Riley Grden, Author at Podcasts for Aggies

Chicks A-Broad: Episode 1- College Students Surviving Paris

21Nov

Enjoy my detailed journal entries from each of the stories in the episodes, plus see real photos from our personal experience.

Wednesday, March 13th

“Today was a normal day, all the way up till around 4:00. I organized for everyone to get together at the apartment for

JAMES’ BIRTHDAY!!

Of course we’re going out on a Wednesday! Annie got him a brownie cake with candles and it was really cute. We sang happy birthday to him and he was so surprised it was adorable. At this point we have all had a few glasses of wine and are doing great. We head out to a local bar called Le Cristal where they have very cheap beer. Not a lot of people were there except this really cute bartender (important for later stories) and a few other loners. This meant we had room to dance & that also means we could song request! Anya asked for them to play THOTIANA, an anthem of our generation. This is also the same night that yours truly decided to fall through the ‘mind the gap’ gap in the metro. If it weren’t for the strangers on the metro, I probably wouldn’t have one of my legs right now. But overall a very good night. An update on my bruised leg coming soon. “

James’s 21st birthday My leg injuries after it went in the gap

Saturday, April 6th

“I’M SO HUNGRY. I had two pieces of bread and strawberries for breakfast and I’m not sure how I’m surviving. Good thing it’s Anya’s birthday and we made brunch reservations! I got this gross pasta and ended up eating the whole thing because my body NEEDED food. Lunch was long and interesting and made good friends with James’ friend Isaac. After lunch, we went to a franprix where I bought a bag of mini twix (that I shared with everyone) and a baguette with boursin cheese that I split with Analise. We took all this to the river where we sat, ate, and relaxed for hours. After all that, we headed to the apartment to collect ourselves before the nights activities. I took a quick nap on the floor of the dining room watching iCarly on my laptop, and was woken up by analise bringing me tomato soup and grilled cheese! A TRUE MOMMA. We all started getting ready and eventually we were. Analise and I realized we were out of snacks and wine and so we went down to the franprix on the corner. On the way there, these 3 old men followed Analise and I while simultaneously cat calling us… in FRENCH. They yelled ‘Combien Madame’ like WHAT!? I’M NOT A PROSTITUTE. I was floored. We grabbed our things from the store and went back to the apartment as quickly as possible to meet everyone else for the evening”

Wednesday, April 10th

“Made it back to class today! Go us. In class our prof gave us an essay to do and my whole row wrote the prompt wrong. Boo. So we had to take a new one home and write the correct thing. Next order of business, DINNER. My Mac & Cheese finally came in the mail today!! So I’m eating good tonight. I watched some tv and ate the entire box plus a little leftover Valentine’s Day chocolate from Annie. My stomach was SO angry with me. I just didn’t know how angry. Later, Analise and I went and met everyone at this dope bar called LAVOMATIC where you have to climb through a washer to get in! So as soon as we get to the line to wait to get in, my stomach started getting really, really angry. I started getting the sweats and I KNEW I needed a toilet or I was going to soil myself. I ran to one of the toilet chambers Paris has on the street corners, you know the ones that wash themselves. I made Anya go with me. I got in and for the next 10 minutes all my insides we just cleaned out. I got to a comfortable state and ran back to not get left out of the bar. We finally got in and it was this tiny loft! The drinks were expensive so I settled for the $11.00 strawberry daiquiri. We left after about an hour, but overall was a super fun night. “

