guatemala day 2

Woke up bright and early Saturday morning to the sound of fireworks being set off by the local shamans (or as our church so lovingly calls them, "witch doctors"). Those of us from north of the border are so damn jumpy. We're all screaming, ducking to avoid gunshots that aren't there, and flinching at regular intervals, which in turn yields looks of inquiry from locals who have grown immune to the continual explosions. Embarrassing. So I gravitated towards the amazingness that is Guatemalan coffee, and eventually reached a state of full consciousness. We feasted on eggs, the best french toast ever, bacon, frutas, tortillas, and oj. After breakfast, we headed over to Serrapio's church in Chulumal. Serrapio is such a g. Unfortunately the event was a bust. We invited all the families we were going to be helping this week to come and hang out with us and no one showed.. everyone was working. There were two families there, and all 44 of us swarmed at once. Yikes. We sang a couple of songs, including our theme song: santo, santo, santo. Santo, santo, santo might actually be a pretty song, but none of us know the lyrics, and more importantly no one knows the tune. So it comes out as a cacophonous jumble of broken and mispronounced Spanish and is miserable for all parties involved. For some reason they want us to sing it ALL THE TIME and we still aren't getting better. No bueno. So we peaced out after our little fete and headed back to Casa del Rey (yeah beeotches that's the king's palace to you. represent.). The muscles of the group left us to go schlep concrete bags and check out all the sites for the week, leaving the rest of us to set up for the scholarship dinner. After every table was set with centerpieces, place cards, beanie babies, and gift bags, we were dismissed. Me and the roomies went down to the cocina for snack time. Emily and Morgan wanted guacamole, but the staff said they were out. NOOOOOO. So they got french fries instead. After snack time came nap time. Obvi. We were supposed to go help Deb Shep with VBS at 3 but went ahead and slept through that.. oh well. After a long and glorious nap, we slowly rose and donned our sweet tees for the dinner. See sweet tees below.

For the scholarship dinner, I was a greeter because my mom was making claims that I am "fluent" in Spanish. I suppose that I am indeed fluent relative to the woman who replied "Lisa" when asked "como esta?" in C Rica, but to the native children of Guatemala I am far far from it. Whatevs. So children come in by the busload, and there are three of us at a table with everyone's names and seating arrangements on like 20 sheets of paper. Luckily, they were all wearing name tags so we could push em through to the ushers pretty quickly. Once all the kiddies were seated, I found my table and grabbed a seat. I was with a bunch of 17-year-old girls from Quiche. They were straight up gs. I loved them. We chatted about school and what I was studying and how their recent slew of exams went and all that then we started discussing boys and the distinct difference between using "calor" or "caliente" when talking about oneself, which Geovanny taught me in C Rica. They all said that they weren't allowed to date yet, and that their padres forbid them from doing so until they were at least 20. The conversation turned to me, and they were asking if my parents had to approve of boys I date. I told them no, and they were shocked, so then I thought I had misunderstood and quickly assured them that my parents had to approve if I was getting married. Then one girl made a joke about slowly removing a few items a time from your parents house to move out without them noticing. I love understanding jokes in Spanish! So we laughed a lot, and I ended up with a novio by the end of the night--the lone boy at our table stock full of girls. His name was Jeffers and he was cute as a button and probably about 14. Go me. The girls selected some boys from the room, and so I went and got them to come take pictures with them. My favorite was when they started asking for Chaz. Chaz, on the complete opposite end of the room, almost out of sight from our table. Almost, but apparently not completely because they were definitely demanding Chaz. At the end of the dinner, they all made me give them my email address, but only one of them had an email address to give me. The rest assured me that they will def send me an email as soon as they get an email address. Ah love them long time. I was sad to see them go. We were all exhausted, but it was time for another rousing devo courtesy of Tim. After devos came pb&j, and it was our first night introducing the "special request list". We were just asking for divas with that one. Trey diagrammed out a sandwich for us to construct for him tomorrow: wheat bread- crunchy peanut butter- white bread- strawberry jelly- white bread- creamy peanut butter- wheat bread; squish to fit bag. Our pb&j krewe was sub par. Last night, it was Paul and a bunch of his friends so the noise level never went below 1000 decibels. Tonight, though, was a different sort of flaw to the team. The flaw that was growing teenage boys.. These kids had just eaten a huge dinner, but were trying to eat everything they could get their grubby paws on! They'd make a sandwich, and then deem it "inedible" because it was made with an end piece, or an "extra" because that category's quota had already been filled, and before me or JLo could say otherwise they would shove the entire thing in their mouth. Cooooool. After pb&j we tried to organize another round of charades, but ran out of time. So off to bed. Ta.

