Marcus’ Visit:

Marcus arrived to BCN at exactly the time he emailed Kate, 5:15 sharp. He waits and waits. Meanwhile, Kate and I are sitting at the flat discussing how Marcus’ plane should be touching down at 5:45 (the time Kate told me he’d be here) and she can leave the house late because the flights are never on time. The phone rings…its Marcus! “Kate where are you I’ve been waiting for almost 2 hours?” It’s always the same story!
I was working at the pub crawl and was standing on a really busy street when I see the two fools walking down the street holding McDonalds cups! Marcus had McD’s every single day safter he got off that plane from Albania. Oh yeah, for those of you who don’t know Marcus he is the guy from Texas I went to the Marine Ball with in Albania. Anyways, he’s almost done with his job in Albania and this week he’ll find out where they are shipping him off to next. He had 2 weeks of vacation so he decided to come to BCN and see the sights. We’re so lucky!
Since Marcus has been here Kate and I have gone out every single bloody night! My liver is about to pack up and move the Hell out! So, the first night I was “working” and decided that Kate and I should eat (while I was on the clock mind you) at this cool place and drink a few beers. I went back to work and met back up with the crew at the flat. We had beers and called it a night. Sunday we took Marcus sightseeing and ended up at Flaherty’s Irish Pub (where Martin our flatmate works) and had some beers. Monday Kate and I worked all day and Marcus got lost in BCN and then we had dinner. During dinner Antoine came home (yeah he’s living with us during the week) and we Mid-West chics schooled the boys on how to play Powerhour. Of course, I had to be different and play with white wine…so it got a lil outta control! This is where we learned that the face Marcus makes when he’s drunk is called the Popeye. He also has a slew of catch phrases that he swears King Jenkins himself came up with. Here are some examples of things that come out of this fools mouth: Good morning black people, I got girls to call me king Jenks, The Beatles who?, Sounds like that white guy Elvis, Black who?(we were talking about black licorice) , and on and on. Marcus could be one of the funniest people I’ve ever met. Tuesday we went to a salsa bar and Marcus learned how to Salsa. I had to go home early because I have class super early on Wednesdays but was awoken to Marcus and Kate showing me that they knew the dance “perfectly” and then forgetting how to do it! Wednesday we met Marcus at Flaherty’s (he had been there since 2pm) and watch some futbol and played pool with some French guys. The one guy kept talking to me and asking questions about the states and then he asked how old I was and when I replied that I was 25 he said oh 25 is my favorite age! Ha. So, I asked how old he was and you know he was 18! Anyways, we had a good night until one of the girls we sort of hang out with decided to make some rude comments about the USA and I wasn’t in the mood so we bounced. I’m pretty sure I made it quite evident I was pissed because the next time I saw her she apologized for like 10 minutes. Thursday we drank at the house and introduced Marcus to a new favorite of ours called the Kalamotxo (coke and red wine). Next, I went to work and Kate and Marcus went to a going away party for one of our Canadian friends at a tapas bar. I met up with Martin and we went to Travel Bar port where Antoine was working one last time to get free food and booze. Martin was playing the piano that has no sound and Antoine was cooking us up some rice dish with seafood and cheese when Marcus and Kate arrived. We all ate and drank and started taking ridiculous photos (you can view on facebook). As I said above, Marcus has a drunk-face called the Popeye that we all tried many times to master. Kate has it down with some improvements of her own (we all know her face can do some magically strange things) but I still need to work