Leeeeaving On A Jet Plane....

So it has been quite some time since I have blogged. I've been debating over whether or not I should just call it quits altogether - at least for a while. I'm still undecided, but while I continue to mull over my decision, you'll get a few more posts out of me. And by "you", I mean my mom because I'm pretty sure she's the only one who will still look at this. :)

I'm headed to Madrid tomorrow, and travel is always something fun to blog about. So here's to Madrid! I'll see you soon!

Vegas Baby!!

So I'm laid up at home following a foot surgery on Friday.  I think it's punishment for not blogging enough.  To make amends, I'm going to continue on my adventures from March with my trip to Vegas!

My dad and I decided to take a trip to Vegas with just the two of us.  It was completely random...I'm not sure exactly when or how we decided to do this, but it was definitely one of the most fun trips I've had! 

I could tell you all about our adventures, great meals, cool casinos, etc.  But instead of boring you with the things you could find on any travel site, I'll just leave you with a bit of advice for the future: If you're up $300 but have a little time before you have to head back to the airport and say "Hey, let's stop and take our pictures in front of the Vegas sign" and your traveling partner says "No, let's stop at Tropicana and gamble a little more," tell him no and keep yourself from losing $200.  Not that this happened to me or anything....totally hypothetical situation. :)

This is the only picture we took together the entire trip...at the airport right before we boarded the plane to go home!

Travelocity "Race to Savings" Sale

Hey guys! Since I get the question all the time "can you get me discounts?" I thought I'd post it here that for once, I can! :)

Travelocity is having a Race to Savings sale for the next month in honor of The Amazing Race premiere. For the next week (Sept 2-8) I can give you a "Friends and Family" discount code that will get an extra $50 off a 3+ night stay at any of the participating hotels on top of the discounts that are already there.

Its not a ton, but if you're planning to go somewhere between now and January 15th and you're ready to book your hotel this week, leave me a comment or send me an email and I'll send you the discount code along with a note about how I'm jealous because I'm not going anywhere.

Happy Traveling!
Emily

NY in 24hrs. Part Deux

After I bought my ticket to see Spring Awakening, I was walking down 8th St. trying to find something quick to eat before the show. All of a sudden, I hear someone call my name....on a street in New York City. It was one of my friends from Grad School, Justin! I didn't even know he lived in NY! He has been there for about 6 months and lives right in the middle of the theatre district! He was on his way to the grocery store and saw me. How weird is that?? We talked for a little bit, and then went our separate ways. It really is a freakishly small world.

Another fun thing was crossing an item off THE List.* #27 on THE List was "Stand outside the Today Show window and try to get on TV." Ever since I first bought my ticket, I was planning on doing this. Unfortunately, Lindsey beat me to the punch one week earlier and there is really nothing I could do to match her stunt. So I changed #27 before I went and luckily was able to do it before I got sick. So unveiling the new #27:

27. Eat a cupcake from the Magnolia Bakery in New York City

I ate the red velvet cake one first. It was totally different than anything else I've ever had in my life. One bite I would think "I really don't like this", but then the next bite I'd think "This is the most amazing thing ever!" and back and forth until I finished. The icing wasn't very sweet and basically tasted like pure whipped cream, so it was like having cake and milk together at the same time. The next day before I left for the airport, I tasted the other one. I was sick so I didn't feel like eating the whole thing, but what I tasted....WOW. It totally lived up to everything I've heard and I can't wait to get another next time I go.

*Confession: I kind of cheated a bit on this item, but I'm totally okay with it. I went to the 2nd Magnolia Bakery location, which is right around the corner from ABC Studios. So it was close to where I was and didn't have a 20 minute line at that time of day. Some people might say it shouldn't count, but hey, its my List. :)

Last sort of stereotypical thing I did there - I had a hot dog from a street vendor. Actually I had 2. The first was because I got to my hotel at 2pm and I was STARVING and it was right outside; the second was right before I went to the airport because I needed to eat something and didn't feel well enough to venture any further than the CVS across the street from my hotel where I bought medicine and then the same hot dog stand. That's right, 2 of my 3 NY meals were hot dogs. Kind of pathetic.