peace love and caliente

guatemala day 1

hola hola hola

Flashback to Friday morning at 5 am, when RPC's Guatemala Team were the only freaks in Roswell rising before the sun. Cut to 5:30 am, when the Jennings fam piled into a STYLIN mini-van , happy as clams. In our state of delirium, Victoria, Paul, and I came up with a series of hand gestures to communicate with one another. As I am sworn to secrecy, all I can tell you is "LLAP". I tried to get the fam to keep the pimp hand strong, but they weren't feelin it. Fools. At the airport, we dined at Mickey D's. I was excited at the prospect of a McCafe latte and a homestyle chicken biscuit, but the McDonalds at the airport just so happens to specialize in WEAK SAUCE. They denied me my latte, claiming that they do not make lattes (EVEN THOUGH THEY HAVE MCCAFE ADS UP WITH DELICIOUS STEAMING LATTES). I settled for an iced coffee, but then unwrapped my homestyle chicken biscuit to find the sorriest excuse for homestyle chicken I have ever encountered in my life. Fail. So it was not even worth the standard post-McDonalds nausea. Double fail. At the airport, I rocked the skinny jeans/ hiking boots look in preparation for my homecoming Central America (I have a rep to uphold. duh.). Victoria was relentless, obvi this stemmed from her jealousy. Understandable. On the plane, I had a 3-hour discussion with Jason. It began with intensely scrutinizing all available Sky Mall products. He also understood the art of keeping the pimp hand strong, and so we bonded. Obvi. We had a few rousing rounds of would you rather (which ended abruptly with my morbid death-by-aeration-shoes jokes) and diagrammed a movie genre spectrum, then had our aisle-mates vote on who had the better spectrum. I obviously won; everyone agreed that my spectrum was infinitely more logical than Jason's. We also discussed the beauty of clouds (Jason is freaking obsessed), then Jason quizzed me on pilot/ flying things and critiqued the entirety of my itunes library. By the time we'd landed, I had acquired epically large pit stains, on account of the 102 degree cabin temperature. I changed my shirt, only to sit on a bus for another 3 hours or whatever it was. Upon boarding the bus, we were fed none other than MORE MCDONALDS. yikes. Victoria and I sat together on the bus, and performed a singing/ dancing rendition of Jai Ho for our fellow travelers. I managed to fall asleep with my neck at a 90 degree angle for a while, so that was cool. We made it to our lodgings at Casa del Rey by late afternoon, where we were greeted with papaya juice and an abundance of bagged water (mi favorito). We got our sweet room keys with wooden face masks as keychains, and made our way to the cuartos. I was in 209 with Victoria, Emily, and Mallory, making me their fearless and impossibly responsible leader. We had some time to kill before dinner, so I led my minions to the room for naptime. For dinner, we had fish, mashed potatoes, veggies, sopa, and rolls. Delish, as usual. Thomas hooks us up. After dinner, we had devos then pb&j krewe. JLo and I were in charge of all things pb&j. Appropriate, seeing as both of us are unconditionally and irrevocably in love with peanut butter. So we elected the chosen few, and busted out 88 pb&j sandwiches (of three various strawberry/grape white/wheat combos) in 20 minutes. Then we opened the doors for the stampede, and everyone ran through to grab their sandwiches, chips, and cookies. And guess what cookies they had--CHIKYS!!! C rica what whaaat! Holler. After pb&j we got a big group to play charades (pronounced sh-rahh-ds). All you need to know about this game is that it is AWESOME and that I am AWESOME at it. Duh. Victoria and I were partners, and were dominating until we got a noise complaint and had to peace out. Boo. Then bedtime.

peace love and mcfail.

live long and prosper.

greetings blogsphere.

