Freaking Europe and their Monopoly money

So since England doesn't take the euro, I had to get two pre-paid debit cards, one in pounds and the other in euros (for France). Side bar: how cool that they offer this! Obviously it's been quite a while since I've been abroad...

Yesterday I decided to check the balance on my English card, and it gave me a bigger total than I had originally deposited. Thinking I had won some sort of foreigners lottery, I took the liberty of cashing out before they realized their mistake, rolled around in the money on my bed, and gave some to Heather for her trip home. Then in the middle of the night, I realized the number was probably a sum of my euros and pounds. So this morning I checked the balance on my French card...0. (insert Debbie Downer music here.)

So bizarre - but thank god I didn't dash off to Harrod's for some crazed shopping spree. Just exchanged the extra pounds for euros so I can have a shopping spree in Paris like a normal person. :)

There are worse places to be lost

Last night Heather and I were supposed to meet work people at a bar for a Pub Quiz event (I assume this is like a trivia night or something). We walked back to our hotel to drop off our laptops and headed out, using my chicken-scratch handwritten directions. (Can't figure out how to use the printers here.) Mind you, I wrote down the directions, but I failed to write down the name of the actual bar. Heather had no cash, so a cab was kind of out of the question since we had neither money nor location. So we walked. And we walked. One of the streets in my notes was London Bridge Street, and since we kept seeing signs for London Bridge, we headed that way. (No other streets on my "map" ever appeared.) Ended up ON the London Bridge, which, while cool, was NOT where we were supposed to go. Our cell phones don't work here, so we had no way of calling anyone, so we just shrugged and figured out a way back to our hotel. 2 hour walk, much? And restaurants close here at 10, so by the time we got back to the hotel at 10:30, we were famished and sweaty, yet exhilarated by our excursion.

And somehow we got up and ran 8 miles through the beautiful parks around Buckingham Palace. Life doesn't suck.

Stereotypes...

So we went out last night and met two British guys. They bought us some drinks, tried to convince us to smoke a ciggy, and even escorted us to a second pub. (Look at me, with the lingo!)
Over the course of the evening, there were many stereotypes being thrown around and squashed:

They both had fine teeth. No tragic snaggletooths here.

They didn't hold the door for us. Not exactly gentleman-like.

They had some stereotypes of us, as well: my friend Heather is from Seattle, and they could identify it with Starbucks, rain, and all things Frasier Crane. (Hilarious)

For Texas, they threw out oil rigs and George W. Bush. Excellent.

Both had been to New York, which they found underwhelming (!), found Tallahassee "disastrous" (pretty much in agreement on that one), and when I suggested they go to California for the beach, they said they would rather go to Australia. One was actually headed to Playa del Carmen today. For some reason I find that random. How's about the beach in Greece, pal? He claims it was cheaper to fly all the way to Mexico, which is a bit frightening...

Cheerio!

Some UK observations

Lots of dudes in skinny jeans. Even borderline jeggings. Wow.

Also lots of American TV (thank god) - Friends, Frasier, Everybody Loves Raymond (?) and Desperate Housewives (??).

Mojitos are just as good overseas. (Had to do some quality control...)

Can't get over the awesomeness of the accent.

Something I can get over? The complete lack of air conditioning. EVERYWHERE. Thank god for fans in the office. And we had to sign a freaking WAIVER to open our windows in the hotel room. Hilarious. I promise I won't jump - I just need a little ventilation, people.

So many foreigners, so little time. Truly think no one was speaking English in our London Eye pod (haha iPod) yesterday. Except for us.

Might move here. It's too brilliant.

