Pictures from Spain and France

At last here are a few pictures from my adventures in Spain and France. I'm not adding much commentary or else this post would be days long! So, you'll just have to deal with the little captions on the pictures. Enjoy!

SPAIN

FRANCE

A hot new look

I just quickly wanted to post the HOT new look that Rob Pattinson is sporting now. I know a bunch of girls were obsessed about his long hair, but OMG!! This new look has me swooning even more than I was before. Good move Rob!

Science Saturday Night

Wow - I really need to stop posting! Three posts in three days...out of hand. But I had to share this with everyone. Tonight I discovered that I was magic (and a dork...but I guess I already knew that). Anyway...here's a video about what I discovered. Enjoy!

Good News!!

I found an apartment!! I'm SOOOO excited about this place! I wasn't able to sleep at all last night because I was so excited about it and also a little worried that someone would swoop in and take it out from under me. But I talked with the landlord today and he ran my credit check and then tonight he sent over the lease!!! I'm paying a security deposit tomorrow to hold my spot while I'm in Utah for Christmas and then when I get back I'll turn in the signed lease and get my keys!! It's a really great and pretty spacious (by NYC standards). I'll be living in a different neighborhood, but I like the area I'm moving to. Anyway...I just wanted to share this good news with everyone mainly because I'm super excited!!

Ummm...yeah....

Last post I was so excited about not having to move...well...joke was on me! I'm now moving out of my apartment. I found out on Tuesday and I need to be out of my place by Jan. 28. I wouldn't be worried, but I leave on Sunday for Utah and will be gone until Jan. 6! And then to add to all of that, I have training for work in DC the whole week of Jan. 12. So...I've started looking for a new apartment.

One thing that is nice about living in NYC is that the church has a website for LDS singles looking for apartments. So obviously I hit up the site and searched for anything promising - nothing!!! Ok...so really there is a lot available right now, just nothing I'm interested in. I'm being picky about where I live (the Upper East Side below 96th street) but I feel like I'm entitled to that much. I love my ward and friends and I don't want to move away from them.

Anyway...so I don't bore you with lots of little stupid details...I decided to look for my own place! That's right - you heard it here first. I'm going to be living on my own!!! I have a few reservations about living on my own. I'm such a home-body that I can see me becoming a recluse and losing any contact with the outside world. I also kind of feel like I'm throwing in the towel. Am I admitting defeat in finding a husband by getting my own place? (many of you might not get how I could feel that way...but I'm sure someone out there understands where I'm coming from)

And then there's Mom's worry - what if I die...no one would know if I didn't come home for a few days. Or I could be rotting away in my apt all by myself and no one would know until the stench got so bad that my neighbors called the super to come investigate. Then they would say - I have never even seen her before...she keeps all to herself and rarely comes out. She orders food in and so all we ever see is the delivery man. OK - I think I've been watching a little too much CSI - but this is a serious concern. I'm not letting Mom think that I am even worried about this possibility since she's already freaking out at the idea of my being on my own in NYC...so shhhh!!

But I'm also looking forward to having my own place. I will never have to worry about hogging the TV or the bathroom. I can take total control of the decorations and make it look super cute (this is what I'm most excited for right now). And I can also get a kitten!!! Jo and I have been wanting a cat for so long, and if I get my own place we can finally have one (I say we because Jo is going to be over at my place all the time - I've already made her promise). Also - I love my alone time. I've always loved it when my family were all gone and I had the house to myself or when I came home and all my roommates where away. Oh my goodness...I really am a recluse!!

Anyway...I'm off to go look at some apartments before I go into work today (which will put me coming into the office around 2:30). Wish me luck!! I sure hope I find a place that I love. I'm going to miss my current apartment and all its luxury...but I'm ready for this new adventure!

To Move AND Not to Move

So today's been a pretty big day for me already and it's still early. But in order for you to be able to understand why, I must take you back...