Picture from the outside of Lavomatic Bar The actual bowl of Mac & Cheese

The self-cleaning toilet chambers in Paris

Sunday ,March 17th

“Happy St. Patrick’s Day! All of us ladies woke up early this morning and made mimosas. Very chic. We also all got pizza and played Scream-Go-Hero, the phone game we just discovered. It’s the ULTIMATE PHONE GAME. To play the game, you have to YELL. I cried laughing for so long that I got abs. Everyone ended up loving it and I think we all played for like 2 hours. We were having a great day already! We girls all waited till James and William showed up to really get ready for the day’s festivities. It took us forever to decide what green clothes we wanted to wear. James brought his guitar and played songs for us. We also turned on the speaker and jammed out to High School Musical, Hannah Montana, and Justin Beiber! We were having the most insane day already. Still getting ready/ dancing and singing and we get a loud knock on our front door. At that moment, I knew everything was about to come crashing down with our crazy neighbor lady. Everyone hid in the apartment and we turned the music off. Annie and I answered the door, and by this time the old hag had rang the doorbell at least 3 times then resorted to slamming her fists into the door. We opened it, and this woman has brought an arsenal of people with her. She brought the couple from upstairs too… As soon as the door was open the old woman is YELLING. They ask us, “What the hell are you doing? Why don’t you speak French? Why are you here!” I was dumbfounded!! The audacity!! I’m trying to learn your language and you culture. All I learned that day is how freaking rude the French can be. The old woman was so upset about the noise asking us if we had been moving furniture all day or something. We tried to calmly explain to them that it was St. Patrick’s Day and that it is a popular holiday where we live. They tried to argue with us and tell us that we were celebrating it 2 days late! Annie and I instantly pipped up saying, “EXCUSE ME, NO. LOOK AT OUR GREEN. WE KNOW OUR HOLIDAYS MA’AM MARCH 17TH AND UHHH THAT’S TODAY.” The old woman points her hand at me and says “I have already told you to shut up before and I will tell you right now. Shut up, shut up, shut up!” I almost brought up her yaking, pea sized, rat of a dog, but I have more class than that. Annie steps in and apologizes over and over again just trying to make peace. But the woman persists, threatening to talk to the people who can basically deport us. At this point, the old woman’s entourage is over all the drama. I’m glad they were being level headed about it. They must have told the old woman to let it go because after they left we didn’t hear anything about it ever again. So what she thought was going to be her ammo, ended up being our saving grace. “

“Finally, we were out for the night, minded all the gaps (PTSD), and made it to the bar district. I believe it was the Marais. This is when we learned to what extent that the French don’t celebrate St. Patrick’s Day. In the bar we realized everyone was either Irish or American! We picked the bar with the cheapest green beer & they also handed out a ton of free large green beards! Annie met this old man there that added her on Facebook. He offered to take her shopping on the champs for nothing more than friendship! What a nice old man. After that bar most people went home, but me, Anya, and William stayed out and went to our favorite club for awhile, Duplex. Everything was fine until we tried to leave Duplex. We realized we were cutting it really close to missing the last metro of the night SO WE STARTED SPRINTING. I think we went around almost the entire circumference of the Arc de Triomphe before we found the metro entrance. Here we go, time to make it (I’m thinking). MY DUMBA** SLIPS down the stairs, but simultaneously finds a cool St. Patrick’s Day hat! I stood up, put it on, and we RAN. I was running a steady 4.5 – 40 time through that metro station, which just happened to be the biggest one in all of Paris. We missed it. By like, 30 seconds. We walked out the metro, before we got locked in with the homeless people. Next option was the bus. We circled the Arc again. You see, the goddess of cardinal direction (me) couldn’t help because 1. Alcohol 2. Dead cellular device. That left William to navigate because Anya’s phone was dead too. Eventually, we gave up on public transportation and stuck with an uber. That pretty much says everything about the insanity that was Paris, for us. “

St. Patrick’s Day with our green beers, beards, Riley (left) & Olivia (right)

and also featuring Annie’s old rich man enjoying St. Patrick’s Day

Rachels Favorite Memory:

Charcuterie boards from our first day Our first cheers, cheers to a great semester

Chicks Abroad: Episode 2- Backpacking Through Europe

20Nov

Podcast: Play in new window | Download

Enjoy my detailed journal entries from each of the stories in the episodes, plus see real photos from our personal experience

