Pulpos Beach!

On Saturday, the day after my Grandfather's big party, we all spent the day at his beach house in Pulpos beach.


me & my niece Isabella




This was the first time I met her and she was just adorable!


my stepmom, JayAnne, soaking up the cloudy skies- we had no real sun all day


Cory- who is not praying, just rubbing his hands together. Man, I want to live here!!!!!


Kristyn, my baby sister


This little puppy just wandered in to the beach house- we never found out who he belonged to but we sure enjoyed his little visit.


My dad and my very well built cousin who surfs everyday, Jorge- who is Isabella's dad


And here he is, my grandfather Turko, looking pretty good for partying until 4am the night before.

Being at the beach was so wonderful. Anytime I can wear my flip flops and swim in the water, I am a very happy girl. This was one of my favorite days because I could just relax and hang out with my cousins and catch up on old and new times.

P.S. Happy February 28th! It's my favorite day of the year.

Cuzco!

On Sunday, the 3rd day of our trip, we all woke up at the ungodly hour of 4 am and headed to the Lima airport to catch a flight up to Cuzco, Peru. As soon as we got off the pressurized plane, the high altitide kicked in like a ton of bricks. We drove to the most awesome hotel ever- it felt like a 15th century home- and slept for a few hours, then spent the afternoon on a tour of the city and nearby ruins.



This little kid walked around saying "Picture! Picture!" You could pay him to take his picture. This seemed to be the case with most folks in Cuzco. Even if they didn't ask for money, it was kind of expected to hand some soles over. This was right outside our hotel.



At some ruins on the outskirts of Cuzco

In the middle of the tour we stopped at a little market to drink some coca tea and have some traditional corn with cheese. She happened to be walking her herd of llamas by.

15 day old baby llama

My brother brian with some cuzco ruins behind him. This place was really neat, although, as I climbed down the mountain, I fell flat on my butt in a mud patch and had to walk around with "muddy bottoms" for the rest of the afternoon- which of course is MY idea of fun.



Cuzco was pretty amazing. Good and bad. The sights were grand, the food was unbelievable, the markets were so fun to shop at and the hotel was the best. But, we were all short of breath the entire time, most of us even had to call down to the front desk for oxygen. My brother Brian also got mugged at knife point on our last night there. (Yeah, fun!) Luckily he wasn't hurt and he only had 30 soles on him which is about 10 American dollars, but it really shook him and the rest of us up. After that, we were all ready to get back to Lima for our final day.
Mara, Jonny and Cory in the Cuzco Plaza

Sweet Peru!

It feels like my trip to Peru was just a dream. Luckily, I have the pictures to prove it! And to avoid one extremely long blog entry about my whole trip, I'll post a few pictures and a few stories a day.

And without further adieu, I must begin with Machu Picchu.

kristyn, brian, mara & cory

me & our tour guide, ALBERTO, not to be confused with Ricardo, the suedo tour guide we had on the bus that picked us up at the Lima airport-

me crossing the bridge before taking the bus up to Machu Pichu-


Visiting Machu Pichu was, obviously, one of the highlights of the trip. From Cuzco, we took an almost 4 hour train ride-which was beautiful- down to Machu Picchu. Once there, we got on a bus which zig-zagged up this steeeeeeeep mountain to the base of where the tour began. Unfortunately, it was very overcast that day so visibility was pretty low. It also rained off and on for our entire hike (and I mean hike!) around the ruins.

Before the tour, we all went to the bathroom and we had to pay to get in! Fine fine, but when I stepped into my stall, there wasn't even a toilet seat! Talk about annoying. I mean, if they're going to make me pay, the least they can do is make sure all the toilets have seats!

And Cory had to make an emergency stop at the Machu Picchu infirmary. He, along with my sister Mara, got the dreaded Soroche, which is altitude sickness that REALLY messes you up. The high altitude in general affected everyone. I'd be walking up some ancient Incan stone steps, and after maybe 10 I'd have to stop and catch my breath. We were all doing that. It was quite funny. Well, not at the time. At the time it sucked, but looking back, it was a bit humorous. One of us would start walking a little faster and within 30 seconds, they would have to stop, feeling like they just ran the marathon. It was very bizarre.

On the train ride home, I guess they figured we all needed some entertainment, so they had an Alpaca sweater fashion show! It was just a riot. The train attendants would one at a time walk down the isle, modeling a sweater to terrible American techno music from the late 90's, my personal favorite being the remix of the Knight Rider Theme song. Yeah. Not sure who picked out that selection.

Overall, seeing Machu Picchu can't even be put into words. It was that amazing to see. I hope you all can make it there one day and I hope to go back! But for now, it's good to be home in the States.

Greetings from Peru!

Hola! I am here in Lima at my hotel getting ready to go roast a pig at my Uncle Nico´s. I still can´t believe I´m here! Peru has been quite the adventure. Details and crazy stories to be posted when I get back, I just wanted to say hi. We leave tonight, or rather tomorrow at 12:30 in the morning ( which still seems like tonight to me.) And we´ll be back in Chicago before noon. It´s been a whirlwind for sure.

Happy tuesday everybody!

Senorita Katy

Very Belated Valentine's Post

I realized that Valentine's Day is not a day a lot of people enjoy, be it from a broken heart, having no one in their life, being away from the person (people) they love, and so on...And, since it was the day of luuuuv, everyone, including myself, at some point probably thought about a past love or two.