And with that, my New York trip comes to a close....and with it all of my scheduled trips for awhile. It makes me sad to look at my AA account online and see the sad words "You do not have any reservations to view." I need to schedule a flight, pronto! :)

New York and back in 24 hours

Well, my New York trip turned out not at all like I expected! I got really sick my first night there and had to change my flight and come home the next morning. So basically I got to do none of the things that I had planned! But I did accomplish a couple of things.

We'll start with Who Wants To Be A Millionaire: I went to the audition. It starts out with probably 100 people in a room taking a 30 question multiple choice test. You have 10 minutes to take the test on a scantron, then they score them and announce the people who pass. Most of the questions were really easy, but some were just so random! My favorite was "Which of these events occurred earliest in the calendar year: A) O.J. Simpson Verdict; B) D-Day; C) JFK Assassination....I can't remember the last choice, but you get the point. Crazy! Well, I didn't pass. From what I could remember and look up later, I think I missed 4 maximum, maybe only 3. So they're looking for near perfection.

After the test I talked to Holly Root. We were originally going to meet up that night, but she wasn't feeling well so I decided to see a Broadway show and then we were going to figure something out on Friday. So I succeeded in crossing #8 off the THE List

8. See a Broadway Show

It was even more special to me because my first Broadway show happened to have one of my best friends from High School, Phoebe Strole in it. The show was great, and seeing her on stage made me so happy. I started crying during the first number that she's in and I'm sure the people next to me thought I was crazy because it wasn't a particularly sad number! I regained my composure for the rest of the show though. :)

That was pretty much the end of my New York trip. My sickness started to kick in during the second act and by the time I got back to my hotel, I was just dying. I was so sad! I was planning on doing some sightseeing, Phoebe and I had plans to meet up for lunch, I was going to see Holly and Jonathan and hopefully see Jonathan in Avenue Q that night...instead I got to fly back early. Blah.

I did get to do one other thing that has recently been added to THE List, but I'll blog about that tomorrow because this is getting really long! To sum it all up - I had a great time in New York for the ~24 hours that I was there. Didn't get to do much, but I did enough to know that I really liked it and will definitely be going back!

And All That Jazz!

For our 3rd Annual Roomie Weekend, my college roommates and I decided to go to Chicago. Lindsay is living right outside in DeKalb while her fiance is in grad school at NIU. And as an added bonus, we were there over St. Patricks Day!

After we landed and Lindsay picked us up from the airport, we headed to M. Henry's for brunch. This place was featured on the Food Network for having the best brunch in America, and I have to say I agree! It was fantastic!

Then we headed over to the St. Patty's Day festivities....saw the green river, watched a portion of the parade (it was not interesting), and went through Millenium Park to see that big cloud sculpture thing.


Lindsay, Deborah, me, and Nichole
In the center of the sculpture at Millenium ParkMe, Nichole, Deb, Lindsay in front of the Millenium Park sculpture We did some shopping in the city and attempted to go to an Irish Pub for some green drinks, but quickly discovered that was going to be impossible. Every place that was halfway Irish (including Bennigan's) had a line around the block or was so packed you couldn't move. So we went back to DeKalb and went to an Irish Pub there. Ryan (Lindsay's Fiance) and I had Irish Car Bombs









And the rest had a green shot of some sort. We also drank a little green beer and sang some songs with everyone there.
The rest of the long weekend was pretty low-key. Sunday we went to church, made dinner, and had a game night for Ryan's birthday, Monday we went shopping for bridesmaids dresses, and more than anything we just hung out like old times. Then we had our fun adventure getting home. My old roomies are the type of friends where no matter how long its been since we talked, every time we get back together it is like we've never been apart. I love these girls!

Do you know the way to San Jose?

Okay, after a brief Oliver break, we're back to my life in reverse.