Paging Clark W. Griswold

I might possibly be staying in the smallest hotel room ever known to man. Which for some reason conjures up images of European Vacation and their tiny hotel rooms. Europeans must be smaller in general - those tiny cars, narrow roads, etc. But still. Makes a girl feel ginormous. I truly think if I stretched out my arms I could touch both walls. Good think I'm not particularly claustrophobic. Yet.

okay I lied

Sitting here in the airport and thanks to Wi-fi (which apparently my mom always thought was a video game, confusing it with Wii) felt the need to blog. The D terminal at DFW is the international terminal, and it just makes me happy. All of these people are going on amazeballs vacations (almost boarded the flight to Madrid and Maui, not gonna lie), honeymoons (saw one poor couple dressed in matching "Mr. Right" and "Mrs. Always Right" t-shirts), or, like me, cool trips for work. Also bought a cheese-tastic Texas flag neck pillow. If that doesn't scream TOURIST, I don't know what will. Maybe my Nikes.

Cheerio!

Look, kids - Big Ben! Parliament!

*typed on my blackberry, hence the complete lack of capitalization. apologies...


last blog post until august, since i'll be "on the continent" next week. (why does that sound so much cooler than "going to europe?") prepping by watching european vacation and skipping deodorant. (kidding!) briefly thought about doing what cartoonists do when they go on vacation and print previously published comics. but i don't think this blog's archives are all that extensive or exciting. what i can promise is a wealth of blog fodder after braving london and paris by myself. giggling just thinking about the potential disasters i could get into.

A girl could get used to this.

Dog- and house-sitting until Sunday, and there are so many benefits: house with a pool. Cute pups to snuggle. Pretending like I could ever afford to live in a house. But the best: MOVIE CHANNELS. Yes, my previous cable provider gave me three months of free Showtime for my years of patronage, but this is something much, much better. There are like 50 channels of movies to choose from. In the past 12 hours, I have managed to watch The Bounty Hunter (meh), Toy Story 3 (um, I cried) and Annie (yay!). Needless to say, I am VERY excited about my Saturday night movie-thon. Long live HBO.

The 80's should pay me.

I am single-handedly bringing the awesomeness of the 80s to a new generation. (You're welcome, kids.) The two girls on my team at work are young. Like 25 and 22. YOUNG. Which means they were barely alive in the 80s, nonetheless up-to-date on pop culture of the time. We're having an 80s party at work tomorrow, so costume ideas and music selections have been floating around. And every time I mention something from a classic 80s movie, the girls look at me blankly. Sigh.

So I'm taking it upon myself to give them a tutorial on 80s 101: The Good, the Bad, and the Mullets. The first order of business: force them to watch the movies that I quote from on a daily basis. Thank god they have both seen The Breakfast Club, but one hasn't even seen Sixteen Candles. WTF. Or Weird Science. Or Some Kind of Wonderful. Or Goonies. Or Ghostbusters - although one said she had seen the cartoon. Which is NOT the same thing. So to start them out, I'm lending them classics from my personal DVD collection. One is watching Revenge of the Nerds, and the other is watching Girls Just Wanna Have Fun. I have asked for an oral book report on Monday.

Up next: mega mixes with all the classic tunes. Good thing I have about 5000 applicable songs on my iTunes.

A season of the Bachelorette just wouldn't be complete without a cheesy REO Speedwagon tune

Seriously had to fast-forward through the couple-skate scenario. (Although admittedly I do like that song and the entire REO Speedwagon collection. And hell - couple skating is awesome.) But JP's hometown date made it up to me with his Bar Mitzvah poster. Holy mullet, Batman. And he DID look like Kirk Cameron! Totally brought me back to Temple Emanuel in 7th grade for the bazillion Bar and Bat Mitzvahs we attended. Good times, peeps.

Constantine's date was so My Big Fat Greek Wedding I almost needed some Windex. But what a cute family. Although how they wound up in small-town Georgia, I will never know. Seems like the entire clan lives there, though. And semi-bizarre that they operate an Italian restaurant, but I guess it's very "why can't we all just get along?"

Ben Affff is bordering on sappy to me, but I do feel for the guy, losing his dad and all. Plus the whole "I make wine" thing is seriously awesome, so bonus points for that.

And Ames. Poor sweet nerdball Ames. His sister (?) knew it was over. Ashley knew it was over. (Anyone else notice how she totally pulled away first from the kiss??) But poetic little Ames was blindsided. I'm sure he will be just fine - probably write a screenplay about this experience or something.

