A Year in Review

Well it's New Year's Eve Eve and I can't believe that we're about to enter 2010!! I know everyone says this and I probably say it every year, but I can't believe how fast this year went by!!

Let's recap, shall we?

January -I rang in the New Year in Broadripple with the Indy and Chicago girls as the tradition goes. Then took a quick trip to LA to visit my cousin Selen and friend Kathryn. Then it was off to Turkey for 3 weeks for work!! I got to see lots of family as well as show Americans around Istanbul for the first time!February-I was still in Turkey for most of it but then came back and headed to Wisconsin with some of the Chicago girls to visit Kylie! I still had ants in my pants so then I headed down south to Dallas to visit Nicole and Brigid!March-Wedding Season 2009 began and I hit up my first wedding of the year with Tyler. I also made a trip to Chicago for St. Patrick's Day! The trip was so fun that I decided to keep on celebrating St. Patrick's Day for about another week.
April-I accepted a job in INDY and went down for some training. I also got to see Flight of the Conchords and Demetri Martin perform! And all the going away celebrations began...
May-Wedding Season continues--Congrats to Titus and Trey!! I officially moved to Indy and had my mom as a roommate for 2 weeks. Apartment searching galore. And a quick trip to Chicago for Memorial Day weekend was squeezed in for some good Mother-Daughter-Sister bonding time!
June-We officially moved into our new apartment in Broadripple...it takes me almost the entire month to unpack . Third Annual Monticello Lake House trip. I turn the big 2-5 with yet another week long celebration!July-I celebrate my first 4th of July in the U.S. in several years. It rains and I have to watch all the fireworks on TV. I miss airplane rides so I head to Turkey for two weeks and Stacey becomes the first friend to ever travel to Turkey with me! I also get to watch my cousin Hakan get married and welcome my new cousin-in-law Canan to the family!
August-I start off the month with great tickets, a great band, and great friends (the almost Roski's at that point) at the DMB concert! Then it's up north for Holly's shower and then even farther north for a trip back to Midland to visit friends! Then the next weekend it was back to Wisconsin to visit Kylie!! Kylie was one of the 3 Kappas who made a trip to Midland while I was there and I am forever greatful! And then I wrapped up the month at Purdue for Lynnie G and Todd's wedding!!September-We celebrated Labor Day weekend and having people in town with a rough night out in Broadripple! Wedding season continued in September as we watched Julie and Michael get married in Chicago! I went to the State Fair for the first time and Stef and I went to the Jason Mraz concert! Then Kyle came down and we watched Katie and Justin become "The Roski's!!" Work was a little crazy this month so I actually stayed in town and finally managed to hang some stuff on the walls of my room.
October-Damla and J.B. came to town to play!! Then the next weekend I went up to Chicago to visit them and go to a wedding with Derek! After that Gina and I took a trip to STL and got to see Laurent while we were there! Stef and I went to go hang out with some hippies and went to the Michael Franti and Spearhead concert. Then Damla and I took off for our 3rd Annual Sister Trip --this time we went to Spain to visit Selen!!November-I got super into sports this month and went to the Purdue vs. MSU game (which ended up being a mini-pledge class reunion). Then I watched the Colts beat the Patriots!! And we went to a Pacer's game (thanks to Pacer's Kevin) and then visited Ben at IU all the while enjoying Purdue getting their bucket back! I wrapped up the month with a small but hilarous Thanksgiving weekend with the fam!!
December-Since moving here I've made some great new friends (the boys of 6461) and we celebrated the holiday season with some tacky Christmas! Then we started enjoying people coming home for the holidays and seeing all the familiar faces out at the bars. We had a mini-cousin's reunion at Chirstmas which was so nice and I dont' know when we'll get to do again! And I got to hear all the wonderful things people had to say about my uncle who retired after 29 years of teaching.
I have to say 2009 treated me very well!! I am so thankful for all the blessings I have had. I have a wonderful and loving family, great friends, fabulous roommates, safe and happy travels, a great job, and I'm healthy!! I wish you all a happy New Year! Cheeers to an even better 2010!!

Who knew I was a sports nut?

And by sports nut, I mean, really good at tailgating.

Over the past few weeks I seem to have attended a lot of sporting events. First off we went to the Purdue vs MSU game at Purdue. Kylie and the Chicago girls came down, a few of us Indy girls went up and Natalie even flew in all the way from Texas!

