Tru Confessions

Does anyone else remember this movie on Disney Channel?

I don't really remember what it's about, but it does remind me of how some people start out so great...

...and then lose it when they try and be super hot and hook up with Megan Fox and stuff...

Or am I still the only one who hated Transformers?

So last weekend (two weekends ago? the best part about summer is that time is irrelevant) I went to a family reunion in Carlsbad, CA. We spent all day every day on the beach doing...nothing. I don't really remember the last time I did that so it was beautiful.


Now, I normally wouldn't do this because I always get slightly annoyed when other people think their relatives are the cutest things ever and you're like "that kid has like six moles on his face." But seriously, if these aren't the three cutest children you have ever seen in your life then your name must be Brad Pitt or Angelina Jolie, the only couple on this earth beautiful enough to be capable of creating cuter children. And they adopted. Which means these three win.

A less cute (but still beachy) photo of Erin and I.

Then...Aly!! Okay, okay, let me fill you in. Aly is my best friend (and former roommate) up at school. However, since she went to Ecuador for winter semester, and I went to Berlin (did I tell you?) this summer...we have only seen each other once in the last 8 months! If you are wondering which one Aly is she's the asian not the cancer patient. (just kidding Erin...uh...)

(Side note: Aly is not actually Asian. She doesn't even like Hello Kitty. (side note within a side note!?!?: Erin does not actually have cancer. that headband is actually super cute. I just needed to clarify in case one of my two readers (Erin and my mom (this is my 4th side note inside a side note. Too bad I didn't think of this a year ago and then make some sort of movie about being so many levels deep and have it starring Leonardo DiCaprio, boosting my personal fame and bank account into the millions))gets offended and reduces my readership to one.) No matter how long this sentence is or how many times you look at that picture and think i'm lying, Aly is still not Asian.)

But speaking of Asians...we met these friends at a Japanese restaurant in Oceanside.
My mom wouldn't let us leave until we took a picture of them.

And going with the theme, Brady also thinks he's Asian.


Overall the trip was fun, relaxing and a much needed break for my feet and my mind after three months of wandering Europe.
Plus I got some quality kathERINe time in.

(Erin and Katherine=KathERINe)

And some quality Cindy time in. Which means some quality "hear about Zac Efron" time.
And who doesn't need some of that?

Here's to my month-long summer break starting off right.

Katie

The fam. :)

Surprise!

Today I figured out a cool trick using this new thing my brother showed me called "technology." According to Wikipedia, technology is something invented by the Japanese to trick white, twenty-something American girls from utah into cursing their severe lack of left-brain ability and to prevent them from enjoying modern, time-saving conveniences.
Well, jokes on you Asia!
Because today I figured out how to upload pictures straight from Picasa, making the blogging process exponentially easier. (I'm not telling you how I was doing it before.)
Anyways, in honor of the occasion, I thought I'd post this fun series of photos from Sanssouci.
I miss Berlin and my friends from there. But most of all I miss living a pretend life where I spent most of my days walking around eating pastries and soaking in historically significant and aesthetically pleasing buildings and places all day with my biggest worry being how to order a footlong using the metric system.
BUT, life is good in Santa Clara, UT. I really can't complain about living in a place I consider to be heaven on earth. Even if I have to empty the dishwasher every now and again and deal with a cat that sleeps on my neck at night.

Katie's Daily Fun Fact(starting today, and quite possibly will only happen today): When I googled "Fun Facts" a website came up that listed "Abraham Lincoln Facts" as #10 on the most popular facts researched. Our good friend Honest Abe was beat out only by incredibly important issues such as "Most Shoplifted Book Facts," "Chuck Norris Facts," and "Pornography,"(which is not actually a fact, but apparently is still more important to Americans than our 16th President.) He did, however, come just ahead of "Vin Diesel Facts" and "Australian Women Facts." Glad we've got some sense of priorities here in the U.S.


And on that note, I'm off to enjoy my work/homework free summer evening.
Mazel Tov!


Katie

And I gladly stand up next to you...

HHHOOOOOMMMMMMEEEEE!!!!!!!

Well kids, I'm back. And there is a LOT to tell.

So much, in fact, that most of it will never reach the blogging world.

But I'll do my best to give you the highlights, which should be a lot easier to do when I'm not in a deliriously hot, non-air conditioned, smokey city.
The best news is that I no longer have to deal with websites being in German.
Oh what? Why yes. I HAVE been navigating myself through blogspot.com in a language other than my native tongue. Impressed? Grateful? You probably shouldn't be. Believe it or not, it wasn't too difficult to figure out which box I write my e-mail in and which one I write my password in.
Difficult or not, however, seeing English everywhere has been a big fat party.
And I'm sure glad I was invited.

Recap of the most incredible month of my life thus far, Part One: Study Tour

I'm gonna make this easy and just give you the numbers:

12 different cities
(Dresden, Leipzig, Weimar, Eisenach, Bamberg, Nuernberg, Creglingen, Rothenburg, Heidelberg, Wetzlar, Goslar, Wittenberg)

15 Cathedrals

10 different hostels.
One of which was in a castle.

37 hours on a bus.

3,487 dried-out rolls with warm cheese and/or nutella for breakfast.

Balanced out by eating 102 scoops of ice cream between 6 of us.

Overall the tour was long, hot, tiring, inspiring and incredible!
You couldn't pay me any amount of money to replace it but you probably couldn't pay me any amount of money to do it again. Once in a lifetime baby.