So finally down to the final three. Another interminable season. And now I have "I Can't Fight This Feeling" in my head. Sigh.

French fries...french bread...french dressing...

Getting pretty psyched about my jaunt to Paris. But I'm quickly realizing that my limited knowledge of the French language (one semester in college! Woooo!) could be troublesome, especially considering the French people probably won't be super helpful when I ask questions in English. (Of course, I'm semi-fluent in Spanish, but that won't help much, either.)

My "impressive" French repertoire (ooh! another French word I know!) includes knowing how to say the following:

Hello, goodbye, good morning, good evening, nice to meet you, I am American, my name is Sarah, I don't speak French (ironically, I can say that in French), I would like, mineral water, numbers (um, up to 20), white wine (!), champagne/croissants (duh), and where is the bathroom. Actually, that might be all I need. White wine, croissants, and the bathroom. Bring it, France.

The greater good. Or the lesser of two evils. Take your pick.

I'm giving blood today - good times. (The best part for me is not that I could be saving a life, but that I will get drunk quicker at tonight's happy hour. To each his own.)

Used to donate plasma in college - strictly for the cash payout.

Wow - seeing these admissions in print makes me think perhaps I'm a little...shellfish. (Annnnnd there's your tie-in to the random image of Sebastian the crab. Thank you and good night!)

Good family fun, my a**

Is it just me, or does the Six Flags slogan "Bigger! Better! Wetter!" sound a little...inappropriate? Probably just me. :)

Holy fraudulent activity

A few months ago, I had "unauthorized fraudulent activity" on my debit card. Which then prompted me to get fraud protection, a new card, blah blah. As much as I appreciate the now overprotective nature of my bank, I was basically just mauled trying to purchase train tickets from London to Paris. Which I'm sure seemed iffy, since most of my purchases come from Kroger and Amazon.com. But still - did I need three separate "ALERT! CONTACT US NOW!" emails and a weird verification notification? So after sitting on hold for about 20 minutes, I then had to answer all kinds of random questions - last date and amount of deposit. (Ummm...) Color of underwear. Etc. But I guess I passed - vive le France. And vive no identity theft. I guess I will quit le bitching.

Have a mint. Please.

Recently had a guy chew tobacco on our date, which was pretty much the curtain call for me. I like a good southern boy as much as the next girl, but dip? On a date? Pass. Although it certainly made it easy to make the "kiss him or don't kiss him" decision at the end of the night...

Is "dot, dot, dot" really becoming a thing??

As much as I would like to devote this Bachelorette blog post to my newfound annoyance with Emily, I will just say this: obviously the girl is a good crier, and obviously she was on TV to be the new Bachelorette. And her teeth are super annoying. And her outfit was a little Dynasty to me. Okay, done. Although she DID reference "dot, dot, dot" and I'm wondering if I will now be seeing that on t-shirts...

And now back to Ashley. Who truly has a very original way of saying "perfect" as if it was actually spelled "perfact." Similar to how she says the "F" in Ben "Affff"'s name. But I digress. I kind of loved the lantern festival in Taiwan - so cool! Could a white girl borrow that Asian tradition for her wedding or something? Fancypants. Still don't get the attraction to Constantine or Ames, but sweet lil Ben F is so adorbs, which means he of course won't be the winner. Sayonara to Ryan, thank god, and Lucas was a little too weirded out by wearing a dress (way to represent, Texas). Speaking of weirded out, JP needs to seriously chillax. Has he never seen the show? Um, she is GOING to go on other dates. She is even going to make OUT with other dates. Deeeeeeep breaths, dude.

And a quick note about her outfits last night - could there have BEEN more cut-outs? We get it. You're a size 0.

