one of those things i think no one wants to sit through

proceed with caution: this post deals with issues that may not be suitable for younger readers. and topics that, because they are being discussed by myself (your daughter, niece, etc), may freak you out. i will not be forwarding this entry to any work emails. i think it might ruffle some feathers if found.

and now we begin. as you remember...i quoted myself in a post yesterday, and here's how it came about.

its 2am. unfortunately i am lying in the top bunk of my bed in the Kinlay House hostel and i cannot fall back asleep. kelly is already sleeping soundly in the bunk across from mine (on the bottom) and rhiannon, our new friend from Australia is also asleep on the bunk below me.

the door opens and chole our other roommate who we don't know very well walks in with a boy. now, i don't have contacts in, or glasses, so the whole scene has a fuzzy outline to it. but i see they are holding hands and hop up into her bed together and seemly look like they are cuddling. my naive brain says "oh. maybe they're just going to go to sleep." yeah...right. from this mindset, i decide to just continue to feign sleeping. my head (unfortunately) is facing chole's bunk. i have an excellenct view, as we are both on the top. and then i hear a bunkle come undone. then a zipper. and giggling. and a lot of rustling of sheets. i decide to open my eyes a sliver hoping to confirm that what is happening is going on under sheets. and praying that chole is not actually stupid enough to try and quietly have full out sex in a room with three other girls.

things are going on ontop of the sheets. and chole is stupid enough. i open my eyes for half a second to see that she's mounted him. my brain sort of does this explosion. there's like huge bombs of the words "oh my god!" going off. and now that she's on top of him...and they think i'm asleep, should i say something? by the time i've had a minor breakdown and processed the situation a bit more both of them are already going at it. its horrible. i think "i can't be the only one awake." but chole's very quiet. and so is tall-short-haired guy...as i will know him.

so i'm stuck with my head facing the action...eyes pressed tightly shut...begging for it to end. have you ever seen the movie Catch and Release with Jennifer Garner? watch like the first 5 minutes of that clip. basically i'm Jennifer in the tub making those hand motions like "please just get this over with now."

there is more rustling and i can only assumed they have switched places because the bed is making a lot more noise now. how is kelly not awake? eventually things slow down. they are whispering. i have to hear stupid things like tall-short-haired guy saying "you are so fucking hot." and "give me head." and chole saying "yeah...i like you. i mean, kinda." with a sarcastic edge. har-de-fricking-har. evidently the guy tries to convince her because she is moaning again. and they they're talking again. and then the sheets start to russle and i decide i am not sitting through another round. so i open my eyes and say:

"okay, seriously...i'm awake. can you just...not?" in a very annoyed voice.

"oh my god. oh my god. oh my god."

"oh shit, sorry. shit."

then they quickly hop out of bed and run out of the room. and then kelly busts out laughing so hard. evidently she had woken up after they had switch positions to her bed shaking. and the mattress above her threatening to pass through the rails of the bunk because of the force from above. she was suppressing laughter in her pillow the whole time until i told them to get out. she keeps laughing and i poke my head over the side of my bed to see what rhiannon's reaction is.

"rhiannon. rhiannon."

"huh...what? what?! what happened?"

she was asleep the whole time. meanwhile i have the image of chole stradling tall-short-haired guy burned on the inside of my eyelids. chole comes back the next morning around 1o in a t-shirt and her underwear. she really doesn't say anything but "hey guys..." before she slips in to the bathroom leaving the three of us to crack up.

ew. ew. ew. ew. ew. ew. ew. now the whole thing seems funny...but at the time i was horrified.

teaser...

at 2:10am i said this:

"okay, seriously guys...i'm awake. can you just...not?"

what happened? who and what was i stopping?

lol. i feel like a movie trailer. anyway, i don't have time to write the full story this morning...but i will tomorrow. give me your guesses about what happened via comment.

i met a famous person

no lie.

granted...if i could choose any celebrity to run into at the Temple Food market in Dublin, i suppose i would pick someone else. but anyway, ladies and gentleman, i have now had a conversation with Amy Adams.

