Where did the summer go?

I cannot believe how crazy this summer has been! Occasionally I'll think about blogging, but then work or drinking or vacation gets in the way. So here's a long overdue update, via photos:


Me and Daisy at a BBQ at Kajsa and Phil's house. So chubby!


James and Genevieve rocking out (thanks to my new microphone) on Champagne Friday.


Ivan, Ingjald, and Louise rocking out as well.


The Champagne Fridays.


More rock stardom.


Genevieve, Mika, and me.


Charles, Mika, and me being obnoxious.


This may look like we're a fun, cohesive band, but really, just minutes before, I said to Ingjald and Genevieve "back it up, I don't want your vocals getting in my microphone and messing up my score."


And the ego continues ...


Mika and me at Blues Bar.

Somewhere in there I also went on a surfing trip to Biarritz (where I caught a wave on my first try thank you very much) and went to Canada, Georgia, and Vegas. You can check out pics in the Vacation section of my website - www.vickimonti.com.

I'll try to make my next blog post be sooner than one month ...

4th of July Weekend

Friday

Fondue with Nina, Leslie, and Hilda. Ended up doing some major drunk dialing and drunk texting at 3 am. It had been a while since the last time I did that, so it feels good to be back in the drunken, embarrasing swing of things.



Saturday

Picnic at the Eiffel Tower during the day. There were loads of cops around (as usual) and they were just posing for pictures and flirting with the ladies (as usual). Then all of a sudden they all rushed over to the path on the side, and then fanned out and started trying to keep everyone off the path. For no apparent reason. They did this for about 20 minutes and we still couldn't see what all the fuss was about. So of course we started to be obnoxious and shouted at the pigeons that kept trying to walk on the path and making fun of the cops for not really doing anything. Then we hear something that sounds like a gunshot. Turns out there was a "suspect package" and they called in a bomb squad to safely detonate it. It was probably just someone's leftover PB&J in a lunch bag ("wat eez zees? we don't eat such merde") but still kinda cool to be a drunken sideline observer of it all.

I couldn't resist taking this picture, because I've seen tourists do it a million times and wanted to see what all the fuss was about. Let me tell you, it's pretty fun to sit there like an idiot and try to line your fingers up just right:


At night, headed over to Phil's for a 4th of July party. Stayed until 5 in the morning, at which point I was singing and performing for everyone while they were all drunken and nearly passed out on the couch, yet every time I tried to stop they begged for more. Hey, if anyone actually WANTS me to sing you know I can't resist. I can hardy resist when they DON'T want me to sing. For my finale, I did "The Time of My Life" with this guy that was there, and even though we messed up the lifts, it still was a hit.

Sunday

Some weirdo French guy calls my phone and is like (in French) "Did you call me last night?" I didn't recognize the number and it wasn't even close to any number I know so I was like "No, but possibly it happened on accident from my purse." Even though it didn't show up in my call log. Whatever. But the dude kept wanting to talk about it! Like, hello asshole, it's noon and I'm still in bed and I don't want to be talking to you when I KNOW I didn't call you. Is this your game? You just dial random numbers and try to talk to people? But then here's the kicker. I know my accent isn't perfect, and I'm sure my early morning smoker's voice is not very attractive, but he goes "Are you Chinese?" Are you fucking kidding me? Chinese? You can ask if I'm American because that's pretty obvious. Hell, you can even ask if I'm a man because of my deep morning voice. But Chinese? That's not even close. And then when I told him I'm American he didn't believe me. So I started to argue with him and then realized it was absurd that I was still on the phone with him. So I just said bye and hung up. Lessons learned: don't talk to French people and don't answer the phone when you're still drunk and in bed.

Still here

My poor liver hasn't had a chance to dry out in about, um, well, too many months to count. So considering I barely have time to go to the gym, work, make out, or any number of other important things, I've hardly had time for the blog. So once more I'll do a lame picture montage hoping that will suffice:


My cousin Katrina and me at Pomme d'Eve, kickin' ass and takin' names. Or at least trying to act cool.


Kathie and me at the GOAL Ball. Oh yeah baby.


Dancing with Owen to Waterloo. It's just not a party without ABBA!


Me and Anne Marie.


Me, thinking I'm cool.


Ashley, my cousin Kayla (how many cousins do I have?), and me at the Long Hop.


Ashley, Kayla, and me at fondue.


The Italians, rockin' out.


It's just not a birthday unless you're dancing on a bar at 5 in the morning on a Tuesday. Happy Birthday Nina!


And it's just not a Thursday if you're not out until 5:30 in the morning, even if you were already out until 5:30 in the morning Tuesday and Wednesday.