The week before I got Oliver, I was in sunny California for a conference in San Jose. It was really rather uneventful. I was traveling by myself and didn't know of anything to do in San Jose. I went up to San Ramon on Monday night for dinner with my good friend, John who lives out there now, but most of the time, this was about the most exciting that I got.

All of my family and friends warned me that I might be killed if I didn't go to In-N-Out Burger while I was there, so I skipped the conference lunch one day and found one. It was good, but not necessarily anything to write home about in my opinion. My last night there, I had nothing to do. I went to dinner at a chinese restaurant across from my hotel. My plan was to go and gas up my rental car so I wouldn't have to in the morning and then head back to the hotel to watch some TV and such. Then I realized it was only 7pm and that was really lame. I had heard that the drive to San Francisco was awful, but I was bored and had nothing better to do, so I decided to just start driving towards SF and I would turn around if I decided it was to ridiculous. 8 miles later....

But a few miles down the road, I saw that it was an accident causing the traffic and from there it was smooth sailing. I just drove through town to see the Golden Gate Bridge and then came home because I didn't know where anything was, but it was worth it to say I actually did something.

The rest of my trip was spent discussing the merits of Software as a Service and how to sell it, so I'm sure you don't want to hear about that. I found it interesting, but then again, that's my life right now!

Next on the tour of Emily's Life in Reverse: Chicago.

Home again, Home again

What do you do when you have some time to spare in an airport? Make an attempt at taking an artsy picture. :)

I was in Chicago this weekend for Roomie Weekend 2008 with my college roommates. I'll post more about the actual trip later, but first....my past 2 days.

Tuesday
10:30am: Leave DeKalb, IL for O'Hare Airport.

11:15am: Its a little foggy, so I call AA Information to see if our flight is delayed.

11:16am: Find out our flight has been CANCELLED

11:17am: Get on the phone with the AA Platinum desk to find out whats going on. Find out that because of storms in DFW, all flights are cancelled for the day. Get Deborah, Nichole, and I booked on a flight out the next morning that connects through Indianapolis, IN.

5:00pm: After a couple of extra hours with Lindsay, get checked in to a hotel by the airport so we can have a quick shuttle the next morning.

Wednesday
10:00am: Take the shuttle to the airport

10:08am: Get to the self check-in kiosks

10:09am: Find out Nichole's ticket is booked to connect through Memphis, TN, not Indianapolis

10:30am: Find out AA tried to call Nichole the night before to tell her she couldn't get a confirmed seat on our flight and would either have to take the Memphis flight or fly standby. Let Nichole freak out for a minute before she decides to take the confirmed (which gets in later) and I'll come pick her up after we get home.

1:15pm: Get to Indianapolis. Eat lunch with Deborah and waste time in the airport.

4:10pm: Flight should be boarding. Its delayed. Of course.

6:30pm: Get to DFW. Find out Nichole's flight is delayed too. Proceed to baggage claim.

6:45pm: All the bags have stopped coming and mine is nowhere to be found. Of course.

7:15pm: Finished going through the lost baggage process. Get into the SuperShuttle van.

7:16pm: A guy knocks on the window of the van asking for a ride to the Gaylord Texan hotel (a decent way out of the way but closer than my house.) Driver says yes. Of course.

8:00pm: Nichole calls. She's landed. I think to myself "I wonder if Nichole is parked behind me at my house? Wouldn't it suck if Nichole is parked behind me and I have no way to get back to the airport to pick her up?"

8:02pm: Get to my house. Nichole is parked behind me. Of course.

8:45pm: 2 VERY long days, 4 flights, 1 lost bag, a $40 SuperShuttle, and a $50 cab ride later, we are all finally back to my house! What a trip!

Well, I'm going to relax and go to bed. The weekend was great and I'll blog more about that later. Have a great day!!

