Day one - Artnsoul

Okay, once again, while traveling, i cannot get my pictures to upload! so, sorry about that! i'll have to add them later in flickr or something.

anyway, yesterday, i met my first roommate, Zhulia - pronounced Julia. She is from Chicago and she is a pip! she reminds me alot of Jan - so the 3 of us together, i think spells TROUBLE! anyway, after she got here, we unpacked and looked at each other's trades. Then we went down to the lobby to the "store" and picked up some goodies. Then we took a town car into Portland to go to a fabulous store called, PaperDoll - located at 7909 SE Stark Street. (http://www.paperdoll-co.com/). Really cute store, so if you can get by there - go! take a peek behind the counter to see if you can catch a glimpse of "Splenda" (you'll definitely be seeing a photo of her later!)

We returned to the hotel, which is gorgeous! We are staying at The Embassy Suites, near the airport. When you walk in, they have an enourmous lobby with a spectacular water feature, so all you hear is the really calming water sound. nice element. Also, surrounding the lobby is a koi fish pond. it circles around and you can walk over little briges by the bar and see koi swimming by or sit down to eat and be surrounded by the biggest part of the pond. Really nice - and contributes to the overall relaxing atmosphere. In the evening there is free drinks from 5:30-7:00 in the bar. we stopped for a glass of cabernet on our way to the gala.

At the gala, we had a nice buffet of horduerves (sp?). while we ate, the girls put on a little skit on decorating and making things for a baby shower using things from the dollar store. it was cute. one of the ladies was talking about making some cookies with surprises in them. she called for a volunteer to try one of the cookies, but no one would go up - so i did. so i tried the cookie with the surprise and it was NASTY! inside was PICKLE! So from now on, we will refer to this as the pickle incident! but it was all in good fun - but lesson learned people, do not add pickles to your cookies - ever! but at least i won a prize and was thanked for being a good sport! that's what is important.

We are at breakfast (a nice free buffet!) and Zhulia is exhausted. she had to go to the airport last night at 9:00 to pick up her luggage - only she didn't get it until 10:30pm! she got back to the hotel around 10:45. poor thing - but i am glad i didn't offer to go with her! i got a great night of sleep and feel rested - yay!

my first class today is with Carla Sonheim called "Family Fun".