ALASTAIR + LALEINIA

So far so good here in Barcelona! First off it is hard to believe that it is finally here after so many years of waiting and debating. One month in, I'm so glad that we decided to leave our comforts, paycheck, home, etc to come to Spain. School has been fun, I've got a great team and the courses and workload are challenging. The campus is great and I'm really enjoying my classes and professors. All is well with school. One thing to note is that the evening right before I started school, Emre bit my lip! He bit it hard, hard enough to draw blood and make it look like I had a cold sore for the first day of classes. Thanks Emre. Ah well, I decided to laugh it off, but it sucked! Outside of school, here are some of my Barcelona highlights so far: Bunkers del Carmen One of the first place we went when we arrived in Barcelona. I won't go into the history of the place but safe to say the views of the city are great. We took a bus almost all the way to the t...

It's been a little over a month in our new situation! It's been challenging but great! I've been posting every day on my Instagram, which I'll compile into a book after the two years. A lot is left out, but it's been a nice way to remember the little things. I guess I should start with the flight to Barcelona.  We were so excited for Emre to wake up so we could tell him that today was the day! We have been preparing him for months, telling him that we were going on an airplane and that we were going to live in Barcelona where everyone speaks Spanish. We were so excited, we even  wa nted to record it! So Alastair started to wake him up while I recorded, but he just wouldn't wake up. He kept on tossing and turning, Alastair picked him up, but he just ended up falling back asleep. I envisioned it to be more exciting, like Christmas morning, but it was anticlimactic! Once he woke up, he was more excited, I just wasn 't able to record it. I should als...

On our blog, we mainly post about our trips and adventures and rarely share our personal feelings. But... I need to express my feelings. Because lately, I'm feeling all the feels. I've been bottling up my feelings and it's been really hard for me to share with Alastair exactly what I'm feeling because I don't think I truly understand (I'm still trying to process it all). But during a conversation with friends tonight, I nonchalantly explained how I was feeling, and I realized that I need to let my jumbled thoughts out so I can get it out of my head and create some space for more positive ones. Woah, duuuuude! It's a hard thing, moving. I'm 95% super excited about moving. I love a fresh start. I love meeting new people. I love culture. I LOVE CHANGE! It's good for my soul. I remember as a teen, I would dye my hair just because I loved to switch things up. Even if it were just variant shades of dark brown, it was still considered a change. I ev...

A long weekend with nothing to do. Those don't come around very often. We sat there at home on Saturday morning, quite bored, and after what seemed like forever, we headed out to get a slushie and go for a walk. As we sipped our drinks, we decided that we needed to get out and enjoy the weekend, so we drove home, threw a bag together, loaded the tent and the sleeping bags and headed east to Lake Michigan.  A few hours later we ended up at Saugatuck Dunes and walked through the forest until we got to the dunes and the beach. We didn't think it through to well, and ended up in the water. Emre had a dirty diaper, so we just took it off and had him run around desnudo. It was a lot of fun to see him throwing handful after handful of sand into the water. We stayed for an hour or so before we headed back to the car to try and find a campsite.  We got the last spot in the Holland state park campground, and arrived as it was getting dark. All we knew about the sit...

I thought it would be appropriate to catch up on our life and to also fill in on our near future endeavors. So here are the highlights of our happenings and whereabouts! Winter: We moved back to Ann Arbor right after Christmas. Despite the frigid cold weather, Michigan warmed up to us quite nicely! It's been nice to see friends and coworkers and to familiarize ourselves with this wonderful town. We moved a lot closer to the office so Alastair could take a quick bus ride and Emre and I could use the car. We've been quite happy with the proximity to things.  Church is a lot closer but we still find ourselves late; it is beyond me! One of the highlights of winter was creating a Taco   Tuesday   crew. Alastair and I decided to have one night out each week to go out for dinner. So we decided every   Tuesday  to get tacos. Our friend, Ashish, joined our first A2T2 at Taco Bell. Each week, we go to a different restaurant or taqueria and we never go ba...

On the way home, I wanted to make a stop in Intercourse, PA to hangout with the Amish. I went here as a kid with my family on this big East coast trip, and this was one of my favorite places. Mainly because there was this awesome buffet that we all loved. I remember we were all starving and stopped at this place to eat. We all sat silently, just stuffing our faces. The waiter came up to us and asked if everything was alright, so we told him that we were starving! The food was sooo good! It was a couple hours away from DC, but the drive there was gorgeous! We took the back roads, and I'm so glad we did! We were able to see the Amish in their horse and buggies. It was just fun to see the countryside and all the Amish riding to and fro. Once we arrived, we found a cheap place to stay. We didn't research the area or look at Google maps, so we just drove down the main road to find a place to eat. We found one diner that was open. It wasn't the best food. I ordered a c...

Most of our weekends have been a little lackluster, not much creativity on our part. But I wanted to do something for Memorial Day weekend. We were thinking of camping in Tennessee, but there was a high chance of thunderstorms and I didn't want to brave that! Even though the weather didn't seem all that great anywhere and it was too late to book flights, we decided to go to Washington DC. I love DC, so I was happy that we were going! I actually didn't know we were going until Alastair finally told me on our way to pick our friend up. Alastair had just told me to pack. Our friend, Ben, tagged along. Which was nice because it's always good to have an extra person to keep tabs on Emre. The ride there wasn't too bad. Emre's actually a pretty good traveller. He gets fussy, but that's pretty normal. We just had to deal with a few tantrums. Toddlers.  On the way, we stopped in Pittsburgh to add another Google office. I think Alastair has visited 21 of...