i know. you're all going...who? who is she taking about. lol. click here for imbd info. then you might recognize her. anywho, here is what happened:

kelly's at the stand that's serving hot drinks, which ends up being very popular, because its oh about 45 degrees here. and very windy. so i'm standing next to kelly, who has just paid, and i ended up looking over at the person waiting for her drink. i do a double take because i've just watched Enchanted about a week ago and it really looks like the lead actress. i think to myself "yeah right, like amy adams is standing next to us in the food market." then i look over at the girl again, she sees me looking at her so i look away. then that happens again. and i'm like 99% sure that its amy. so i sneek inbetween kelly and amy and decide to just start talking to her.

me: are you amy adams? (what else was i supposed to say? haha.)
amy: yeah...
me: oh wow. i wasn't sure, i thought maybe it was just someone that really looked like you. we just watched Enchanted last week actually.
amy: oh really?
me: yeah. so what are you doing in Dublin.
amy: i'm actually working.
me: that's cool.
amy: how long are you here for?
me: just the weekend. we (pointing to kelly) are actually studying abroad in Italy for the semester.
amy: where?
me: in Florence.
amy: Florence in beautiful.
me: yeah.
amy: where are you from?
me: Minnesota.
amy: oh, where?
me: Mankato
amy: i used to live there actually.
me: really?
amy: yeah, and i worked at Chanhassen Dinner theatre.
me: oh wow...(i can't think of anything else to say at the moment, so i figure its best to end it.) well, it was really nice to meet you.
amy: you, too.

so all in all, we're bff now. haha. no...not really. but she was so, so, so nice. i felt weird asking for her picture, because no one else in the market reconigzed her and thought it might draw attention to her. so i don't have that kind of picture proof. but i did take a picture of her from far away, which was sort of stalkerish. lol. after we said bye, i walked back next to kelly and told her the amy adams was standing like 5 feet from her. she said "who?" and then i told her the girl from Enchanted and she basically yelped. and then gave amy a really obvious look. haha.

okay, i'm gonna find dinner. random last note...Confessions of a Shopaholic = thumbs down.

"i'm totally pissed. do you know what that means?"

quote courtesy of a crazy lady a pub we went to yesterday. haha. it was VERY entertaining. (we're in Dublin...fyi.) kelly and i had tickets for Shakespeare's The Comedy of Errors at the Abbey Theatre and we ended up having some time before the show. one of the ladies at the box office suggested we get dessert at The Great Canal Pub, so we did. i had death by chocolate...which was fantastic. and we shared a table with a drunk woman.

unfortunately i don't know her name. she was in town because her sister has been in the hospital for three weeks. there was a lot going on the pub, so it was kind of hard to hear her...but she managed to shout stuff across to us. lol.

the play, by the way, was fantastic. i'm always nervous about seeing Shakespeare because its another language. and a couple minutes in i was thinking "oh crap. oh crap. what are they saying?" but it worked out. the whole thing was set in modern times, with modern dress. it was really interesting. and incredibly funny. and speaking of other languages, kelly and i ended up sitting next to this little lady from Switzerland. her orginal language is german, but she speaks english. i was really impressed. i mean...Shakespeare is difficult enough when i already know the language...but if i didn't. wow.

okay, i should go grab some breakfast. we're going to explore the area around our hostel today, take a tour of the Guiness factory, and then go to a movie. haha. later.

random

first...i hope this video works. i made it with Picasa - i love that program! i wanted to put music behind it, but unfortunately for some reason, my computer was not reading my music files as MP3s, so idk...anywho, here's my walk to school. ugh. the size is really small. sorry...i don't how to make it bigger. or if i can. lol.




other stuff...let me think. i have really started getting to these podcasts while i've been here. its from, well, i'm not sure if the company i called this, but How Stuff Works. i mainly listen to the podcast by them called Stuff You Should Know. its done by two guys who crack me up. and i just started subscribing to another one of the their podcasts called Stuff Your Mother Never Told You. hopefully i'll like it. its like every week i get a good twenty minutes of factual interesting information on all sorts of topics. the last one i listened to was How Redhead Work. so i know all about how my hair came about through genetics, and no worries...we are not going to become extinct.

something i am definately looking forward to when i get back home is the lack of staring that will happen. no only to Florentine women feel the need to prove their dominance over me by staring at me nonstop, but i keep getting the once over from really old men. its so gross. i mean, i think that's sort of part of the culture here. a vast majority of couples seem to be really cute younger girls with (what i think are) not very attractive me in their 40s and 50s. plus the percentage of men who cheat on their wives or girlfriends here is really high, something like 80% here. i think its like 70% for women. but still...i would like it if i didn't get oggled at when i walk down the street. yuck.