So in honor of all the broken hearts we've had to endure, here's my official top 10 list of sad songs that break my heart to listen to: (in no particular order)

1. Letters to Elise- The Cure
2. Black Star- Gillian Welch's cover of the radiohead song
3. The Blower's Daughter- Damien Rice
4. In The Arms of Sleep- Smashing Pumpkins
5. I Miss You- Incubus
6. The Way You Look Tonight- Tony Bennett version
7. Hey Jupiter- Tori Amos
8. All I Want Is You- U2
9. Between Us To Hold- Hayden
10. Never Is A Promise- Fiona Apple

If you have any you'd like to add to my list, please post, I'd love to hear what your saddest songs are. I'm off to Peru tomorrow. I'll think of you all while I'm on top of the Andes mountains.

And the day has arrived...

Well, at 11:30 something this morning I will officially be 29.

I went out last night to the John Barleycorn bar and had quite a fantastic time. Drank, ate, danced, then danced some more. And surprisingly, I didn't get drunk, despite my large amount of alcohol consumed ( 2 cranberry/vodkas, 1 long island ice tea, and 3 jager birthday shots).

We had a big table of all of my lovely friends and Cory decided to just start a tab and the waitress can split it later or whatever. Well, by the end of the night, Cory gets the bill for $502.50. Then don't forget to add the tip! So bring that up to $600 even. We decided we're going to frame it. I mean, people chipped in as they were leaving, don't get me wrong, and people either generously gave too much (thank you) or thought they were giving enough but really weren't. So in cory's pocket right now is about $350 which means cory's part of the bill was $250. As he was signing the bill he leaned over to me and said, "Well, I guess this is your birthday present!" I told him to think again. I mean, he decided to do the whole tab thing, which NEVER works out, We probably racked up $100 out of that $250. But such is life. We had a good time and that's what matters.

It's 9:08 now and I am sitting here on my couch, streaming U2 audio clips from their website. (I'm still in need of one more night of concert tickets, if you can believe it!) No one has called me yet to wish me a happy birthday. Hmmm. Usually one of my parents has called by now.

I'm feeling a bit pensive. I guess like all of us, I don't really like getting older. It seems that every year around my birthday I have major reality check syndrome. I start questioning everything in my life, am I really happy, am I doing all the things I want to do, have I done enough, is this going to work out, is that going to work out, blah blah blah. I guess I'm not a big fan of how the older you get, the more complicated things become. And I mean com. pli. cated. Boy if I could go back to the days when having an hour's worth of tedious long division homework was my biggest nightmare.

It's 9:14...I guess I should sign off, not write too big of a novel here otherwise I'll start to get really pensive, which is not what I want to do on my birthday. Cheers everyone!

-Listening to U2's Electrical Storm...You're in my mind all of the time, I know it 's not enough- and if the sky can crack, there must be some way back, for love and only love...

So yesterday at the preschool during recess, Justin, one of the 5-year-olds, came up to me and said, "Look Miss Katy! Look what I found!" And lo and behold, it was a beautiful silver ring. Not only that, it was MY silver ring that I had lost back in SEPTEMBER and which I thought I had lost forever. I couldn't believe it. I asked him where in the playground did he find it, and he said it was under the wood chips. Damn those woodchips!

But what's even more odd about this story is that he' s not in my class at school, and during recess, BOTH of his teachers happened to be outside, and usually when a kid finds something cool, they go straight to one of their own teachers. Both of his teachers were also within 10 feet of him, and I was across the other side of the playground, and yet for some reason, he chose to run all the way over to show me what he found- like the ring was trying to get back to its rightful owner. *cue eerie music*

And in case anyone is wondering, my birthday month has been so far so good. I have not had any more cheesecake, although I thought I was going to literally die when I walked into Jewel 2 nights ago and saw that they had my favorite Eli's chocolate chip cheesecake on sale. And not just on sale, but buy one get one free!!!!! It was too good to be true! But Lord knows I do not not need two entire baby cheesecakes becauuuuse...I would eat them both myself. And that is never allowed. Birthday month or no birthday month.

I can't believe I'm getting so close to 30! Where did the time go?????

Thought for the day

Medical literature tells of a split brain patient whose two hands (each of which is controlled by a different hemisphere) fought with each other while he was getting dressed in the morning. One hand would try to pull on the pants while the other struggled to pull them off. Another patient was awakened by a hand- her own- slapping her across the face. The half of her brain controlling that hand had woken up, realized the other half of the brain was oversleeping, and decided to remedy the situation.

Addressed to no one in particular...

Yeah, I didn't work out today. So? I don't have to explain myself to anybody, I just didn't want to. And I can do whatever I want. It's the first of February and February is my birthday month, and since it is going to be the "last birthday" I celebrate, then I get the whole month to do as I please.

So did I eat my grapefruit for breakfast? Ho Ho! No I did not! I made a fried egg sandwich! And on my walk home from the movie store, well, I just happened to pass by a cafe which has the best cheesecake, so I bought myself a piece. So what? And am I going to eat to eat it all by myself? Absotootly!

And now I must get on eBay and see what the current status is of the people scamming and charging a million dollars per U2 ticket, since I still need some. Oh, yes..I did score some. 4 tickets total to be exact, 2 for the Monday night concert and 2 for the Thursday night concert. But our friends who are coming into town to see them with us need to go to the Saturday and Tuesday concerts. So, in reality, I spent hours online and pressing redial just to score tickets THAT ARE OF ABSOLUTE NO USE TO ME NOW!!!!!!!!!!!!!


hAPPy bIRTHDAy indeed.