Back From My European Adventure

Greetings from the Charles Bridge - Prague, Czech Republic

Ok, so I know I have been gone for a while but I have had soooo much going on these past couple of months. I even have several blogs that I started, but just didn't find the time to finish and post. I'm sorry about that.  I have definitely been slacking. But it has been a whirlwind of excitement.  First as I mentioned before I went to Europe for 2 weeks in September.  OH MY GOD, what a fantastic time I had.  I have tons of pics but to be honest... I haven't even had a chance to get them uploaded from my camera yet.  Yeah... I've been that busy.  But I promise soon I will get them posted.

I went to Prague, Czech Republic; Vienna, Austria; Bratislava, Slovakia  and Budapest, Hungary.  Loved them all!!  I would have to say as far as city beauty goes, my favorite was Prague.  It was Gorgeous!!  Loved it.  Charles Bridge is magnificent.  I was in complete AWE! There really are no words to describe the beauty of the city and it;'s architecture.  The people were a little different than I am used to.  They weren't mean or rude at all.  They were very kind and pleasant just very different.  As an American of course I am used to 2 specific things. Smiling at people when you make eye contact with them and personal space.  Well these are two things they do not believe in over there. They don't do superficial smiling or hugs towards people they are not close with. At first they may come off as rude when you smile in their direction and they look at you straight faced and keep walking or going back to what they were doing, but you soon realize this is just how they are.  They are as kind and nice as can be, they just don't smile at random strangers they don't know.

Now for the personal space thing,  well that was hard to adjust too.  I am used to people moving to the side to not run into you.  Avoiding knocking people over in the street when they were standing in their spot before you got there.  In Prague, they don't seem to care.  If you are standing still in a place or walking down the street and someone feels you are in their way or path they will just run you right over.  They don't seem to care if you were there first.  That was something I don't think I would ever get used to.

Vienna was amazing as well.  It made me feel so at home with how similar it is to Germany.  The people, the language, the food.  I love Germany so much and Vienna gave me that same comfortable feeling.  Of course everything about the food was fantastic.  I liked Czech food as well, do't get me wrong, it was just much richer and heavier in the Czech Republic than it was everywhere else. Viennese food is very similar to German food.  Well at least to me it was in comparison to the other countries I visited this trip.  So everything about it was wonderful.  I didn't really try any food in Slovakia for the afternoon we were there but I do have to say that Hungarian food is AMAZING!!!!!  Their food appears to be rich and heavy fut it is actually light yet filing and soooo flavorful with their Hungarian Paprika.  That stuff is AMAZING!!!  So flavorful.  Nothing like anything we have here in the states.  So I don't have too many pitctures yet but I do have some food pictures on my phone.  So I will give you a little quick sneak peek. :)

 A Renaissance Dinner in Hungary.

Some MONSTROUS Tortellini in Prague.

A very heavy and very rich but VERY tasty traditional Czech Goulash and Dumplings dinner.

A pretty amazing Hungarian Fish dinner with a pretty tasty bread-like dessert. 

They do get pretty creative there with their weiners. :)

Yummy Viennese Wiener Schnitzel and Potato Salad with Pumpkin Seed Oil.

Some various European coffee.  Now they definitely know how to do coffee over there.  No comparison. lol 

Madonna was yet again... AMAZING!!!

Ok so again I know this is late...  I am trying to catch up on all my fun fulled events from the past couple of months.

As you all may remember, I went to the Bay Area a month ago for the Madonna Concert in San Jose for my SECOND time seeing her.  She was of course AMAZING!!!!!!! Nobody puts on such a theatrical and entertaining show as that incredible woman.

I would say it wasn't as good as the first time I saw her in 2008 but it was DEFINITELY a phenomenal Show and She freaking ROCKS !!!

Almost time for vacation!