Saturday, February 16th

“Early morning bus ride to Belgium! Me, Face, Rachel, William and Natalie all took our first excursion together. We took an early morning, four hour bus ride from Paris to Brussels. On the ride there we had a good time entertaining ourselves with small things because we couldn’t sleep. Rachel dared me to put my mouth over the entire circumference of my giant water bottle AND I DID, and then when William started falling asleep I scared him by sticking a finger in his mouth! We made it to the hostel and it was kind of nice, but I’ve seen better. It didn’t really matter though because we spent most of our time touring the town. First we headed towards the city center. We had a really difficult time finding anything worth seeing, until all of a sudden we went through this underground mall and on the other side seemed like this entire different world. Horse drawn carriages, huge catholic churches, and thousands of people. We sat down at this fancy waffle place and ordered the richest looking set of waffles I’ve ever been in the presence of. DELECTABLE. After that we walked through this weird flea market area where we saw tons of strange antiques. There was this weird wooden phallic looking object that had holes in it. Rachel and I got a hoot out of it honestly. I found my way to a booth that was selling this big boujee fur coats AND cowgirl boots!I bought myself the most macklemore looking coat I could find and got myself some wonderful pink cowgirl boots for 10 euros. Both great purchases. That about summed it up for our first day of sightseeing. On our second day, we only had one really big thing to do which was to go visit this famous tavern called Delirium. We slept in and made our way there by 1 pm. You would think that if our bus leaves at 7:30 pm we should be able to grab our bags from the hostel and make it on time to the bus stop. Well that would be to assume that we are smart. Once inside the bar, I found myself eyeing a group of Air Force boys. I didn’t know they were Air Force, I just noticed they were speaking English. I invited them to come sit with our table and before we knew it, we were 3 Gulden Draak 3000’s and about 5 hours in too deep. That’s when William realized he was about to miss his bus because he booked the wrong one, which left earlier. Immediately we spring up from our table and everyone just starts running for the exits and down the streets of Brussels. Catch me not running so well after 3 Gulden Draak 3000’s. It was so poor in everyone that we all ended up separated. Before I knew it, I was sitting at a Mexican restaurant eating chips and salsa with one of the Air Force boys. I couldn’t get ahold of anyone on the phone, and that was because they were underground on the metro. I finally was fed up and used my French speaking abilities to ask for directions. I had no idea that they spoke French in Brussels and that ended up being my saving grace. I successfully got me and the Air Force boy to the road where the bus stop is. Just in time, we made it to the bus stop and the group who had apparently gone to get our bags at the hostel made it there too. Everything seemed fine until we realized William still didn’t have a ticket and Face realized she had booked her bus for the next morning… William ended up sneaking a photo of Natalies tickets and getting on before her AND SHE STILL GOT ON SOMEHOW, and Face bribed the bus driver to let her on but she didn’t have any cash so she asked for mine… Needless to say, we definitely had high blood pressure leaving Brussels.”

Rachel & Riley drinking the Wooden relic seen at “that thing you did

Gulden Draak 3000’s the Belgian market with your mouth”

Everyone including the Air Force boys The famous Belgian Waffles

once we made it to the bus stop.

Saturday, March 2nd

“It’s finally the evening time and the girls and I are getting ready to go to the clubs for the night. Analise calls me and tells me that she has arranged for us to get in to OPIUM. She tells me that they not only got us in, but that also comes with a booth AND bottle service! All we had to do was walk up and say we were with ‘Megan for 5’ and they let us in. The bouncers escorted us to the booth and it overlooked the DJ booth & the dance floor. The first thing I noticed in the booth was this HUGE bottle of Grey Goose vodka on this little stand where you could just pour it into your cup. My friends ended up losing me so naturally I just went out dancing by myself. Eventually they found me, right before the main event was coming on. All of a sudden this loud trumpet starts playing and everyone is going nuts! I was so confused when this bald trumpet player jumped on the stage. Everyone was losing their minds over this guy and I had no idea why but it was lowkey really hype. “

The Trumpet man playing in Opium from the view of our booth.