Part two: Secret Trip

So one day I was sitting in my English 291 class discussing the Canterbury Tales for the third day in a row, and I had just eaten the same meatball sandwich from Subway that I have had every time I've gone to Subway since I discovered the Wilkinson center freshman year, and I was nervously thinking about how I had contemplated wearing a solid-colored-Shade-shirt to school that morning (I hyphenate because in Provo those four words together create a term that overwhelmingly dominates the female population's closet space), and I was getting even more agitated by the fact that I actually OWNED a solid-colored-Shade-shirt. Then the real kicker came when it dawned on me that, not only had I almost agreed to hike the Y that weekend (something I have narrowly avoided doing since taking on the repute of "cougar"), but that I had almost done so by clicking "accept" on a Facebook event invite. It was then, as I realized that I was sinking deeper and deeper into the pits of Provo mediocrity, that I made an executive decision:

I needed to do something to re-instate my previously stalwart strike on all things commonplace.
Namely: move my plane ticket to a week after my German study abroad, not tell a soul what I was doing or where I was going, and disappear into the world to re-discover my self-proclaimed strike against the boring and redundant life I was migrating towards.

Four Months, a little bit of planning and 5,000 miles later I found myself on a flight to London, clueless, penniless, and absurdly happy with my decision.
It was only then, as I was actually in the air that I took a second and thought about the real consequences of my decision. I was going to a country I'd never been to, sleeping with people I'd never met, with money I didn't really have. "Well," I thought, "No turning back now. I'm going to London." And then I thought, "Unless we crash."
Sometimes life is funny like that, only giving you two options. Die, or go to London. It was a tough decision. Mostly because I didn't know what they'd be serving for breakfast at my hostel.



London: The city of signs. Everywhere I went there was some goofy slogan or warning. Here's one: (if you haven't noticed I'm really into colons these days: not the body part.)
The funniest part about this sign was that the weekend I was there, one of the two elevators they had available to prevent any catastrophic use of the formidable 123 stairs was broken. To handle this crisis they had ushers there politely encouraging any brave soul who felt they could physically handle it, to attempt the stairs. Boy. Life in the big city can really get crazy.

Probably the only downside to traveling by yourself (besides the fact that there was nobody there to hear me talk incessantly about how incredible it was to see the chair Charles Dickens sat in, and the books Charles Dickens read, and the handkerchief Charles Dickens blew his nose in) is that there's no way to hide the fact that you took pictures of yourself. I guess I could make up some story about how a hot British boy took this for me, but then everyone would be all like "oohh Katie, tell us the story..." and then I would have to actually make up some hot British boy and then I'd probably to have to have some sort of fake Skype conversation with him and accidentally start speaking in a British accent and then be all "Oh. Sorry. I just hear it so much from my real-life British boyfriend," and then one day I might want a real boyfriend and everyone would be like "Hey man, watch out. I think she has some boyfriend from another country."

Anyways, for the sake of preserving any sort of future in dating I may have we're just going to go with, "Yeah, I took a picture of myself." But it's mostly because I was writing on the grass outside Westminster Abbey. Who doesn't want proof of that?

So this post is getting excessively long and I'm getting farther and farther from the main point, which is: I went to London for a week by myself and had the time of my life. If you want to know more, you should ask me. My family would thank you, they're pretty sick of hearing me talk about it by now.

So before I came home to...

(taken at the Tate Modern Museum in London)

...I spent one last day in Berlin. Coming back to Berlin after a week in London felt a little bit like the "Yay, I'm a llama again!" scene in Emperor's New Groove. I was so excited to be home! And then I remembered that home isn't actually a place with no air conditioning or mexican food where nobody speaks my language.

So after a bittersweet goodbye, I spent 26 hours traveling to the place I love most: Santa Clara, UT...


...where I was welcomed home by a welcome home party (fitting) thrown by Erin, Jessica and friends who are not featured in this picture.

Why yes, I did wear that hat for two days straight so that it would not get smashed in my luggage.


I loved every second of my time in Europe. There were ups and downs but all of it made the trip the amazing experience that it was and made what I learned there all the more meaningful.
I've said it once and I'll say it again: I'm the luckiest girl in the world.
Thank you to everyone who helped me get there and who supported me while I was there.


All I know is that sleeping in my own bed has never been more appreciated.

More life-updates to come. This blog is far from over.
God Bless America.

Katie

"Thanks! And I love Basketball!"

World Cup. Weltmeisterschaft. Greatest month of my life.

There are many names for it, but however you say it, it's incredible.

What could be better than an entire month of some of the most talented and attractive athletes on this earth going head to head in the world's most beautiful sport?

Oh. I know. How about being in Germany while it all is happening?

I hope you Americans feel really one-upped right now, because that is exactly what I was going for.

For those of you who are new to this world, let me fill you in:
EVERY SINGLE PERSON OUTSIDE THE UNITED STATES OF AMERICA BASES THEIR LIFE-LONG HAPPINESS ON THE WORLD CUP.
Everyone.


I am still unsure as to how America missed this fun little boat, but after spending the extent of the world cup in a country of people who learn how to boo soccer officials before they can talk, I can promise you this...America didn't just miss the fun boat, they missed the fun ocean. And it was the Pacific Ocean. Which sucks because that is the biggest one.
A whole lot of not-fun going on there.

Proof:

Now watch this again and try and tell me that man at the end does not love his life. His team is winning, he's super drunk, and he's allowed to blow that whistle to his hearts content. Nobody's stopping him! He lives in Germany! This is the world cup! HE'S BLOWING A WHISTLE!!!

Are you starting to feel the lack of fun America?
Think about that one next time you're NOT blowing a whistle.

................................................................

Sucks doesn't it?

Well kids, I have eight more days here in the land of bread, cheese and raw meats.
Speaking of which, if I have to eat bread, cheese, or raw meat for breakfast one more time I'm going to move back to America, eat my fill of bacon and eggs, and then mail a large envelope of Anthrax to every youth hostel in Germany.
The countdown to Mexican food begins.

Katie