Step 1

Today is step 1 of the Praha Preparation. I am going to clean out my closet.

Usually I end up keeping things because I think, "Someday I might wear this." But today I get to say, "Am I going to pack this? No? It's getting pitched." (or rather, given to Goodwill). I think it will make throwing things away a lot easier, because if I'm not willing to pack it, it's not worth keeping.

I watched a really great movie today called Bella. Highly recommended.

Time to start.. :( I hate work on weekends.

Just a little add-on to my last post...

Don't get me wrong, despite the fact that all of that might have come off as complaining, I really meant it as more of a funny anecdote. I'm in quite a good mood :) It's been pretty hard to get me down lately.

And THAT is a nice feeling.

Memorial Day Weekend

Long weekends are awesome. Top it off with the fact that for the first time probably since I got back from Prague, I didn't have any work to do. I mean I probably could have invented some, but nothing was pressing. So I reeeeeally got to relax.

You know, since I got back, I have been dropping nearly everything I pick up. It's insanely frustrating. Nothing messy so far, thank goodness, but if I pick up a cup to go get a drink, I will drop the cup. If I pick up a CD to put it in the player, I drop it. If someone asks me to hand them something, it will fall to the floor before it gets to their hands. Worse even, if I go to pick something up, I will knock several other things over in the meantime (example: just this week I went to pick up a water bottle from my nightstand and my remote control, a small notepad, and a framed photo fell to the floor).

I mentioned this to my mom and she reminded me that the old Arab remedy to dropping everything is to pee on your hand. I decided dropping things wasn't so bad.

After this continued for some time, I mentioned it to my mom again. "It's been weeks, and I am still dropping everything."
"Did you pee on your hand?"
"Not yet."
Then she thought for a moment and said, "I bet I know what it is."
"Oh?"
"I haven't seen you calm since you got back. You're always bogged down with something, you're always rushing, and you always have something you need to be doing. You're always in a hurry. You're probably just moving too fast."

I kind of agreed but I shrugged it off. Then this weekend I thought about that, and I realized that this whole weekend I really didn't drop anything, not that I can remember anyway (I tend to notice it now, since I saw the pattern and all). This weekend was so relaxing and fun. Friday night I went to the movies with Ash, Saturday I went clothes shopping with my mom in Cranberry and had a nice lunch out, then a coffee, and she bought me two new Wii games (belated birthday present), and then went out dancing. Sunday I spent the whole day with Hernaldo, and then we went dancing with Tara last night again. Today was a pretty lazy day... I went to Robinson Mall, had a nice dinner, and played some Wii.

And then it was around 9pm or so that I started to notice. I was washing the dishes left from dinner and I did it again. I started dropping just-washed silverware all over the floor. I went to put a cooking spoon away and knocked over the canister. I went to the basement to get my clothes from the dryer and sent the little detergent measuring cups (there are 4) all over the place while trying to pick one up. And finally, when I went to pick up the shampoo in the shower just a bit ago, I sent it (along with the conditioner and the face wash) in a crash to the floor. And the only reason I can think of is that I'm back to work tomorrow.

Either I really do get unconsciously stressed out by work, or this is just turning into a mental thing. I'm not sure which is better. :)

It's midnigh and I wake up at 4:30... I should get to sleep. Yep, things are back to normal.

Praha Process

My visa paperwork was sent off on Monday.

From what I understand, it should take about 5 weeks to process/be accepted. After that, I have 30 days to get my game together and move on out. :)

Had a nice night out last night. After work I swung by the house to pick up Mom, we went to return a top I bought that I wore once but ripped for no reason at all, then went to a nice dinner at Longhorn, out for ice cream, and then home just in time for the season finale of Ugly Betty.

Today is a good day already, and I know this weekend will be great. So far today I woke up without a problem but had a very nice nap on the bus, I bought breakfast out (as I was running late) which really is a waste of money, but so good, AND they had Nantucket Nectars (orange mango!) which I haven't had since my high school days at the coffeeshop in Bridgewater. It's just as good as I remember.

Today there's nothing major going on at work. After work I'll see bus-friend, go home, possibly see a movie with Ash tonight. Tomorrow I'm going shopping during the day and out dancing at night, and then Monday is a HOLIDAY so Sunday could potentially be very fun as well. :)

Life is good, crazies. Life is good.

Our Nation's Capital

DC was awesome. I'll race through ths.

Tara and I somehow thought we'd leave Pittsburgh around noon. I got out of work around 11am, and the bus wasn't until 11:43am so I had a very quick bite with Chris. Got home around 12:30, went to the notary to get something done for my visa application, went home, finished up some last-minute packing, and by that time Tara had arrived.