Tuesday, March 5th

“Woke up early this morning, it was ridiculous. Absolutely exhausted. We finally made it to Mallorca, Spain. Super ready for what the beaches here hold! We walked out of the airport and found the bus FINALLY, but we got bamboozled. We thought the bus was 2.50 euros, turns out to be 5 euros because we are coming from the airport! Woohoo! who knew? Not us! We finally made it to our little town and basically had to play Sherlock Holmes to find our airbnb because the lady wouldn’t respond. 30 minutes later we found the building and a man came to let us in, but told us we could only drop off our bags so that he could clean the place. We were kicked out for the next 2.5 hours so we just slept on the beach and ate pizza. Although the airbnb was in a sketchy place, I felt safe knowing how freaking difficult it was trying to unlock that front door. I don’t think I successfully opened it even once on my own. We finally made it inside and immediately Rachel, Olivia, Face, and I all ran to the room with two beds. The catch was that the beds were a queen and a twin. Somehow we were going to have to fit 4 people in this room, so we decided to push them together. This was the beautiful beginning of MEGABED.”

MEGABED

Friday, April 26th

“It’s finally the day we get to leave for King’s Day in Amsterdam! So, my flight anxiety has been a real pain recently so I decided I would just take the 8 hour bus ride overnight. My friends love me so much that they all decided to take the bus with me in support of my fears. I love them for that! I thought that taking the bus would be less of a headache for some reason, but it turned out to be quite the opposite. We all made it to the bus stop in Paris where we were going to take off from. When we got there there were 3 different busses but there was no differentiation on the tickets to show which one you were supposed to be on. We had to walk to each one and wait in a line until the bus conductor told us if we were at the right one or not. And ~shockingly~ it took us at least 2 times at each bus to figure it out. Unfortunately, Rachel was the only one to get put on a separate bus. Olivia, Alyssa, and I were about to put our bags under the bus when Olivia realizes she doesn’t have her passport. She has to leave the station and go home to get it, and then re-book a new bus to Amsterdam later in the morning. As if we thought that was the only problem we would have, Rachels bus broke down for 3 hours in the middle of no where. Alyssa and I were the only ones who made it there semi-smoothly. Good think Amsterdam has McDonalds for us to wait at!”

Saturday, April 27th

“HAPPY KONINGSDAG!! It’s King’s Day and all of us are so ready to forget about the terrible bus ride we had yesterday. So basically, our game plan for the day is to get dressed up in our orange and just GO. Theres a party on every street and you just can’t go wrong. With that being said, I don’t have much to say other than this was one of the best day of my life.”

William, Rachel, Riley, Olivia, and Alyssa on King’s Day

” An honorable mention from today is definitely Rachel’s hand embroidered sweater. She wanted to spice up her outfit, but later realized that she did it all very wrong. Little did she know it would turn out to be the most iconic sweater ever.”

Rachel and her famous design

Sunday, April 28th

“It was the morning of the day we were supposed to leave. We had the whole day to do whatever we wanted. We walked down the hostel stairs and behind the front counter was the most Golden and handsome man any of us had ever seen. He talked to us and even called my hair CLASSY. I don’t know why, but that was the greatest compliment I have ever gotten! We swooned over him all day long, and in the afternoon we had lunch with him. We ate at the hostel and he sat in the dining room chatting with us and singing us songs. He was angelic in every way. It was so funny to see all of us girls going nuts over someone we will probably never see again.”

Gideon and when he played guitar at the hostel in Amsterdam for us.

Olivia’s Favorite Memory:

Riding our bikes to our secret beach cove

As promised, A quick look at our new merch line. Inspired by Rachels hand made sweater:

#IMSODRUNK sweater: $40