Snow and Haircut

Couple of random pictures:


First off - Boston! It snowed while we were there. We went into dinner and it had just started to flurry. By the time we came out, there was like an inch of snow on the ground! Definitely not Texas snow! Outside of Quincy Market after dinner.
Second - I got a haircut tonight! Its really short - first time since probably my freshman year of college that I've had it this short.

If you're in Texas, I hope you voted in the primaries today! And now the fun is just beginning. :)

I have an accent?

Sorry for leaving the picture up of no-nose man all week! I've been extremely busy/sick.

I'm in Boston for a few days. It is FRIKKIN FREEZING here! Tonight there is supposed to be a snowstorm....glad I wasn't trying to fly out! But as always, Boston is great. Quick anecdote:

At the end of the workshop I am attending, we had a panel discussion. I was pretty chatty as always. At the end as we were all exchanging business cards, one of the panelists shook my hand and said "Love the accent!" Cracked me up....We were always giving my friend Bill a hard time for his Boston accent and now the tables have turned! I don't mind though. I've always wanted an accent. :)

European vs. American Sayings

My first year of the MBA program, I found a few sayings that didn't quite translate between my international friends and American English. It always made for some humorous conversations. Last night, I went to dinner with two of our regional marketing managers, Christine and Fionna. Christine is based in London and Fionna is based in Singapore. Christine tried to order sparkling water at Chuys (with no success) and that got us talking about phrases that we find funny or just different from what we say here in America.

Some of the results (Mostly different between British English and American English):
Come across - this is what everyone in Europe says when they talk about flying overseas. I first heard it when I went to Sweden - "When did you come across?"
Straight away - the European version of "right away"
Flatmates/Flat - Roommates/Apartment
Fancy - Christine thought it was funny that we didn't say "Would you fancy a drink?" We say "Would you like a drink?"
Water - we had a good laugh hearing Christine and Fionna mimicking the way that Americans say the word "water!" I never realized that it sounded so different and weird to them!

We had a lot more but I won't bore you with them all. What phrases have you all heard that either Europeans say that we don't or that we say and they don't?

Table for One

Sweden was the first trip that I have taken where I was entirely alone for a big portion of the week. People asked me when I got back what I thought about traveling alone. I said that I absolutely loved it - you could go anywhere you wanted, if you walked into a museum and thought it was stupid you could walk right back out without wasting time wondering if other people liked it, there was no debate over what to do each day. I absolutely loved it....until dinner time. When you're traveling alone, you have to eat alone in restaurants. People can't ever hide their surprise when you say "Table for one," but you're in a different country so you suck it up and deal with it instead of eating at McDonalds all week.

I have always felt really awkward eating alone. I remember having an hour lunch break over tax-free weekend when I worked at Limited Too in High School and I wore my name tag to Subway because I didn't want people to think that I was just eating at Subway alone because I was a loser. Most of the time if I'm going to eat alone, I grab something and bring it home...so I can be a loser in private I guess. One time I went to Breadwinners in Dallas alone thinking it was a takeout place and when I realized it was a sit-down place I was too embarrassed to leave, so I sat alone feeling like all eyes were on me.

Today, I found the one place that I felt completely comfortable eating alone: Luby's! I went down to Hulen area around lunchtime to buy tickets for a sneak preview of 27 Dresses for several people and decided I wanted Luby's for lunch. So I just went inside, got my food, and sat by myself. I did not feel self-conscious at all! Maybe it helped that everyone else in there was either over 70 years old or by themselves too, but for the first time, I felt completely comfortable eating in a sit-down restaurant by myself. I think I need to go there a few more times before my next solo trip to train myself on eating alone. :)

Actual Vegas Pictures

One of our sales guys, Rob, sent me a couple of pics from our Vegas trip today! Nothing real exciting, just us in a place called Rouge in the MGM Grand, but its fun to have some new pics of my work friends. :)

My friend Lauren, Rob, and I. People at work confuse me and Lauren all the time. Its really funny.

Gotta love the pictures taken from 1 foot away. Haha! Me and Lauren.

