Bad Start

Bad start to the weekend. Totally threw my back out last night again. I think this whole 'working out' thing iss mocking me. Lifting newspapers, my back just went pljjihiguhggf. We had already had a few beers so i thought it would be fine to go out and get toasted. Limping to Wando's, I spent the night leaning against things and polishing off a fishbowl myself, which cameback to haunt me later that nite. Apparently, Jenna said that while i was walking back from the bar to the group, i was whispering to myself every step, "i'm fine, i'm fine." How typical Ali. So today is spent with the girls taking care of me : ) Between Burbs and his mono (poor kid) and now my back, we are quite the motley crew!

Brilliant Idea

Tennis class. Brilliant. Not only did I realize in class today how much I missed it, but remembered that it was the one sport that I was good at. Plus an old AIESECer (Aga) is in the class and is really good and we play after class so she can whip my out of shape butt back into shape. Other brilliant part is that I'm already in gym clothes so I have no excuse not to go to the SERF (gym) after with Katie80. This whole trickery of mine just might work! Sounds silly to all of you? If you knew how long it's been since I've been to the SERF, it wouldn't be so silly! : )

Good Start

Quite thrilled with my schedule this semester. Tennis on Mondays and Wednesdays which will help my rusty skills and then Tuesdays and Thursdays are super long lasting from 9:30 (early for me) until 6:00. One of my French classes is 'eh', but my Business French class will be awesome complete with Lynndawg in it and my favorite professor. Except I need to pick a country that I might want to intern/work in after graduation- tough decision. Senegal? Mali? Cameroon? We'll see! Then my Physics in the Arts course is sweet- my prof just plays music, turns on strobe lights and makes objects fly around the room. Only thing holding me back from a kick ass semester is my senior thesis. I'm obsessed by it. Both by my topic and by writing the best possible paper. Except my advisor is super smart and hard on me which always makes me cringe before meetings and walk out near tears after. I'll toughen up once I buckle down a bit this week and get to writing. Brokeback- expect help requests.

The Deed is Done

Tickets are purchased and trips are booked. Jenna, Katie80 and my fabulous coworker Kate 'the body' Salkin will be departing Madison on May 23rd and arriving in Athens, Greece the next afternoon. From there, we will be embarking on a 10 day cruise throughout the Greek isles with a stop in Istanbul and to a volcano (katie is stoked). We end in Athens where we'll be taking a ferry to the Turkish coast and hopefully finding some AIESECers and will end up in Istanbul by the 7th where we will sadly be saying goodbye to Katie80.
At this point, Jenna and I will be travelling on (and possibly Kate Salkin) and taking the Balkan express over to Skopje, Macedonia where we'll be spending about a week there and in Ohrid. Another train to the Albanian coast will follow where we'll be finding a boat over to Italy. My parents will be staying somewhere in Tuscany near the coast so we'll backpack it over that way with whatever stops we desire on the way. Stay with my parents a day or two then we'll travel on up the rest of Italy and into southern France where we'll be spending a few days. Jenna will then head off to Spain and I'll spend the next week travelling up through France with whatever stops my heart desires. I'll end up in the Netherlands for a bit to hopefully visit my buddy from the summer, Josine and fly out of Amsterdam on July 5th.
Not too shabby, huh? Yeah, we're slightly excited to say the least. Now we just have to hammer out some details like finding some cool AIESECers to crash with and figure out some fun little not touristy places to visit. Any suggestions or contacts would be greatly appreciated!
And on another note. GO PATRIOTS! Big game tomorrow. HUGE game. I will be stationed at Brats at 11:15 am to get seats for the 1:00 Bears game with the Pats game after. You can find me at Brats probably until 9:30. Maybe later. Fingers crossed.

End of the Hiatus

So I officially did not check my email or really go online at all for a total of 11 days. Ahh the beauty of not being president anymore! It's been an extremely eventful and wonderful few weeks. Great 2 weeks in Boston reconnecting with some great friends and throwing an insane New Years dinner party bash with 20 of my dear friends. Thanks to mom and dad for that one! And I just got back from a week in Steamboat, CO skiing with 175 college kids which needless to say was insane. Complete with bringing down a local sports bar there when Wisco beat the Ohio St. bball team (http://www.youtube.com/wat
ch?v=XquEFPehD3A), enjoying the naked hot springs, amazing skiing, getting asked out on a date, dealing with living with 10 guys for a week, etc.! It was quite a fantastic break, but it could not be better to get back. I missed the roomies unbelievably and we have wasted no time in the past 24 hours being attached at the hip. I'm also getting psyched for our graduation trip that we are planning this week complete with stops in Turkey, Greece, Macedonia, Prague, maybe Tuscany and France... who knows! Any suggestions for the first three would be very much appreciated!
Ahh it's good to be back sitting on our couch watching trashy tv with my girls.