Sometimes I whine...

a lot...sorry Mom and Dad!


But I can't help it! See, I whine sometimes about living in America. Because, truthfully, I would much rather live in Europe - pretty much anywhere would do for this girl. I blame this urge on studying abroad in the spring of 2003 where Europe was my playground and pretty much any city was only a 30 euro plane ride away!

Alas, since 2003, I haven't been back there, and since 2004 I haven't been abroad! I know, that may sound spoiled, but for everything I do/am passionate about - traveling is definitely at the top. Way at the top - like, Ithinkaboutiteveryday-at-the-top

But, just when I was about drown my sorrows with cheap wine and the Travel Channel the other day, I came upon an article on MSN.com which was pretty fantastic about pointing out to me just how thankful I should be about all I've seen already.


The article was entitled "Europe's Must-See Landmarks." And I was thinking, "Man, I bet, I've only gotten to see a few of these." Insert :( here.

But, really, I had seen 10/19. And that's pretty cool. No, that's really cool. So below, I've listed all of them for your own perusal, highlighting the one's that I've been lucky enough to visit.

(Not in any sort of particular order)

1) Eiffel Tower, Paris, France - Paris, je t'aime. My favorite memory? My dad's attempt at la langue francaise by walking up to the ticket window and telling the man at the window, "I would like trois for the top!" Good times.

2) Charles Bridge, Prague, Czech Republic - Good friends, really cold weather, and awesome photography on this Bridge. I still have a picture that I bought on it hanging in my apartment.

3) The Palace at Versailles, Versailles, France - Ugh, love that Hall of Mirrors! Rainy day, but my parents and I had the best time! The small chapel was probably my favorite room.

5) Buckingham Palace, London, England - Totally - great architecture, not as impressed with the changing of the guards as I thought I would be.

5) Tivoli Gardens, Copenhagen, Denmark - Nope, but I would sure love to go there!

6) Puerto del Sol, Madrid, Spain - Unfortunately, never made it to Spain.

7) Guggenheim Museum, Bilbao, Spain - See above

8) Hagia Sophia mosque, Instanbul, Turkey - Nuh uh, but this is near the top of my list - maybe next year I'll go to Instanbul and Budapest????

9) Notre Dame de Paris cathedral, Paris, France - We went to the Easter mass there - just incredible...it's such an undescribable place, I almost cried when we went in.

10) Red Square, Moscow, Russia - Since when is Russia part of Europe?

11) St. Peter's Basilica, Vatican City, Rome, Italy - Yes!!! Plus, I was there with friends on the day the Pope (John Paul II at the time) gave a blessing. Amazing, just amazing.

12) Piccadilly Circus, London, England - Actually cut through here everyday on my way to class.

13) Colosseum, Rome, Italy - Totes...even cooler in person, but give you the creeps to see where the slaves/animals were held.

14) Stonehenge, Wiltshire, England - Our whole program went out to see this monument. Unfortunately, you can no longer walk among the stones, because all of the footprints were softening the ground and causing the stones to shift slightly. But worth it, nonetheless.

15) Neuschwanstein Castle, Bavaria, Germany - Nope, but would love to!

16) Giants Causeway, ner Bushmills, Northern Ireland - Never made it past Dublin the weekend I was there - not enough time.

17) The Parthenon on the Acropolis, Athens, Greece - Sadly, the closest I've gotten is an obsession with Greek mythology and my 8th grade sugar cube replica.

18) Alhambra, Granada, Spain - See above one more time:)

19) Custom House, Dublin, Ireland - Saw it only from the outside, but that counts!

Well, there you have it, my friends. I've been really blessed to see all of these amazing places.

Not that I'll quit whining any time soon:)

It's a teeny tiny world

Bonjour tout le monde! Hier soir, j'ai mangé avec mes amis de mon classe francaise. Nous sommes allés au bon restaurant Lebanese...

Oh, uh, excuse-moi, I didn't mean to start in la langue francaise, but I've been speaking so much of it lately!! Très bon, n'est-ce pas?

So, on Tuesday, my French class met up at an amazing Lebanese restaurant on the near north side to speak French outside of class, so we wouldn't lose our skills by the time class gears up again at the end of June.

