B'Cona, here I come...

BARCELONA en la manana!!!

Le dare los detalles en el miercoles o jueves (I will give you the details on Wednesday or Thursday).

YAY FOR SUNSHINE!!!!

Birth of Baby Karys, Edinburgh, and Fiction Writing

Sorry it has taken me awhile to update. Believe it or not, I have been stressed out these past few weeks with seemingly endless essays both from my online courses that I'm taking this summer from UNC and Sheffield essays/exam preparations. However, loads of things have happened in the last few weeks.

FIRST AND FOREMOST IS THE BIRTH OF MY PRECIOUS NIECE, KARYS JANE FOUT!!!

Weighing in at an even 8 pounds and 20 inches long, B.K. (Baby Karys) was born at 5:13 am on May 14, 2009. She has a full head of hair and the doctors said she has the longest eyelashes they have ever seen even being in their line of business for ages. I guess the long eyelashes are big in our family, ay? She is absolutely beautiful and it is killing me not to be able to hold her right now. I never thought that I would cry, but when my mom held up the phone in the hospital as Karys first began to wail, I started sobbing happy tears. I just wish I could see her for myself. Welcome to the world, wee one. I look forward to holding you in 21 days. :) Both mom and baby are doing very well... my mom and dad are hanging out with Melissa and Tommy until Thursday of this week and they say that she needs to eat about 12-13 times a day... and she lets them know. From the moment I got to see her flipping every which way during my sister's ultrasound to dodge the camera, I knew she would be a scrappy little thing with a big personality.

Edinburgh, Scotland

Touristy, but also a must see when in Edinburgh.

Friday: G-Salm and I woke up at 2:15 to catch a cabbie to the coach for a 6 hour bus ride. Oh what fun. We arrived in Edinburgh around 0830 where Natalie, a friend of my friend Heather's, met up with us to show us around. We grabbed some PORRIDGE IN THE MORRIDGE and poured some honey on top of it, and had a delicious, cholesterol-reducing, breakfast. Then, we walked to her place to check our emails and stuff and waste some time. Around 11ish, the boys arrived, so we went to go pick them up from the train station... those lucky dudes could afford the comfort of a train round trip. We walked down Princes Street and then got to the corner of the Royal Mile and Blair Street where our apartment was to unload our stuff. If you ever go to Edinburgh, I highly recommend going the apartment route. It was really nice and split between 7 of us, it was pretty reasonably priced as well. After that, Genna, Kohan, Bearyn, Taylar and I proceeded to go on a castle tour (~12 GBP). The castle was amazing... aside from the rain. I didn't realize how extravagant it would be, but you really can't understand it unless you do in fact purchase the ticket to tour the inside. A mighty fortress it is with heaps of history. After the castle, we walked to pick Shibby up from the bus and then Kohan and I made tacos for dinner. Then, I went to pick up Dino from the train because she couldn't make the bus with Genna and I in the morning.

Edinburgh Castle from afar.

I'm an economist, so this meant something to me. Invisible hand, anyone?

After picking up Lindsay and making her quesadillas, I went back to Natalie's to get ready for a night out while everyone else got ready in the apartment. We ended up going to this really unusual club that featured straight techno. I don't know why we stayed there, but we did, and we paid 4 GBP for it too. Oh well. It was very Euro and cultural of us... we were just looking for something besides constant techno. At least it was literally right across the street from our place.

Saturday: I woke up bright and early because I had left my stuff at my friend Heather's house and needed it to survive. I woke Natalie up at about 930, which I felt bad about, but I really needed my stuff and needed to know how to get there. She refused to let me go on my own, which was really sweet, so she walked with me. We got my stuff and then decided to be nice and grab the makings for bacon rolls for everyone else... a uniquely UK breakfast dish. Genna and I made the breakfast while I ate porridge because it is basically oatmeal with delicious honey and I love oatmeal, so there's no question about my love for porridge. After breakfast, Genna, Linds, Shibby, Bearyn, Kohan, Taylar, and I went on a 3 hour walking tour around Edinburgh. It was pretty tight, but it also got tiring after awhile. My favorite by far was the tour of Greyfriar's Graveyard. Not only was the story about the dog waiting by his owner's grave for 13 years a beautiful and depressing story, but it was also the birthplace of many of J.K. Rowling's Harry Potter character names... which, let's be for real here, peaked my interest. See if you can spot the name that she used from this sign:

The window above the "Furniture" sign is where J.K. Rowling sat and wrote Harry Potter. She figured that buying a couple cups of coffee every few hours in the coffee shop was cheaper than heating her flat, so that's what she did. Now she's more wealthy than the Queen of England.

