So Long, Little Buddy

Tonight I said goodbye to a very dear friend.

This was my little Beetle, and I could no longer keep her. I mean, who needs a manual transmission turbo engine to drive in LA rush hour traffic? Anyway, she was a great little car and will always have a special place in my heart - we drove 110mph across the desert together when I moved from Ohio to California... that my friend, is true love.

New car (love this picture, it was taken in front of the house I grew up in).

Westward bound with Lizzie.

i took care of her through the good times and the bad.

in front of the Brady Bunch house.

Lula enjoying the view.

So long, little buddy - I hope you find someone who loves you as much as I did.

Pacific Northwest

This past weekend John and I went up to Hood River, Oregon for his best friend's wedding. I knew it was going to be beautiful up there, but oh man... just gorgeous.

We flew into Portland on Friday afternoon, got in our rented Toyota Yaris (note to self, terrible car, do not buy) and it took us about an hour to get to our bed and

breakfast in Hood River. We had looked at many hotels in White Salmon and Hood River, but they were all either too expensive or too full, so I started searching bed and breakfasts which is how I found Villa Columbia. So glad we stayed there, definitely made the trip!

Saturday morning we went down for breakfast at 9am and everything had already been set out for us - huge spread of yogurt and fresh fruit parfaits, granola, orange juice, tea, jam and marmalade, and that was only the first course. After that was blueberry toast and individual little Italian frittatas, and

everything was mind-blowingly delicious. This was when John decided that from now on we only stay at bed and breakfasts, no more stale bagels with a tube of frozen cream cheese from the Holiday Inn!!

After breakfast we walked around Hood River and found a little store called "The Enchanted Alpaca." The lady that owned it also owned an alpaca farm in White Salmon and let us know about a festival in a lavender field about 15 minutes away where we could see some of the alpacas, so we went straight there! John has been calling various alpaca farms in the LA area to see if we can schedule a visit, but so far none have gotten back to us, so we were both super stoked - alpacas are the best!! This little one is Destiny, she is 10 months old. She was born 6 weeks premature and weighed only 7lbs - most babies are at least 18lbs, so they didn't think she was going to make it. They raised her in their house for the first few months and now she's just as big as the rest of the ones her age, so cute!! She really liked me and let me get really close to take some pictures.

We headed across the river to White Salmon, Washington where the actual wedding was going to be. John played a George Harrison song during the ceremony, so pretty. The ceremony was short and sweet, very simple. One of my favorite things at weddings is watching the grooms face as the bride comes down the aisle... perhaps one of the happiest things in the world, always makes me teary. Unfortunately this is the only picture I have of us from the actual wedding, and unfortunately we look entirely too much like my parents when they were younger, not to mention the hair problems and the open mouth. Moving on.

I really love this picture, it depicts the mood of the whole day perfectly.

Sunday we woke up at 6:30 to drive to Portland to make our flight. There were a couple detours off the highway, so we opted to take the historical scenic route for a few miles to check out the awesome waterfalls. The one in the picture is Horsetail Falls, it was huge!!! Something about the drizzly, misty morning made the waterfalls look even more majestic, so we stopped a few times and took a lot of pictures.

I'll freely admit that I bitched a lot about the trip costing us an arm and a leg, but to be completely honest, it was well worth it. Not just for the wedding or the scenery or the alpacas, but for the company too. John and I function on opposite schedules most of the time, and even though we live together, it is always so refreshing to take a trip together. We try to take a trip for our anniversary instead of presents, so this trip doubled as our third anniversary present to each other. We spent most of the weekend by ourselves and it was one of those times where you take yourselves off auto pilot and fall in love all over again. We were laughing so hard on the plane on the way back that the woman next to us was clearly annoyed, it was perhaps my favorite part of the trip.

7am in front of Multinomah Falls, which I did a really good job of getting none of in the photo.

As exciting as it's been to do so much traveling lately, I must say I'm pretty glad to be home. My body is sick of eating greasy restaurant food - when you are vegetarian and eating out, your options are pretty much, bread, cheese, pasta or some combination of the three. Even most salads come with some kind of meat (damn you, bacon!) and it's just easiest to order something that doesn't need to be altered, especially in non English-speaking countries.

One more thing - I bought these boots today and I am in love, but according to my sisters (and most of my friends) I have terrible taste in shoes so I must ask you this: Are these shoes fugly, or cute?

Seriously, with some skinny jeans and a thin tshirt, I feel like that's going to be my new fall wardrobe.

Prague

I have returned from Prague, and all I can think about are all the amazing people I met, the gorgeous city, and how I can't wait to go do it all again. It's amazing to me how such strong friendships form over only a few days, but I'm getting ahead of myself.

My trip started with an 11 hour flight from LA to Paris that left Wednesday night. It was pretty full so I was prepared for it to be miserable, but by some miracle, I wound up with two empty seats next to me! I was afraid to take the Tylenol PM John gave me since I never take Tylenol or sleep aids other than melatonin, so I had two glasses of wine and was able to sleep for 4 hours! In Paris, I met up with Gizela who was on my flight to Prague.

I had two bags - one of SG merch for the girls, and one for my personal stuff. Guess which bag got lost? The lady at the customer service counter didn't seem to care too much that all my shit was lost, so we said fuck it and headed to the cottages. No point in being upset over something you can't change, right? Plus, I had over 100 SG shirts to get me through the next 5 days, haha!!