Just watched the MTV movie awards. Here are my thoughts:

• Andy Samberg is a g.
• Megan Fox hasn't showered in weeks.
• Bruno should fear for his life because Marshall Mathers is apparently not a fan of getting teabagged. Who knew?
• Leighton Meester and Lil Wayne are the id. If I were receiving a golden popcorn, that would be my ideal giver of golden popcorn couple. Appropriate that Miley was on the receiving end. If it can't be me, she's up there on the next best thing list.
• Kristin Stewart and Robert Pattinson should stop talking. Just stand still, look pretty. I think it'd be best to only speak when Stephanie Meyers provides you with words to say. ONLY then.
• Zac Efron desperately needs a haircut.
• Lady Gaga wasn't there. Wtf.

Overall the show was weak sauce. For those who missed it, the winner was Twilight.

In other news, summertime in Athens has been the shiz. 1979 (the house) is one of the greatest things that has happened to my life. I love living here. I love my room, I love my roomies. I love our baby pool and our beerpong table. I love our kitchen and our back porch. I love our beer fridge and that we live in a house of mirrors. I love sunbathing in the backyard and watching it's always sunny in philadelphia for hours at a time. Yeah. Welcome to the good life.

I am a twat who tweets on twitter. I read an article about how Twitter is for the narcissistic, a website completely devoted to self-indulgence, and I was convinced that I belonged in such a community. Thus far I have found it to be mildly entertaining, a welcomed addition to my crackberrys bookmarks, but I don't have enough real friends on it to get too into it. I'm one of those freaks whose 'is following' count greatly exceeds the 'followers' count. I make no apologies for my creeper tendencies.

I cannot wait for The Hangover to come out!! I died when I saw the preview for the first time. I've actually been watching a lot of movies lately, which is weird for me (Ali you should be so proud). I have loved all of them. I would highly recommend any and all of these titles: Zack and Miri Make A Porno (I laughed, I cried, I just about vomited when the girl "frosted" the cameraman's face..), House Bunny (the eyes are the nipples of the face), Star Trek (I am in love with Captain James Kirk--obvi, young Spock, Bones, and Chekov. There wasn't a dull moment in the 127 minutes.), and Terminator Salvation (I was the only girl in the theater, but that left more Christian Bale and Sam Worthington for meee). I also saw Bride Wars, but hated it. It made me so frustrated and annoyed..ugh. And Kate Hudson is one of my all-time faves, but even she was not enough of a redeeming quality to save this movie for me. Boo.

Current Obsessions: anything Adele and Eric Hutchinson, Akon's Beautiful, and I'm On A Boat. Also It's Always Sunny In Philadelphia, Mini Vanilla Ice Cream Sandwiches with Nutella, sepia photos, and the color yellow.

Yesterday was a good summer day. It consisted of sleeping in, a Wal Mart run (slash new things), pool time, delicious barbecue, fresh baked chocolate chip cookies, and beer til I dropped around 4am. Victoria came up for the night, so you really can't go wrong with that. Oh and the cherry on top: busting out the potato gun around 2am. As you can plainly see, it was a very successful day.

UMMMM I'm really tired and really just wanted to share my thoughts about the mtv awards. So g'nite.

peace love and flippie floppies.

kerrypalooza

WATTUP PARTY PEOPLE

So it's been a while. I'm not going to apologize for this because that's just me. I am erratic with my postings, and I accept this about myself. I certainly hope you can do the same.

The past couple weeks of my life have consisted entirely of living the dream. Nothing more, nothing less.

KERRYPALOOZA

It all began two weeks ago, early Monday morning when I woke up at the ungodly hour of 530am to meet daddy at peachtree dekalb airport for a 630am departure to St Simons Island in the 182. Sadly, the skies were not smiling upon us. They were trying their very best to ruin my life, actually. Forget the 182--a couple of clicks later, I was booked to fly out of Hartsfield Jackson at 10am (ridiculous, I am aware). This left me ample time to grab a Starbucks and sit myself in a prime spot at my gate for people-watching, one of my all-time favorite past times. So take that cloud beeotches.

I landed in Brunswick, GA approximately 50 minutes after takeoff, where Melanie and sweet Anne came and picked me up. I hopped in and we found a DQ with the help of my precious crackberry so that we could buy sweet baby Kerry an ice cream cake with those delicious crumblies all up in it. mmmm. We decided against the cake that had a dead bug on it, and instead opted for the one that said "Happy Birthday Tink". It was a tough call, but I think we made the right choice.

