I'm madly in love with Europe

Ever since I got on the plane to fly home from my study abroad in Europe 6 years ago (yikes!), I've been DYING to go back. I am so in love with the museums and food and cultural activities of Europe that I MUST go back, and soon. DC is so fun because there are always so many cool things to do. Last Saturday Lauren, Kim, and I went to the embassies of 13 of the EU countries, it was awesome! They were such troopers, I wanted to get a stamp from every embassy because I like dorky things like that. We saw some cool dancing in the Greece Embassy, had a polish sausage in the Embassy of Poland, heard some singers in the Embassy of Latvia, took pictures with the gals in costume at the Embassy of Finland, avoided the free bear at the Czech Republic's Embassy, and much more. It was so fun, probably one of the coolest things I've done out here! And it only fueled the fire inside to go back to Europe and visit! Here's some photos:Apparently I like to take dorky photos, or so I'm told. Whatever, I have a good time!

What are the chances??

A few weekends ago I went up to NYC because Doug and Heather were there for a conference and who doesn't love a good weekend trip to New York? It was a lot of fun, but had a hilarious twist due to the car bomb scare.

Doug's conference was right in Time's Square at the Marriott Marquis, so after seeing "Billy Elliot" Saturday night, we started to walk back to the hotel and all of Times Square was barricated off. Finally a few hours later they started letting hotel guests back into the area but we had to show our hotel key. They wouldn't let us into the hotel until 2am and when we got inside, they handed us a pillow and blanket and said we could sleep anywhere on the 4th or 5th floor (which only consists of conference rooms!) It was hilarious seeing all of these dermatologists laying on the floor sleeping with all of their colleagues, that's just not something you see every day! Here's the room full of "sleeping" dermatologists - the same room that earlier that day they were listening to lectures in.I'm still not sure how being on the 4th or 5th floor was safer than being in our rooms if there was a bomb on the street in front of the hotel. Aren't they equally dangerous?? Finally at 4am everyone was allowed to go back to their rooms for the night and we totally crashed, it was crazy.

Nonetheless, we survived our night and drownded our tiredness in some delicious food and amazing cupcakes the next day. The irony of this all is that 6 years ago, during the big Blackout of 2003 my parents, Julie and I were in New York picking Dan up from his mission and we stayed at the Marriott Marquis in Times Square. When the huge power outage happend, we couldn't go inside the hotel for 24 hours so they brought out pillows and blankets and we slept on the sidewalk!!! No joke. So the two times in my whole life that I've stayed at the Marriott Marquis hotel, I've had to sleep on the ground for one reason or the other. Heather and I just could not stop laughing....what are the chances?? So funny. I tried to take a picture where my face would say it all. I was honestly just thinking..."you've GOT to be kidding me. I've done this before...not again!?"