For the past 15 months that I've worked at PwC, my "desk" has honestly been a windowsill. Now you may be thinking what's so bad about that...I've got a seat with a view, neighbors close by to talk with, and it's much better than being shoved in a conference room with 6 other people. But, while all of that's true, it was VERY welcome news to find out that I have finally been assigned a real cubicle! I got the news last week, but honestly, I didn't want to get my hopes up until I was actually sitting at my new place. And guess what - today was the day of the big move! I have now settled into my new desk and must say that I'm liking it.
I know that it's still pretty boring - no pictures or any hint that I have any sort of personality - but give me time. I'm sure within a few weeks/months/years (yeah right) it'll start looking more Kristyfied. But for now, I'm enjoying the extra space. Here are the top 5 things I like about my new desk:

1- More space for all of my crap (client files, tax returns, etc.)
2- Walls to block out my neighbors' annoying habits (loud eating, nail biting, constant playing with their hair, etc.)
3- No longer have to listen to Lisa's (aka Hyena) 20 different laughs (all as annoying as the others), her constant talking on the phone, or basically just her (it sounds like I'm being rude - but trust me...you would want to get as far away from her as possible too)
4- Drawers! (no - I did not have any sort of drawers at the windowsill and now I have 4!!)
5- Privacy - everyone was CONSTANTLY walking behind my computer at the windowsill so I felt guilty watching TV shows online, reading blogs, playing solitaire, etc. But now, hardly anyone walks behind me, so I can slack off all I want :)

Well...my move was not the only reason to write this blog (as you probably guessed from the AND in my title). Other big news in my life...I'm NOT moving out of my apartment!!! Again, you may be asking what the big deal about this is, but for the past 2 months, I have been on pins and needles wondering if I would suddenly be kicked out of my apartment.

My apartment is for 4 people, and lately there have only been 2 of us living there. Kimmy moved home to Utah (sadface!) and Jamie got married (congrats!) so they have been trying to get someone to move into their room since the end of October. Since the economy kind of stinks right now (surprise!) it's been a struggle. So we also put the entire apartment up for sale to see if our management company could do better.

However, today I learned the good news that I am getting a new roommate which means that I will not be leaving my luxurious apartment (at least any time soon). I've met my new roommate once and she seems super sweet! Her name is Eden and I'm excited to get to know her. She's not LDS which is going to be a little different for me, but I think that it'll be good. I'll keep you posted as to how the new roommate situation is.

So today - I both moved and did not move. Kind of ironic :)

Boredom

For two weeks, I was constantly on the go visiting one amazing site after another. Now that I have returned to NYC, however, life has taken a different turn. It doesn't help that December is a very slow month for tax accountants in the hedge fund industry. We are in between our busy seasons and there isn't much for us to do. So all week, I've been trying to fill those 8 hours at work by reading blogs (thank you everyone for your great blogs), writing on my blog (sorry for so many posts lately), playing Solitaire, and watching TV online. Needless to say, the past week at work has dragged on.

But at night I have tried my hardest to fill my hours. On Monday I saw Twilight, Tuesday I went to All My Sons (staring Katie Holmes and John Lithgow), Wednesday I caught up on all the TV I missed while I was away, Thursday I saw White Christmas (the Broadway show), and last night I saw Twilight again! But now it's Saturday night and I've spent the day baking cookies and hanging out with Jo. But Jo had plans for tonight and I wasn't in the mood to go out with other friends. But then...I got bored.

I've learned that I shouldn't get bored because that is when I get impulsive. Sometimes I bake, sometimes I buy too much music on iTunes, other times I go shopping online. I don't always act on my impulsiveness, but tonight I did. I decided that it was high time that I made yet another change in my appearance (remember a while back when I mentioned my addiction to changing my hair?). But I didn't want to cut my hair...I'm trying my hardest to grow it out...so I stopped by Duane Reade to buy some hair color.

My roommate Kristin wasn't home when I got back, so I went straight to the bathroom and got to work. I covered my entire head with the dye (which didn't take too long since my hair is still quite short), spent 12 minutes dancing around my apartment to Christmas music, then hopped in the shower to wash my hair. When I got out of the shower I was a new person! I went into the shower with brown hair and came out with BLACK! Yes black.

I've had black hair before, but that was when my hair was long and I didn't have bangs. I wasn't sure how black hair would look with my current cut, but I must say that I actually quite like it. However, I'm going to let you decide for yourself. Here is a before and after picture (I apologize for lack of makeup in the after picture - hence the shine. I wasn't about to put on make up just to stay in for the night):

One more thing to be thankful for...

OK...so still no pictures to post yet. But I promise that they will be coming. I just had to write about one more thing that I am thankful for in my life that I didn't even know existed a few days ago. But in order to make you understand why I'm so thankful, I must take you back about 2 weeks to when I was in Seville, Spain...

Stacy and I had already been to Barcelona and Madrid and I had taken approximately 500 pictures. I was in need of a new memory card because I knew that I would be taking A LOT of pictures in Paris, but I was holding out until my memory card was completely full. Anyway...it was the first day in Seville and I took out my camera to take a picture of something (what I don't remember...but that's not important) and a message came up on my screen saying "Format memory card." I told the camera "heck no!" and turned it off faster than I could say "adios".

