So it was my birthday this weekend! (And on a side note, today is my co-blogger Courtney's birthday, and Dave's is sometime around now too!-- happy birthday!) I turned 20 on Sunday. Which is kind of neat, another whole decade! My friend Mike D turned 19 on Friday, so we had a couple joint parties at my apartment. Because he doesn't like cake or cookies or pie or anything most people find delicious, I made him a pizza pie with pepperoni in the shape of "19" as his birthday cake. I was pretty proud of it; I think he really liked it!

Then on Sunday, my daddy had a barbecue for me. Some of my friends from Temple came, which is awesome. Here are a couple pictures from that.

My Temple friends-- Gannett, Emily, me, Emily, Eileen, and Amanda

I took yesterday off from my internship, but I'm back to it today. The girls who are here today are a lot of fun, and thankfully dealing with me and my overload of caffeine (It was a long weekend!-- especially since I went up to New York yesterday to get my visa!). Another Nikki who works here is in the process of planning an end of the summer for us, which is adorable. Carol is sharing stories with me about her semester in Italy, making me even more excited about going to Granada. Tracy and Kate are planning themed weddings-- Classic movies and Italy, respectively. It's making for a nice day back :)

Posted by Nikki Gleason at 12:42 PM | Permalink | Comments (0)

Along with spoons, I really love fireworks. No, really REALLY LOVE. So the 4th of July is my second favorite holiday (second to the moment where New Year's Eve becomes New Year's Day). But this year, I missed the fireworks! Why, you ask? Because I was tired and fell asleep on a couch. Is that lame? Maybe.

I went to dinner at my friend Emily's dad's house. It was super delicious. Please observe how great the spoons are.

And then went to Emily's house and watched The Soup and fell asleep. Maybe that had something to do with waking up at 7 am? I'm bad at napping.

Friday a bunch of us Temple folk traveled to West Chester to our friend Pete's house. West Chester happens to be pretty close to where I'm from (Malvern), so I drove myself and my roomies from last year. Pete's house had seriously the coolest spoons I have seen in a house (as opposed to a restaurant).

I was thrilled that Price and I matched.

Amanda, Steve, Gannett, and Eileen being...themselves, basically.

I had a meeting at Temple this morning-- a workshop for my internship. It was nice to finally meet my specific Internship Supervisor. She was able to answer some questions I had about the bi-weekly reports, which was nice. And I got an idea about what other students are doing. A girl in my group is at the Ritz Carlton Philadelphia for her internship, and is having a fantastic and classy time working in all different departments of the hotel. Another girl wants to work in a casino for her senior internship (our senior internship has to be 600 hours), and our Supervisor told us that Temple has a great relationship in with two casinos in Las Vegas! Isn't that neat? Other interns right now are there, but also in hotels all over the country, and some places in Europe. I could spend my last semester in Denmark!

But that is far away...this is still summer before junior year, after all.

Posted by Nikki Gleason at 2:41 PM | Permalink | Comments (0)

I saw Les Misérables at Walnut Street Theatre (the "One Day More" reference)! The set, the actors, the energy...ah! Spellbinding! I knew many of the songs, and had listened to the soundtrack, but actually seeing the musical itself was amazing...beyond words, truly. If you're into theatre stuff, Philadelphia is a great place to be for it. Temple itself performs tons of plays on campus that are free for students. Then you've got Walnut Street, the Wilma, the Academy of Music (where I saw Wicked the second time!), the Merriam, the Kimmel Center...lots of quality places.

After the show, Emily and I went back to her apartment for a little bit. Here's a spoon Emily collected for me, and the view from her window.

These were definitely both fantastic sights for me (okay, well at least definitely the latter), all full of energy from Les Mis.

The next night I hung out at Eileen and Gannett's place. With so many people living in that house, and then all of them inviting all their friends, any night turns into a party. They've got such a cute backyard, and the weather was so nice that we were able to hang out outside for most of the night. Here's a group shot:

Paul, Gannett, Pete, Amanda, Price, Eileen, and Steve-- a fun crowd.

Now that my public speaking class is over (!!!!!) and my birthday is coming up (July 13!!!!) and all my preparations for Granada are coming together, summer seems like it's going to get a bit more relaxing.
Hope yours are, too!

Posted by Nikki Gleason at 11:24 AM | Permalink | Comments (0)