Trista's Summer in Europe

I'm home, missing Bath, missing the Carsonified family. I can't wait to go back and visit someday.
For now, I'm getting ready to head back to school and looking forward to seeing some Carsonifites in October and everyone else in New York City!!

To everyone that I met in the UK and along the way, thank you so much for all your kindness, generosity, hospitality, and smiling faces. I had an amazing, unforgettable experience.


Peace&Love

Summer Camp was a fabulous success and could go on about it and everything it entailed. But Ryan's put together a post and a nice video that wraps it up in a nutshell:

http://carsonified.com/blog/

Bienvenidos a Sevilla! Acabo de regresar de Sevilla! (I have just returned from Sevilla). Jen has been studying abroad there and I was looking for a nice hot vacation while I away on this adventure, so visiting Jen was just the thing! It was between 90 and 104 degrees Farenheit while I was there and it was so nice to always step out into warmth. Even in the middle of the night it didn't drop below 80, so evenings we're absolutley wonderful. Of course, walking all over the city and climbing a bell tower in that heat, you start to wonder if one could actually get completely used to it.

There are so many beautiful things in Sevilla and it's a picturesque Spanish city. I arrived on Friday evening and we did a few things around the city, went for drinks by the river, and saw a Flamenco performance, and had a lovely dinner in town.
Saturday was beach day and we took the train to Cadiz. I worked on my tan and went swimming. The water was a bit chilly, but it got so hot lying out that diving right in wasn't much of a problem. That night back in Sevilla we went out for drinks to this popular place that makes super gigantic Mojitos.. it was excellent.
Then on Sunday we did some touristy sights around Sevilla and had a picnic in the Castle gardnes which is really one of the prettiest places I've seen and is exactly what you would imagine Spain to be like. We also visited Plaza de Espana, which is now used as a government building. We also went to a Salsa bar and watched some natives Salsa! It was really fun and made me really want to learn how to dance it.. but it looks really hard.
On the last day, before my flight, we went into the center one more time to explore the Cathedral and to climb the Giralda (the bell tower). It gives you a lovely view of the city, about 30 stories up [phew!] Hot and sweaty, almost tempted to consider that it was too hot, we headed back to Jen's piso and I packed up for my return (brrr..) to Bristol.

Back in England I was greeted by a sweltering 65 degrees Farenheit... ugh. It looks like we're headed for proper cool, English weather all week, but hopefully it will begin to warm up for Summer Camp! I've got Summer Camp on the brain as I'm in the final stretch for planning and prep.

I can't believe I only have two more weeks left of my UK stay! I plan to be making the most of it and will hopefully be doing a day trip or two this coming weekend to some places in the UK.

Hasta luego!

The new Carsonified.com site is live! We've been anxiously awaiting all week for the launch and it was quite exciting when it was finally put up. We've have lots of good comments and positive feedback (much to the relief of the designer, Mike). They were also kind enough to include me in the teams page!

I have also been playing around with a new website builder, Moonfruit and am considering using them to host my website- you can check out what I've put together here.

I'm off to Spain for the weekend to visit Jen and work on my tan!

Yesterday I went into London again to see a few some more of the sights I missed last time and for London Pride! It was a beautifully, sunny day and I started off heading to the Tate Gallery and, like my experience at the Louvre, it was difficult to appreciate a lot of the art because I don't know anything about art... so if I go back to London again before I leave I'll probably try and visit the Tate Modern instead. After that I went to the British Museum, which is really cool. Because the British have a history of going to countries and colonizing them, they often borrow/steal really cool and famous artifacts from those countries and most of them end up in the British Museum, like the Rosetta Stone and lots of Egyptian artifacts. And the amazing thing is that both the Tate and the British Museum are free for everyone (minus a few featured exhibits) so it's really nice (unlike Paris where you can't even see dead people's tombs unless you pay).

Then I walked over to Oxford Street (big mistake) for the Parade. Because it seemed so well organized and because when Bjoern and I went to Berlin Pride there was enough space for everyone, I thought I'd hit Oxford Street right as the parade was coming though...unfortunately not only did about 300 other people think the same thing, Oxford Street is also a big shopping street so there were about 200 more people not there for the parade trying to squeeze through the side walks. This created a big problem. You could not move or walk through for about an eighth of a mile- there was space further down Oxford Street, but it was just one mass of hot, angry, squished people pushing and moving as a herd in both directions on the side walk... anyway I eventually got through and went to the other side of the street and enjoyed the parade. Then I followed the parade down to Trafalgar Square where all the festivities were taking place. There were kiosks with food and drinks all around the square, there was a big stage in the middle, and loads of people- even people sitting and wading through the fountains! There were political talks as well as a bunch of really great music performances. After staying there for a few hours I was completely knackered (British for exhausted) but had booked a late train for myself, so I forced myself to find something else in London to see. So I took the tube to Notting Hill (yes, from the movie). It is a gorgeous little neighborhood with the big marketplace on Portobello Road (also, in the movie). It's obviously a very expensive neighborhood, but there are still the cute colorful houses and apartments along Portobello Road that are very charming.

After a long stroll down Portobello Road and back to the tube, I really was looking forward to my (sitting) train ride home and made it to Paddington even for a slightly earlier train than I had booked so I got home a little earlier than planned.


Today it's another sunny day and I took a walk into town and sat out in the back garden to work on my tan and am just relaxing for the afternoon.
I hope everyone had a happy fourth of July weekend! I miss fried dough!
xoxo

After a good, full week of everyone coding, drawing, blogging, speaking, launching, and twittering for all the things we have going on at work, we were all treated to an epic night out! Starting off the evening with pints and wine at The Cork, we sat outside in the warm evening air and then made our way to Wagamama (a noodle bar) for dinner, then finished up the evening with a few more pints and Mojitos on the terrace of another cute bar in the city center. It was relaxing and fun and I'm really growing close with everyone from work.

And despite scheming and wishes to prolong my stay here, I will be coming home as scheduled and by that time will probably (well..maybe..) be more ready and looking forward to returning home.

So I've been fairly vague about exactly what some of my projects here entail and the reason is that a part of them is their launch or their surprise value and because out audience is web folks you never know if they'll stumble across my blog and spill the beans.

But today we have officially launched "Carsonified Summer Camp" which will be a two day event in July that has been organized and fashioned by ME! You can see this site here and the blog post here and now that all of that is done the rest of the work until the actual event is all behind the scenes stuff- ordering food, goodies, choosing the winners, and creating the decorations, etc.

My other pending project, at this point is still top secret but I promise it's super cool :)

The weather here in Bath is clear, sunny, a bit humid, and in the mid 80's, perfect.