Got in the car, drove to Cranberry, got my passport photos done, bought Twizzlers and Sour Patch Kids for the ride, picked up our rental car, I drove Tara's car back to her house, got her suitcase, went to Wal-mart, and THEN we got on the road. It was after 3pm by that time... we are so slow. :)

Stopped for a quick piece of pizza around 5pm, arrived at our hotel around 8pm. Found out that we were staying in the worst possible part of town. My mom used to live in DC when she was an early-twentysomething and told me that Uncle Martin told her she was NEVER go to into the part of town where we were. :) We walked to a bullet-proof liquor store where we stuck out like two very sore thumbs, went back to the room, made some cocktails and watched America's Funniest Home Videos, laughed like crazy, got ready, and set out for the club.

We asked at the front desk how we could get to Bravo Bravo (our favorite latin club). The girl said she'd call a cab. We said, no, we'll walk. She said, you can't walk, it's insanely far. We said, try us. So she pointed us on our way and we headed out. Got lost several times, eventually were in the neighborhood but couldn't find it, plus the blisters on our feet from our girly shoes were killing us, so we hopped in a cab that already had a guy in it. Rode for free to the club. Flirted with cute boys, danced until it was unbearable on our feet, got a ride back to the hotel in a tiny car (we're talking tiny - a little sports car - four of us in the back, me, Tara, and two boys, and two boys up front). Did not get mugged or killed by new friends. Slept the next day until noon, then napped again until 2pm. Got out the door around 3pm, went to find food, went to the mall.

Met (m)ex-boyfriend and his friends (also my friends) for dinner at a Salvadorian restaurant, then all went to the same club. Despite the pouring rain, boys did not let girls off at the door and then go park, rather we all had to run through the rain. Girly shoes + water caused me to slip as soon as we got in the club, luckily it was still empty since we arrived early. Had some drinks, danced lots. Again, danced lots. Took off shoes, got black feet from the dirty floors but did not care. Danced the last hour of the night with a salvadorian...girl. Tried to hook her up with Irving. He was not interested. Danced 500 bachatas with Irving, taught him how to dar vueltas en bachata. Left. Said goodbye to ex forever, wished each other the best. Fell asleep still completely dressed in going-out clothes.

Woke up around 8am and got into pajamas and went back to sleep for real. Woke up around 11am. Showered, packed, got ready, out the door at noon. Had a craving for Damon's (a favorite restaurant of ours). Knew we saw one somewhere on the way to DC, stomachs in pain from hunger but held out for this one particular restaurant. Ended up driving all the way back to Pittsburgh before finding this restaurant. Ate, took back rental car, arrived home.

The end. :)

Keep on keepin' on

I knew that I'd feel worlds better once the stress of all the things I had to do this week were over.

I had two big projects, and a huge time-consuming daily report to do while my manager is out of the office. Today I have two half-hour presentations which are a breeze and not at all scary, my two big projects are done. Today I'll spend the morning making that report, and the afternoon doing the actual work that I haven't gotten to do all week. And tomorrow - oh ho - TOMORROW I am going to DC. I could not be more excited, and Tara is feeling better from the allergies/sinus infection she got earlier this week, thank goodness.

The plan for Friday night is to go for thai food at a restaurant we love down there, have hotel party and get ready to go out, probably take a nap, then hit up Bravo Bravo (a salsa club we love). Saturday we'll go shopping (I hope, because shopping is better down there), see some friends and my ex (because we are still friends, and I want to say goodbye to all of them before the big move to Praha), go to dinner with them, maybe go to the zoo during the day, not sure.. then go to BRAVO BRAVO again. This is the tradition.

Also following tradition, we will not take a cab or bus but we will walk back to the hotel, and talk to literally every person we see in the street on the way back. This includes homeless people. On our last DC adventure, we made friends with these two homeless guys. Once had a really lovely voice, and his soul as he sang brought tears to Tara's eyes (we have pictures). He was really nice until the other one stole his CVS card, then he was really mad.

Anyway, in conclusion, DC is awesome. Look out Washington, here comes Double Trouble (a.k.a. Pinches Locas).

Corriendo

There's nothing much to update, but I hate to let this go too long without saying anything so here goes.


Work sucks this week. And it's only Tuesday. I'm not going to complain more than that because the fact is, I have a lot of really good weeks, so one bad one won't kill me.

I am going to DC this Friday, which will totally make up for all the other stress of this week. I love DC.

After all this time, I am finally enjoying my hour-long busride every day. Well, in the p.m. anyway.

Y aunque rompí su foto, su imagen sigue aquí... it still crosses my mind that this whole thing is just my way of running. Either way, I'm really happy, and I believe that's all that matters.