Then we hit the BEACHHH. I was so freaking ready for it, too. I donned my new bikini and ray bans, lathered on some spf, and plopped my butt down in the sand. Glorious. We spent the day reading cosmo, chatting, munching on goldfish, singing, and peeing in the water every so often. The palooza crew consisted of Kerry's forever friends: past roomie (a haire), current roomie (smel--that other cretin in their room doesn't count), future roomie (me), bembry, anne, scott, and amy. We missed the lozano seesters and jamie, but there will be other beach trips. I insist.

the crew: amy, bembry, anne, scott, kerry, me, smel, and alison

Night one we went out for a fancy schmancy dinner for Kerry's birthday. Bembry was obliterated. Appropriate. She had stashed a sizeable amount of vodka in her purse, and made herself a dirty shirley at dinner. Actually it was more of just a dirty. No shirley involved, but I think Gatorade was involved.. Don't worry about it. The dinner was de-freaking-licious. We got this big-ass bowl of salad for the table with all of these delectable dressings, in addition to multiple loaves of "THE BEST FUCKING BREAD EVER BITCHESSS" (-amy). Then came the main course.. Smel and I split the shrimp broccoli alfredo number. So good but struggles to push through after all the salad and bread. Then the waitress brought out a birthday dessert for the birthday princess, which we all shared. Double struggles. Anne and I kept complaining about how our tummies were going to burst, all the while tasting off each other's plates and passing the birthday dessert back and forth. Judge away.

After dinner one car hit the liquor store and the other hit the grocery store to get all the necessities: mini liquor bottles to fill seymour the pinata with, the cheapest flasks of vodka you have please and thank you, cran grape drink of champions, trick birthday candles, and kerry's favorite candies. Then we all met back at the condo and got the partay started. Well, Bembry climbed into bed but we couldn't hold it against her since she'd been downing shots since early afternoon. So we played games, ate lots of ice cream cake, and were just a merry bunch of drunken fools by the time midnight rolled around. Bem reappeared around 12:30 to rally in the name of ice cream cake. Then she went back to bed. A few of us ended up in the pool--some clothed, some not so much, but we all managed to wake up the next morning so I'd say the night was a great success.

here's bembry rallying (12pm).

and here's kerry killing seymour.

The next day the stupid clouds came out to play, so bikinis were out of the question. I ate some delicious barbeque with Kerry, Bembry, and Anne, then me, Kerry, Bembry, and Scott went and played charades on the beach for a while. I freaking love charades. I'm not very good, but I get very into it. After a while we headed back to the condo and got ready for dinner. We went to Brogen's and then to TCBY. deliciousness. No one wanted to party in true palooza fashion on night two, so we stayed up watching True Housewives of Jersey and the New York reunion, then off to bed.

In the morning, I was ready to go. Me, Kerry, Bembry, and Scott (the A-team) hit the beach, equipped with two cases of beer for case race day. Me and Scott versus Kerry and Bembry. You know it's going to be a good day when the first beer is cracked before 10am. The rest of the palooza crew joined us a bit later on, and then we took a group nap. The skim board was busted out at some point, as were extra beers when Scott and I finished dominating the case race. The beauty about case races, as Bembry so wisely pointed out, is that everyone wins in a case race. Truth spoken.

me with the sage.

After napping and burning myself to a crisp, I thought I might should head in. So all except Bem and Kerry headed back to the condo, and Scott and I went and sat by the pool. The pool was disgustingly cold, and so we took a bath. Then Scott broke the soap holder. Buckets of fail. Then everybody got ready for dinner and we headed out for a delicious mexicana feast. 2 pitchers of margaritas, a pitcher of beer, 5 baskets of chips and salsa, and shrimp quesadillas all around. It was SO good. I died. Then we partied like rockstars until we could party no more.

Kerrypalooza = GREAT success.

Thursday morning I got up and packed up my belongings, and then Amy and Scott gave me a ride to the airport. I spent the afternoon in the well celebrating Lisa Theresa's birthday, then back to Hartsfield Jackson to jump on a plane to LAX.

and so began rayban roadtrip..

which will have to wait because I am all storytimed out at the moment.

peace love and shrimp quesadillas

Today is your day! Your mountain is waiting. So...get on your way!