Safe travels (not my frog) by Hannah

As I type this, Rachel is flying high over the Atlantic, or over central Europe! Or maybe she's laid over at some horrible little German airport or something, there's no telling. In any case, she's on her way to Austria for her summer European Adventure! While I'm extremely happy that she has this opportunity, I am thrilled for myself. Yes, I am that selfish. BUT I haven't seen her since December, and for two people who among Bereans are generally known to be joined at the hip, that's a LONG time. But the next 13 days are going to fly by for me, and for her too, I'm sure. I'm leaving tomorrow to go to Dublin for 3 days with Kimberly and her sister Stephanie who is visiting from lovely Venice, Florida. We'll be back on Monday and leave again Wednesday for London (hopefully with enough time and energy to go see Star Wars. Because I really am a nerd, if you didn't know that.) for two nights. Then I'll be back here for 5 days, with an exam on the 6th and head back to London for my flight to Salzburg on the 8th. I'm so happy I could scream.

Monday the girls and I went shopping in the big city of Manchester and we had a rockin' good time. We went to the gigantic Trafford Centre and pretty much went wild for about 4 hours. It was awesome. I spent the night with Kimberly so we could "collect" her sister from the airport, then we came back here with just enough time for me to shower and not smell like the nasty hostel we didn't really sleep in and head off to the train station with Jackie and Kerri since they were leaving us for good. The only thing that stopped the goodbye from being really sad was the promise we all made back in February: that no matter where we are we'll get together for the 2012 Olympics, no matter where they are. We reached this decision because one of the leading bids is from London, and that would be pretty cool. Also, when Kim and I travelled we hit almost every spot that's bidding for that year's Olympics! London, Paris, Madrid. And New York. Our vote is still for London.

I talked to my mom on the phone for a long time today, and I think I might be reaching the "homesickness" level. I guess that's appropriate since I've been here nearly 5 months and everything has wound down to the point where I'm pretty bored. But starting tomorrow I'll be travelling on and off until a week before I leave, so hopefully that will be remedied.

Congratulations to Richard who graduated from Berea!!!!! Wish I could have been there dude.

Vienna

Slow down you crazy child
Take the phone off the hook and disappear for a while
It's alright you can afford to lose a day or two
When will you realize...
Vienna waits for you.

-Billy Joel

Vienna June 10th-12th 2005!

Happy Birthday to Living the Crazy Life, by Hannah

I'm sure the whole world joins me (and Rachel) in wishing our blog it's happy 1st birthday. Our site counter is now reading at nearly 5000, and angels are singing on this the day that we decided to do a joint blog. Yay!

oops

So, for my away message I had a link that said "happy birthday blog" - apparently I mistyped it though... it was to www.biglots.blogpot.com instead of this site... check it out - it's an adventure waiting to happen. :)

SO, HAPPY FIRST BIRTHDAY BLOG!!!!!



I tried to find one that said Happy Birthday Roscoe, but to no avail....

Really? A piegon, Hannah? by rachel

Hehehe. I can't help it. I love her! And I get to see her next month when we rendevous in Austria. Isn't rendevous a great word?

Guess who is in town?? My gay boyfriend Sir Thomas Booger Wayne Goober Evans himself. I've missed him. He is now tan and fluent en espanol. I guess that is what happens when you live in Guatamala for 3 months.

Today was a beautiful day. Not only cause it was 85 and sunny, but also because I saw Booger, because I got a freakin' 98 on my Startzman paper on John Donne's poetry, and a 105 on my Tooley presentation. Another great thing about today is that it is the very last day of classes. *sigh of relief* This semester has been killer. But I am still alive!

This evening was the huge final presentation for my service-learning project for the people of Estill County. Hunter and I entertained ourselves by taking bets on how many times Muggins would run his hands through his hair while up there. And then Krack wrote obsenities on his hand, waved at me, and made me almost embarrass myself laughing. At least I didn't pull a "crackerbarrel" and pee in my pants. Ask Bayla about that one. Or her mom.

Now I have finals to contend with, and Ashley's wedding, and packing, and to Austria I go. I hope I have all of my ducks in a row...

