever. I’m going to wrap this up quickly now, because I’m certain I just lost my audience to google!
Lucky for him though, he did just walk over to my desk with a story printed out. I will have to re-google it myself though, because it doesn’t have any markings as if he grabbed it from a website, and I’m fairly certain he might have just merged three different stories together. The story he printed doesn’t really flow that well…I’ll let you know what I find.

Vigilant

I haven't been very vigilant at blogging...but that's because i've been vigilant at watching for terrorists. That's what the british news keeps telling me, anyway. Here's a little story about my last day in London on Sunday...i'm in Reading, UK now which is a London suburb for the most part.

So I thought my life was over….
Of course we arrive in london right when terror plots are set to go off…I’d expect nothing different. I go back and forth between these feelings of “I’ve really taken a bite out of life, and any time is a good time to go” then I jump to “Something could really happen…oh crap!”
Those internal dialogues haven’t really mattered though, because deep down I’ve never honestly thought that I’d fall victim to something like that. I can say this with certainty after an experience I had on Sunday.
Security was ripe, especially since we were staying in the very area that the two car bombs were set to go off in. Those were discovered early Friday morning, and it was now Sunday afternoon. There had been another similar incident; however that happened all the way in Glasgow. You might venture to say I was a bit laxed by the time Sunday had rolled around.
We had just checked out of our hotel, but we were going to grab a quick bite before heading to Reading. We walked across the street at our hotel (Trafalgar square) at the cross walk with a bunch of other pedestrians. A car was approaching as the rest of us were finished crossing the street. As we step up to the curb to get out of this car’s way, we hear a thunderous explosion. My eyes pressed closed as a profanity spilled out of my mouth. My body was paralyzed by the sound of the explosion, and my mind was tingling as I processed other people’s screams around me. That round of thought process happened within 3 seconds perhaps. Next we started walking again, staggering as we processed that the car had merely backfired. We caught our breathes and took a few steps forward when we saw two foot police running frantically straight toward us. I still do not know what they were screaming, however I saw the look of terror in their eyes. They were pursuing the explosion they had heard from across the square, but they weren’t aware it was only a backfire. Kids were following the police screaming the whole time as well…I’ll admit that even though I knew what was going on…the look in those cop’s faces scared me to death all over again.
I realize now I was lucky to have been on the side I was on…because then at least I knew what the explanation was. I will say that while my eyes were pierced closed, my mind thought this “So THIS is it?” I honestly thought my time was up. I’m so glad I processed everything in 3 seconds!

Off to London

Alright...let's kick this blog back off right! You might be wondering what the hell that picture is. It's kind of what i envisioned Joni's underwear looking like when she said she was going to put on stars and stripes underwear, then drop her pants in a London pub on July 4th while yelling something about Old Glory...
Luckily, as of yesterday she had not been able to find a pair. And luckily Jenn didn't know in enough advance to help her try to pull it off.
Now Joni clames she will be hijacking this blog during the course of the trip...i assure you that i will have a counterpoint to anything she might try to post...so stay tuned. It will be interesting if nothing else!
bon voyage!

the beatles are HUGE!

Sometimes when i'm driving past Huntsville, TX i bury my head in my hands in disbelief of the monstrous statue of Sam Houston. Who would ever think it a good idea to make something so large and obnoxious. It plays right into the stereotype of Texans. Well yesterday I happened upon the Sam Houston statue artist's warehouse. He's currently in the middle of a 'president's heads' project that will be a part of a new master planned community.

I noticed all of the president's heads and decided to stop the car and snag a few shots. Well, I turned the corner once i entered the fenced area, and I was in awe of the site above! Yes, that is an extended crane resting right up behind Ringo on the drums.

I'll just say that i'm all for statues of the Beatles being this obnoxiously large. I guess my issues with the Sam Houston statue is something other than its size...

http://www.roadsideamerica.com/tnews/NewsItemDisplay.php?Tip_AttrId==15173

Blood sausage - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

Blood sausage - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

Doing the Trick

I'm glad to see my blog is getting the job done...or is it? I found out last night that my friends thought I was in Barbados rather than Barcelona. I don't even know if I know how to spell Barbados...I have no business visiting there! I should have expected that my friends would get side tracked as soon as they heard the BAR part come out of my mouth. I'm certain that's where I lost them.

How did I do on the spelling?

While in Barbados...i mean, Barcelona I was bragging that I was being adventurous in the foods that I was trying. Well, I had no idea exactly HOW adventurous I was being. It seems that I have just been clued into what one of the items I ate from the spread of food from 4 different Spanish regions. I ate (and i'm having a little baby throw up in my mouth as I type this) something called Goat's blood stuffed sausage. Now if you're not sure what that is, it's a piece of sausage filled with goat's blood. Seriously.

I'm going to brush my teeth now.

