5 months ago...

YES!  Can you believe it??  It's been 5 months since I last blogged.  I'm kind of disappointed in myself.  Regardless, so much has happened within my family.  The other day, someone mentioned how they couldn't wait for summer.  I could, I murmured.  Sometimes Life moves too fast for you to follow.  You end up feeling left behind on some emotions.  That's not good.  I've read enough self help books to know you should appreciate each day, whether good or bad.
BUT ON THAT LAST NOTE....
I feel I owe it to myself to finish my blog on my trip to Italy.  It had a profound effect on me and I cannot wait to visit again.  I am trying to learn Italian too!  I'm hoping to make new friends when I go out there.  Since I was in southern Italy, I didn't encounter too many people who knew English, yet alone Spanish.  Mainly in Rome and other northern tourist cities you will have a blend of people from all over.  I figured why not try something new.  I will say this though, Italian is indeed a Latin language, but I did have a hard time trying to understand them as they did with me.  The dialect and their pronunciation is what got me. 
So back to Italy in September 2014.  I left off from our wonderful dinner party with friends.  The next day was our last official full day so we had to make the most of our time.  We had decided to go to a nearby town where a friend of my girlfriend had offered to meet us for lunch.  She wanted to be our tour guide to her town.  I thought that was generous of her considering I have never met her before.  We ended up in Lucera where we wandered off to yet another castle (lol).     This castle was built by Frederick II of Swabia in 1233.  We spent the early part of the day there and met up with our friend at a restaurant.  She is studying English so we helped her out with some curse words.  Hey!  Isn't that the first thing you would want to know too??  We walked over to a nearby park overlooking a cliff and enjoyed the view.  I love how people appreciate the beauty that surrounds them.  Sometimes, back at home, we hustle and bustle and forget to look around and see the seasons changing.  It's a sad way to live, but I do feel that you need to TAKE the time to do this.
Afterwards we visited a real estate office where our friend's sister worked.  Apparently, Italy is the place to be to buy property, but in town like Lucera, you have to consider wear you are moving to.  It's very quiet and small and not much going on there.  Most people work in other towns, so you need to think about your commute as well.  Every town,/city I had visited were no less than 30 minutes away, (on average at least an hour away from each other).  It's a lot of driving and the gas is 65% MORE than you would pay here in the States.  Ouch!
We headed back home to take a siesta and again began our ritual of getting ready for a dinner out.  This restaurant was absolutely delicious!  Because of my lack of clothing on this trip, I wore my dressy black shorts with a brand new lace top I won off ebay.  For my trip I wore my espadrille wedges instead of heels since I knew how difficult it is to walk on the cobblestone.  I have yet mastered the art of walking in Europe.  Our Swedish friends made me feel welcomed with some light-hearted Italian jokes.  We had a lovely time.  I will miss this for now...   

 My new friend from Lucera!

 Yes the clouds followed us here too... UGH!!!

 Christmas decorations!  lol

I miss this so much!!

 Bathroom selfie.  Until next time...

TBT

I figured I can catch up to how my summer has been so far.  The thing about Chicago is, we can't wait for summer!  That's when our city becomes alive with activities, festivals, and basically fun ALL THE TIME!  It does make me wonder if I can live somewhere warm all year round and not get burnt out.  I am a one of those people that loves to do stuff, but at the same time, need my rest to fully re-charge for the next fun activity.  (#GeminiProblems).  Back in June I attended a Bachelorette Party for one of my oldest friends.  We had so much fun that day, it definitely deserves a #TBT recap! 

The last weekend in June proved to be a blast with my friend's bachelorette party at The Corporate Pole! By the way, I LOVED THIS! I've never taken pole dancing before, but let me tell you, it's quite a workout!! The weather was pretty hot and stormy. We got caught in the storm right before we walked in and yes, we did get wet. NOT a good idea to wear WHITE at all! lol. Regardless, it stopped the rest of the night, so we were good to go. Since it was pretty hot that day, we got stuck wondering what to wear at this class. All of us wore jeans, but we found out during the class that shorts would have made things "easier" for us to climb up and down. Luckily no one wore a dress or else that would have been a pretty embarrassing situation. I wore a thin V neck t-shirt I got from Akira a few weeks earlier with a Groupon and my white skinnies. We had so much fun in that class! I took tons of footage of our horrible attempts, but gained a whole new respect for strippers in this industry. Pole dancing is HARD! It completely works your core muscles. I am tempted to take a few more classes to improve on my skills, but who knows when I'll have time for that. Afterwards, we rushed over to the Lincoln Park area to head to The Apartment for the male show. It was a packed house! I had so much fun, mostly because I have not hungout with these girls in years. Sometimes, weddings bring people together, especially those you haven't seen in a while. It was a blast!

A lot harder than you think!

http://corporatepole.com/