Needless to say, we went straight to a camera shop to get a new memory card. The man in there was super sweet and had me check to make sure the card worked in my camera before I bought it (I love Spain!). Well...long story short ("too late" - thank you Clue)...the new memory card worked and so now I had 2 whole GB for the remaining portion of my trip.

Fast forward to Sunday night...setting: my bedroom in NYC...time: late.

I'm talking with Mom on the phone and telling her about my horrendous flight back from Barcelona when it occurs to me that I should look at my pictures. I stick in my first memory card (the one that wanted to be re-formatted) and to my horror no pictures come up. It says that my card is BLANK!! I was speechless...I couldn't even talk to Mom. I just told her that all my pictures from Europe were gone and that I had to get off the phone.

I tried everything I could think of to get those pictures back and when everything had failed I broke down in tears. These weren't just normal tears...I completely LOST IT!!! Luckily none of my roommates were home or they probably would have sent me to a mental institution.

But after some time of lying on my floor lamenting the fact that I no longer had pictures to document my first week spent in Spain I decided to snap out of it. This was mainly do to the fact that my TV had been paused for so long that it couldn't be paused any more and the Britney Spears special was playing and I didn't want to miss it. (I know - pathetic. But whatever works, right?)

OK...fast forward again to yesterday. I had mentioned to one of my co-workers the travesty of my lost pictures and she told me of this amazing software out in the technology world that will recover your lost/deleted photos from your memory card!! So of course, the first thing I did when I got home from work was buy this said software. And...IT WORKED!!! I have all 500 + pictures that I had taken while I was in Barcelona and Madrid on my computer as I speak!!! I can't even tell you how excited I am about that. So...thank you Jackie for telling me about this! And thank you technology people who came up with this software! You are truly a blessing from Heaven!

Now I just need to get the 5 GB worth of pictures and video from Stacy so I can put together one mean slide show to share with you all. But don't hold your breath...there are a lot of pictures for me to go through :).

Side Effects

It's 5:45 am here in NY right now and I've been awake for almost an hour. Why you might ask? Well because for the past 17 days I've been in a strange country where when it was 5:00 am in NY it was already 11:00 am and I was out seeing the sights of Spain and France. So now that my body is totally screwed up I guess it means that I will truly live by the saying "early to bed, early to rise...blah blah blah."

And what, you might ask, have I been doing for the past hour at this ungodly time of day? Well, thanks to Google Reader, I have been catching up on the 155 new blog posts that my friends have posted while I was away. Btw...Google Reader is a God-send. All your favorite blogs in one easy place. That way you don't have to click on each individual person in your blog links list. Saves so much time (thanks Kimmy for opening my eyes).

Well...just to finish up this random post I have a few things that I have learned to be thankful for during my trip (and since I missed Thanksgiving I feel entitled to this).

1. International phones that allowed me to talk to my Mom every day of my journey. I love you Mom and miss you tons!
2. Being back in a country where I can understand almost everyone (sometimes it's hard to understand the cabbies here...but for the most part everyone speaks English) and where I don't have to guess what I'm ordering for dinner from a menu that is only written in French
3. My bed!!!! And I might add my pillows. Hotels in Europe have really given up in the comfort area of hotel service - rock hard beds with either rock hard or paper thin/barely there pillows
4. American men (wow I never thought I'd actually say that - hahaha jk) - most don't think that if you smile at them it means that you will willingly go to bed with them or just move to Spain and help them kill rats in the basement of their store (true story...not joking)
5. My closet and drawers. Yes my closet is half the size of my one growing up and I don't have THAT much space in my NY apartment...but it's SOOOOO much better than living out of a blasted suitcase.
6. Paying for things in USD - no conversion
7. My Blackberry
8. Jo being tempted to camp out on my doorstep til I came home because she missed me so much - I missed ya too Jo!
9. Christmas music - that's all I've been listening to since my return
10. DVR and TV online - instead of going to work yesterday I spent the day catching up on all the shows I missed. I only have Greys Anatomy left to catch up on.

There is so much more that I'm thankful for...but I won't bore you any longer with my early morning rambling. Plus I'm heading off to the gym to try to work off the 100 lbs of chocolate and pastries that I ate over the past 2 1/2 weeks.

ps - Pics will be coming shortly. I just have to weed out the bad ones and then I promise a very long, boring (yet fun) post about my travels.