Animal Kingdom

So the bats are back (as you may have read in one of the comments from my roommate below). I was jet-lagged Saturday evening when I got back to the states, so a bat could have been on my forehead through the night and I wouldn’t have cared. But now I’ve just spent the last two nights away from home because I realized I’m living in animal kingdom.

After observing the bats flying from my chimney at sundown, I proceeded to go sit out on my back porch. This is when I came face to face with one of the largest wood roaches I’ve ever seen. Now they aren’t unfamiliar to the area around my house…but usually they scamper off at the first sign of me. Not this one…he proceeded to make a straight line in our direction. We cut our losses and decided to go outside via the garage at the back of my house.

We walked around a bit outside to see if we could get some different angles of the bats. We couldn’t. So we walked back toward the garage to go back in. Right about the time we were approaching our garage door…my peripheral vision caught side of the largest wing-span I’ve ever seen (ever seen that close to my person, that is). It was coming from around the corner of my house. I shot off in the opposite direction, hoping my roommate would save herself. I could only think “that’s the largest bat I’ve ever seen!” It wasn’t a bat, it was our favorite local egret. Who the hell has an egret at their house? Huh? Can you answer that? And please keep in mind that we are not living in a bay house. It’s in the middle of one of the largest cities in the U.S.

I’ve named her Margaret.

Here’s where you gain a little knowledge in this story. If you ever need to get rid of bats…the very first thing you should do is call your homeowner’s association and whine. That’s step one. Hopefully you have a homeowner’s association in your back pocket. And hopefully you are not paying as much money for one as me. So after you do that, they will send a bat exclusionist over to your home. I would have preferred for this person to be called a bat eliminator or a bat extinguisher…as that sounds much more permanent…but no, they only exclude them.

When they come out (they will be at your house a few times, be nice to them) they will begin a 3 part process:
1. Seal the interior
2. Net the exit/entry point on the outside – this net allows the bats to leave, but not come back in.
3. Seal the outside after a week of the netting being up.

A few notes that can only be learned from experience – When they seal the interior, you make sure it’s the best sealant that has ever been known to man. For instance, the first time the three part process was started on my house, they tried to use chicken wire to seal the interior of my home with. This did not work…not even close to working. The reason why brings me right into the next tip.

When the netting is put on outside…the bats will go absofreakinlutely crazy. Crazy. Half of them will fly out and then realize they can’t get back in…then the others who hadn’t flown out yet are lunatics. Little bats will be dangling from the net, trying not to let go…as if about to fall from a 10 story building. The others shoot off into the interior of the home and look for a way out there. The chicken wire failed to save me at this point. Next thing you know, you have 3 bats flying around the inside of your home at once. The exclusionist came back out and used massive amounts of caulk at our request.

The last tip I’ll leave you with is this…continue to check the material that they’ve sealed the exterior with. It seems the expandable foam they used last time has a life span of about 2 years. And that’s what leads us to round 2 of the bat experiment.

Last One of PG

Another photo

Chairs upstairs in the open forum. This park is huge...it's so amazing that Sungard reserved the entire thing to ourselves. Local people that were strolling around the park were amazed as well. They were asking us what was going on there.

Park Guell

I wanted to post some pictures of Park Guell here. This is the park that Gaudi designed and it's undescribable. I'll try to get as many pics as possible on here. Gaudi was said to be a fan of Hansel and Gretel...you can see that the two main houses at the entrance captures what the homes may look like from the story. Gaudi was actually commissioned by a very wealthy man (who's last name was Guell...imagine) to build these homes. He wanted all of the most wealthy folks in Barcelona to move to the hills and be secluded in their wealthiness...and he commissioned Gaudi to be the architect that would make that appealing. His plan did not work out though...imagine, we could have had a reality tv series about this place, i'm sure.

Not A Princess

I'm not a princess anymore. Gone are the plush bath robes, slippers, free mini bar, panoramic views of the mediterranean sea...

Now i'm holed back up at the club quarters with tiny bathrooms, nothing to drink, and a happening view of a ton of pigeons on the top of a dirty building.

We had fun watching the football game yesterday - England vs Trinidad. England decided to make it a game in the final 10 minutes.

Yesterday I had about an hour-long discussion with a guy from India that wears a turban. Now I can only imagine that this is the first time i've had that long of a conversation in that scenario. I was enthralled with how it was so tightly wound...i just kept looking at the intersection point in the front. It reminded me of the tape we used to wrap our bats or tennis racquets. I guess I expected it to be thicker.

Now keep in mind, i'm in a full blown conversation with this person while i'm analyzing this. I'm certain I probably offended him...so halfway through i tried very hard not to look at the intersection point of the turban...well that's just hard to do. I resorted back to being 3 years old and seeing something different for the first time. Note to self: work on the basic skills of being polite.

Sweet Dreams

OK, I'm really done for the night. But once you start looking at pics of this guy...you just can't stop. Mommy.

World Cup

I'm studying up on soccer and all of the latest moves. Nah, just kidding...i'm really just pumped about staring at Beckham for however many hours one of their games lasts! YAY.