Kamm and I woke up at 5 am to shower and head to the Kamm family tailgate. Her family doesn't mess around when it comes to tailgating. But it's worth it. They have the most delicious food on all of Slater Hill. Slowly the rest of the crew trickeled into town and by 11 am we were in full swing.Once the game started we headed to Harry's (because Kamm was only one with a ticket). But no trip across campus with out a visit to good old KKG. We went through and oooh and ahhhh about how much things have changed. I was so disappointed to see they took down all the decorations Colleen and I spent so much putting up in the annex. And they even moved her dresser out of the bathroom. The good news was that some of my files were still in the file room and it just goes to show I might be the only Kappa who ever minored in Management Information Systems. Don't worry, they're great files b/c I rocked that minor.
We FINALLY made it to Harry's where we ran into some Sigma Chis who were out of have a good time like were were. After reminiscing about our glory days, we decided that we're never too old to pretend we're still in college so we headed over to Sigma Chi for some Hippie Camp. It was like nothing changed. Except for this time Eddie had a bucket of gum in his trunk...and they moved the girl's bathroom.
Hippie camp?! Free gum?! 70 degree weather when tailgating in November?! You're probably thinking nothing could make this day any better...you'd be wrong. Because guess who else came to play? ROSKI!! And his friend Ross. I think Roski forgot to warn Ross how fun my friends are...or how Kyle once put it "Act like no one else can see us". :)
Once we decided we'd left our mark on Sigma Chi we headed back to Harry's to refuel and keep the party going. We eventually headed across the street to the sweaty dance floor at Where Else until we finally decided at 2 am that we could go home. So, doing as we do, we made a quick stop at Hot Box and proceeded to convince a cab driver that taking the 5 of us who were still standing would be way more rewarding then picking up whoever they were really sent to get.While Sunday is normally my day to veg out, the next day was no regular Sunday. Roski invited me to go to the Colts vs. Patriots game!! WOO WOO!! This was my first game in Lucas Oil and I LOVED IT!! The atmosphere is SO fun and this was an especially good game that put the Colts at 9-0!! We didn't get home until almost 2 in the morning but it was worth it. I'm thinking I need to get on this waiting list for season tickets.Then this past Friday, we decided to keep cheering on Indiana sports teams and went to the Pacer's game! Now, I haven't been to a Pacer's game in so long that I thought I'd never been in Conseco (but later decided I had). We had a good crew that night and decided to continue the fun after the game in The Beech. I'd have to say good times were had by all...except for when I had to eat whiskey soaked M&Ms...those made my eyes water.
Saturday we woke up and headed down to IU for the IU/Purdue game!! We went to Ben's and woke him up and started our day! Patrick rode down with Stef and I and decided to include us on his adventures. We walked all around the stadium, had some incidents with the port-a-pottys, made lots of negative friends with IU people, took some pictures, managed not to fall in the mudd, found some more friends, utilized our sweet tall boy coozies, refueld at Chipotle, walked in about 18 large circles around our Porsche friend, and made it home to sleep on our designated couch cushions...except for Patrick...he slept in the car. I'd give it two thumbs up. Though I don't think those were the fingers Ben was putting up when Stef and I woke him up at 8 in the morning with our giggling in the living room!! :)

Just call me Dora

Today was our second day in Valencia so we decided to take advantage of the nice weather and go to the beach! We got up, put on our swimsuits and headed out to catch the train. When we got to the lobby we realized that the weather was super cloudy...something we probably could have noticed from our room had one of us actually looked outside. But we decided to check out the beach anyway so we continued on our mission. Valencias metro system is not that amazing and there is no quick way down to the beach. Thankfully we weren't missing any killer sun time. The shore actually had several restaurants to choose from. We found one that looked appealing and decided it must be good because there was a nun eating there too. During our meal, the clouds started to clear away and the sun came out. I took most of the credit because I had been saying that the whole time!

We hit the beach and layer out for s few hours. I don't know that we actually got any color but the sand was soft and the sun was warm so I wasn't complaining. After we had enough beach time we wandered around until we decided it was time to head back.

During some of our wandering we stumbled across some Turkish kebab restaurants which are actually pretty plentiful in Spain. We thought it was pretty funny that there was one called Ankara and one called Istanbul that were side by side. We had planned on going there for dinner but as we walked by the delicious food in our hotel restaurant we decided to eat there instead. Well...maybe it was for the food...maybe it was for the cute waiter we wanted to befriend.

Valencia is a pretty small city so you can get from one side of it to the other pretty easily...if you know how to read a Spanish map which I've determined is different from any other map I've seen.