Holy Joufits

There is a good chance that Bogotá may beat Las Vegas in the joufit game. It may be hard to believe, but the crazy weather here seems to bring out the joufits in people.

I don't even know what to say about Colombia so far, except that I am pretty sure I am experiencing major culture shock. This city is so different from Madison or Milwaukee. There are approximately 8 million people here which makes everything uber-crowded. I am squished while on the bus, traffic is insane (pretty sure traffic laws don't exist), you have to weave through people in every store that you go into... it's nuts.

And I'm totally freaking out about my job. I have to be a REAL teacher... something I am pretty sure I am very unqualified for at the moment and classes start on Wednesday. And it's a strict private school, also something that I am very unfamiliar with. I hope I don't screw this up too much.

I'm probably sounding a lot like Debbie Downer right now, but I am slowly adjusting. Tomorrow I will be meeting more AIESECers which I am really looking forward to. Sadly my birthday falls on a Tuesday and school starts at 7:45, but hopefully next weekend I will get to learn how Colombians party.

Madison Blackouts in San Diego

O man guys, you missed out on some good times here in San Diego. My body is trying to recover from what I did to it the past 2 days and let me tell you it is not happy with me at all. Lets see I don't really knew where to start, but I will try. The guys got here on Tuesday morning and we woke up and spent the whole day at the beach. It was very strange cause we were extremely active; we played catch with the football and softball, boogey boarded, splashed around in the waves, and all that jazz. The entire right side of my body is in extreme pain from using muscles that NEVER get used because of my laziness. But after doing that we came back to my place and tried to grill out on my deck. However, we were too stupid to figure out how to get the grill to work so we resorted to just eating chips adn dip and drinking tons of Keystone light (classy I know) as we smoked teh hookah on the deck. It was pretty amazing, but looking back on it I think I could have done with a few less Keystone Lights cause I definitely had many drinks to come afterwards. We then hopped in a cab and went down to Pacific Beach, which I like to describe as Madison with a beach. It has a street that is just like state st and has TONS of restaurants and bars on it and it is all people our age who are all completely wasted. We started out at this place called Fred's because it was Taco Tuesday and they have super good deals. But we got there at like 9 and it was crazy busy already so we pushed our way to the bar to drink while we waited for a table. Just while we were waiting for a table I think we each had 3 massive margaritas and I huge beer. Then we finally got a table and got tacos, which I hardly even remember eating but I remember thinking they were amazing. I'm not sure what else happened at fred's, but being the drunken clepto that I am I shoved a huge margarita glass and sombrero in my purse, and put another sombrero on my head and just walked out. We then made out way down the street to go to another bar called Moondoggies. However, at this point I had figured out that as of central time it was my birthday, so being teh smart person I am I told the bouncer that it was my birthday in central time and acted like an idiot with a sombrero on my head. He then pulled me aside and made me take a finger test to see if I was too drunk. What the hell??? Of course I am too drunk, its my birthday!! I thought I had the finger test down but I definitely did not and the boys had to come back out of the bar and go because I was denied haha. So, then being the beligerant drunk that I am I think I yelled at some people and stormed off to another bar where I drank some more beers and came up with a plan to go back and get into Moondoggies. Then I took off the sombrero, put on my sweater, and practiced the finger test and got back in line and this time a got in...woohoo!! go me!! However, once we got in and sat at a table I realized that Mike was in his normal falling asleep mode and Josh was not looking so good either. So after finally getting into the bar we left and called it a night.

So then the next day was pretty similar to the first. The guys made me wake up way too early to my liking so that we could be active again and go to the beach. I felt like shit, but i found that a good cure for a hangover is going in the ocean. It sounds really weird but I felt like crap until I went in the water and played around and then felt much better. But after we all spent all day in the sun and got pretty burnt we went downtown to this sweet place called Basic for dinner. We ate really yummy pizza and drank lots of beer and my brother and Jane came too and so did 2 of my brothers friends, Andrew and Rue. It was really fun and I love my brothers friends, esp. Andrew cause they always buy tons of drinks and shots for me! Which unfortunately I tell them everytime that I HATE tequila but thats all they buy for me so I end up really wasted and wanting to die the next day. So, after taking some tequila shots and having beers at Basic we went to a tequila bar where Andrew adn Rue said they would get me good tequila and I would learn to like it.....DIDNT HAPPEN. They bought me expensive tequila and i think it tasted exactly the same, terrible!!! But the place was crazy, I had no idea there was that much tequila out there. They didnt even have jose cuervo on it cause it was too cheap, I think the cheapest tequila they had was 1800. But needless to say the night got really fuzzy after this. I know we went to another bar after and I remember Andrew buying me soco lime shots and vodka tonics and buying all of the guys jameson on the rocks haha. But this is when the full blackout came into effect. I remember NOTHING after this. I dont know if we stayed there or went somewhere else and apparently Andrew drove us all back to my place, but I seriously do not know what happened. The guys said something about how they were talking to some girls, but I dont remember it so I guess people will have to talk to them to figure out what happened. But from what Ive heard I think I improved from my last bday....I made it out past 11pm, didnt fall headfirst down my stairs before going to the bar (and yes I was wearing the same shoes last night), and ddint leave out the emergency exit of the bar to go get pizza by myself.

