2011 - Year in Review Part 2

In continuing with my personal year in review, let's start with the most important month of the year: April. For obvious reasons (it's my birth month).

April: 
2011 must have been the year of the wedding! I saw so many of my friends get married this year, including my bestie. Kate's wedding was at a beautiful venue in the hills of Austin. I was so proud to be her maid of honor and the wedding was an absolute blast. The father of the groom is an Episcopal priest and he married them, which I'm sure was extra special to the couple. Here's my favorite shot of the weekend, I think this is when he announced that Zeke and Kate could officially update their Facebook status :)

April continued to be busy. My birthday is at the end of the month but since I would be out of the country, I wanted to get together with my friends beforehand. We had a small party at a neighborhood fave bar of mine and I realized my friends know me all too well.

No, it never gets old. 

I took off later that week for a 3 country tour to visit my good pal Tristan. T-Sak and I knew each other in NYC and have kept in touch since he's moved around the US and now around the world. I had never been to Poland so I figured, why not? As my dad says I like the "off the beaten path" vacations. The flight was super cheap (what, no one goes to Poland??) so I jumped on the chance.

Eating a 1 kilo pork knuckle at a neighborhood polish place. The Polish LOVE their pork. I guess it's like our chicken? Regardless, I ate about .02 ounces or whatever measurement they use. I also fell in love with pierogi and found out if you try to pluralize it "pierogi's" you will be mocked and ridiculed.  Tristan also stole a schnitzel  from the table behind us who left it. That was weird.

We flew to Prague for Easter weekend and were lucky to meet up with someone Tristan knew who was from Prague, Pavla. We had some traditional Prague food (meat and dumplings) and tasted Czech beer. In Prague, beer is cheaper than water. No lie.

Pavla took us to a BBQ in her neighborhood, and many people did not speak English. She explained that it is a tradition for Czech boys to go around the morning of Easter and hit women with these sticks that you can buy almost anywhere. I am being initiated in this photo, I guess, but the people could not have been nicer.

May:
Technically still part of my Eastern European tour, at the beginning of May I finished my tour with a weekend trip to Amsterdam for Queen's Day. QD is basically Mardi Gras, St. Paddy's and the Superbowl celebration day all rolled into one, disgustingly drunken street/canal party. Since you're in Amsterdam, the popular thing to do is to rent a boat and float the canal. Our boat didn't have an engine (what, you need one of those??) so we just hung out on the boat or walked around. I've never seen a city this crowded. People in Amsterdam love that orange color too.

June:
After I returned from my trip, I took it easy for a bit. I did get involved with the Alzheimer's Association "Blonde's v. Brunettes" flag football team. It was a really fun way to raise money for the organization and I met some really cool girls. The 'nettes won (naturally) and I made an awesome play to save the game! (Ok, not to save the game but perhaps it saved them from scoring).

Next time we'll get into the heat of Houston, which unfortunately means a boring summer, because no one leaves their house during the summer in Houston!