Italy!!

wow. what a week. i'll try to break italy into a couple posts, but whow knows.. i might just go on forever.

needless to say, all the people that told me that i wouldn't want to come home were right, the ones that said that venice was going to be my favorite were wrong and the idea that i would love the food was completely spot on. the only bad thing about the entire week were my allergies. The part of Italy I was in is incredibly agricultural and therefore sneezy and crazy for me. oh... and the rain. so much rain, thunderstorms, lightening, everything. I was lucky that it didn't flood. When I was flying in from Madrid, we passed over a storm, and I saw the lightening but didn't think it would end up affecting much of my trip. Luckily it didnt. It ended up pouring friday and part of saturday but overall, rain is just water and it dries eventually

I landed on Wednesday night after an insane day and a half of traveling and flight connections. luckily all my luggage made it and we ended up landing 10 minutes early in venice..Thursday was spent getting registered on the army post, running errands and making sure that i had everything that i needed and getting food for the week. Part of my payment to Jen and Scott was that i had to make mexican food at some point, which happened. We went to dinner at a place called La Vecchia Fattoria that night. I had oricchette pasta with cherry tomatoes and broccoli. it was a great first meal and the food of Vicenza spoiled me, almost for the whole week! We also went to the fresh wine store and got three liters of wine from the tap. I had heard of this, but I'm still pretty sure it's magic. It was delicious wine and fairly cheap too. It was just over 5 euro for all the wine. Bring your own bottles, they fill and seal it for you, amazing.

Friday was spent resting and sleeping and then sleeping some more. My allergies had me incredibly congested and subsequently exhausted because of the inability to breath and sleep or just be comfortable in general. The different pollen was attacking my eyes and for 4 of the 7 days in Italy, i wanted to rip out my eyes. I fought through it though, no way i was going to miss out on such an amazing place. Friday night we went to dinner at a place a little further out of town. i don't remember the name, but I remember the food. I had the Bigoli pasta with duck ragu and had to take a moment while i had the first bite. It was heavenly. So good. Scott had penne with a pistachio sauce, and sliced chicken with mushrooms as his second course which was delicous and Jen had truffled fettuchini. All of us thoroughly enjoyed our food and I could have eaten that same meal the entire week and been happy. I am so grateful we didn't have a strict agenda and were able to move around plans so that i was able to get acclimated. The wine there was great too, I'll miss good house wines and the quality of the fresh wine available all over.

I never thought I would be so excited to not be in a plane for a week. Once I landed in Venice, this whole trip finally became real. All the work, the internet scouring for ticket prices, the stress and budgeting, everything was finally real and more than worth it. Seeing my friends was even better and knowing that they would get to show me the cool places they had found over the past couple years was ever exciting. After friday, I was almost back to normal, the swelling in my feet from the hours of traveling was about gone, the blisters were getting better and my allergies were calming down. I had scheduled a skype date with my family for Sunday afternoon (early morning back home) and was looking forward to the rest of my time in the Veneto area.

tuesdayyyyyy

well, tuesday morning was fun. I walked around SoHo a little more, and into the Bowery area. Got a new pair of Warby Parker sunglasses and a new pair of toms because my other shoes were eating my feet and giving me blisters everywhere.. from there, I went to eat at The Meatball Shop on Stanton. best decision of my day. After having their sandwich at Googa Mooga, I wanted to go and eat their stuff fresh. BEST. EVERRRRRR. 

The special of the day was a Chile Verde meatballs with salsa verde, the risotto was chives and scallions and everything looked and smelled delicious coming out of the kitchen. I sat at the bar, and the bartender was super nice and talkative. He gave me a copy of the Meatball Shop cookbook to browse through while I waited for my food and asked about where I was from and going and whatnot. I talked to the guy next to me a bit, who told me that he came in because he was craving their meatballs. To me, that says something. 

I ordered a slider of the chile verde goodness, the risotto and then a meatball sandwich with the spicy pork meatballs, tomato sauce and mozzarella cheese. I said I was going to take it with me to the airport, but that ended up being a total lie because I didn't realize how hungry I was. Apparently that happens when you don't eat the whole day. 

Here's how it looked:

From there, I went and picked up my luggage that I had stored, and headed to the airport. It was a beautiful day and i was sad to leave the house that morning, and sad to leave the city, but Italy and my friends were waiting. 

Check in and everything went well, and the flight on AirBerlin was great. BUT, I barely slept. the people behind me kept getting up and using my chair as their push off point, waking me up every 20 minutes or so. I was real mad. real real real mad. the food was good, there were free movies, tv, games and magazines on the little tv screens and it would have been even better if i had gotten sleep on an overnight trip. 

The Berlin terminal, where i had my 6 hour layover however, was crap. I'm just mad that I even had to be there. The chairs were awful, there were no plugs to charge anything and the food choices were yuck. The terminal itself was small, smaller than Long Beach Airport, but luckily the majority of people were really nice. The ride to Barcelona was okay, a little turbulent, but not too bad. My luggage made it everywhere safely, and the Barcelona airport was really nice. The flight to Madrid from BCN was sure to be the death of me, it was crazy turbulent and it felt like the pilot was doing things crazy on purpose, but really just ended up being a lot like the up and down of the flight to Oakland from LA. Madrid to Venice was really nice, I got to sleep on the last three flights, which was really nice, and seeing Jen and  Scott and knowing that I wasn't going to be on a plane for 7 whole days. 

More on Italy over the next few days, so far, the food is beyond words and i love everything other than the rain and the amount of nature that is causing my allergies to go insane. Oh well, dont care, its freaking great.

bah bah, bah bah bah bah

That morning, Kathi, Katharina and I headed downstairs to have breakfast, and talk about the day. We decided to go to Central Park, so they could ride in the boats on the lake, Shake Shake for lunch and then Greenwich Village and SoHo after. We debated on going sunset sailing, but that cost more than we all wanted to spend, so we chose finding a rooftop bar somewhere to see the sunset and the city lights once it was dark. 

We got ready and headed out... it was not even close to raining, more like, 80 degrees and humid as heck. After complaining for a bit on the walk to the bus, we sucked it up and went on with the day. We got to Central Park and walked around, finding lakes and bridges and fountains galore. Parks in New York are an interesting experience. In both Central Park and Prospect Park (in Brooklyn where Googa Mooga was), you are completely able to leave the city behind. It's kind of odd, but I really liked it. For such a fast paced, loud city, it's nice to have this place to escape to. 

I'm going to work on a way to stream the pictures from my Photo Stream in the sidebar or something so that you can see more than just the few that I post here and there :) 

In the park, we encountered geese, turtles and other wildlife we either hadn't seen, or hadn't seen that much of. The girls couldn't get over the squirrels and there were birds flying around that none of us had seen before. YAY WILDLIFE. We walked in along 72nd into the Strawberry Field area of the park. I'm bummed I didn't get a picture of the Imagine circle, but there were about 50 people there trying to do the same thing, so i decided against it this time. We walked further into the park, toward the lakes and the boathouse (which is rather famous in its own right) so that  the girls could go boating and I could go explore. On the way, we found the Bethesda fountain and plaza. Under the driving bridge, there was a walkway that was tiled and had lots of arches. There was a quintet of performers singing and playing instruments under there and they sounded beautiful. We stopped to listen for a while before taking pictures at the fountain. We made it to the boathouse, the girls went on their adventure while I went on mine. I found more tunnels, saw more birds and things, sneezed a lot (my allergies started up since there was a ton of grass and foliage), found a walkway lined with benches, trees and busts of different composures. There was a small open air stage that looked somewhat like the Jefferson monument in DC and new grads everywhere since NYU had some of their ceremonies that day. 

I walked back to the boathouse after about an hour and met the girls so that we could head out of the park. We walked around the park, found the Belvedere Castle and then found our way out of the park. We ate lunch at Shake Shack, which was recommended to me by a friend. it was a great decision, see?