Me at some outdoor party the night before Fete de la Musique. It was a cute (if French) party by Anne Marie's house. We'd gone back to her house for the ol' "one glass of wine trick" - which usually turns into 3 bottles of wine and shots until 5 am - but then heard the music from this street party. We grabbed mini bottles of alcohol (always be prepared!) and headed down there. They were selling beer there for "free" but you were supposed to throw in some change. Done and done. We ordered 2 beers, paid, chugged, ordered 2 more, paid, chugged, then saw they were out of beer and were glad we'd grabbed 'em while we could. Thank god for the mini bottles of alcohol.

I'm back!

I can't believe it's been this long since I updated the blog! But I've been busy with work, people visiting, moving apartments, and partying my ass off. Oh, and launching my stand-up comedy career. So let's see what kind of an update I can rustle up:


Me, Anne Marie, and Mourad, all after work one night at The Club. We were all messing around with our phones until Hassan (who took the picture) pointed out that instead of calling other people we could actually talk to each other. What a thought.


Me thinking I'm sexy.


Me and Carrie at fondue.


Me, Kerstin, and Jane at the Long Hop for Kerstin's birthday.


Jenna, me, Kathie, and Julie (and someone else - with us? not sure) at Julie's hen party


Julie and me, looking awesome on the piano


Me, Anne Marie, and Kathie at Julie's hen party (bachelorette party for all the Americans reading this).


Me and Anne Marie doing some awesome moves


Kathie and Anne Marie trying to be awesomer but that's not possible


I don't really know why we're doing what we're doing in this picture. I think Libby put a piece of bread in front of her face so that it would block her from the camera and then I tried to teach her a lesson. Or something.


Me and Ammo on Glenn's roof being weird.


Me and Libby at Glenn's house, after much wine

Firing on one cylinder

Well, now that it's been so long since I've done an update, my poor little drunken brain can't remember anything worth writing about. How about some pictures?

Here are some from St. Patrick's Day:







And here's a little gem from The Cercle. Hassan's got his drinkin' shirt on:


What else ... oh, well apparently being drunk/post-drunk every minute of your life makes you clumsy as shit:

1 - I volunteered to drive an insanely large moving van this weekend for my charity's fundraiser (because everyone else is a wuss and didn't want to drive a big van down tiny Parisian streets) and I was so busy thinking I was cool (it was SO high up and the steering wheel was FLAT) and so busy trying to avoid a crate of oranges in the street (what is this, a video game?) that I smashed the side mirror. Yikes. Good thing we earned enough money at the fundraiser to pay for it. Ouch.

2 - I dropped my @#$%%^@ iPhone on some insanely @#%^@# hard @##@$% tile and had to pay 119 euros to get the @#%^$@^^ thing fixed. And of course, I couldn't just magically find the place to have it fixed, oh no. I had to go to the store who told me to call insurance who told me to call back after lunch (ah, France) who then told me my insurance doesn't cover it, who then told me to call the Apple store, which doesn't have a freaking address ANYWHERE on the internet so I have no idea where the store is, so then Philippe called and found out it would cost 200 euros so then I called and they said it would cost 300 euros, so they said I should go (back) to the store and just buy a new one, but that would have cost 500 euros, but they told me to go to the repair shop down the street for 119 euros. OK, so if Guy A at the store would have talked to Guy B and passed on the word that there's a repair shop ONE @#$%#@^^ MINUTE AWAY I could have saved myself a huge hassle! Freaking idiots!

OK, I thought I had something else to bitch about but now I'm all worked up so I'm gonna get me a glass of wine. If any brain cells decide to start functioning (and if my blood pressure returns to normal - hey that's what red wine is for, right?), I'll write more.

Random Photos

About as random as they get:


Me and Ammo at The Cercle (its new name on my blog so thatit stops showing up in the first ranking in Google for searches on the club) a few weeks ago.


Our kickin' apartment in Amsterdam.


Rachel, me, and the requisite baby bottle pose.


View of Montmartre from the top floor of Musee d'Orsay (also known as "Proof I do cultural things occasionally")

Follow up to The Popcorn Incident

I can't remember if I blogged about The Popcorn Incident (and I'm too lazy to scroll down) but Saturday night in Amsterdam totally topped that with The Bailey's Incident. It was such an incident that I didn't even have the energy to write about it with my other recap. So here goes.

Rachel and I were hanging out at this super cute Dutch bar where I think we were literally the only non-Dutch people there. My kinda place. You're not allowed to smoke inside anymore but they had a piggy bank and as long you contributed to it you could smoke, the theory being that there would be enough money saved up in there to pay the fine in case they got busted. Love it.