Cleveland

I haven't had a chance yet to write about the Cleveland trip! I swear all of the trips that Tara and I take are guided by fate, because we always end up at a place or meeting a person by some crazy stroke of luck.

We got on the road right around 6:30pm from Tara's house. We had a fun drive, listening to music and hanging out with "Mongolia" (some guy who we decided looked like he was from Mongolia who was driving behind us the whole way and kept passing all the same cars I did). We had a paper with a list of places and addresses that I had obtained by a Google search before leaving ("salsa clubs in Cleveland" was the search). We decided to GPS ourselves to those places to find a hotel for the night nearby so we could walk.

Well we ended up in the scariest, crummiest neighborhood I'd ever seen. The places we found either didn't exist at all or were scary bars with solid steel doors and no windows. Sure, there were a few latinos around the neighborhood, but this was no place we wanted to stay. And every place on the list that Google gave me was in this neighborhood.

Tara also did a Google search and remembered one name that wasn't on my list: Sunset Lounge. We called 411 to get the address and found it was in the very nice Warehouse District, along with a ton of other bars and restaurants. So we stopped the car, Tara ran out to talk to some random street guy about where we could find a hotel. He pointed us in a certain direction, and we found a Hampton Inn for only $99 for the night.

What's more, a very nice lady named Temperance was the one who checked us in. We parked (free!), went up to our room, got prettied up for dancing, and headed downstairs. Temperance was there, along with the valet guy, and another guy who was just leaving. They asked where we were headed, and we said we were going to go find dinner and then go dancing. Well as it happened, this guy who was just about to leave used to do tours of Cleveland and knew every corner of the city. He offered to give us a free ride over to where we wanted to go.

Not only was this a ride, but it was a tour of the entire area of the city. He told us about every restaurant, every club, every bar we passed. We finally said we were just looking for a cheaper restaurant, and that we wanted to salsa so we were going to go to Sunset Lounge. He took us to a corner with two restaurants: one called Waterstreet Grill, and another I can't remember, and said these were his favorite place in the area to eat.

We decided on Waterstreet Grill since it was way more chill, and wasn't dark with techno music pumping out of it (sorry Tiago). Our waiter was an adorable gay man who got insanely excited that we were going dancing. We mentioned Sunset Lounge and he said he heard it really sucked, but that a place nearby called Cadillac Ranch was AWESOMEOOSOMOSME OMGZ?!!!!!111?!11 (that's how excited he was). He said it had 9 bars and a ton of separate rooms, lots of cute single (straight) guys, etc. So we figured we'd go there, since he told us Sunset was such a bust. Another waiter passing by even texted his friend who worked at Cadillac Ranch and said that he could hook us up with a lot of free drinks.

So off we went with the intention of going to this new place in the direction that they sent us. We saw Sunset Lounge, but then we passed this other building. Alas, a shady building with solid metal doors and no windows. Tara and I stopped dead in our tracks. What was that sound pumping out of the walls? It was SALSA. The place was called Club Shadows. We looked at each other and immediately raced to the door where we found the bouncer. "Is this place awesome?"
"Yeah it gets pretty packed."
"Big latino crowd?"
"Yeah, all latinos."
"And they play latin music all night?"
"Oh yeah."

In we went. Only a $5 cover, and $4 Bacardi&Cokes. Nobody was dancing yet, so we took the floor ourselves and danced with each other. :) Some creeper kept staring, but I ignored him. We spent the night talking to random people, dancing like crazy, and just having a general blast. Creeper kept following, and finally when we were seated at the very back bar, he came to talk. I angrily asked him in Spanish what he wanted, and he said, "I don't understand you, I'm sorry." My immediate thought was, okay, my Spanish is not as good as I thought it was. :) So I asked him more clearly what he wanted.
"I don't understand."
"Oh, so you don't speak Spanish." This was more of an accusation because I was convinced he was lying.
"No."
"Where are you from then?"
"Iraq."
Then my tough vibes melted and I gave him a hug. "Awww... I'm Arab, too."
Switch to (limited) Arabic: we chatted a bit. Turns out he was still a creeper. So that was that. Admittedly it does make me happy that someone in a sea of latinos who all thought I was Puerto Rican actually followed me around all night because he knew from my face that I was Arab.

Seriously, 5 or 6 people flat out asked me, "Are you Puerto Rican?" One even asked where in Puerto Rico I was from without even asking if I was from there at all.