what else is going on right now? well...i'm almost finished with Harry Potter number 7...the British version. some of you may be saying "what are you talking about?" well thanks to sam w. i learned that J.K. Rowlings books are changed by editors in America to make them more "American." its really not that big of a difference, but to me, its sort of weird. knowing that she originally wrote them a certain way, and then the words and phrases got changed around. i mean we are talking stuff like American English spelling vs. UK English spelling. and words like "blimey" and "mate." haha. it makes it more authentic to me at least. so i've bought the British versions while i've been here - 3 books actually in London - and i've reread them. its pretty good entertainment considering i don't have internet at the apartment or tv.

how cool is this?

edit: all the quotes everywhere are bothering me...but i can't figure out to get them to go away. of course when i try to use the fancy "Blockquote" button Blogger makes it look crazy for me.

i have really come to enjoy Vanity Fair in the past year. granted, i'm not a subscriber. and its expensive. but the stuff i've come across online is good. here's a taste from the culture section of their next issue...its awesome. in case it matters...all small text is directly word for word from the Vanity Fair site. there's probably a copyright issue here. don't tell.

sidenote: i've never seen West Side Story fully. sam w and i watched about 20 minutes of it one time. and i really do want to see it. obviously it must go on the netflix list. anywho...

West Side Story Revisited

As a long-anticipated Broadway revival of West Side Story opens this week, photographer Mark Seliger re-creates scenes from the beloved 1961 film version with the help of Jennifer Lopez and friends. Maria, Tony, Anita, Bernardo, and Riff live again—at least until the end of Act I. Jim Windolf fills in the scenario.

plus, its kind of fun to see if you can spot all the celebs. granted i don't really know who some of them are. but, if you care, here's the list at least.

Between Maria (Camilla Belle, far left) and Tony (Ben Barnes, far right, also known as Prince Caspian), it is dancing, dancing, dancing. Latin steps predominate on the left, as the Sharks and their ladies give America a taste of the culture to come. On the right, we have a series of funky Anglo moves, as the Jets and their gals go rhythmically at it. On either side, our two tragic protagonists have eyes only for each other. The lead Sharks dancers are Anita (J.Lo, in an incredible pose) and Bernardo (Rodrigo Santoro). The Jet girl dancing with Riff (Chris Evans) is played by Ashley Tisdale (of High School Musical fame). Rounding out the Sharks, left to right: Minka Kelly (she’s Lyla on Friday Night Lights), Jay Hernandez, Natalie Martinez (Death Race), Brandon T. Jackson, Melonie Diaz (A Guide to Recognizing Your Saints). On the Jets’ side: Sean Faris (Never Back Down), Shane Lynch (she’s gonna be big), Robert Pattinson, Cam Gigandet, Trilby Glover (88 Minutes), Brittany Snow (Hairspray), Drake Bell.

for full article plus more pictures go here.

theme song for the day

this randomly started playing on my iPod this morning. and i really liked it. there was something about walking from the bus, in front of the Duomo to school that sort of fit. although not necessary the lyrics...haha. hopefully this video works...and is the right song (All These Things That I've Done by The Killers). the computer lab won't let me play it. or see it for that matter.

i have been here 2 months. offically.

it feels like shorter. the time feels like its going by very fast. but i'm on the verge of being ready to come home. so its okay. just a few more weeks...5 or 6 i think...then i'll land in MN soil.

i had mac and cheese last night for the first time in months. that was very strange. and fantastic.

the weekend was cool. becky and i went to naples...which was more like our homebase, and then ventured to Capri, Pompeii, Erculano, and Mt. Vesuvius. i'm putting the pictures up on Facebook now...so hopefully most of your will be able to check it out.

i very much want to post a video that my friends made me. lol. its for my birthday. but, i feel like they might be slighly embarassed, so i'll leave it alone. haha. it was really sweet though. i laughed a lot. and it made me miss them. also...you can made me another multi-colored cake when i get back. no joke : )

okay...i don't think i have much to say at the moment. i have a huge project due on wednesday, so i sort of have to get working on that. i'll hopefully post some more later this week. 'til then.