And before I get the comments about the fact that my glass was empty and Lauren's was full...she had just gotten a new glass and I was finishing mine. (Don't you love the pre-emptive comment stops. Ha!)

Another Day, Another $100....

Well, I did it! I bet $100 on black at the Bellagio (no Circus, Circus for me, Jonathan!) and WON!! Here's my proof of another thing crossed off THE List.

2. Bet $100 on black at a Roulette table in Vegas


P.S. My camera is broken and my parents were out of town too, so we have to deal with cell phone pictures for this trip. I was in the conference for most of the trip anyways, so not too much was picture-worthy.

My conference was in the MGM Grand Hotel. I really liked it there, but I never realized how BIG these hotels were! I realized on the third day that I entered this hotel on Monday and had not walked outside and breathed fresh air since. There is so much in one hotel that you could spend a 4 day vacation there, never leave, and never repeat activities, clubs, or restaurants (except gambling).

I was hanging out with customers in the evenings for the most part, so I didn't get to see any shows which was sad (I really wanted to see Ka in my hotel!), but I did get to go to a party in a penthouse on Tuesday night! It was awesome! View from the Penthouse balcony:Finally, I spent a LOT of time walking back and forth between the hotel part of MGM and the conference center which are seriously far apart. I decided that the designers of this particular hotel are cruel people....this is what you have to walk by every time you go to the conference center. Its like they're saying "Wouldn't you rather be HERE right now instead of sitting in a bunch of conference sessions?"
And with that, we end Emily's cell phone tour of the conference in Vegas. One of our sales guys, Rob, had a camera and took a couple of pictures, so I may try to get some of those and write some other stories soon. But for now I'm going to bed...3 days of VERY little sleep does NOT do a body good. :)

I'm a TIME Travelin' Girl!

Tonight, I did something amazing....I spoke with somebody from the future. How did I do this you ask? At 9:02pm on September 16th, I found a conduit to the future through an amazing thing called a "Telephone" and spoke with people who were sitting in Singapore at 10:02am September 17th. The fun of doing global business. To steal a line from Chandler on Friends, "Listen, don't tell me what happens tomorrow...because I like to be surprised."

Okay, in all seriousness, I leave for Vegas tomorrow afternoon! The votes are in and I will be betting $100 on black in Roulette, so wish me luck. :)

Labor Day "Turner Falls" Trip

Last weekend I went with a group of 10 people to Oklahoma for a camping trip. I call it the "Turner Falls" trip because that was what we called it...until we got there and decided not to actually go to Turner Falls. :)

We had a campsite at Buckhorn that was just so great - not too many people and our own private cove of the lake - that we decided to cancel our planned day trip to the falls which was supposedly incredibly crowded. We did go to Arbuckle Wilderness though which was great fun. And I discovered my new favorite sport - Kayaking! Two people brought kayaks and I had so much fun I wish I had an SUV again so I could get one too!

Our weekend consisted of swimming, hiking, kayaking, hanging out around camp, eating, running, and relaxing. We had no schedule and it was fantastic. Here are a couple of pics.

Look at that giraffe tongue!!Dustin decided if the pellets were good enough for the animals....
Our campsite mascot, Bert the Tarantula. He liked to hang out right outside my tent.Group picture on our hike up to some of the springs. It was really a great trip!

Random Sweden Pics

I promise I'll do your 100 things for my next post, Ashley, but tonight I don't have a lot of time. But I wanted to finish off my Sweden adventure with a few more pictures that I hadn't gotten to yet. :)

First up - I was lucky enough to be exploring Gamla Stan (check another one off THE List) when the Changing of the Guards took place at the Royal Palace. It was pretty cool.


35. Spend an afternoon exploring Gamla Stan in Stockholm, Sweden

This was how bright the sky was at 11:00pm! It was really amazing how long it stayed light there!
And finally, a really goofy picture of me modeling the new hat that the guys from our Stockholm office gave me....somehow I didn't end up making it home with it though! I think I left it in my hotel room. If you can't tell, I was laughing pretty hard when they gave it to me. :)
Up next on Emily's World Tour....not too far from home in oh-so-classy Las Vegas, Nevada! My work is sending me to a conference there to do basically the same stuff I did in Sweden. But this time, my best friend at work, Lauren, gets to go too! Traveling is much more fun when you have a friend.