After the walking tour, we attempted to climb Arthur's Seat. I hope I am making Kyle Burr happy with all of the things I was able to accomplish in his favorite city in one weekend. He gave me a list to do, and I tried to take care of every one. Unfortunately, it rains in the UK, so we got a little more than halfway up Arthur's Seat before the boys decided it was too treacherous to continue. Let me tell you though, Shibby, Genna, Lindsay, and I spotted the boys literally scaling the hill up the mountain versus taking the path, so we decided to be warriors and prove that anything they could do, we could do better. I think we made it up much faster too by the way. At least I was determined to be faster. It felt like rock climbing in grass. It was kind of an odd sensation, but here's my tribute to Arthur's Seat. When I go back to Edinburgh someday and I don't have pansies who can't handle the pelting rain holding me back, I will get to the top of Arthur. I swear it. This pic is a minute before the downpour. The weather changed just about every 5-10 minutes, which is really no different than England. I'm going to admit that the rain is getting to me. It's depressing. I just want to see the light of day.

After climbing Arthur's Seat, some of the others went to go buy some alcohol and the makings for dinner, while Genna and I went back to get a shower. Kohan and Taylar made spaghetti which was yummy. After that, we began a pub crawl at 7:30. I'm not going to tell you how much I had to drink, but I actually had less on Friday night and felt worse than Saturday night. I will tell you that I had a shot of Scottish Whiskey, though. And it burned. There were 5 pubs that we tackled on the crawl and then we ended at a dance club, which was basically a promiscuity promoter. Everyone around us was macking on each other and I wanted to vomit just looking at them. There are loads of pictures from the dance club and the pub crawl on Fbook if you want to check them out, but I'm not going to put them up here.

Sunday: We woke up and I had porridge in the morridge again. Shibby and I were watching Rhianna and Madonna's music videos and I explained to her that the reason they were so hot was because they had porridge in the morrige. Hence the reason I keep saying it. It's so good. YUM. I'm never buying flavored oatmeal again. I'm making it by myself for the rest of my life. Anyway, after this, our good tour guide friend, Liam, told us that "Tom Riddle" was buried in Greyfriar's graveyard, but proceeded to avoid taking us to the site of his grave. Kohan and I really wanted to see it, so Taylar, Kohan, Genna, Linds, and I walked back to the graveyard to hunt for it while Shibby toured the castle. I looked around for about half an hour and then finally found it. Wanna know how I found it? I used my critical thinking skills and asked myself if I was J.K.Rowling, where would I have found Tom Riddle? It was then that I saw the castle that inspired Hogwarts for Rowling out of the corner of my eye and began walking towards the graves surrounding it. After a quick scan, I found him and his family, only his name was spelled "Thomas Riddel." Nonetheless, it was him and I was proud to have found him because that means I must have some magic in me. I wanted to go all Expecto Patronus! at the grave since I'm a nerd and all, but Kohan wouldn't do it with me because he's too cool for school. He claims he just wanted a picture for his sister. Well, this one's for you, pops. I'm sure you would have been just as excited as I was when I found it!

After the search for Tom Riddle, we went to the Museum of Scotland. Our backpacks were a little too heavy to pay attention to the museum artifacts, so G-Salm and I gave up after about half an hour and went to the kidzone, which was pretty sweet. Then, I watched a presentation on fencing because I love fencing. If you don't know this about me, I was recruited for UNC's Varsity Girls Fencing team... you can believe that's a lie if you want, but Kelsey, Katherine and I know that it's true and that's all that really matters. Lindsay, Genna, and I said goodbye to the boys in the museum because Kohan loves museums and wanted to stay a little longer and Linds needed to get her train registration number online before we took off. It was kind of sad saying goodbye because even though we're all going to the same place, I know we won't get to spend that kind of quality time together before we leave and it just depressed me. I was pretty subdued and kept to myself all morning because it was such a fun weekend and I wasn't ready for it to be over.

Fiction Writing

So, I am taking two UNC online English courses since I'll be in DC all summer and want to graduate on time. One of mine isn't for either of my degrees, but is to stretch my ability as a fiction writer. We had about 11 assignments to accomplish in the last week, and 7 of them were writing openings to stories. I decided to post one of my favorite's on my blog. There are 6 more if you are interested in reading them, but I used Lindsay Saladino (Dino in this opening), Genna Salmon (Genevieve), Alexandra, Monique, Chelsea, Kohan, and Eric as inspiration. It's kind of embarassing posting this online, but I did my best to incorporate different voices in each opening. Here it is:

Siphon. Insert cork into hand corker. Position bottle underneath the corker. Pull the lever. Repeat. It was the same thing everyday, but to Dino it was a reminder of how far he’d come in the past few years. He couldn’t believe that it was only two years ago that he quit his job as a mechanical engineer for the BP oil company in Texas and moved to California to test his hand at grapes. His wife, Genevieve, said that his mid-life crisis was too much for her, so she left him a year later. It was okay with him though because he finally was in love with his work. And it wasn’t even skilled labor, it was picking grapes in the fall and mixing fruits to make his whites just a tad sweeter, or bitter, depending on his mood. Then, there was the bottling of course. There was nothing so rewarding as putting a complete bottle on his shelf and then snapping a label on it. Even if his friends and family thought he was crazy, he was proud of himself for taking such a great risk. Even graduating from Yale had nothing on the sense of accomplishment he felt when siphoning his wine.

