I moved to Philadelphia

OOOOOOOO it's been so long since I've written anything.
I live in West Philly, work at the University of Pennsylvania.
Starting grad school next semester there.

I married Ted Renner on August 8, 2008. That was great! Still is!

I have some down time at work and decided to start writing more in this.

Thanksgiving was this past weekend- I had almost the entire week off, and it felt like I was off forEVER. Ted had to work a lot, and I covered for someone for Saturday morning lessons. Oh yes, I work about 1-2 days a week at the YMCA teaching private swimming lessons. Right now I only have 1 student, Georges. He is old and kind and it sort of feels like hanging out with your grandfather but teaching him how to swim. Georges is one of my favorite students.

This weekend I was working on Christmas presents, I made my brother and his girlfriend potholders for their new apartment.

well

also i just opened up my laptop, and i really like it. its cold here today. it better be sunny in philadelphia, and warm. i found out my friend JO is from around the area, and her sister is in soem sort of med? school at one of the schools there. and JO just applied for grad school at UPENN, so there is a chance that she will be in the city in fall. thats SO GREAT! i am so hungover. for the first time in months i am going to call my penpal today, who knows if he is getting my letters, but he is so many time zones away, its unbelievable. i will have to wait ALL NIGHT. i may make more calls home today. i feel like i should tell people im leaving on tuesday, even if they are in the states already.

so it turns out im doing costume design for cirque de soleil this summer. thats cool. im also getting married, and am rubix cube champion. if you ask me why my czech is so bad i will leave your country.

Im moving

I'm moving again. To Philadelphia, this time.

everything is awesome

i just got home from a great night of work.

our friends were djs, MINI-FITNESS. they are so cute, and nice, and remind me of me. does that make sense? michelle you can meet them when you come. they are both named tomas. what else. becky and i are making some food and i will be in bed so soon. i am starting to feel guilty about leaving my new friends here. it seems like everyday i make more friends, and therefore will have to leave more people. ex: tomo came into zero, with some japanese friends, and we all had good time, and we even made plans to see each other, but really, i know i am leaving soon. its sad.

side note: tomo lived in MPLS 1990-1993. isnt that neat? we talked about prince, his recording studio, first ave, uptown, mcad, and the lakes. i am so happy to have met him. really, life is so great.

love carrie

NEW HAIR

somebody pick this up for me, please.

http://www.craigslist.org/about/best/min/589248160.html

Hello world

I just woke up from a nap and a movie. Actually 3 movies. Brent and I were so lazy tonight. Last night Michelle bought a ticket to Prague. I am really really really excited. John will be here next week too, so I will be having a lot of visitors in the next few weeks. I am so happy right now. Start saving crowns.

I am getting excited to move again, I have been doing my research, and have found some homeless shelters close to where I will live. Sara. Haha. I remember before I left I was taking extra shifts at the shelter in Mpls, and I was actually homeless for my last month. Thanks Charlie and Michelle and others. I think it was Mark Mallman who thought I was staying there, at Our Saviors, and not working there. I would say, I'm on my way to the shelter now, it opens at 6, and he thought I needed to get a bed. It's sort of funny.

I have been getting my updates from Philadelphia politics, and have decided to join Philly for Obama. I think it will be so awesome to move and meet new people and get excited for the election.

More news: Hunter and Abby left yesterday. Well today, I said goodbye last night. I had breakfast with the Judys, I was about one hour late. I overslept. Oh well, we had a really great time. La Casa Blu. Cesar was sleeping in the back room. He spent the night there. Funny.

LATER!

work is okay

Becky and I went to Berlin on Sunday to see Hot Chip and Band of Horses. We both worked Sat night and got off at around 8, came home, packed, and got on the next train. We slept on train, arrived in Berlin, loved the tube strike, walked to our friend Patrick's place, ate food, and went to Hot Chip. We didn't have tickets, but luckily were able to get in. Luckily because it was so awesome. Have I ever mentioned how lucky I am? I probably shouldn't say that. But it's true. NEXT we tried to get into another club, but it was sold out, and there was a HUGE line, so we said screw it and went to some open cafe just around the corner. We started a party with the table next to us and the bartender, and now I can say I was a bartender in Berlin. For one night. Next day, we wandered around Berlin, ended up at Band of Horses, had another amazing night, and Becky left with them for Frankfurt. I packed up our stuff and came home the next day. Becky made it home around noon Wednesday. There is more, I just don't have energy to write. Justin and Julia, I thought about you guys a lot. I love Germany, and maybe will start to learn German. It is so much easier than Czech. On that note, my Czech is getting so much better. Last night, after 3.5 months working at the bar, I perfected the phrase, "NEMAM DROBNIN" which means, "I don't have change." We run out of crowns and hellers all the time, so this is important. Usually I hold up a finger circle and point to it while shaking my head "no."