Speaking of ducks, my favorite duck started a blog. It is technically in existence, but not really up and running yet. Startzman would call it "limbo." And no, he doesn't know who kirby is either. But he says hi.

Spain pictures by Hannah

Spain pictures are up on the other website....here. They're also GIGANTIC. And that was my piegon, thanks to Emma for the picture.

My pigeon

No pigeon picture...by Hannah

Looks like no luck with the pigeon picture. I'll try to find another way for it to work!

my pigeon adventure, by Hannah

In the past 3 years I have had many experiences with windows, open, closed, or invisibly screened, but today tops them all. I have thrown my own shoes out a window, been assualted by "squirrels" (who turned out to be Steve O throwing acorns it), and let us not forget the horrifying larger than life bumblebee problem (or, if you have forgotten, it was freshman year when Rachel lived next door to me. I screamed from sheer terror, plus I was having a realllllly bad day, and she came over and smashed it dead), but my current window has provided the adventure of...a lifetime. Or at least it's provided a unique study abroad experience. Let me set up the scene for you:

First of all, I'm sick and on alllll kinds of cold medicines and drugs, so that means really really zoned out. I walked in my room, having only been gone about 3 minutes, to discover a HUGE fat pigeon sitting on my window seat. Just chilling. At first I didn't even see it, because it wasn't moving! Then I went down the hall and grabbed a bunch of my flat mates, who came to see for themselves, cameras and all. Eventually Tim got his pool queue and Kerri poked the bird into leave. Simon says they always come back though, so my window is currently closed. I'm not sure if this will work, but try to click here for a picture of the illustrious bird, thanks to Emma. I didn't want to get close enough to the bird to take a picture!

Even better! by Hannah

Ah, this is even better! Up to date Roses scores, straight from York. See if you can guess what the funny sounding games actually are!

Roses 2005! Wooot go Lancaster by Hannah

Click here for a veritable explosion of usesless Roses history, for all you USA people just dying to see it for yourselves!

Spain...by Hannah

Still working on the Spain pictures. Did I already say that Hello just stopped working for some reason? I uninstalled it and tried again, still no luck. I posted the other travelling pictures with a new program called Flickr, but unfortunately I can only upload a certain amount of pictures per month, and I already used all of that up for this month. Audrey, I have loads of pictures from Spain! Do you have my email address? I know I have yours somewhere but I don't know where...I'll see if I can get it from Rachel and I'll email you so you can see my Spain pictures on Shutterfly!

I really don't know where I'm going with this...by Hannah

Hello from sunny old England. It's currently, but not surprisingly, not sunny. And something I've discovered is that even when it IS sunny, the sun isn't necessarily WARM. I'm not sure how to explain that scientifically, but there must be some reason other than "well, it's England." I am just very unsure about the legitimacy of that claim. Anyway...

I'm pretty much living the most easy, non-stressed life ever, and I'm pretty much bored stupid. All of my classes are over, so I all have left before I fly home on June 26th (!!!) are 3 exams, spread out over an entire month. If you guys know me, and I'm going to take a wild guess that you do, you know that I don't study. I just don't. I have pretty much flown through college by...really, I don't know how. I am as shocked as the rest of you to find myself here, on the brink of my senior year, with a decent GPA and no serious professional enemies. Anyway, since all I have to do right now is study, I'm pretty much not doing anything. Pick any day from last week and I most likely will NOT be able to tell you anything specific or important that happened on that day. Now I know this sounds gorgeous to all you over worked Bereans (and anyone else who lives in America, for that matter. Everything is just FASTER there!), but I'm bored! So sometime tonight I'm going to plan some travels. Just to pass the time here in this lovely country which I am being forced to spend a lot of free time in...no feeling sorry, guys.

Here's some exciting news! I'm meeting up with Rachel in beautiful Salzburg for a night and then we're going to Vienna! Austria will never be the same...(to get the full effect right now please hum "The hills are alive with the sound of music..." very loudly to yourself). I am more than excited to see someone from home...and not just someone...RACHEL!!!!