Holy Cow!!!!  It's almost time for me to get on big plane and fly the heck out of here.  I leave in 2.5 days and today is actualy, as my BFF "A" called it today, my Vacation Eve!  Love it! lol. I am so excited and kinda stressed about it at the same time.  Anytime I take a large chuck off from work and start to freak out about hwo much is needed to be done to prepare for me to leave and how much work will be piled up for me when I get back.  Ugh.  Oh well,  In a few hours I can just push that to the back of my head and not worry about it till I get back. 

I did get most of my packing done last night.  All except the last minute things are ready to go. 

Clothes - Check
Comfy shoes - Check
Converters - Check
Passport - Check
Plane tickets - Check
iPad and Kindle charged - Check
Notebook for some writing (which I can never really go anwhere without) - Check
Phone Plan changed - Check
Bank called - Check
Toiletries - Well for the most part is a Check

I really only have some shopping left to do.  I have to go this weekend and stock up on the cat food so my house sitter doesn't have to worry about running out.  Then pick up some healthy snacks for the flight. 



Then it's Vacation Time!!!!  Europe here I come!!!!!

Vacation!



Via



Hey everyone!  Just a quick little note here. 

Well, It's almost vacation time.  I leave in 11 days.  I'm not gonna lie... I am pretty freaking excited about it.  I think I have gotten all of my last minute stuff for the trip and I have taken care of the details of the house/cat sitter, bills and work.  Almost time to start thinking about packing.  Yay!!

Prague Here I come!!! 

Life begins at Football Season




  I can not even begin to express how excited I am for football season to be starting soon.  It's like my life ends every year in February and doesn't begin again until September.  Yes, I am one of those freaks about football. An even bigger freak when it come to my San Francisco 49ers though ;) My heart starts to race when I am thinking about being able to watch my boys play.  My stomach does flip flops when I start thinking about my Sunday's plans.  Fall and Football just scream happiness and home to me.

I am the girl who plans her life AROUND the NFL schedule.  I never miss a game....  Well I usually don't.  If I can help it, I don't.  Last year, I did have to miss one game.  It was pretty tough, but I received regular score updates the entire game while I was in Europe.  This year will be the same.  I will be in Europe for 11 days and during that time I will miss one game.  I need to find someone to keep me updated on the score that day. :)   I usually try to make it to a live game once or twice a season and last year I couldn't make it to one.  There was that whole preparing for a huge vacation AND buying a house thing that kind of got in the way of that.  Oh well.  Perhaps this year I will make up for that and make an extra game or two.  :) All I know is I have been counting down for the season since ummmm...   about March. 

So now.... 28 Days till the Season begins!!!!  I am jumping out of my skin, I am so giddy. 




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A week of Concert Heaven getting closer.

So, I know I mentioned on an earlier post that I got VIP tickets to see Madonna in October I thought I would make mention again.  You see...  I get home from Europe the weekend before that concert.  I don't care how tired I will be after my first week back to work, while recovering from some serious jet lag, because she is my lifetime freaking idol, MADONNA!!!!!  

This will be my second time seeing her.  I am beyond excited about it. Well to make the week even better (not to mention a little more exhausting too) I got myself tickets to the Rise Against concert on the 2nd as well.  I bought those tickets the morning they went on sale.  I LOVE Rise Against. HUGE FAN! No way was I missing that show either.  So needless to say.  I am going to be really tired the following week but it is going to be soooooooooo UNBELIEVABLY worth it!!!!! 

Imperial Cities, Here I Come!



http://www.collettevacations.com/link/510628


Well Now that I have made my final payment I guess it's a good time to share my exciting news.  I am going on another big vacation.  Back to Europe!!!!  Yay!!! I have been keeping this pretty hush hush for a while now.  I decided as soon as I got home last year (December) from Europe that I would be going back this year.  I booked the trip in January. I am leaving in September for 2 weeks in Europe.  I will be starting in Prague, Czech Republic for a few days, then to Vienna, Austria for a few more days and then ending for a few days in Budapest, Hungary. I am very very excited.  I have been wanting to visit Prague for such a long time now.  I always hear such wonderful things about it.

Now that I have finished paying off the trip I feel I can really start getting excited about it.  So now is a good time to start finalizing my shopping list, and organizing everything.  Less than 2 months now!!!! 

