East Coast Tour

\Just got back from a two week long East coast tour that included Phily, New York City, Boston/Canton, and Washington D.C. Each trip included both sightseeing and friendseeing. I had a blast with both, but I feel like I should have trained more for the tourism. We probably put on a at least a good 20 miles.

Philadelphia is home to my one and only sister, her husband and their new little bundle of joy: Roman. It is also the birthplace of the constitution. If neither of those interest you, you will probably find the Rocky Steps as a more appealing highlight of the city. If you are still not impressed.... think Philly Cheese Steak or Water Ice :)


New York City is New York City.
It has also been the home of our friend Santi for the past 8 months. We couldnt have had a better tour guide! Javi went ahead of me to see New York City with Santi and one day later I caught up with them. (Luckily THEY did a 15 mile tour the day I wasnt there.) Once I got in we went to see Times Square (which was my favorite part), Central Park (which was my other favorite part), and crossed to see the city from the other side of the Manhattan bridge (which was also my favorite thing in the city). Although Javi was not that impressed with New York, I am glad that he got to see what everyone in the world seems to be talking about......


I didn't realllllllly go to see Boston, and it was never my intention, but of course once we were in Canton (20 minutes outside of Boston) we HAD to see Boston. Boston is maybe the birthplace of America? more or less. Anyways it's a nice crisp city that will always have a special place in my heart (and many childhood memories). Back to the important place.... CANTON. That's where my mom's family is centralized. I saw my Aunt, Uncle, two cousins and GRAMMY :)


The Last stop on our trip was to our nation's Capital. I love it and can always repeat a trip walking around and seeing all the stuff. So we did it. We saw from the Capital building to the Lincoln Memorial and stopped by Barak's home. Javi's favorite site was the Korean War memorial. I got to have dinner with the one and only Kate Deiss and Becca Horvath along with her lovely two little babes. :)

Catching up again.

After a long gap I have FINALLY got some time to play catch up on my writing. I am about halfway through summer and have been busy running around and playing tour guide to Javi who has been here with me for about 3 weeks now and will be here until the 2nd of September.

What are the highlights of the US for us?

-Chicago and a night out on the town with Katie Pryor and Bonnie

-The Collins household, bbq's and backyard football.

-semi-trucks, flags on all the house, fire escapes and water towers.

-The birth of both Amaya and Roman (my first niece and first nephew)!- Red River Gorge in Kentucky for climbing

-frisbee golf, skateboarding, hot tubs, burgers, ice cream and lots of microwaveable food :)

- Philadelphia

We are on our way to New York this weekend. Then we are hoping to make it to Boston to see my Grammy and Cousins. And Lastly our nation's capital :)

back at home

I spent 5 days at the farm with friends. It was awesome to see everyone and all the new additions!
Now I am back at home with my family and friends in good ol Brookfield. Organizing my ever disorganized life. Haircut, bank errands, unpacking, laundry, seeing people. Tonight I have a soccer game and tomorrow I start work. I will be working for my mom in her clothing store.

Back to Milwaukee

So I JUST finished a 30 hour journey from Madrid to MY HOME. YIPEEEEEEEEEEEEEE! I think I have done enough traveling for the rest of my life. Seriously. J I could complain, but I will save my complaints for when I call Air Canada.

-I will say I am thankful that my dad saw that the plane was delayed 2 hours and then had auxiliary problems BEFORE he headed to Chicago to pick me up.
- I am also grateful that I had my Spanish fan on the plane during the breakdown when we were all sitting in the dark and non-air-conditioned, full-capacity flight.
- Luckily I was not RIGHT next to the crying baby and I did get to watch movies and television the whole time. Highlights: “He’s just not into you” and a history channel special about Muhammad Ali. He seems to be such a great person.
- I am also happy that after a waiting 1 hour for my luggage and the workers searching the airport, they DID eventually find my luggage.
- I am also glad that, although I had to wait 3 hours for the shuttle to my hotel, I did get to the hotel for free and back to the airport on-time in the morning.
-Although the restaurant had closed when I arrived at the hotel and I went to bed without eating, I did get a solid 4.5 hours of sleep.
-Oh! and the icing on the cake is that they flew me to Milwaukee instead of Chicago. 15 hours later, but I’m sure my dad saved some gas money or something……

People were pissed, crying and there were cat-fights. I am just glad to be home. It was a great refresher course in all that could go wrong in travel so I can teach Javi all the vocabulary he needs to know when he comes to visit.