Oh wait, I can tell some specific details from my week. On Monday, I walked into town with Tory! It was beautiful, Lancaster at its finest. It takes about 40 minutes to walk the way we did, but it was totally worth it. Then I got the new Ryan Adams CD (a day before anyone in the States could, and with one of those "UK Bonus Tracks" I'm always so jealous of!) and some cookies, so it was a good day. Me and Ryan have been chilling since then, but the cookies didn't make it.

Tonight the girls and I are having a quiet one, and ordering chinese food. This is for a variety of reasons. #1 being that this is Roses weekend. Remember the War of the Roses, between Lancaster and York? Well Lancaster Uni and York Uni re-enact it through athleticism every spring, and it's that time. I mistakenly referred to it as "The Rose Bowl" and was duly reprimanded. I didn't know that it had a historical reference in it, but then I felt stupid. So anyway, everyone is gone to York for Roses. Zoie just asked me "OHHH where have all the cute boys gone this weekend?" and the answer is, of course, to York. The #2 reason for having a quiet one is that we did NOT have a quiet one last night, and we all need some recovery time!

We went to the Lounge last night (I'm allowing myself one night a week out, but I'm thinking I really might even make it less than that. I'm getting old...) and danced the night away...it was glorious. We went to the Sugarhouse last Friday and it was a little bit disappointing. It WAS however, James Bond themed, and we're in England so it was for real. The music was disappointing, but the free drinks never fail to create happiness, simply because they're FREE. Also, you could gamble. This pretty much meant that the normal female to male ratio of 5:1 was made even more extreme, like 14:1. I met some really sweet girls in the bathroom though. I always end up meeting girls in the bathroom, I have no idea why. The first was a a birthday girl- she was 19. I told her happy birthday, and she was (drunken slurring to be added at your own enjoyment) kind enough to reply with "happy birthday to you toooooooo" and then hugged me. It was quite a sweet moment. The second girl was bleeding from a random slice on her knee. She was wearing little teeny tiny shorts and a big blue men's button up shirt and a tie. That was her realllllly wanting that free drink for being a Bond girl. In any case, somebody had sliced her with a ring on the dance floor. She was highly perturbed, and kept almost-dropping her bottle of Lambrini. It was also a charming incident.

I'm off to order Chinese. Be good!

Yay for Pictures, by Hannah

so, i'm sorry I haven't been updating. I'm kind of bored with this whole blog thing. I miss Rachel! Anyway, I finally found another picture posting program, and I am currently putting a bunch of travel pictures on here for your viewing pleasure. Let me know what you think!

The Crazy Life indeed... by Rachel

So, yesterday was pretty much the best day of the semester. I know, I know... "How could anybody ever know that, Napoleon?" I walked into it.

It began with a beautiful cup of VERY caffeinated hazelnut coffee. My friends can attest to the caffeinated part. I felt like I had a buzz all day long. Maybe I shouldn't drink that stuff on an empty stomach... Hmmmm. Anyway, the phone rang, and being the semi-normal person I am, I answered it. It was my Hannah! We booked the hostels we will be staying in TOGETHER in Austria next month! WOOT! Just for a snippet of her day... here is the away message she had up the last night...

A few smart things I did today:
-Dipped my black paint-covered paintbrush into my half drunk cup of really good tea instead of my cup of painty water-Punched my shelf while trying to cheer
-Accidentally ran water all over 4 washcloths in my sink. I still don't know how that happened
-Walked into my kitchen with blue pastels all over my face and arms and honestly didn't get why people stared
-Googled Snuffleupagus, because I was really that bored. For future reference, that is how he was spelled.

She's special, I know.

I soon went to lunch where, as is custom now, when Rowan went to get more food, Diehl grabbed his Nalgene to pour salt into. I rolled my eyes at him and said, "Isn't that getting old?" Big mistake. He looked at me mischievously and plunked the whole salt shaker down in there. I died laughing. As did Rowan when he came back with his Lucky Charms. Rowan then poured out enough of his ice water out so that just the holes of the salt shaker were above water level. "So it can breathe," I said.

At the CPO I got my paycheck which was more than I expected. That's always nice.

Then, the climax of the day is owed to Beki. Ah, what a girl. A big thank you to her for making sure that apron was rescued.

Confused? Good :)