Imperial Cities, Here I Come!

Fabulous Friday



It's Friday! It's Friday!!  Woo Hoo!!!  Not that I have anything really super exciting planned for the evening or anything.  Pretty much it is grocery shopping and chilling at home with a  movie.  Possibly take a nice walk around the Sparks Marina when the sun goes down a bit.  That's about it though.  But the point is... I don't have to go to bed early and I can enjoy the evening doing whatever I choose to do.  I might even stay up till a whole wopping 10:30 or 11pm.  Wild Time!!  LOL 

I'll be making up for that with a busy day tomorrow.  I, of course, have the fun Adventure Quest tomorrow that I mentioned in yesterday's post.  Then I have a small get together to go to in Carson City after that for about an hour or so.  Eating some yummy food samples from Wildtree. 

Now lets back things up a minute and talk about yesterday.  What a beautiful day yesterday was.  My long drive in to work had blessed me with some gorgeous cloudy skies.  :)  LOVED IT!  Funny thing is, so many of my friends know me and my love for dark, gloomy, rainy days so well they were all commenting on it in the morning about how they knew I must have been a happy girl. Then the lovely  cloudy sky turned to a good couple of hours of rain.  Oh my goodness HEAVEN!!!!   The moment I heard it was raining I took off outside and just stood in the middle of the parking lot letting the rain fall on my face for my entire break.  I was a happy happy girl.  Rain ALWAYS puts a mile on my face, no matter how bad things are going.  I can't wait for some more rain and some thunder storms. 

I guess this kind of turned into a Favorite Things Friday post too.  Hehehe

Clearly I am just not meant for this Northern Nevada Summer Heat.  LOL

Well I hope everyone has a Fabulous Friday!!!

X Marks the Spot



http://www.x-marksthespot.net/

I know, I've disappeared again.  I'm not sure how that keeps happening.  It's been a pretty busy few weeks.  Unfortunately some of the busy has been combined with drama which is one of my least favorite things so it hasn't made my mood so great lately.  I am trying to focus on the fun things coming up instead.  Well as much as I can anyway.  So for starters lets talk about my weekend plans.  I'm pretty excited about this.  We have the X-Marks the Spot Adventure Quest thing in Reno/Sparks.  We sign up as teams and each team gets given clues to finding the starting line to a race in Downtown Reno.  Then the teams are all in a race against each other to find more clues throughout downtown to find our way to the finish line.  It's about a 3-4 hour quest and I think it sounds like sooo much fun.  I first heard about it at the beginning of the year so I was trying to gets some friends to sign up with me.  One friend loves cold or cooler weather like me (OK, maybe not quite as much as me but much closer)and was down for signing up in March, but my other friend hates cooler weather and loves hot weather so wanted to do it in the summer.  YUCK!!!!  I hate being out in the heat.  But when a deal came up for 4 people for the price of 1, I couldn't say no and
the only time I could get 4 separate people with separate lives to all be available on the same day, it landed in July.  So here we go.  Going on our fun filled adventure quest in 100 degree weather.  I am stocking up on sun screen, a hat, water and a hand held mini mister to keep me cool and alive.  I really am pretty excited about it though.  Sooo much fun.  Then the following weekend my mom and some of her friends and I are dong another one.  Some time when it cools off I want to sign up for the Downtown Sparks one too.  :)

The rest of my exciting plans will soon follow.  There is a lot of excitiment planned.  :)

Oh, What A Glorious Week!