I think that was a kinda long explanation and Im sure there are some really good drunken stories, but unfortunately I was blacked out both nights so I dont remember them. If any of you talk to any of the guys and hear any good stories you should let me know haha. But thanks for all the bday wishes and I wish all of u were here to party with us! miss u all

Confusion.

Thats my middle name guys. Annie Confusion Richards. First off there is Ryan. Joel came with me to Ryan's birthday where Ryan said four words to me. Then last night he's annoying about me not going out hard enough on my birthday... I HAVE TO WORK! Then today he offers to pick me up for soccer, which is very out of his way. He always wants to hang out, but when we do... he is unfriendly. My solution. F it. I'm over Ryan. Again.

I am also confused in these areas of my life:
1. housing... where? when to move out? who will I live with?
2. job... What the heck am i doing?
3. Boys... my sister is now setting me up with a comedian
4. City... miss you guys, want to move to all of your locations

Hehe! Life really isn't that bad at all. I'm just feeling pathetic! Keep the updates coming especially Kretsch- we need the bday low down becaues mine was very tame but I was getting drunk texts from the boys at like 5pm.

I want to die

YAY!! good job joel for starting this! I thought now would be a good time to catch everyone up with my life out here. I just woke up (its 5pm right now) from my first black out experience with my new roommates. We went to the Beachcomber which is a Madison like bar that is like 2 mins away, and me or my other girl roommate (Libby) don't have ANY idea what happened. My last memory is playing beer pong with some strange guy and I think that was at like 11 so a lot could have happened after. But atleast they were all as blackout as I was, Libby actually woke up this morning and threw up on the cat that was sleeping in her bed haha.
But besides my HUGE hangover right now everything is going well. I don't have a job yet and there really arent any prospects, but I got a job waitressing at Applebees haha!! woooohoooo! But my apt is amazing!! Its really cute and we have a deck that looks over the Bay and you can watch the fireworks from Sea World every night. Also, when you leave my place if you go to the left you are 10 steps to the Bay and to the right you are a block away from the ocean. Its so wierd to just walk to the ocean everyday, I love it though! I don't think I can ever leave this place, but I miss everyone so much. Its strange not really having friends here. I want all of you to move out here!
I'm feeling like a might die though so I think I need to go lay back down, but I'm excited that we started this!! miss all of u :(

I had alcohol in my hands

Errrr I just got home from a Twins game/ night out with one of my cousins and thought this was an appropriate moment for my first Madison catchup blog! We went to this bar that was more of a scene for my thirty year old cousin than me... and I looked around and thought, yecccchhhh. Love the girl so we totally had a great time but I was legit confused as to what I was supposed to doing there. I successfully avoided dancing with a few older-ish men which was a plus. I long for the days in Madison where I could text "HELP" to J. Vox and Mike and they'd be there to assist (or let me suffer as they laughed) within seconds. Official new, and biggest dealbreaker? Men wearing tucked in sweat-proof golf polos. GROSS.

I Had Time On My Hands

Hey guys! I thought that I would do what we all had been talking about doing. I don't know how well this will work since I always check everyone's blogs everyday anyway but it could be cool if we all added to this one as well. Like oh my god, this could be the virtual version of Sisterhood of the Traveling Pants except none of us have to deal with being shunned by our father's new Stepford family or the emotional ramifications of fucking our soccer coach because our mom died. So yeah, add to this if you want. I will be writing on this one as well as my other critically acclaimed blog, "Too Square to Be Hip".

Joel