on it! This is where the night got interesting. After TBPort we went to the nightclub on Ramblas called Felini. All the other TEFL people met us there and I got to party with Shawn one last time before he shipped out the following day. We ended up at Apolo in our hood to top off the night where there were dancing girls on stage and live rappers. All in all it was an amazing night. Friday, Hell I can’t remember because our bum who always sings and pees on our door just caused a commotion outside and Kate armed us with water ballons and we launched them at his peeing ass! I swear this guy wakes up drunk! He’s about (let me ask Kate what she thinks…she says hmmm he’s pretty old maybe late 40’s 50’s) 50’s I think and he walks up and down the streets calling everyone names and screaming cusswords and singing the only song he can remember the words to Sevilla Sevilla (those are the only words). I can’t believe people like this guy can live so long, maybe I do have a fighting chance! Back to Marcus, I believe we went to Park Guell on Friday where King Marcus got to sit on his stone throne and we saw a man dressed in a proper Flamenco get-up (dress, make-up and all). Later that night, we went to dinner at a REAL Catalan restaurant in Gracia and ate a really great meal. It was funny because Marcus said all he cared about was eating meat so he ordered pork as usual, I ordered a Catalan specialty with black beans and sausage, and Kate got steak. After dinner, we went to a welcome home party for Kevin (the teacher who hated us and now loves us) and ended up clubbing at Otto Zutz. Saturday we went to Sitges and laid out all day and then went out for Martin’s 28th birthday party. I was at work when this Canadian chic came up to me and asked if the pubcrawl was going to be cool or not and I had just found out that we were letting people in for less money (so it was gonna suck) so I told her the truth. She explained that she was here in BCN by herself and wanted to go out but didn’t know what to do so I invited her to come out with me. As Christine and I were walking to Malpaso so I could get paid another Canadian walked up and asked about the crawl and we invited Mike to come along also. I met up with the crew (Martin & his boys from Prague, Marcus, the Brits, Kate, and the new Canadian friends) and we all went on a pub crawl of our own. After a couple of bars Roger called me and asked me where we were. We were standing in plaza Reial so I told him where we were and he was like “look up.” Roger was also in Plaza Reial at a luxury flat at the top of the plaza waving down at us! We ended going to the apartment that was a friend of a friend of someone’s mother that Nani and Roger knew. Anyways, the flat was amazing with a huge terrace and the best view in BCN and the people having the party urged us to eat all the remaining food and drink the booze so they didn’t go to waste. Needless to say everything was gone when we left. My life is made up of random events that somehow come together. This story is a perfect example! Mike and Christine probably had some amazing stories to tell their friends back in Canada because after you meet me life’s never quite the same. Okay, back to Marcus. Sunday I was like no more so we chilled out and Marcus went out with his new friend Mike to a club where they met some chics and Marcus didn’t come home until 4pm on Monday! He has now broken John’s record and I’m going to bet no one will be able to top that! (Top that Top that…Teen Witch) The next week is a blur and I can’t seem to remember what we did except the important days like on Thursday when we went to IceBar BCN. IceBar is a new bar that is on the beach and everything is made of ice. Marcus is from Texas so his ass almost froze to death, but we had a great time and got some really cool pictures. (check em out on facebook or webshots) Friday Marcus left and we went to a goodbye party for yet another fallen TEFL teacher/student, Terri. We’ll miss you Terri!