From there, we headed to Greenwich Village to walk around and see the area. We stopped for coffee, phone charging and rest. Once we had been at this super weird, kinda douchy coffee place for enough time, we decided to start walking toward the James Hotel where we decided to enjoy cocktails and the sunset overlooking the city and eventually, the city lights. While leaving GV, there was all of a sudden an abundance of cops and helicopters. We asked a few different cops, all of which were super nice, and apparently there was a demonstration because of a shooting that is a reported to be a hate crime. We decided that it was probably a good idea to head to SoHo and to the bar. 

We stopped at a starbucks and changed into dresses and headed a couple more blocks to the hotel. It was a total fancy schmancy hotel and had a pretty cool ambience. They had a wall made of old computer keyboards in the lobby and a neat rooftop bar. When we got up top, the bar was neat, the outdoor patio had a tiny little pool and the whole top floor was either the outdoor patio or had wall to ceiling windows. The drinks were normal, expensive cocktails but so well made by an incredibly nice and personable bartender. I had a mint julep in a gold cup and all i needed was a derby hat. it was incredibly humid and hot so it suited the day perfectly. As a whole, it was a great way to spend my last day, and night, in New York. 

That night, when we got back, I skyped home with my family and then stayed up til 4 packing and repacking my stuff. such organized chaos. 

sunday sunday

New York was absolutely fantastic, and I loved every part of being there. I wish it could have been for a longer amount of time, but it just gives me more reasons to go back. I'm going to break up Sunday, Monday and Tuesday into different posts, as a lot of things happened and if I don't, it'll go on forever. 

On Sunday, Kristin and I did a whole lot of nothing. it was actually rather fun. It was raining out and neither of us really wanted to deal with it. We were tired, sore and frustrated that it was raining steadily all day. I said in my last post that we were going to head to Hoboken for Cuban food... well, that didn't happen. at all. we decided to stay in Union City and hang out with each other at the house. At one point, we walked a few blocks down to eat before coming back. Maria, one of the owners, suggested that we go to Noches, a Columbian restaurant that was relatively new in the area, but that was really good and always busy. Away we went!

We got the umbrellas, jackets and whatever else we could find and headed down the street. When we got to Noches, we were seated right away and the waitress asked if we knew what we wanted to eat. By this point, around 5pm, we were starving because we had barely eaten - a HUGE change from Googa Mooga. She suggested their empanadas and brought us two. They were wonderfully light and not too filling, but hearty and delectable at the same time. Instead of being made with a pie crust, they were more cornmeal based with a light crunch. The filling was shredded beef and beans, it kind of tasted like Ramona's by El Camino which was fine by me. The empanadas came with slices of lime and their housemade hot sauce - pretty much salsa verde, but it was made really well and I wish I could have shipped home a gallon. Kristin ordered their Arroz con Pollo and I had the Huevos Rancheros. Holy freaking crap, so much food. Kristin's dish was basically a huge serving of saffron chicken fried rice, without the fry. It looked and tasted amazing. My food was just as good. The beans were mixed with rice, scallions and seasoned great, and the egg scramble had onion, tomato and tasted exceptional. Kristin's came with a salad, two pieces of fried sweet plantains, a third (!!!) of an avocado, an incredibly bland, dense arepa and a few plantain "fritters" that reminded me of latkes with far less flavor. Mine came with a third of an avocado and the dense arepa. The food was great, we ate about a third of it, and took the rest home. Both of us wanted a million empanadas to take with us as well. 

Kristin went home to Lancaster, PA that night, rushing to meet her train, which ended up having crazy engine issues the whole way back, but nevertheless, she made it. It was great to see her and we're already planning when we can get together again. I realized that I didn't post a picture of us from Googa Mooga, or at all... so here it is! 

I came back to the house and ended up meeting the other two girls that were staying there. They were German, both named Katharina, and we had a great conversation about our trips and everything. We all kept talking and made it downstairs where we had dinner, around 10/11pm but whatever. We talked and they found out that I cooked a lot and we started joking about making cakes and cookies.. and then I realized that the house had just about everything we were going to need to make something. We settled on chocolate peanut butter cookies with chocolate chunks. Someone had gotten Dean & Deluca cocoa powder that was mind blowing so we made sure to use that. The cookies came out great and all three of us did something, from measuring things, to chopping chocolate, to mixing and putting them in the oven. We had a great time and talked about everything until the first batch of cookies were done. We stayed up until 1 talking and making plans for Monday, as they invited me to see the city with them. 

No Sleep Til Brooklynnnnnn

yesterday was amazing. in all ways! 

Kristin got here around 1145 and we got ready, hung out at the house and got to meet the ther owner of the house. Jay and Maria are so amazing and nice and put so much work and love into their properties. We found out they live in each of their properties before they start renting them out and make sure that all the little nuances are there and that it feels like a home. They just bought another building about 5 blocks from the place i'm staying and they're going to spend the next year or so fixing it up and getting it ready to rent.. after they do that, they're most likely going to move back into the house that i'm staying in, since this was their first home after moving out of their apartment in Harlem. it has been so nice getting to know them, and it makes staying here even better. i will for sure be staying at their different properties whenever i come to the New York area and i will be sure to recommend them to anyone who wants to stay in the area. 

 (that's the view coming down the stairs of the house, no big deal)

we left the house and headed over to brooklyn and to googa mooga. it was drizzly and kinda windy, but we toughed it out. it was COMPLETELY WORTH IT. we got there, and got Crack Pie and a sweet and salty brownie from Baked to start off our day. from there, kristin went and got a cheeseburger from The Burger Joint and I got The Meatball Shop's Meatball BLT. absolutely fantastic. From there I went and got a half loaf of Gwynett St Whiskey bread with fresh cultured butter and their fresh strawberry rhubarb jam. i don't even like strawberry jam and i could have eaten a gallon of that stuff. Warm fresh baked bread with fresh butter and jam?! duh. perfect. after a while, i went and ordered a slice of pizza from South Brooklyn Pizza and the guy gave me an extra slice for free. yay! haha pizza was good, but i need more before i head out of the city. we milled around for a bit, kristin got a sweet and savory pizza with a chewy crust, ricotta, honey and salt and pepper. we ended up having a few beers and some wine, and then i got a chocolate filled syringe. WONDERFUL. just standing around, shooting chocolate into my mouth hanging out. hahaha it was awesome. The only thing that could have made googa mooga better was if things were sold in smaller portions. the sandwiches and stuff were full sized, and i think that put a limit on what you could eat. there were tons of things that i wanted to try, but my stomach and my pocket book are only so big. so yeah, next year, smaller portions of each thing, and i will buy them all. :) 

After we left GM around 730, Roy, my teammate and friend from college met up with us after a crazy long train ride, thanks to construction and weekend scheduling, and then a ridiculous cab ride where the cabby got pulled over for speeding and then a half a mile walk because he was fed up with transportation. Seeing him was one of the best things. I haven't seen him since 2006, but we've kept in touch via facebook and instagram. he's one of my most favorite people and when he walked up to meet us, i got the best 2 minute hug that i've ever received. Roy and Kristin got along great and we had a blast. Roy treated us for drinks at this corner bar that had the Knicks game on. First whiskey of the trip! haha after hanging out at the bar for a while, laughing at everything, we decided to head home. We left the bar and came upon a place called Dub Pie Shop and they had little savory hand pies and they were wonderful!! I got a New York Shepard's Pie. oh my god. so so so good!!! Roy lives in Jersey, we spent the majority of the trip home, and the crazy long subway waits together which was super fun. I love Brooklyn, and I can't wait to come back and see more of this part of New York. It's great, and artsy and reminds me a lot of Silver Lake. Prospect Park is gorgeous and woodsy, there were horses all over and so far, most people i've met have been great. 