Oh, last night at work someone threw up all over my legs, and it went into my shoes. I had vomit liquid inside my shoes all night.

Nascle!

door county with an irish accent.

http://www.happynews.com/news/2282008/.htm

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-n--JnAwirk

is it your birthday?

One of your friends is having a birthday this week

From:

=?iso-8859-1?Q?MySpace Birthday Reminder?=

To:

• 
  

Date:

4 Mar 08, 8:55pm

Birthday Reminder One or more of your friends have birthdays coming up this week -- Visit MySpace to check out who!

At MySpace we care about your privacy. We have sent you this notification to facilitate your use as a member of the MySpace.com service. If you don't want to receive emails like this to your external email account in the future, change your Account Settings to "Do not send me notification emails." Click here to change your Account Settings: http://www.myspace.com/ You can also contact us with any questions or concerns regarding your privacy at: privacy@myspace.com MySpace, Inc. 8391 Beverly Blvd. #349 Los Angeles, CA 90048 USA © 2003-2007 MySpace.com. All Rights Reserved.

Sara's right,

at least I still have fingers. Sara always knows what to say. And thank God Bryant can still play video games. Me too. I really want to play Guitar Hero, and the guy I met at Le Clan who promised me some games is gone. Any Praguers want to play something with me? We can even just go to Shakespeare and play Scrabble. Please? Did anyone used to play pick up sticks with me in Galactic Pizza on Lyndale?

poop pups, all around:

http://www.worldnetdaily.com/news/article.asp?ARTICLE_ID=35100

Czech it out. (I promised I would never say that)

Find the Czech reference!
This was nice to wake up to.

It's possible to go to North Korea if you play music, or pay several thousand dollars. Plus they played Czech music!

http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/23325161/

This was okay, she's Czech.

http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/23347082

My Left Hand

I really messed up my hand this week. Last Friday night I burnt my pinky. I mean, really badly. I had a blister, then I had some extra skin, now I have a huge red hole. I woke up this morning, and couldn't go back to bed due to the throbbing pain. It looks horrible, my finger is super swollen, I can't bend it, and I am worried about infection. I am doing my best to care for it, hopefully it will be better soon. Next, my left thumb is missing a tip. Careless carrot cutting accident yesterday. At work last night, I was pretty ashamed of my unsightly finger mess. Everytime I handed someone a drink with that hand, I cringed. Too many plasters. Bandaids. Neplatis. Nevodiolio. I think that means waterproof in Czech. It doesn't, but it's something like that.



The past week has been good- I hung out with Abby and Hunter, chili dinner followed by fun. And I moved! I moved from La Favela, with my 3-5 roommates to the new place, near Hunter's new place, and near my friend Kat's aunt. Oh, I went over to the Judy's new place, with Jamie, where they took over other Hunter's place, we had red wine and talked about controllers, plumbing, and teaching. Boy, I am not missing out. I went dancing at Mecca with Hunter and 30 study abroad kids. At first I was annoyed- all of these drunk young kids bugging me about just things. I feel like they see being here as a vacation. I need to think about this more- perhaps I am jealous of the fact that I never got to study abroad. Or maybe its not fair that they get to live in sweet flats, not worry about money and jobs and rent and food. Why should I care?



I had an awesome weekend. Work was great, DJ's were great. I got to DJ for awhile, and it's fun. I like it. Becky and I cleaned the apt today. We are going to get drinks and food, and fun, and love from Tesco. So good. Lucka, our newest bartender got fired after 3 days of bartending. It happens, Lucka, you come back next week.