Airbrush tanning and summers in Texas don't mix

Bought a birthday Groupon for airbrush tanning, and decided to give it a try on Friday after work. When it was a balmy 105 degrees out. First of all, I totally felt like one of the kids on Toddlers and Tiaras, standing there half-naked with my arms outstretched and a shower cap on my head. She gave me two coats (!) and said it would continue to get tanner overnight (!!). Oh god. On a positive note, it smelled like cake. But on the negative side, it just never dried.

Probably not the best idea to go on a date immediately afterward, but regardless I kept dabbing my head/wrists/neck with a napkin and was horrified to see the white napkin had turned burnt orange. And I'm not a UT fan, so there was really nothing good about this. I felt obligated to explain to my date why I was changing colors in front of him, and luckily he found it extremely amusing. But I was miserable - couldn't cross my legs because a pool of brown goop would form, and I asked him to check the back of my dress when we got up to leave in case it looked like I had had an accident. Sigh.

Plus the fact that even after sleeping in pajama pants (per the airbrusher's suggestion), my sheets were STILL tanned the next morning. Luckily after working out and showering, enough came off that I felt semi-confident to wear a white dress to my party. But I doubt I will be booking another appointment any time soon. At LEAST until it cools down a bit. Yeesh.

Dyn-o-WHITE

Having a white party for my bday this weekend, a la P. Diddy. (And yes, this photo is Photoshopped, duh.) We're gonna WHITE for our right to party. Plus many other cheesy puns.

Inhale...exhale....

Have encountered a couple of real characters in the gym at my building. One guy who I assume has Tourette's (not that there's anything wrong with that) sniffs and coughs and honestly snorts like a pig. It's a little gross, but the guy can't help it. Does make you wonder about his romantic life, though - although I don't snort (much) and can't get a date if you paid me, so who am I to judge. Hell - he probably has a wife and kids. Who think piggy noises are awesome.

Then there's this girl who is a heavy breather. Not unlike mouth breathers, she huffs and puffs her way through her workout like she's having a heart attack. And she's probably younger than I am.

Certainly keeps things interesting and makes the monotony of the elliptical a little more bearable. Breathe on, you two. In whatever weirdo ways you must. Breathe on.

Paging a dermatologist to the pool area...

Over the weekend, lounging in the pool at my new place, a friend and I noticed a very attractive Latin guy. He was seemingly by himself, sipping a Modelo, and was positioned right next to us. I racked my brain, trying to come up with an opening line, and all I could muster was to ask about the mole on his back and suggest he get it looked at. (NOTE: I did NOT actually say this. I did NOT actually say ANYTHING. But this was literally the only thing that popped into my brain.)

Because you know, skin cancer is always sexy. Sigh.

Half-Amish. Is that "Ham-ish?"

All moved in - and loving it. I feel like I live at a hotel. Very Eloise at the Plaza. I color-coordinated my walk-in closet and it looks like a freaking boutique in there (note to self: I don't need any more purses.) The pool is so nice I feel like I'm on vacation. Even with the anorexic Kenny Rogers look-alike who wears a Speedo and goggles as sunglasses. But one thing is still amiss: I don't have cable or wi-fi. The technician even came out and couldn't figure out the problem. So now they're coming tomorrow to "re-wire" or something, and have given me the awesome window of 8am-7pm. Ummmm, okay. Thanks for narrowing it down for me.

In the absence of television and internet (thank god I can still access Facebook on my Blackberry), I have taken up reading (and yes, a little sad that I only read when it is the Last. Possible. Option.) and watching DVDs. But oh how I'm missing Real Housewives of XX. And someone told me Bachelorette was a re-run last night, which is a damned miracle because I was going to be unable to write my weekly wrap-up anyway.

But aside from being semi-cut off from the world, the new pad rules. Now accepting visitors. :)

Moving Day (sung to the tune of Closing Time)

last blog post until tuesday, and i'm writing it from my phone (hence the lack of caps). last night around 7:30 i finished packing and realized not only do i no longer have a tv to watch, but the lamps are packed so once it gets dark, no more reading a book, either. man being amish would get boring. although with like 10 hours of beauty sleep a night, i'd certainly be an attractive amish person...bring on the butter churn.

happy 4th!