We're heading to Hoboken soon for lunch and to take a picture or two of the Cake Boss bakery, and explore a little, even though it's raining. The rain is supposed to stop tonight, so hopefully i'll be able to adventure around the city tomorrow. I want to see a little of Central Park, hit of ?uestlove's new food stand in Chelsea Market, maybe check out a few more places on my list :) and eat more delicious food. I love being able to walk around and see such different parts of the same area. so much walking! i wish more things were this at home. 

Good news! Kristin brought some stain remover and yay! said tomato gravy splattering on my yellow scarf is gone!!! fannnntastic! 

straight delirious.

** disclaimer: i started writing this last night and then fell asleep and i dont feel like going through and updating to past tense.**

i don't really understand how i'm still awake, other than my body thinking that it on 630, not 930pm. either way, i just ordered some delicious thai food thanks to seamless. yelp wasn't cutting it, and i walked around the neighborhood i'm staying in and i just wasnt having it.

okay, before the food coma sets in, here's what i did today:

- landed at 5am at JFK

- got a chocolate honey glazed Dunkin Donut and a hazelnut iced coffee - there coffee really is that good.

- waited around the airport until 7am-ish so that i could go drop off my luggage and the place would be open.

- spent half an hour trying to figure out how to get out of JFK airport - way easier than initially thought. WAYYYYYYY easier.

- got to penn station, lugged everything upstairs because i was too tired to realize that there were elevators. duh.

- checked my luggage at the storage place.

- went and took pictures of MSG (even though it's under construction) and the big post office steps that were really pretty. 

- saw macy's from where i was standing, walked over to check it out - took pictures and reveled in the moment and how much i freaking love The Macy's Thanksgiving Day Parade. I'm so weird. 

- walked out the opposite side of the store, found Herald Square and a stand of Chef Tom Colicchio's sandwich place 'wichcraft and proceeded to have more breakfast since it was now 9am. Gruyere and caramelized onions on rye, the shop's version of a grilled cheese. so good. perfectly salty, sweet and savory. umami! it was wonderful. i also got a latte with my sandwich because the other coffee was wearing off and i was dragging.

- finished said sandwich and then spilled half my latte across the table in the middle of the Herald Square park. YAY! It's not like I wanted it or anything. ugh. proceeded to clean it up.

- From there, I walked around the corner and found Times Square, walked around, took pictures. that place is overwhelming but incredibly calm at the same time. 

- walked over to Rockefeller center, took pictures of some fountains and the outside of Radio City.

- walked down the wrong street about 50 times and went around in about 40 circles. 

- went down to the Lower East Side to eat lunch at Sauce Restaurant. best decision i made all day.

- my phone got pooped on by a bird. it was my phone and only my phone too. weird.

- splattered tomato gravy on my butter yellow scarf that i had managed to keep unscathed up until this point. 

- went and charged my phone at starbucks, then headed to get my luggage and get to the house to check in.

- port authority is insane. 

- got to jersey! lugged my stuff off the bus, then to the house that i'm staying in. 100% serious, this place is amazing. there's a reason the owner has 500+ reviews on airbnb. my bed is SO COMFY, the house itself is great. it feels like you're spending the night at a friend's house, not in a sterile (or not so sterile) hotel. everything here is clean, and so nice, so well kept. I told the owner when she stopped by yesterday that i wanted to take the house home with me! the kitchen is great, the sectional couch is like a vortex and you never want to get up and the shower head is a rain fall one that is at least 6 inches above my head. super score on that. 

- took a walk around the neighborhood i'm staying in looking for a place to eat, but i didn't want anything the locals offered (mostly Central American food), so i ordered some amazing thai food. ate that up, and finally got to bed. 

-----

this morning (Saturday) i was woken up by chirpy birds outside my window and i proceeded to fall right back asleep as it was 5am. i woke up about an hour ago, gonna go repurpose the rest of my fried rice into breakfast and get ready for the day. my friend Kristin is on her way from pennsylvania to spend the weekend here with me. i'm so freaking excited. we're headed to The Great Googa Mooga food and music fest in brooklyn to eat fun things and to see Matt & Kim perform tonight. soooo stoked. then we're probably going to brunch and sightseeing a bunch tomorrow before she has to go home. 

honestly, i like New York a lot more than i thought i would and can't wait to come back here. and that's just after a day! i have to figure out how to load the pictures from my camera to my ipad, and once i do, i'll be sure to post some! mostly food, and architecture so far. but after today, probably more of that, actually. this trip is off to a great start, lets just hope it stays this great and that one Tuesday and Wednesday, i make all 4 flights to Venice! 