On Friday I went to witness Hunter getting a tattoo. Made me want to get one, too. Abby, Hunter and I went to Cafe Cafe. What else? Yesterday Becky and I hung out before work, we almost walked even, but were running late. I was tired. We made a list at work of things to do today, and are doing them, slowly but surely. There was a soccer game today, at 5. Had I been up earlier to get the text to go, I would be there. Luckily they play all the time. I can see the stadium from my new apartment! It's so cool!

For some reason I really miss Cinco right now, what a nice kitty! Charlie, does he still have pink bandana? I love a cat who can pull of a bandana.

Oh, I also FINALLY like olives. Goal accomplished. It took me 25 years, but I did it.

http://forums.eslcafe.com/job/viewtopic.php?p=641054

I don't want to be banned from Europe for 5 years.

What should I do?

Puppy vs. polar cub for cuteness

http://edition.cnn.com/2008/WORLD/americas/01/14/polar.pups.irpt/index.html

Things seem funny to me today. Like this.

I wish I were voting, do you?

http://weekendamerica.publicradio.org/display/web/2008/02/01/heartsofpalm/

I put this in my MySpace blog, but this is what I liked. It's nice.

ALSO:
Today I went for a really long walk/run around my neighborhood. It was pretty awesome, the weather couldn't have been nicer. I bought some exercise clothes at this bag sale at a train station the other day, so I wore them for this. I was planning on washing everythign first, but ran out of detergent a few days ago, and haven't gotten aroud to it. ANYWAY- I thought it was fine, but found a really dirty tissue in the pocket of the pants. It was pretty gross. I had my keys in that pocket.

Did you watch the Super Bowl? I did. It started at like midnight or something. So I was able to take the morning tram home from the bar.

Brains!

Dr. Lynfield asked Mr. Wadding, “Kelly, what do you think is going on?”
The plant owner watched for a while and said, “Let’s stop harvesting brains.”


http://www.nytimes.com/2008/02/05/health/05pork.html?8dpc


Abby, this reminded me of Roald Dahl. And it's in MN.

quick computer appreciation note

For the first time since I can remember, I am the only person who uses my computer. I love knowing where everything is, and anything not running properly is nobodies fault but my own.

I LOVE YOU, COMPUTER!

Perhaps cursed, but happy nonetheless.

I think I may be cursed because last night I had a few horrible nightmares and was unable to sleep soundly. One of them was about evil spirits and in the dream I actually thought I was cursed from entering tombs in Egypt. I think this also may have been fueled by my conversations over the past few days about spiritualim, magic, and pretty much everything supernatural that I tend not to believe in. The second nightmare revolved around the idea that I was mentallyl unstable, and my friends trying to convince me that I had never met a person named "Ted." And the thing is, for all my friends here know, there IS NO person named "Ted." I may have just made him up! I thought I was going crazy, and Michelle just emails and says, "You're not crazy, you're CURSED! NO TED!" And I was like, man, worst decision of my life: tombs.

Anyway, everything actually IS really great here, and I can't imagine thigns being better. Well, yes I can. If I had more money that woudl help. The speaker on my cell phone is broken, and I can only send text messages. There is a 1000 Kc depostit in order to have it repaired, and I actually don't have teh 1000 just to give to Vodafone for a month. So I will text. Next, I don't know when I will work again. I am nervous I will not make enough money at the bar, and may need another job. Crap! But it's all okay, I can still enjoy my Egypt and birthday highs. I probably had the best vacation plus birthday ever. I have so many stories, and when I get access to fast internet I will post the photos and stories. Look forward to that. My friend Adriana just cut my hair yesterday, and thats great. I hung out at Sofit last night with Rebekah, Rebecca and a little bit of Dennis and Dad, and had a lovely time. I also cleaned and got a lot of laundry done. I was feeling really good. Until I woke up to my mom calling at around noon, and I got sort of scared. I don't like it when I get phone calls at weird times from my parents. So, of course I couldn't hear her, and had to run to plug in my computer and Skype home to find out what was going on. There was a phone message for me. It's okay, just a phone message.

Now I am doing better and am thinking about getting soem stamps to send some postcards to some people. Possibly you! I feel bad for the people who won't get the authentic Egypt post mark, but I really ran out of my Egyptian pounds and plus it's really expensive to mail from there. So there.

I just read that John Edwards was in St. Paul yesterday. What was that like, friends? And I just got a message from Grant about MN and an update. Sara, what is my lawyer working on lately? Anything exciting?

