"I don't speak it."

"Ik spreek hem niet."
"Non lo parlo."
"Ich spreche es nicht."

Nope, I don't speak Dutch. Not Italian. Not even German. Every time someone ran up to Dad in the streets of Europe asking if he spoke English, he would look at them with stern eyes and bark "I don't speak it" in German. Just the mere thought of my Dad doing that in Paris is hilarious to me. It makes me laugh out loud, I must confess. On Monday at work Eddy handed me a story and asked me to translate it from Dutch to simple English. After eight weeks of work surely Eddy realizes that I don't speak Dutch, right? Ha. All I could think at that moment was Dad saying "I don't speak it." I did surivive the translation project thanks to freetranslation.com (I owe them a little promo after all the pickles that website helped me dodge in these past couple weeks). Anyways, today I prepared two articles, one in Italian and one in German to send to the translators. By "preparing" I mean converting the file from a pdf to a word document and then correcting all the errors made in the conversion process. I did not translate a word, because "I don't speak it!" (clearly)

After work today I met up with some friends at Ralph's for Happy Hour and then I "studied" while watching Ferris Bueller's Day Off with Alayna and Evelyn. It was some much needed chill time after a hectic three days! Or as Ferris says, "Life moves pretty fast. If you don't stop and take a look around, you just might miss it." The Duomedia office party is tomorrow night in Antwerp so after class I am riding to the party with two of my coworkers wives and my guest (tbd) to the party. Oh and there is a pirate theme so everyone will be running around in costumes. If the evening is anything short of hilarious and "blog-worthy" I will be extremely disappointed... The only bad news is that we have to work a full day on Friday.

HOWEVER, 3:15 on Friday marks the beginning of my HOLIDAY! Yep, no school or work for 9 days. On Friday evening a group of us fly to Milan to begin our 5 day tour of Italy. This tour consists of starts in Milan (clearly), with stops in Florence and Venice before heading back to Milan. We come home on Wednesday and leave Thursday morning with the Furman group for 4 days in Amsterdam and Antwerp. Honestly, I am ready to be the "snappy happy" tourist again (if you don't know what I mean by "snappy happy" ask Shelley Prevost how many pictures she took in Europe). I am ready for all the adventures, the crazy/ridiculous/unbelievable stories, and the fun with friends.

I hope everyone is well! Love and miss you all! Keep the emails and letters coming, you have no idea how much it means to me.