Here's the one featuring Monique and Chelsea just for kicks:

BBBBRRRRNNNGGGG.
“Grab the phone,” demanded Monique. She was glad for the distraction because honestly she didn’t care to hear anymore gossip about her ex, Kevin, dating her college roommate and friend, Mel. It was depressing and she didn’t want to hear about it anymore.
“Hello?” asked Chelsea after she grabbed the phone.
“This is APD Detective Stevens, tell Monique to report immediately. There has been an incident in the state senate. Monique needs to get to the Sandoval Courthouse immediately,” shouted the voice over the phone before the dial tone signaled.
“Monique, what could you possibly have to do at the Sandoval Courthouse that would have an Albuquerque Detective demanding your help immediately?”
Shock took over Monique’s fallen face. She turned white, grabbed her car keys and sprinted to her car without another word to her best friend, Chelsea.

That's all... sorry for such a horrendously long post. I LOVE YOU, BABY KARYS.

ps- here are two reasons that I am quasi-excited to return to the US in 20 days:

http://smallbusiness.aol.com/article/_a/wacky-furniture-ad-becomes-web-sensation/20090519112409990001?icid=main|classic|dl3|link6|http%3A%2F%2Fsmallbusiness.aol.com%2Farticle%2F_a%2Fwacky-furniture-ad-becomes-web-sensation%2F20090519112409990001

http://www.facebook.com/ext/share.php?sid=96783098880&h=xXtgj&u=xDK36&ref=mf

Right Round

So many activities... So little time, so much to do. I wanted to post some pictures of my "Lindsay Day" in Bakewell, so here they are.

If you actually read this gravestone, I will be floored, but I will also love you for your sensitivity and human compassion.

Isn't she pretty? I love New England Sheep Dogs. Definitely one of my favorite breeds. I saw her a couple of times on my walk through the Bakewell village, and decided to snap a photo.

Duck fishing... no pun intended. This was in a little creek that I passed during my explorations. The ducks were putting on a show. Perhaps insignificant, perhaps not. It's up to you.

A picture from the cricket match I chanced upon. Neat, huh?

A fountain I discovered on my walk through a park in Bakewell that I became obsessed with the minute I found it. It's perfect.

In terms of recent happenings en mi vida... Sorry it's been over a week since my last post, but I needed to have some substance (aka material) before I proceeded with my writing excursion. First things first, Monique and I had a dance party over skype and we live 10 minutes away from each other. How creative is that? I just called her up and was like, "Mon-Mon, wait for it, wait for it..." and then I blared Flo Rida's "Right Round" over my iTunes. I started to dance wildly and told her to start dancing and then she just looked at me like I was mental for approximately 3 seconds, but then I guess she got over her fear because I looked back at her on our webcams and she, too, was shaking her thang. Needless to say, it was the study/writing break that we both needed. Plus that song is powerful in an unusual way. It's just intensity, bitterness, and obsession all rolled into one catchy hip-hop song that I just want to dance to every chance I get. In fact, I listened to it on my way back home from the movies tonight during my "lone" leg of the trip and just lost it going uphill until some random car ruined it for me. All that is besides the point, though, I just thought it was cool of Monique to dance in her room to a song playing in my room over skype. It was perfect and the exact amount of energy that I needed to expend in that 4 minute time period..

Last Saturday night, Alexandra's housemates threw their 3rd house party, which was a natural raver for all of the international kids. It was some good times. There were the usual "crazies," but it was all in good fun. I didn't feel like drinking (surprise, surprise) and so I just hung out with all of the drunk kids in town. Before heading to the party, however, I decided to draw a fake tattoo on myself to appear a little more edgy, but Kohan was the only one who caught it. Linds and I have been attempting to be a little more mysterious, but we're failing miserably at it. I don't know about Lindsay, but I really just like to know things about people, so I like to throw myself at people I haven't seen in awhile and ask them questions regarding the ins and outs of their lives, which is not mastering the art of mystery by any means. It's so hard for me not to be curious. That's all I am. I just want to know things. Kohan came up and asked me what I had been up to lately and I simply murmured, "this and that." He's quick as a cat and was immediately like, "what, are you trying to be vague or something?" I was devastated; nothing gets by him. I attempted a new personality and within minutes, he calls me out on something else. Lindsay and I busted out laughing, and that was the end of our intrigue, if you will, for the night. Kohan and I had a good conversation for awhile. Since, I lasted all of 3 minutes trying to be more mysterious, I decided to pester Kohan with questions that I knew would throw him off. And that's my shoutout to you, McNab, since you were disgruntled about the lack of Kohan appearing in my blog.