The cab driver had no idea where the cottage was so it took us about an hour to get there, but when we finally did, so many girls ran out of the cottage to say hello - such a wonderful, warm welcome. We were pretty far away from any markets, let alone the city, so dinner the first night was bread, cream cheese, and Czech beer. Dwam, Tie and I stayed up until the wee hours of the morning (actually, this happened pretty much every night), but when they finally went to bed, I couldn't sleep because my schedule was such a disaster. That was when I decided I'd just sleep whenever I felt like it and not try to adapt to any kind of time change, which ended up working out really well in the end.

The next morning, my luggage had still not arrived and I was pretty desperate to change my clothes, so I went to the city with some of the UK girls. Sky had lived there for a few months in 2006, so she was our tour guide and took us around. I got a change of clothes and a toothbrush, in addition to loads of pictures of Old Town. When we got back to the cottages, I was finally able to take a shower (did I mention the hot water was all used up all night?) and brush my teeth, so I felt pretty damn good.

That night Morrigan made dinner for us - pasta with bleu cheese sauce, peas and green onions!! We headed over to the other cottage for a bit to watch Honey shooting a set with tons of girls in it, during which Clio arrived!! I met Clio in Vegas a few months ago, so it was really cool see her in Prague as well. After that, it was another night of several of us around the dinner table sharing stories and talking until 4am. Surprising how little sleep one needs to scrape by.

The next day was a bit more laid back. My luggage finally arrived that afternoon, so that was a huge relief!! Dom drove Clio and I into town so I could get some cash, and we had a nice lunch at a pizzeria (the first of many, apparently that's all you can eat there). Just as we got in the car to head back, a few rain drops here and there turned into a massive thunderstorm. By the time we got back to the cottages, the power was out so pretty much all shooting had stopped and everyone was napping since there was nothing else to do. Clio and I napped for a couple hours and then were joined by Sinnah and Dwam. I love this picture of them... so tender.

Everyone had dinner together that night at a little pub next to one of the cottages. Lots of picture taking and even more laughing. A few of the girls were vegan, so Key and I had picked a salad off the menu for them instead of the cheese-covered pasta, assuming "salad" would actually turn out to be a salad... not so much. Bow's dinner was a bowl of sliced tomatoes and onions floating in water, no joke. We found her a plate of french fries instead, but it was like... in what country, ANYWHERE, is this considered edible??? Well, turns out pretty much all Czech food is not very good, so everyone went back to the cottages to celebrate our last night together.

I was outside talking with some

of the girls when Eden came up to me and said "IT'S TIME!!!" She is a piercer and I had mentioned to her earlier in the week that I've wanted the cartilage inside my ear pierced since I was 17 but always been too afraid, so she convinced me to let her do it. Pretty much everyone in the cottage was in the room watching me, so I made them promise not to laugh at me if I cried. I let everyone down though - as you can see by the picture, I sat there and didn't move or make

a noise. Eden said "Can you at least pretend it hurts, and scream a liiiittle bit??!" In hindsight, I'm not entirely sure what I was scared of - I mean, I've sat for over 65 or so hours for tattoos and all. It really didn't hurt that much, it was more uncomfortable for a few seconds than anything else. I am really happy that she convinced me to man up and stop being a pussy, now I have a sweet little souvenir to remind me of my trip!

Our last night in the cottages was super fun. Dwam was tattooing, sets were being shot, and all the girls taught me how to say some really dirty things in 5 different languages. Another night that ended with me, Dwam, Sinnah and Tie around the kitchen table at 4am. After I went to bed, I woke up at 8am to find all of them back in the kitchen... no sleep for the wicked.

After a lot of sad goodbyes, a bunch of us headed into the city to check into our hotel and get some lunch. Once again the only place to eat was a pizzeria, but we were hungry so no one really cared. However, Tie and I did end up with the most pathetic excuse for a cheesecake I have ever seen in my life. It was definitely whipped cream with chunks of cookies in it, topped with jam and strawberry preserves. I'm sorry, but that is not fucking cheesecake, anywhere, ever.

Everyone was pretty exhausted by that time, so we retired to the hotel to take a real shower and nap. Clio and I tried repeatedly to take a good picture of us together and failed, we were just too tired so this was as good as it got. After Clio left for the airport, Tie and I napped for a bit so we could have enough energy to do some sight seeing that evening - you can't just be like, "What'd you do in Prague?" "Oh just watched VH1 in my hotel room..."

Key, Deison, Dom, Dwam, Tie and I met up in the early evening to get some dinner and see some of the city. We got to see the astronomical clock turn 8 o'clock and the moving figures come out... it was pretty creepy!! We ate dinner at another pizzeria (shocking) and then headed to the St. Charles Bridge. Deison asked me if I wanted to see a castle, and of course I said yes - we don't have those in America! It was really fascinating, and I took loads of pictures. Back at the hotel, Dom took some photos of me for a tattoo magazine, and Tie and I stayed up til 3am watching Czech television... lots of overdubbed tv shows and movies in German, interrupted only by ads for prostitutes and sex hotlines. Fascinating!! The next morning I had to leave for the airport at 7:30am, so we all said goodbye very early before I headed off.

I love this picture of us because I feel like this happened a lot. No idea what we were laughing at or why, but it makes me happy. Like I said before, it's always surprising to me the friendships that form over only a few days. At first everyone is a little shy and a little worried they won't get to know everyone (well, at least I was), but by the end, you've got dozens of new friends and stories and jokes to go with each one of them.

I posted all my photos on in a set on Flickr if you want to check them out. The jet lag isn't as bad as I thought it would be, I stayed up until my normal bed time on Monday when I got back so I wouldn't be all out of whack. However, staying up for 26 hours takes quite a toll on your body, so I'm off to bed now - have to rest up for a wedding in Portland this weekend, so goodnight!! <3