At the end of the night we ended up outside the club. Tara was upset over her boyfriend and was tipsily crying to some random venezolano, and his very white friend started talking to me. The guy was speaking Spanish and didn't sound at all gringo, so I figured he was just a fluke (like a blonde-haired blue-eyed Arab). He asked in Spanish, "So, you're Puerto Rican?"
"I'm just curious, but why do you think I'm Puerto Rican? So many people have asked me that tonight."
"Because you have a Puerto Rican accent in Spanish." (Sorry boricuas, but I really don't know if I can take that as a compliment).
"Well, I am not Puerto Rican. In fact I am not latina at all."
"So what are you?"
"Palestinian."
His face lit up and he started speaking to me in Arabic! Granted it was standard Arabic (which I have trouble understanding) and not at all colloquial, but I kept up for a little while.

As it turned out.. his dad was from Israel. And he was a half-Israeli with a thing for Palestinian girls. Go figure.

Anyway we left and had a fun walk home. We played pranks on some guys at a bus stop (we really should be dead by now by all statistics - the people we talk to on the street never look safe). They were cool though and we ended up sitting around there for a while talking to the street people. Two of them even walked us to our hotel (one was just a creepy who was following, but the one was actually being nice and just didn't want us walking alone; he didn't try to come up or anything creepy like that).

We had the best sleep of our lives. Next day (Sunday) we watched a few episodes of Golden Girls and then got on the drive back to the 'Burgh. The drive was uneventful.

That night we went to salsa night (again) and had a blast. Well, I did.. Tara was still having a rough time. I was off Monday and spent the day shopping and bumming around, and not doing anything productive. :) It felt grrrreat.

And here we are on Friday. I need to do some work this weekend because it's backing up. Since our new release, work is non-stop, so there's no time for my own projects, etc. Hopefully I can put in a solid 5 hour block or so this weekend and just get everything done. We shall see. My brother's home so I'm not counting on it too hard.

Hugs to Praha. :)

Aventuras - Part 1

This past weekend was freaking awesome. It was how every weekend should be before I make my big move.

Friday night I hung out with Ash. We did some running around, had dinner, saw a movie, and then I hung out with Tara for some Wii. We watched a movie, but my having gotten up that day around 4:45am caused me to fall asleep about 10 minutes into it. It was okay because I saw it before.

Saturday I got a call from Tara around 9:15am or so, I had woken up about 10 minutes before that and was still lying in bed. "Dude, we should go see a psychic today."
"I'm down."
"Awesome, I'll call the place."
"Hey, you know what else we should do? Go to Living Treasures Animal Park."
"I'm soooo in."

We went to lunch, and it was there at the pizza buffet that I believe the fate or the guiding light or the guiding force or whatever you want to call it kicked in. We totally ran into Micol Rankin, a guy from high school who we still reminisce about because he was seriously the funniest guy we ever met. As it turns out, he was just here visiting his family and was leaving back to Atlanta the next day. We caught up briefly and he made us laugh all over again. Micol, if you ever see this, it was awesome to see you!

After that we went to the psychic. Now, Tara and I had this little idea before, except we went to someone else. The lady we went to the first time was really nice, had a little dog who played with us the whole time, and let us go in together and hear the other's reading. More importantly, the stuff she knew/said was crazy true! She was a little off on the timeline, but she asked me out of nowhere if I was bilingual, and told me I'd be making a huge move to somewhere unexpected, and some other stuff about money that I won't go into here but let me just say, it was all totally accurate!

We should have gone to her. But instead, we went to this one. This one was in a creepy shack that looked like a living room on the inside. She didn't let us sit together, rather she took us each into a little office separately. To sum up my reading, I am incredibly bored with my life and don't like my job, I find my job to be stifling and wish that I could find something with more exciting opportunities (um, yeah, a promotion and a move to Europe is sooo boring, gee I wish life could be more exciting). Then she said that my inner crystal was shattered beyond repair, and that due to this, I will never find true love since I am like a broken bottle that cannot be filled. I *might* get married when I'm in my late 30s, but the marriage will be doomed to fail and I'll never be happy after that. Apparently someone broke my heart so completely that I'm now tainted and can never love again (I was unaware of this fact, as all I've ever had were normal breakups, almost always ending on friendly terms). Wow, sounds gloomy, right?

Lucky for me, she can fix my crystal for a mere $300.

Tara's reading was equally bullshit. The whole thing lasted around 10 minutes and she didn't tell me one solid piece of information.

It was okay, because after that we went to LIVING TREASURES ANIMAL PARK. For you Prahans, this is a makeshift zoo that has about 1/3 the animals. The most exciting animal they have there is a tiger, which I admit is pretty freaking cool, and the rest of the animals are things like goats, sheep, donkeys, llamas, and chickens. Oh and there is a porcupine, and a couple of monkeys. The best part is, you can buy a bucket of feed or a bag of carrots (or in the case of Tara and me, two of each:), and feed the animals from your hand. I totally made best friends with the llamas.

From Living Treasures - Cleveland

After that.. we decided to go to Cleveland.