  I had somewhat of a strange day today. At 1 pm I went to a baby shower that was on my street, but 4 1/2 blocks down. I work with the mother-to-be. So I go to their apartment (which is huge! ) & there are family members there from both sides. And they were all great! Very nice, but I couldn't help but compare this shower to the baby showers that I'm used to going to back home. Let me start by saying I have a HUGE family on both sides of my family. My Mom's family all live within about an hour's drive, but most are about 20 minutes away.
When we get together, it's 90% family & there are like 30+ people there with kids running everywhere. And you get EVERYTHING! This was the group that we mainly did this sort of activity with since they were all so close. I think in today's experience, I was that other 10% in the "friends" category that goes to showers. There were about 20 people there including me. Actually, I think I was the only one there who wasn't family, but it didn't take me long to strike up a conversation with Pam.
Pam's mother was married to the mother-to-be's grandfather. After much thought, I finally figured out all of the connections. Anyway, Pam is married and lives in Greenwich Village. She is an artist & photographer. Her husband is a writer, I think, at Sports Illustrated - which just happens to be across the street from where I work. His office is on the 2nd floor above one of the letters. Anyway, she was telling me how they just went to Greece so that he could do a story on the upcoming Olympics.
She went with him and took like 1000 photos. However, they just got back from New Zealand just a few days prior (to the shower). She couldn't stress enough how great New Zealand was to visit. Little does she know that she doesn't have to convince me too hard since Chris & I are dying to go to New Zealand on our next trip. During her trip, they went bungee jumping. She's in her mid-40s and she doesn't look like the adventurous type, which gives me hope that I won't chicken out of bungee jumping one day when I get my opportunity. After leaving the shower around 4:30 pm, going home & changing clothes and going to the grocery story, I did laundry. Such a tiring chore. I'm glad it's over. Until next week that is. Oh! Back home at the grocery stores, I don't remember ever seeing packages of chicken feet or cow tongues among other strange items I find up here. Odd thing is, I can't even find blocks of Velveeta Cheese at this store. They have most of the basics, but I also have a hard time finding Lemon Pepper seasoning there as well.
Ok, enough of that. So Chris & I are trying to learn some Italian before our trip at the end of June. I have some words down, like: thank you(grazie), you're welcome (prego), excuse me as in sorry (scuzi) - and I think that's it. It's a start, but I really need to buckle down and work on it. I'd like to be able to understand certain words so that our trip will be even more AWESOME! Ok, so I guess I'm going to go learn some Italian now. 