I had such a wonderful week last week.  My very good friends, "A" & "T", from New York City, were in town visiting for the week.  So I was able to spend as much time as possible with them while they were here.  They rented a house right on the Sparks Marina, which happens to be just a few blocks dow the road from my house, so they were able to host family dinners at their house for myself and their family.  So for starteres, A is the greatest chef ever!!!!  He is an Itaian boy born and raised in Brooklyn by a traditional, large Italian family so his cooking is AMAZING!!!!!!!  I was spoiled all week by his cooking.  I have really missed my friends and I am always so happy when they come visit in the summer.  A did remind me that it has been over 5 years since I was last in New York City visiting them though.  I will definitely have to plan my 2013 vacation to be back in New York City.  I love that city so much and could easily move there tomorrow.  So visiting there as often was my plan.  I would be thrilled to head back next year.  But not this year because 2012's Vacation has already been booked and paid for.   So They arrived last Saturday night and left to head back home Yesterday.  A whole week of fun friend time.  I had such a wonderful visit with them and miss them terribly. But I will be seeing them again soon.  Hopefully they will be back for Christmas. :)

As if the visit wasn't enough to make it a glorious week I have more.  I bought a guest bed... FINALLY!!!!   I came home from work on Thursday and it was all set up in my guest room.  YAY!!!  Now I can have guests come visit me at my new house.  I feel like such a big girl now. :)

Next was Saturday.  I was out all day on Saturday spending some time with friends then visiting my New York Friends, so when I got home, Santa had araived AGAIN!  My mom had bought herself new fancy front loader washer and dryer so her old (and when I say old I mean a couple of years old) front loader washer and dryer were being given to me and installed for me while I was out. I spent all afternoon Sunday doing laundry and having fun with all the new buttons and gizmos the new W/D have.  So fun! 

I know, I know.  This doesn't seem much like an exciting week but believe me,  That was A LOT of excitement for ME.  :)

Fabulous Friday ***Late Post***

Wow!  So it has been nearly a month since I have posted.  I'm not sure how that happened.  It didn't seem that long, in fact I am trying to think of what was making me so busy and although I know I have been busy and constant go go go, I can't actually think of anything in specific that was causing it.  Hmmmmm.  Funny how that happens.  Well how has everyone been?  It's Friday and I am soo excited because for some strange reason my mind was hell bent on yesterday being Friday and I was pretty upset pissed off that it was only Thursday.  

It's been kind of a trying week so I am happy that I get to go home tonight and relax.  My mom decided a few days ago that she would be inviting herself over to my house tomorrow for a BBQ so I am kind of excited about that.  As long as I get to sleep-in first. ;)   


Ok so I am also a little behind on posting this.  I know it's Monday and this was for Friday but I got kind of busy and then lazy. LOL  So I hope everyone had a great Friday and a great weekend. 

Fabulous Friday - Apples Make Me Hungry?



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Has everone had a great Friday???  Almost over!  Weekend is almost here... YAY!
Ok so for the longest time I thought I was the strangest person alive..... Ok... Well, in all actuality I probably am, but for all kinds of different reasons other than what I am about to talk about. 

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I have ALWAYS been told, "Hey if you're hungry, then eat an apple instead of those chips or crackers"  So I would and every time I would be starving afterwards.  Now, I don't mean oh a little hungry now, but I want to keep eating.  I mean STARVING!!!  I would start of a little on the hungry side but after eating an apple I am full blown stomach growling and burning "I NEED TO EAT NOW!"

Now how weird is that?  I thought I was the only one like this so I never said anything.  Well, one day I decided to so some online research on the subject and it turns out I am NOT the only one!!! There are many many MANY people out there who say the same thing.  It turns out it has something to do with the apple being straight water and sugar carbs and no protein to heed off hunger.  So if you are going to eat an apple so as not to eat the bad food before dinner then include some cheese or peanut butter to the apple.  It will hold you off a lot better that way.

Who else out there has the same hunger pains after eating apples?  I know there has to be more of us.

Just some interesting tidbits of knowledge for today.  Or just my weird idiosyncrasies...  Whatever.  ;)

Have a great weekend everyone! 

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Today Marks 4 Years!!!

Hey there!!

So today is a very special day to me.  It marks a very important accomplishment.  Today I am 4 years sober. 

Yep!  That's right.  I quit drinking 4 years ago.  Well quit drinking and popping pills. I couldn't be more proud of myself.  I won't lie, the first year was the toughest year of my life and I thought it ws never going to end.  Or that it would becuase I woudl never survive it, but I was wrong.  It did and then another past and another and a now another. 