And really, I don't have anything wildly interesting to say about that night aside from two things that stand out:

1) We managed to speak nothing but French for over an hour - pretty exciting!

2) We chatted with our waiter for a bit (in English) and it turns out he was born in Baghdad, lived for awhile in Tehran, moved here several years ago, hasn't seen is family (still in Iraq) since 1982, and his sister was 5 when he left and he's only spoken to her one the phone since then. Oh, and he speaks Arabic, Assyrian, Persian, English, a little French, and understands Greek. I am continuously amazed by the people I meet in Chicago, from those I know well, to those I meet purely on accident. Our waiter was incredibly nice - he mentioned that he hopes things are changing now, and how he hopes to see his family eventually in the next few years. For the most part, aside from reading the news, I feel very separated from what happens in the Middle East, but everyone once in awhile, thanks to events like this, the magnitude of what is going on is brought home to me.

D'oh!

Um, so I've been tagged! See, it's funny because when I was little getting tagged sucked because that meant you had to freeze. 20 years later it means I blog!


Anyhoo, regardless of the fact I'm not even sure what a "memes" is, I'm going to follow Ms. Bossy's instructions and throw caution to the wind.


Rules: The rules of the game get posted at the beginning. Each player answers the questions about himself or herself. At the end of the post, the player then tags five people and posts their names, then goes to their blogs and leaves them a comment, letting them know they’ve been tagged and asking them to read your blog.


Ten Years Ago:
10 years ago, I was finishing my sophomore year of high school and my sis was graduating. I loved high school and was gearing up for a summer of 4-H and marching band, and finishing up a season of varsity tennis. Good times.


Five Things on Today's "To Do" List:
-Study for my French final tomorrow
-Hang curtains (or nail them to the wall, whatever)
-Conquer Microsoft Office 2007
-Buy a house-warming gift
-Finish my book (it's so good!)


Things I'd Do If I Were a Billionaire:
-Hire a financial manager
-Give some to the fam
-Move abroad
-Donate enough to Notre Dame to have a building named after me and call it "Hall Hall"
-Pay off student loans (hey, that's exciting!)
-Create a vault in my home and keep $10,000,000 of it in gold coins and roll around in it like Scrooge McDuck on DuckTales


Three Bad Habits:
-$2 slices of pizza from Cholie's
-Getting a library card, then buying books, and then forgetting about the library
-Watching movies 5x in one day...in a row


Five Places I've Lived:
Indianapolis, IN
Arlington, VA
London, England
Chicago, IL
Houston, TX


Five Jobs I've Had:
Associate, Building Materials Department, Menards
Waitress (multiple times)
House Manager
Box Office Manager,
Associate, Linens 'N Things


Five People I'm Tagging:
Sorry, the buck stops here, my friends.

The Velveteen Rabbit

When I lived in DC, I worked a second job at a Barnes & Noble. Don't snicker, I loved this job. So much fun. Getting to read releases before they were out to the public, talking to other people who loved books as much as I did, and enjoying the craziness that was my last night on the job - which happened to coincide with the release of the last Harry Potter book.

All of the employees had several things in common: all of us had at least one college degree, for most of us this was either a second job or helping to pay for a degree, we all loved books, and we all avoided working the children's section like it was the plague.

Okay, so a few dedicated souls actually liked the children's section. I was not one of them. I worked nights and weekends, and many parents acted like somehow we would baby-sit their kids if they left them there. Not so much.

So the several times I couldn't escape my manager fast enough, I would work in the children's section. And inevitably end up 80% annoyed and 20% nostalgic.

Why nostalgic you ask? Because I loved books and reading even as a child. My parents encouraged my sis and I to read from the start and I have great memories of the Berenstain Bears, The Story of Ferninand, Grimm's Fairy Tales, Katy No-Pockets, and The Country Bunny and the Little Golden Shoes, among many, many others.

But the other day, I was talking to a friend, and he mentioned a book that I get more and more sentimental about each year, and now I consider it one of my favorites, even though it used to practically bring me to tears when I read it.

Yes, I'm talking about The Velveteen Rabbit.

It has to be one of the best children's book's ever! Any bunny that is "fat and bunchy" is a cutie in my book. Especially one with a "sawdust heart." I mean, really.