So we're having some Kriek beer, talking to the slightly rough-looking middle-aged bartender who was rocking a miniskirt and leopard print in a way I didn't think was possible.

Then some African dudes walked by the outside of the bar and, knowing that this is right up Rachel's alley, I made sexy eyes at them so they would come in. Job well done. Except that it turned out they were really dodgy. And also only spoke French. Which lucky for them we speak but, I mean, what was their plan? Why do they live in Amsterdam if they don't at least speak English? And they ordered their drinks in French which I think is a pretty dickish thing to do. Then they get them (Bailey's on the rocks. While I love Baileys I don't know that it makes me think these guys are cool.) and one of the guys carefully inspects the rim of the glass and then wipes it with his finger. Dude, I'm pretty sure your grubby smoking hand is way dirtier than the the glass you just wiped it with.

A few minutes later, dude noticed a foreign object in his drink and brings it to the bartender's attention. She discovers it's a little key thing for the beer taps, apoligizes, laughs it off, and immediately replaces his drink. However, this is not good enough for dude, and he proceeds to bitch (in French) that "You can't drink that. You can't drink that. You can't drink that." Dude, we get it. Shut the fuck up anyway - you just got a brand new drink. Just drink your drink and shut up.

But clearly he wasn't reading my mind or my evil stare and continued to bitch. Then the bartender came over and said in Dutch (but you can still totally get the gist even if you don't speak Dutch because words like "attitude" are the same) "I don't need your attitude. I replaced your drink, which you are still drinking, so just drop it or leave." Well, not one to just drop it he said "OK, I'll leave" but not before splashing his entire drink in her face. Ew, Bailey's. Everywhere. Face, hair, shirt, everything.

Not one to back down herself, she had a bottle of wine in her hand and hesitated for just the tiniest fraction of a second and then chucked it at him. He ducked and it missed him and smashed against the front door, splashing wine everywhere. He and his friends took off and she grabbed her phone and chased after them.

She called the cops and eventually they came and I think they ended up finding the guys, but my Dutch is clearly not that good. I love, though, how we're all still smoking in the bar right in front of the cops and they totally just let it go. Ah, Amsterdam.

Put that in your pipe and smoke it

Get ready, this might finally be a long one. I've got a weekend of Amsterdam mixed with a week of Rachel in Paris. You can guess how things have been going down.

Karma is a total bitch

Friday night we went to all my old Amsterdam faves, but then also checked out a few "real" Dutch bars. This included a karaoke bar, which meant I was completely in heaven. However, there were quite a few people's songs on the table ahead of mine. Well, that is, there were until I grabbed them and stuck them all in my pocket. It felt great at the time because next up was Rachel and me, where we proceeded to sing an AWESOME rendition of Tiffany's "I Think We're Alone Now." Fast forward to Saturday night where we go back to the same place and the guy somehow loses my song, after I had already been waiting half an hour. Damn.

Slurring's cool

Hung out with some guys from an English stag party, where at 4 in the afternoon they were already totally slurring their words. Which led to this conversation:

Drunk English Dude: Where are you guys from.
Me: St. Louis, Missouri. It's in the middle of the US.
Drunk English Dude: Oh, are you one of those Born Against Christians?
Me [dying of laughter]: Not me, but Rachel's Jewish, so, yeah.

I never thought I'd be THIS Simpson

After partying for 2 nights in Amsterdam, and Rachel being sick the whole time, we made it home by 2 in the morning on the 3rd night. But not without stopping off for a much-needed (read: not at all needed but how could I resist) donut. We smartly had bought some beers earlier in the day and kept them in our mini-fridge, resulting in the best combo ever - sitting on the window ledge of our bitchin' apartment, drinking a beer, and eating a donut. Homer would have been proud.

The power of positive thinking
In a bout of exreme optimism, the 3 of us decided to buy a 12 pack of condoms. Which proved completely unnecessary by the end of the weekend. And was made more torturous by the fact that every time I reached in my bag for anything I would see them and be reminded of what WASN'T happening. Henceforth, the quote of the evening: "My condoms are totally laughing at me."

English soldiers like to get naked. I was warned.

Went to Bleu's Bar and met these young (but still fun!) English guys. Two of them kept talking about how they really wanted to get naked. Their friend assured me they were serious and would get naked at some point. I just kind of thought that was the type of thing young drunk dudes say, and what they really mean is they want to get naked with a chick. Um, no. This certainly was not what I expected, yet was more than thrilled to have witnessed: