Australia Day

Happy Australia Day!!!!!!!!!!!

Celebrated annually on 26 January, the day commemorates the arrival of the First Fleet at Sydney Cove in 1788, the hoisting of the British flag there, and the proclamation of British sovereignty over the eastern seaboard of Australia.

And now in later times its a good excuse to drink and celebrate! And what better place to celebrate than the local Australian Bar The Walkabout! Hannah and I have MANY MANY MANY fond memories of this place. Whomever said we'd have a hard time getting British guys to buy us drinks was CLEARLY wrong. True story that it did take longer and a usually took a bit more effort, they still eventually got the not so subtley placed hints. And to top it off this bar was only about a 5 minute walk from both of our houses....danger!

Ooooh if those walls could talk....well, perhaps its best that they don't!

Some lovely Aussies with Maura and myself

When these three get together its called D-A-N-G-E-R!

We found this lovely chap and just had to talk to him based on his enseble.....

...And then he busts out THIS! We were in LOVE!

This Day in History v.4

The one thing that I loved the most about London was the wide variety of things that you might just stumble upon. One morning (loosely termed - was probably around or after lunchtime :) Hannah and I were walking around Trafalger Square and happened to stumble upon a parade, later to find out that it was the Chinese New Year parade! I just loved finding random happenings happening and getting to experience the excitement and adventure.

According to wikipedia Chinese New Year "is the most important of the traditional Chinese holidays. It is sometimes called the "Lunar New Year" by English speakers. The festival traditionally begins on the first day of the first month (Chinese: 正月; pinyin: zhēng yuè) in the Chinese calendar and ends on the 15th; this day is called Lantern Festival. Chinese New Year's Eve is known as Chúxī. It literally means "Year-pass Eve"." So perhaps we stumbled upon the Latern Festival. And the BBC claims that London has the largest New Year celebration outside of Asia!

Lanterns

Dragons in the parade

Balloon head up close and personal

Scary fish!

And of course we had to stop and eat in Chinatown! Best sweet and sour chicken everrrrrrrr

Yummy Yum!

Shake What Yo Mamma Gave Ya

This past weekend all the girls here decided to go to the OBX for the long weeekend. We stayed in a really cute cottage that belongs to Emily's family. We all know how I feel about the OBX....espeically in January. But whatever, we were celelbrating Erika's birthday so I made the trekk down there to party it up at (of course) Kellys. Imagine that. At least I looked cute :) And its always fun to shake it on the pole. That's what its there for, right???

We decided to recap the rules of the house since some of us have a hard time following them :) For your enjoyment here they are:

#1: Never leave your friends behind. Meaning, don't leave your drunk ass friends at a club...they'll never make it home.

#2: No Crying. Yup, we have to make this rule because a couple of my friends have been known to cry at the bar. And not just a little tear rolling down the cheek...we are talking body jerking, shoulders shaking, tears pouring down like a water faucet and probably a few hiccups here and there. Rule #2 was broken by none other than Nikki Hood...queen of bar crying. Thankfully this time it was not over a boy but a camera she thought was lost. No, it was given to the sober person to ensure it wasn't lost.

#3: No sleeping in the bathroom.(The at home bathroom, not the bar bathroom, ew) I understand the theory of wanting to sleep in the bathroom, what better than being already near the toilet when you need to Call Ralf on the Big White Phone? Thanks to Nikki Hood we have now altered this rule to state "No sleeping in the bathroom OR kitchen"

#4: Don't act ridiculous. However, dancing on the pole is not a direct violation of this rule and is totally acceptable in this case.

#5: No fighting. Not sure if this means no fighting with your drunk ass friends or other drunk ass patrons of the bar. The decision is out.

#6: Don't spill your drinks on your friends. DUH. Especially don't spill on your sober ride.

#7: The boys at the bar, stay at the bar. You just don't bring boys home from the club, that just screams "IM A CRAZY BITCH, PLEASE COME STEAL MY STUFF OR DO SOMETHING WORSE!"

#8: Leave your cranky pants at home! Self explanatory.

#9: Don't throw up in the car. DUH. This also includes do not throw up on yourself, or someone else, or anywhere you have to actually clean it up.

Too bad it was January and we couldn't get in the water but considering I hate sand anyways perhaps it was a good thing. I don't really know why I hate the beach so much, give me a pool and I am a happy camper. I just don't like gettig sand in places the sun don't shine...there is just something inately wrong with that.

That's Melissa's new Jeep that we drove up to the beach

Pretty. Pretty cold that is...

Nikki and I at the bar. No idea what is going on here, but I love it! Its probably right after I scored us free shots or drinks or something.

BBRRRRRRRRR

One of the ONLY reasons I'm happy to NOT be in London right now. Yep, thats the UK covered in snow. They are having the worst winter since the 60s. Average temps are in the 30s but feels more like the 20s. YIKES! Reminds me of that one cold, chilly night outside of the Kings Head Theater where Hannah and I were waiting for a bus and it was so cold we thought we were going to die or our fingers were going to fall off from being frozen. Ah the price you pay for good live music in a tiny bar with a downstairs theater!!!!

Happy New Year!

Come on 2010, I expect BIG things from you. Well, anything you do will probably be better than your friend 2009, so here's to bringing something amazing! I'd like a new job, a new location, a new place to live.... anything new really. Please.and.thank.you!

Hmm so its been a while since the last time I blogged. Where to start? I always get on other people for not posting in a timely manner and look at me now...geez.

Well, where to even start? Let's see. Kind of hard to post on anything recent because since my camera is so defunct I've relied on other people to take pictures and then they take forever to post them. ::cough::cough::hint::hint:: For NYE I went to Richmond to play with Heather, Mirna, and Ashley and I must say we looked HOT! I only have two pictures from that night, sad to say.



And from there I moved on to Woodbridge where I went to Sami's bridal shower and then out of the town to one of the tinest redneck bars where of course we met a group of very drunk baby Marines. Is it just me or do you only find baby tiny (under 22 year old) Marines or military boys in gernal anymore? Not that I'm compalining because they are normally more than willing to shell out money for drinks...what else do they have to spend their money on? Yeah, not much. From there I spent the next day with Hannah and we went shopping and then spent the rest of the day watching twilight. I love lazy Sundays...even better when I don't have to work the next day! Then it was up to Maryland to celebrate Melissa Bell's birthday. Figures that I get sick through the whole festivities, stupid stomach bug. I can now officially say I've thrown up in the tube...or metro...or whatever. Needless to say I was very sober (we hadn't even started drinking yet!) but thankfully I was able to jump off and throw up in the trash can. Oh poor Benli "WHAT ARE YOU DOING??? THIS ISN'T OUR STOP!!!!" Yes, thank you Benli, I did know that :) Its kind of hard to be social and keep a straight face when you keep having to go puke in the bathroom, but I can say that my years of sorority rush training built me up strong! But it was still fun and I met some new people which is always great.

In other news, my friends and I have started a biggest loser competition (don't worry, I'm not trying to loose wieght but I'm taking the opportunity to tone up some muscles) and I'm really excited for them. Way to go for actually taking the initiative and actions to loose the weight and make themseleves happy. I know what it feels like to not be happy with how you look and how hard it is to function when you hate the image that is staring back at you in the mirror. When I came back from London I was a good 20 pounds heavier then when I left. Not sound like much? Well on a 5 foot 2 frame it screams HELLO IM HEFTY. The main reason I got into running was to loose the weight. It takes hard work and determination to loose the weight. Complaining about it and not doing anything is not going to do anything besides perhaps make you eat that extra slice of chocolate cake...what's one more piece???

Anyways, why am I saying all of this? Well, for one thing I've really gotten into going to a couple of gym classes. Some are good while others are tragic. I'm not ashamed to say that my sister got all of the dancing genes in the family (hi Brandy!) and some gym classes are just not for the uncoordinated. The only dancing I know how to do is grinding on boys in a club. I went to Zumba last night with my friend Crystal and I've never felt so out of place. I wanted to be like all of those big bootied black girls, but this scrawny chicken legged white girl was no match. ARG you Zumba! And last week I tried this Bodystep class, kind of an areobics class on crack...pittiful. BUT I am really getting into the kettlebell classes and a bodypump class and I've found that all of this extra weight lifting/cardio has really helped my running. I went for a long run yesterday and I wasn't even out of breath at the end! I was so excited because this is out of the oridnary for me. I normally hate running and come back wheezing from it. So, this new found ease of exercise I might consider running the Marine Corps half marathon in May. Def no marathon, but the couse is very hilly and pretty hard. Can I handle it? Can I set out to run a race without my coach? Dunno, stay tuned to find out!