Touchdown! and no, it's not football season yet...

Good morning!! I'm in New York now!! 

i'm incredibly exhausted, there was so much turbulence the majority of the flight that it was almost impossible to sleep. I probably slept about an hour and I won't be able to take a nap until about 3:30-4pm this afternoon. yay coffee!! 

I've been trying to figure out how to get to the city and store my luggage for the greater part of the last hour, mostly because my brain is not exactly working at top speed. I finally figured it out, i think. we'll see how that goes in a bit. 

i can't believe i'm here, that this trip has started and that i didn't wuss out. maybe i'll believe it after i take a nap. i'm only in the city for 4 days, but i'm incredibly excited. I get to see one of my old track teammates who lives in New Jersey and my friend Kristin is staying with me for the weekend. So many friends in just a couple days, I don't quite know what to do with myself!

as excited as i am, i really just want to sleep... did i mention that i'm tired? haha 

Here's a glimpse of the sunrise from the sky :)

The Great Googa Mooga!!!!

Just got the confirmation that my friend Kristin and I are going to be at the Great Googa Mooga food and music festival on Saturday in Brooklyn!!!!!!!! And we get to see Matt & Kim that night! 

Boom. Day, made. So stoked about this, you have no idea. 

Wheels (almost) up!

There comes a time when we all have to venture, when we set off on our own to travel and see places and experiene things that we never could have imagined. 

My time starts in a few minutes when I board a plane for New York City. I decided to take this trip for so many reasons... many of them coming after I initially planned to go. 

I decided to go to Europe because a dear family friend, who is more my cousin than anything else, is getting married in Spain. That said, I hemmed and hawed before I decided that yes, I was going to go to Europe. After coming to terms with that, I figured it would be smart to see if my friends from college who are stationed in Italy. Okay, Italy and Spain. Sounds great, right? Right, I thought so too. Once I got the date for the wedding I started looking at my vacation time (I was still working at the time) and savings and realized that I could take an "extended" trip and have a grand adventure. When looking at prices, I figured it would be cheaper to fly out of a hub on the east coast because it was a shorter flight. Good decision for sure.. so then okay, flying to New York, no big deal, Jet Blue has flights there every day. 

I was able to book my flights from JFK to Barcelona and back, knowing that I would be able to arrange flights aroud Europe later on when I had more of an idea of what was going on. Two weeks in Europe was already the trip of a lifetime, especially beacuse I would be seeing good friends/family and going to a wedding. Another big decision then came up: New York. Should I stay there a few days and see the city, or should I just use that as a stopping point? Knowing that I had always wanted to visit the city in some capacity, I figured why not? Why not spend 3 or 4 days visiting a storied city that has forever been on my list of things to do?

That's when I realized that I had made a promise to myself a few years ago. "Go to NYC, even if for a few days, and get to Europe before you're 30." That's what I had decided after graduating for college. I didn't tell anyone, because that would 1) hold me accountable; 2) make it worse if it didn't happen; and 3) because that would have just made sense. Regardless, I made that promise to myself, and low and behold here I was at 26 making plans to cross two things off my bucket list. 

4 days in New York, the red eye out from Long Beach, everything was making so much sense. I was working a ton of overtime, pushing aside any criticism and doubts from friends and family because I knew that in order to pay for this trip without cleaning out my accounts, I would have to work a little extra. It's a damn good thing I did. In trying to calculate my vacation time, get it approved by my managers, the more I pushed to do the right thing and work with them, the more hoops I was told to jump through. No matter what happened, no matter how hard it was not to scream, or how much I really began to hate my job, I worked through it, I did a good job and made sure that no matter what I did, it was always the right thing. I jumped through their hoops as best as I could, but still there was push back because my new manager "didn't like that people were taking long vacations." Well, I had already booked the tickets and begun reserving rooms and hotels. There really was no turning back and by this time, I was determined to go. 