I am goign to go, and I hope you all have nice days and evenings. I love you.

cursed?

Funniest thing that happened to me today: I got a text, presumably from my bar's manager (didn't actually recognize the number), and it read like a clue to some fictional mystery puzzle you might see on television, leading me to think that the way I reply could determine the future of my employment.

• It read: Hello carrie,got a question-andy left on friday a box of cigars in zero-next to the cigarettes. And then he didnt touch them. and i found out today there are five missing and the box is all open. Anet told me she didnt even know they were there. do u know who took them?

You know, I don't. And, like Anet, I don't remember them being there either, which is the reason I cannot say much about this, except that it made me laugh out loud on two occasions on the way out this evening. I love my job. And my life. And I am home now, I am going to Egypt on Thursday. How great is that?!

I think about how amazing my life is a lot. I think that I have always felt this way, or known this solid fact, perhaps without acknowledging it. But I can't imagine anything else. Everything is perfect.

dance your pants off, dancin' janson.

I don't like it when people take your photo and say they will email it to you, but really they just keep it for personal pleasure. Do they? Why do people do that? And I don't mean the online scene photos. I mean just plain people, ha, yes, plain. I don't think I've ever asked to take strangers pictures. Just their dogs. Dogs carrying sticks in their mouths. Wearing scarves, hats, sweaters, whatever. Photos and pictures of dogs are my favorite. I was starting to get into cats and kittens (photos and drawings only), but after Sara's Christmas present arrived today, I'm stickin' with the dogs. Thanks for keeping me in line on my favorite little buddies, puppy.

I'm going dancing tonight, I am excited, my social life was sent into a mild shock by a friend of friend coming into town this week, and left me wondering why I kept drinking so much beer and dancing on tables at Double Trouble (to be honest, I actually dance on the benches there, the tables really could fall over). I hate that place SO much, and yet I've been there maybe 3 times in the past 1.5 weeks. No more!
.........
And when you come, I will probably take you there.

as if 2007 could have been any better

Seriously, the best year I´ve had in a long time. Probably the best ever. Actually it might be. 2006? Hmmmm, I can´t really remember too much. Justin was there. Charlie was there. Cinco was there. I lived with Charlie and we had our friends over a lot. It was really fun- but 2007? Too good to be true, really.

What did you guys do to celebrate? I was at work, but had a blast. It was probably my favorite NYE of all time (except for the time Justin and I drove to Chicago. Remember that board game we played with Rosco? Something with cards? And those burritos!). When I went home at some point this morning, Prague was surprisingly bright (yeah, it was morning, but its very cloudy here constantly), and the biggest, laziest, prettiest snowflakes were everywhere. It was a shame to take the subway home, but I was probably about to die at any moment. I get that way when I go out after work. Its not a traditional after work happy hour, really. But what if it could be? Wouldn´t that be funny if, say Justin and Michelle could get done with work at 5 and go straight to a party and just be wild and crazy? When I come visit you guys, I want to see you getting off work, going straight to the bar, and just taking shot after shot after shot, truly celebrating the end of the work day.

The point is, following a year like 2007, 2008 is going to be amazing. I can´t wait to see what will happen.

Upcoming events include:

1. Hunter moving in with me. Tomorrow.
2. Going to dinner at Dennis and Rebecca´s tomorrow.
3. Dancing tomorrow night.
4. Talking to the people at my teaching job and possibly quitting in order to bartend more. The money IS better.
5. Going on a trip with Rebecca, and whoever else wants to come?
6. My birthday.
7. Justin and Anna coming to see me in March. I am so excited. I wonder if having someone from my old life here will help me realize my real life is not a dream. It really, really feels like it most of the time. Like it´s too good to be true. But then again, having them here will be so fun that even THAT will be a dream. Oh dear.
8. I got rid of number 8, because it´s not for sure. This is a list of for sure things only.
Oh, 9. Erin moving to England and possibly coming to stay with me again. I think it is a {probably[ and not a for sure, but she is definitely moving. I think I will be able to feel her, closer to me.

Other than numbers 7 and 8, the rest all will be happening within the next 26 days. Great!

I also joined a Mexican gang, called the Puppies.

And I also am having a lot of trouble with the punctuation on this computer. It belongs to a Mexican gangster, but it{s cool, hes a Puppy.