Charleston, South Carolina

We're here ya'll!

 It took about 10 hours, a truck, a uhaul, and my car...but we got here. Josh Johnson was nice enough to let us crash in Aiken while we looked for a place to live. Aiken was a cute lil town with lots of old horse money. Josh called it the Lexington of the south. After Patrick and I left all our belongs in Aiken we headed to Charleston to house hunt. People think we're crazy and maybe they are right. We no not one single person in Charleston, have no clue what the job scene is, and really don't know if the south is the right place for us...but oh well here goes nothing! We hunted for a day and stopped in at a local bar and grill and asked the waitress about where to live. Mount Pleasant is where we accidentally ended up while we were searching for downtown.  Umm where is downtown?  The nice waitress said that we should look at her apartment complex and gave us a name of a few others.  Within the next few hours we'd signed a lease and were on our way back to tell Josh the good news.  We were officially living in South Carolina!

Who knows what the future holds, but I bet it's going to be great.  Now should I buy a Gamecocks t-shirt just because...that's the question!?!?!

The Wedding x2

Image By Ola Hopper. I have to blog about our weddings. Most people can't believe that I actually had one wedding, but two is just nuts. The Barcelona blog is featured on Gourmet Bay Catering's site as well: Patrick and I decided to hop on a plane with 36 of our closest friends and family and get married in Spain! Of course the 1st thing we talked about was our vision, secondly our budget and expectations, and finally our wants and wishes. After we had a handle on the things most important to us like the food (of course), a great location for the wedding and reception, and close proximity to the city center in Barcelona we started looking for help. I Googled wedding planners in Barcelona and found a few, made some calls, and decided on Marry Me in Spain. Destination brides are Carole’s specialty. We filled out a wedding questionnaire, sent a few emails about what we as a couple cared about and then we were on our way through wedding planning 101. To us having a great place near the sea, being surrounded by all things Spanish, and having an amazing dinner menu was on the top of our want list. We explained to Carole that things like flowers and all the extras that we may have had in the states didn’t really matter to us and to not include them in our budget. Carole sent us around 15 different places she thought would be great to host the reception. The first few were beautiful but a bit modern for our tastes and not Spanish enough. By the end she had chosen the most spectacular restaurant that we quickly booked for our dinner and tapas. Carole listened to what Pat and I had envisioned and found the most perfect place for our friends and family to celebrate our nuptials. Décor was next on the list. As I said we weren’t overly worried about flowers and décor because the places we had chosen to book were so beautiful that they didn’t need much. I decided I wanted an all-white bridal bouquet which my friend, Anna, made for me. Carole brought all white flower petals to make the aisle for me and my father to walk down and Anna made the rest of the boutonnières. When we were discussing budget we decided to go to a local flower shop in Spain and purchase the flowers the day before and bought a few white candles to top off the décor. I would say my style was simple and inexpensive, but if you look at the photos you would never guess. Figuring out what was most important helped us weed out all the unnecessary extras. Another person I needed to find was the officiant that would be marrying us. Carole had a favorite person in mind and we booked Xavier. He was very well spoken and funny and made the wedding ceremony very memorial. Asking your planner to provide local vendors that they have relationships with will save you a lot of time. I also booked a wedding photographer named Ola who I found online. I searched the small town that we were staying in and her name was on the top of the list. After looking at her blog and website I knew I had to have her. To me photographs were a very important part of the wedding and I was willing to spend more of our budget on them. Ola was amazing to work with and her photographs are works of art. We have so many photos that it will take years to print them all, but I will say that doing your homework will pay off in the end when looking for a photographer. Luckily for us we didn’t have to do “wedding tastings” and decide on a caterer because we booked a restaurant. They sent us a few menus; we choose one and altered it a bit and then we had 14 different tapas, paella for dinner, and an amazing chocolate and butterscotch plate for dessert. The caterers listened to the requests we made for our pickier eaters, had some food set aside for our seafood allergy, and served one of the best meals I’ve ever eaten. Letting your cater know what you love to eat, things that are must-haves for your menu, and any allergies or dietary requests can ensure that everyone will enjoy the meal served at your wedding. All in all our wedding was a success because we chose to have the local professionals take care of everything we needed. I couldn’t have pulled off a wedding across the world without my amazing wedding planner, talented photographer, and all my friends and family who helped out. As you can see I was catering to our "wedding" readers for this blog.

Here is the other blog featured on Gourmet Bay Catering's site: Add a Bit of Love Weddings can be the perfect place to show off your creative side while including items that are personal to your family and friends. This year my mother and father threw Patrick and I a wedding in Indiana that we will never forget. The ceremony was in our family church with beautiful stained glass windows, ornate candelabras, and our family and friends surrounding us. After the ceremony our photographer, a friend of mine from high school, got some fun shots outdoors and off we went to the reception. Our family and friends set up a blue and yellow rustic themed reception for us earlier that day. The décor was so creative with mason jars and yellow and white flowers, blue table cloths, personalized wine bottles with our photos, and wine bottle candle holders. A childhood friend of mine made a huge banner that read “Friends & Family” that hung over a huge fireplace. Below the banner my brother and uncle hung twine and clothespins for a photo wall. My mother asked everyone to bring a photo of them with Patrick or myself to hang on the wall. This was such a personal touch that added color and interest to the décor, but also meant a lot to us. After the wedding we got to keep the photos and make our own scrapbook of all the memories we’ve had with our guests through the years. My parents took an old barrel and took the wooden planks apart to make rustic signs using twine, chalkboard paint, and chalk. They also used the wooden barrel lid to make a sign with flowers for the front door of the cabin. We had a surprise when we saw that Pat’s mother and my mother had taken the metal rings or barrel hoops to hang old baby photos from. These small details really made the room feel like it was set up for us and it looked amazing. Using simple décor with personal touches can make your big day truly one of a kind. The Indiana wedding was especially special to me because it was thrown by my partents and grandma Lulu and other family and friends. I got to have my amazing little brother, Danny, in the wedding as well as my best friend Bob and my new sister in law Caitlin. My readers were childhood friends Sara and Jamie. I was tired of thinking about weddings before we got to IN, but after we were there and I got to see everyone all the stress melted away. I had the time of my life surrounded by the people I love most. Really both weddings were a dream come true. I think for not being the typical woman to "plan" my wedding since birth I did alright!