Well, I have to go and pack now - I am leaving for the airport again in two hours…. I’ll be back in 5 days.

A Diamond in the Rough

So WHEN any of you statesiders come to visit me we might just have to hit up the zoo. This weekend I was pleasantly surprised by all the Madrid Zoo has to offer, including 2 panda bears, dancing dolphin trainers, circus trained brown bears, and a lot of prohibited up close and personal interaction with the animals.

Where to start? The most impressive fact I learned at the zoo is that peanuts are eaten by nearly every terrestrial animal on this planet. Now lets let the pictures do the talking........

Well, of course everyone knows that elephants eat peanuts.....And numerous species of monkeys. These guys were awesome- they climbed to the top of the cage, stuck their hands out and were moving around catching everything. Seriously, monkeys have an amazing catch.This guy looked a little lonely, so of course he got the pity peanuts.... Well the turtle had troubles picking the peanuts up, lacked the opposable thumbs.

These guys seriously knew how to work the crowds. Look at them!Dolphin show:These were probably one of the ugliest animals. Them or the camels........


These guys were the most fun......

Would you Pass?!

Exam week is here. The teaching thing and I are gettin' long pretty well. Here's my test question to test thier business email skills. I am having a lot of fun correcting thier responses.....

Question 5: Business Emails

You work in customer relations for IBM. You receive the email below from a man complaining about one of your products. You think the man may be crazy but IBM policy insists that you reply to all correspondence in a friendly, polite and helpful manner.

7 May, 2009

To whom it may concern:

I recently purchased a ThinkPad Backpack for my new portable computer. I am writing to inform you of a fault I noticed in the pack after opening it: it doesn't include a lucky penny.
Many people around the world practice the tradition of placing a coin of very small value in new items of luggage, wallets, or purses, in order to bring the buyer good luck. Unfortunately, IBM failed to do this for my new ThinkPad backpack and now I am suffering the consequences. Here are some examples:

· I played the lottery and did not win.
· My friend's son’s hockey team had won fifteen games in a row before my friend invited me to a game. I went to the game with my ThinkPad, and the team lost 15-0.
· On my way to work a truck transporting liquid oxygen hit my car.. The resulting explosion destroyed my car, although I was (thank God) thrown away from the crash. The patented Shock Absorber System™ in my bag protected my computer.

I noticed that there were two cards in the bag. One said that the bag was inspected by Inspector Number 23, and the other was inspected by Inspector Number 10. Maybe Inspector Number 10 has some bad debts at the casino and steals the pennies placed by Inspector Number 23. But would Inspector Number 10 be stupid enough to literally leave their card after such a theft?

This must be costing you millions of dollars every year, not to mention the bad luck it’s causing your customers. I hope that you do checks on your existing quality assurance employees, and make sure that new employees are subject to the same criminal history checks before being hired.

Yours faithfully,

Woody Allen

I sure hope that I can get my visa and everything worked out and come back. The truth is that when I put time into it, I really have a lot of fun teaching and am constantly improving. :)

Last weekend.....

Running around town, but definately ready to get back into climbing again. I spent Sunday climbing in an area called, well i dont remember, something to do with a canyon. It is in Patones, which is a very well known climbing area approximately 1 hour outside of Madrid.

Anyways, Javi and I met up with some friends and did some climbing on caliza...... (I have to look that up in a dictionary: limestone.) Not our typical style, much stronger and, boy did i feel it for the next 3 days! It tore my hands up a little bit as well.

Javi:

Pablo (freaking crazy! so strong and shouts a lot. Great guy!):

ME! (kind of a wierd picture?):
Other than that, I am looking forward to exam week, this upcoming week. I will be giving exams during two days of classes, finishing up for good on the 10th.

As for the home front: The pool is open, but freezing cold. Paula and I are currently reading The Secret Garden. I am so amazed at her English level. When I stop and think I start to get a little bit sad. I am going to miss them a lot.

Starting to organize things for the trip back to the other side of the ocean. Only 3 more weekends. It would be cliche to say that time flies...