good morning

its 5:53am and i am in naples. our overnight bus - which left from Florence at 11pm - got in early. although only like by a half hour. we were supposed to get here at 6. luckily, the guy at our hostel was really nice and opened up the common room for us, so becky and i can sleep, watch a movie, or go on the internet. so here i am!

i'm excited about naples, but also nervous. its supposed to be a pretty shady town. but afterall, we are basically making this city our homebase, and branching out to the surrounding areas on our days. for instance, today we are going to Capri. its going to be fabulous. then we'll head over to Pompeii and Herculeum and Mt. Vesuvius too. woot. for some reason i am highly energentic. i have no idea how that's possible. we sat in the very front of the bus and so i couldnt stretch out my legs. which didnt seem so bad at first, but they sort of cramped out. and unfortunately the girl sitting across the aisle from us got bus sick and ended up puking in a plastic bag. yuck.

speaking of puking...

good transition right? lol. i got some sort of food poisioning on monday. it was horrible. i spent the better part of my night (11pm to 8am) in the bathroom. ugh. luckily mom and ann were there to take care of me the next day.

okay...i think i am going to try to crash on a couch in here for a couple hours. our guy at the front desk said he would let us check in at 8 am. score.

monday after spring break = brain is mush

literally in italian class i thought to myself "i can't understand a word she (my teacher) is saying. lol.

i'm sitting in my mom's hotel room right now. we got back from walking around Florence about and hour or so ago. which was fun. my aunt bought boots. its sort of something you have to do when you're here i think.

yesterday we went to Cinque Terra. its a region in the north of Italy on the coast. there are five (cinque) towns and we got to almost all of them - four. it was gorgeous! i'll put a couple of pictures down at the bottom of the post. the water was a beautiful blue and towns are all spread out along the rocky coast. it made me think of greece (more on greece later). and we got to walk inbetween a couple of the towns on a path overlooking the water.

this weekend i'm going to Naples. my mom and aunt leave on Thurdsay, and i'm taking and overnight bus there that day too. i'm really excited. Capri is going to be fabulous. and i booked tickets to Greece today. originally i hadn't thought much about going there, but somehow it became one of those places that i really needed to go to. and now i am!

i'll try to be more funny in my next post. haha. bye for now!

i am now legally allowed to drink alcohol

yes...it was my birthday. lol. here's what you've got to catch up on from Paris. my mom has been running a live feed practically since we've been here. there's one of the effiel tower, our picnic on the seine river, our birthday dinner and sparkling dessert, and then one of our trip from paris to rome. i'll try to post more later, but i'm sort of drained.

listening to late night ramblings of ladies over 40

my aunt is curled in bed at the moment. my mom is sort of sprawled out on hers. they are talking about sometime when i was supposed to be mortified. like 5 years ago. i have no idea. its very giggly in here. about 5 minutes ago they were talking about a purse we saw yesterday that said "I am adorable" in French, but my aunt thought it said "Jesus is adorable." and now i've read this paragraph back to them, and they are laughing even more. goodness.

anywho. i'm in Paris. its crazy. we took this fantastic tour today, they're called Fat Bike Tours, and we rode all around Paris for about 4 hours. it wasn't actually that bad. i know when you hear 4 hours, it sounds a bit out there, but we didn't ride really fast or anything. plus Paris is flat. it was really interesting too. our tour guide - who was from Texas - was really insightful. i learned a lot about the history. here is the short way to remember the different louies:

1. Louie the 14th built it
2. Louie the 15th lived it
3. Louie the 16th lost it

eventually we got to the Effiel Tower and walked to the Arch de Triomphe (i really don't think i spelled that right). both were amazing. i bought a ticket to go all the way to the top of the tower, but by the time we got up to the 2nd one, i was pretty sure i would have a panic attack if i went all the way to the top. for those of you who don't know this, i have a little bit of a fear of heights. it only comes out on certain occasions. i remember one time i had to be led down an old abandoned 50 foot water slide by the hand because i was freaking out so much. random sidenote.

so anyway...here are some of my favorite pictures from the day. i'll see if i get a chance to put up the rest on Facebook while i'm here, since i have internet.