Thanksgiving and Christmas passed, the new year came and that's when everything got a little crazy. Things at work were stressful, but still, I came in, did my job to the best of my abilities, and did my best to do it with a smile, no matter how hard some days were. That's when, on my aunt's birthday, I was let go. Fired really.. Well, as the official papers say, I was "terminated." Cue me completely freaking out. This wasn't how things were supposed to go. But here I was, walking out with bags of things acccumulated from the last two and a half years. I won't lie, I wallowed for a while, thinking of cancelling my trip, trying to figure out a way to get everything firgured out financially as quickly as possible, constantly overwhelmed by the entire thing. Once the inital wave of freak outs subsided and my ego started to recover, I realized that things were going to work out. People always say that things happen for a reason, and yeah, I believe that to, but this?! In the beginning, this was just added stress, added worry, and added fear that I didn't need if I was going to be traveling thousands of miles away. Now it was a complete and total blessing, allowing me the freedom and the ability to do as I pleased without having guilt hung over me that "I was leaving." Now, I'm going on a grand adventure and excited about all of it, even just the idea. 

So here I am, sitting in the Long Beach airport, my bag checked, comfy travel clothes on (yes, with a change of clothes in my bag - there's no way in hell I'm walking around New York looking ridiculous), books, movies, podcasts and music at the ready, waiting to board. Waiting to start my grand adventure on my mom's birthday (best kid ever!). Yeah, I was fired on my aunt's birthday (what a birthday gift, right?!) and I'm leaving on my mom's birthday. If you know my family, you know that we have this weird thing where dates line up. DIfferent important things for our family will happen on the same day, years apart, or on someone's birthday, so I shouldn't have expected this to be much different. 

I'm headed for New York for 4 and a half days, then a travel day so that I get to Italy on May 22nd. then to Spain on May 30th. I'll be back home June 7th, and as much as I am excited for this trip, I'm extra excited for what will happen when I get home, I have a lot on the horizon. 

I'll be posting updates as much as I can, probably at random times, but expect lots of stories and pictures about what I ate, where I go and pictures of random, pretty things. and some of me and my friends of course. Then, when I come home, I'm determined to do what I've always wanted to do.. some of you know, some of you don't, so for now, I'll keep that to myself.. it'll give me something to talk about when I get home, too. 

Here goes nothing, and everything, all at the same time. Wish me luck, I'm going to go have fun for a few weeks.

Emoji love!!

Found this link just now. These need to be created because they will help express half the things I talk about. 

http://firstwefeast.com/laugh/15-food-emoji-we-wish-existed/s/the-guy-fieri-emoji/

Well, here we go.

I haven't been on the computer much lately, mostly because I've been prepping for a trip I've been planning for almost a year. holy freaking crap. I leave on Thursday night to spend 4 and a half days in New York, then I'll be off to Italy to spend a week there in the Veneto region and rumor has it that we're going to Cinque Terre on the country's west coast. After that grand adventure, I'm heading to the eastern coast of Spain for a wedding and adventuring around before heading 5 hours north to Barcelona for a couple days. Then I come home.

There are many incredible reasons to be excited for this, but mostly I'm really excited to see friends that I haven't seen for a long time, a decade for the one who's getting married (that's what happens when a family moves to Spain when you're 10/12 years old.) and to experience so many different cuisines and learn even more about the culture through food. I'm a little shy when it comes to trying new things, but luckily, my friends in Italy are not. Expect tons of pictures of food, friends, and beautiful sites.

This is a most exciting time and I'll do my best to update from the road when I can, not only for myself, but for my friends and family back home and whoever else stumbles upon this silly thing.

For random quick updates and pictures, you can follow me on Twitter at @angerawrrrr, on Instagram @angerawrrr, just don't be a creep, okay?