surfing international couches

although one might think that sitting on a couch for most of the day is uneventful, unfulfilling, or even (dare i say it) unproductive, i experienced productivity and fulfillment today as i predictably sat on my usual love seat. i began building rapport with several hostels that my fellow travelers and i would like to stay at. it is so exciting to send and receive emails with people who live in the very locations that i will soon be visiting! even more exciting is the experience i had with couchsurfing.org today. i sent my first "couch request" to a lady in barcelona. couch surfing is when you find someone who lives in the city that you intend to visit and then send that person a couch request in order to ask if you can sleep in their spare bedroom or couch. its a legitimate website and my parents approve just in case anyone was nervous about this concept. so the person that i hope to stay with while in barcelona sounds really fun. she teaches people how to salsa dance so shes totally up my alley. now i just have to wait to see if she accepts my request i guess. wish me luck (or suerte)!

prep part 2

the first part of preparing for my upcoming adventure (in 50 days) was getting into the habit of wearing my 30lb backpack. im still working on getting into that habit. now for part two: not drying my hair after showering. for the ladies out there who dont have perfectly straight hair, you know how difficult a task this can be. it takes self-control. 

recently, ive been employing my imagination. when im out and about, i visualize that i am actually experiencing all of these things while in a foreign country. when i was downtown, i was anticipating finding a fun bar with live music in belgium. when i was attacking a delicious scramble at real food cafe with lisa and molly today, i thought about brunching in paris with anna at a little cafe off the beaten trail. last sunday before the service, a lady sat down next to me and we started chatting. this led me to envision myself sitting on a train, talking to a fellow traveler with a unique and interesting story about their own journey in life. i think its good to have a fertile imagination. if anything, it keeps you easily entertained.

princesses

today i went to the princess diana exhibit at the GRAM. it was pretty awesome. we saw some tiaras and clothes from diana's closet. here are some interesting facts about princess di that you may not know:

• prince charles dated diana's older sister, sarah, first (awkward?)
• charles was 32 when he proposed to 19 year old diana
• diana's wedding dress only cost $1,900! thats way under the budget of some of the brides on the show "say yes to the dress"
• diana's train was 25 ft long and broke the record for longest train in royal history. i cant help but wonder if the queen thought diana was a bit audacious or not
• diana was only 36 when she died. that is so much younger than i thought! 

going to the exhibit and seeing all this royal stuff got me really excited for my trip! one of my traveling comrades is actually going to be in london during the upcoming royal wedding. i believe it will be utter chaos in the city on that day. i wish her luck. 

a globe we found in a little antique shop on the corner of wealthy and lake

i chauffeured my own personal princess around today, princess chelsea. one would think that princesses would learn a little more responsibility but this princess was quite careless and decided to run her car battery dry. and then, for good measure, lock her keys in aforementioned dead car. what an adventure today was! i can only hope to have this much excitement when i travel western europe.

look it up.

i enlisted the help of my vocabulary-rich father in order to create the title of my blog. he loves being creative with words and then telling me to look up the meaning of the mysterious word when i inadvertently indicate that i dont know what hes talking about. its infuriating. i should probably invest in one of those daily word calendars so i can keep up with him or, Lord-willing, so that i can someday stump him with an obscure word of my own! 

i am a first time blogger but i feel that since im going off to europe in exactly 55 days, it would be prudent to start a blog so that i can keep the folks in the states happy (or jealous) with a steady stream of european events when the time comes. im starting a few days early so that i can get into the habit and also because i have nothing else to do at the moment. 

well actually, now that i think of it, it would be a good idea for me to go out and "train." ive decided that i will train for europe in the form of traipsing around the neighborhood with a big, old travel backpack stuffed with about 30lbs of textbooks... i knew those would come in handy someday. i have gone out 4ish times so far and i listen to soundtracks on my ipod. these soundtracks include: moulin rogue (taken place in paris which is one of my destinations), the sound of music (taken place in salzburg which is another destination), and the phantom of the opera (taken place in the paris opera house). listening to theses songs and picturing the images that come to mind make me overwhelmingly excited for my travels! which helps to ease any apprehension i may have about wandering around residential areas, lugging a huge backpack, knowing that people in their homes are probably wondering about my mental state.