Time for me to get a new Tifanny & Co. cahrm for my bracelet.  My sister bout be a Tiffany & Co. charm bracelet and my first charm when I hit 1 year sober.  Thent he following year she bought me the next char.  I haven't made it tot eh store to get myself the 3rd charm yet. (We don't exactly have any Tiffany & Co. stores anywhere close by to Reno, NV) So now I guess I will just need to get myself both of the next charms. :) So, I'm all caught up.

Well Happy April 26th to everyone!  Hope it's a wonderful day for you. :)

Saturdays are for Pedicures and Sushi!

Yay for Saturday!!!  Don't you just love love love Saturdays? I certainly do. So today was all about sleeping in, pedicures and sushi! now when I say pedicures I am sure most people think "Ahhh, heaven" or relaxing or pampering don't you?  Well, not me!  I never understand why I EVER think it is a good idea for me to get a pedicure.  I hate them.  Well I don't hate them I guess.... Hmmmmm. Yeah I hate them.  I love getting my toe nails polished.  That part I enjoy.  It's everything they do leading up to that part that I don't so much enjoy.

I am the most ticklish person in the world.  I scream and jump if you just look at my feet.  I feel bad for all the the nail techs that try to give me pedicures.  It's not an enjoyable experience for them.  Actually I take that back.  They are rolling in laughter way too much for me to believe they aren't enjoying it on some level.  My mom too.  She gets such a kick out of watching me climbing out of my chair and biting my hands to keep from screaming. To me, pedicures are like a cruel torture.  It is the largest form of insane torture and uncomfortable-ness that will make me spill all of the secrets of the world...  I wish I could just find a way for my toe nails to just grow out in pretty colors. The nail tech spends a lot of time dodging my involuntary kicks to their temples too.  I am sure glad they find it hilarious to watch though.  I do have to admit.... I am so very pleased and happy once it is all over and I have pretty toes.  Today's color was dark blue.  Sooo pretty.  Mom got her usual french toes.

So after the pampering torture session, my mom and I made sushi rolls today.  Our very first attempt.  In case you are wondering how a first attempt turns out... well you are in luck because I am here to tell you it is quite a messy and somewhat recognizable one. But it was FUN!

First I had to wash the rice?  Seriously, wash: the rice.  Multiple times.  How exactly does one do this without spilling rice all down your sink?  This is going to take some practice I can see.  Then in the rice cooker it went! Oh yeah!  I'm all about the rice cooker!

Looks pretty clean doesn't it?  Now while it's cooking it's time for me to make the "sticky" stuff for the rice.  Now the guy on YouTube made this look super easy.  Piece of cake! I can do this.

Ummmmm....  So did he mention that it takes FOREVER for the sugar to dissolve in the rice vinegar?  I don't' remember it take him this long?  Hmmm. Well I will just keep stirring, because really... How tough could it be to dissolve sugar in vinegar?  I must had had some pretty stubborn sugar.

Finally, success and I now have sticky rice!!  While I was fighting with the sugar mixture and mixing the rice my mom started cutting up the fillings.

Now I can start creating these bad boys.  Time for some sushi roll masterpieces!  Wow, no wonder they call this stuff "sticky" rice.  It sticks to EVERYTHING except the seaweed.  Spreading this stuff out thin is not an easy task.

How exactly to you thin this out?  This layer of rice is so thick.  So, note to self.  next time I should try to do thinner layer of rice and maybe a little less filling.  I might over over filled this thing a little.  LOL

But doesn't it look nice and happy and all in once piece. I am just happy it held together. :)
It it looked nice and pretty all cut up too. (notice the major amounts of rice. hahaha)

So I tried my hand a few more rolls and got them much thinner this time.  I decided to wrap them tightly in saran wrap to stick in the fridge for later.

So my Saturday was a productive one and a comedy of errors.  But those really are the most entertaining kind of days aren't they?  I had a great time.  Hope everyone else had a great Saturday too!