Ach, but when the crappy doctor orders him to be burnt after the Boy has scarlet fever, even though the Bunny is all excited about going to the seaside - breaks your heart.

I mean, I know it ends well - the magic nursery fairy stops by and she makes it all better - she makes him Real, and then he sees the Boy the next year.

But it's those excrutiating paragraphs when you think the old Bunny might be burned are really emotional when you're little, but it makes the ending even better!

There's really no point to this blog except for the fact that, like the Bunny, we can easily forget about the stuff that we really liked when we were younger.

So which children's books did you all really like?

I got nothin'

And since I don't, and since I had a not-so-great weekend, I'm going to list things that I am thankful for, in order to start the week off right:

• A mother's day card from my cat,
• Figuring out how to transfer my iTunes library to my new computer,
• Having tickets to both Neil Diamond Chicago concerts in July,
• No waiting in line at the grocery store,
• Spike Channel broadcasting Star Wars IV: A New Hope twice in a row on Sunday,
• Having a super clean apartment
• Waking up to the sound of rain
• Talking to all of my grandparents
• Being in the middle of a really good book
• Reconnecting with friends I haven't heard from in years

And I'm spent...my promises, I will have a legit posting sometime this week!

A Muti Monday

YES!!!! I am so excited!!!! I love it when my choice aligns with others. To see what I'm talking about,

Click Here

Back by popular demand

Alright, kids...I'm on it!

So as all of you wannabe detectives have already detected, I have in fact not posted all of my street signs for April. I only made it to "F." And while "D" may for "Diploma," "F" is definitely for failure. I failed at my April 30-day project. Maybe I didn't love it enough, maybe I ran out of time, maybe I just a deep-seed subconcious aversions to street signs...or the alphabet.

Anyway, since I didn't provide a street sign for each letter of the alphabet, I am now going to offer all of my justifications for not finishing...in alphabetical order.

A is for Apathy.
B is for Being bored with my 30 day project.
C is for Caring...oh wait, didn't do that.
D is for D'oh!!!
E is for Emily who gave me the idea (sad face).
F is for Forgetting my camera.
G is for Giving it the old college try (or not).
H is for Having no motivation.
I is for I SUCK.
J is for "just...can't...do...it."
K is for Katy...
L is for Leaving out a letter of the alphabet while creating this list.
M is for Maybe picking an easier goal for May.
N is for Nothing...cuz that's what I got.
O is for Oops! euh, it's May...too late.
P is for Putting for a half-heart effort.
Q is for Quitter.
R is for Really??!!
S is for Sugar, who by his cuteness, distracted me from my goal!
T is for Totes sucked on this one, dude.
U is for Underachieving
V is for Vendetta...what? It is!
W is for Why bother?
X is for Xenophobia...I blame my fear of street signs that are foreign to me.
Y is for Your mom.
Z is for Zut alors!

Now, that I've subjected you all to that list, let's move on shall we?

May's 30 day goal will be one of giving things up...because I'm super busy for the next two months and giving something up will just be easier.

But dear readers, that does not mean it will be easy!

Alas, for 30 days I am giving up celebrity gossip!!! I know, you are thinking, "Mais Katy, ce n'est pas possible! Quel horreur!!"

I know, I feel you, celebrity gossip has been a loyal friend since my graduate school days, true. But, recent harrumpf over the Miley Cyrus pictures gave me pause. She's 15 and a picture was taken of her showing her back. Suddenly Disney's forcing her to apologize, the photographer is being held accountable and the Christian Coalition is demanding a televised apology. Which is all just stupid. Are you kidding me? How much energy is going into one picture when how many other 15 year olds are getting shot, or starving, or dying. I used to enjoy reading it to see what people are wearing, and who went to which movie premier. And maybe it's just me, but in the last several years, these magazines, and online blogs, have become increasingly viscious to the point where they are practically gloating over the details of someone's divorce, miscarriage, or other heartache like we're watching a Lifetime movie...it's disgusting and I'm no longer entertained. Us Weekly is the new gladiator stadium where we all watch to see who goes down first. So for May, I'm weaning myself away from what has become habit, rather than a pleasure.