Vasamuseat

Sorry for the lack of posting. A lot has been going on, but I promised pictures of the Vasamuseat and they were on my work computer so I've been hesitating to post anything else!

To answer Bekah's comment from my last post, my favorite thing in Sweden and the thing that I would say is the biggest "must-see" in Stockholm is the Vasa. The Vasa is a really old ship that sank in the 1600s. It was at the bottom of the ocean for about 300 years and in the 1970's they were finally able to find it, raise it, and restore it! It is straight up Pirates of the Caribbean style and is just awesome to look at. And the museum that it is in is quite possibly the most well done museum I've ever been in. Everything was really interesting and I could've spent an entire day in there! It gave the backstories about the wars going on that the ship was built for, life aboard the ship, life in Sweden during that time period, information about the inquisition that investigated the sinking, videos about how they raised it, etc. So with no further ado, here is the Vasa:


The carvings on the back were really cool, but hard to get a picture of.
Yet another awkward picture that I had to have a total stranger take of me. :)
In this part they showed you how small the spaces inside of the ship were. The ceilings were really low, but I guess that was okay since most of the people were about 5 ft tall! This wooden guy kept staring at me...it was creepy! :)
Well thats all from the big old ship. Now that I've gotten the pictures off of my work computer, we can now return to our regularly scheduled bloggings.

Absolut Ice Bar

As promised, the next stop on Emily's tour through Sweden is the Absolut Ice Bar!

I got off of the train that goes from the airport to the city and the first thing that I see as I'm walking to my hotel is the Absolut Ice Bar...next door to my hotel! Going to an Ice Bar is number 66 on THE List, so I had to make a reservation.

66. Go to an Ice Bar

If you don't know what an Ice Bar is, it is exactly like it sounds. Everything is made of ice: The tables, chairs, bar, glasses, walls...everything. I saw it on The Bachelor a few years ago and have always wanted to go. It really is just a novelty attraction. They do appointments in 45 minute increments, let 30 people in at a time, you get one small drink and then spend the next 43 minutes taking pictures. It was still really cool though!

And of course, I couldn't go to a cool place without making a scene....I set my ice glass on the bar at one point and it slipped right off and broke. Ha!
The last cool thing about this is that not only do I get to cross an item off THE List, I am going to be in a documentary! There was a German documentary crew there during my time slot making a travel guide film about Stockholm and since I was there by myself, the host of it talked to me a lot so that the camera could get film of him looking like he was there with people. Not that I'll ever see this video, but at least I'll know it exists. :)

Up next: The Vasamuseat AKA a really big old ship

Midsummer!

Here are a few pics from the Swedish Midsummer Celebration I attended in Skansen.

First up - me in my flower wreath thingy that everyone makes for themselves out there. If this were in America, I would have been arrested for picking daisies in a public park, but luckily for the thousands of people there...its not America! (Our Bluebonnet Advocates could learn a thing or two from the Swedes about actually enjoying your flowers rather than roping them off and forbidding people to do anything except admire from afar...)

Right at 3:00pm, the Swedish Minstrels came parading down the road, leading everyone to the place where the Maypole would be raised.

Raising the Maypole (yes, I know its June....)

After it was up, everyone sang songs with the band and danced around the Maypole. I took this while we were hopping in a circle singing a song about a frog (or at least thats what they translated in English)

On the Midsummer Eve, single girls are supposed to put 7 flowers under their pillow and they dream of their future husband. So of course, I had to try it.

Did I dream of my future husband? Not unless my future husband is Nigel Barker, because I dreamed of So You Think You Can Dance that night. Oh well....I gave it a shot! :)

Up next on the Tour of Sweden - The Absolut Ice Bar! Stay tuned....