So, in America we celebrate this day called "Cinco de Mayo." Have you heard of it? This holiday, to my extreme vexation, is not celebrated worldwide. The English didn't know what to do with the American obsession with all things Mexican on this wonderful, beloved day of ours. On el cuatro del Mayo, aka Monday, Genna and I were chilling in the library commiserating over how we really needed to live it up over the next few weeks and store up 4 months of memories, when we decided to just start planning things. Genna wanted us to cook dinner and when she says "us," I knew she meant "me" just because I'll end up being the one to do it anyway and I agreed that we should cook for each other again. Then, it hit me that Tuesday was Cinco de Mayo so I was like, "Gen, let's have a party!" We got a little ahead of ourselves and took on a much bigger role than I think either of us ever intended, but it was still awesome. We made a facebook group right then and there and invited some of our international buddies for a Mexican fiesta and included some lyrics of Jimmy Buffet's "Margheritaville" to get people pumped. We decided that we would make enchiladas and our own spanish-rice concoction since you can't really get spanish rice here, and nachos. After I got out of my Irish writing class on tuesday (4 pm) we met at Tesco to get the ingredients and ended up spending approximately 57 GBP on food for everyone. We got craploads of food. I mean craploads. It was super heavy and by the time we checked out, we were both feeling really stressed out about getting all of the food done in time and wondering what the frick we got ourselves into. We live about 20-25 minutes from Tesco, and with all that food, well, you do the math. Un poco disgruntled.

We started cooking right away. Alexandra came over and took over the rice and bean concoction we created while I did all things chicken enchilada and Linds baked cookies. Genna ran around shrieking like a crazy woman and running to the store to grab extra things that Alexandra and I needed to get our food done. I was so proud of my chicken enchiladas. I mean it. I think they were the best freaking things I've ever made and I can't wait to make them again. They were a hit, and Alexandra's rice was muy popular as well. The four of us made a great team. These are the girls that showed up to our party + or - a few stragglers.

They're my buddies from all over the place in Genna and Lindsay's kitchen. And they all loved our Mexican food.

There's Alexandra, preparing the rice. :)

I probably made about 25 enchiladas easy and they were torn up. Girls can tear up food when they're hungry and they like what you have to offer. I thought it was pretty hilarious. After a little while, two Aussie boys and a New Zealander showed up to partake in our Mexican festivities as well. They came in and went straight for the food. It's satisfying watching guys eat your food like they'll never eat again because you know it means that they like it. I was happy. After having a table packed full of all kinds of nachos, guacamole dip, chips and salsa, cookies, enchiladas, rice, etc. etc., this was nearly the end result (stragglers of course came in to eat more as time went on):


Here are some more intimate photos that wound up on my camera during the night, thanks to some unknown camera thief, namely, Alexandra.

Mon-Mon and Genna-Bear with their Aussie lovers, Taylar and Rhys.

Ko-han the Bro-han looking stern. Probably because the N.Z.'s don't know how to handle a little spice in their Mexican food.

And this concludes the self-portraits I discovered on my digi. As usual, Linds is scared about what the future brings. Haha, just playing.

Other than that, I gave a presentation in my Economic Development course on whether the AIDS epidemic would prevent the Demographic Transition from occurring in Africa. I thought it was only going to be my professor, since that is what usually happens, but 11 people showed up. I wasn't really prepared for it, but I felt like a BAMF when they were taking notes during my lecture. Also, my professor announced how much he liked my research and analysis and wanted it posted on the MOLE site (their version of Blackboard), so I was feeling pretty good about myself. It's actually a remarkably interesting topic, as I knew it would be. I kept envisioning economic research in Africa; I don't know, we'll see.

Today, Chelsea, Monique and I went to see WOLVERINE. "HUGE" Jackman, as Kohan likes to call him, was flaming as usual. My favorite line was right at the end when he goes, "I'LL FIND MY OWN WAY." What a BAMF thing to say. I kept saying it during our walk home (Alex and Lindsay went to see Ghosts of Girlfriends Past while we were in Wolverine). I decided that if I could be mutant, I would want to be able to run and leap like VICTOR CREED, have eyes like Cyclops, and an additional uncanny protective shield that I am able to extend onto innocent civilians who need rescuing from precarious situations. Of course, I would be a good mutant. Anyway, it was great. I'm looking forward to Angels & Demons, Harry Potter, and Transformer 2. Amen? Amen.