Adios

I've been more funerals in my life than I'd like to admit, but today was the first one I have gone to in memory of a child. An innocent child who spent half of his short life fighting a disease that eventually ended it. My heart goes out to my aunt, uncle, and little cousins. I hope I never have to attend a child funeral again. It is utterly heartbreaking.

Chicas

I met up with two of my good friends for dinner in Pasadena tonight. We had fun catching up, and sharing stories & laughs. We also established that we need to plan a serious girl's weekend or two in the near future. Summer is just around the corner after all!

Coco

I stopped by the dry cleaners to pick up some clothes on my way home today. Big Man Bakes is located just next door to the dry cleaners. Guess what else ended up coming home with me besides an armful of clean clothes?

Danzón

I miss Mexico. I know, I know, we just returned from vacation but I was missing Mexico before that and still am. It has been a good three years since we've been back (well, excluding a handful of weekend trips to border cities.) I was going through some old travel pictures and found this video of danzón in the Zócalo de Veracruz.

Side story: when I was younger (9 or 10 years old) I told my mom and grandmother that I wanted to go to Veracruz. They thought I was crazy. "We don't even have family there. What do you know about Veracruz!" But I insisted that I would go one day. I used to dance with a Mexican folklorico group and I think that the music and dance from that region really appealed to me when they taught us dances from Veracruz. Fast forward 10+ years and I finally made my childhood wish come true.

The clip above is something that I will never forget: the husband (who was my bf at the time) and I were walking around the zócalo (the main city square). There was a band playing music with lot of older people sitting around listening. They started playing a danzón and then the men got up to look for a partner. The danzón is a very old fashioned dance that is carried out in these sort of segments. All of the older people obviously knew how to dance it. It was such a treat watching them come alive on the dance floor. Most of them were dancing with total strangers (we paid attention to who and how they approached their partners), but yet they all knew how to listen to the music for cues on how to continue with the dance. It was like the music took them back to their teenage days. So sweet and inspiring.

Anyway, that's my blast from the past. Not sure what the point of this post is. Just me being nostalgic I guess.

One Ten

Light traffic on the 110 freeway. A rare sight indeed.

Madrid Me Mata

When people ask me what our favorite city in Spain was, I usually answer all of them! I mean it's difficult to choose because they all have their own appeal and character. But there is something about Madrid that made us fall madly in love with it. Its energy, its big city feel, its people, its culture, ah its true Spanish spirit...everything about it! We spent 6 days in Madrid, and still felt like it was not enough to see everything. Well, I guess we felt that way about all the cities we visited, but Madrid is just so huge! There was no shortage of things to do at any time of the day. Since it will take me forever (and I'm too lazy) to cover everything that we did, I'll share some of our favorite sights and activities.

El Prado & Reina Sofia: Madrid's most famous art museums. We literally dedicated an entire day admiring works of pre-modern artists including Velázquez, El Greco, Goya, Bosch (all at El Prado) and then moved over to the Reina Sofia to observe modern art pieces by Picasso, Dali, and Miró, among others.

Museo Nacional del Prado

Museo Reina Sofia

Picasso's Guernica

We took a break in between museums by strolling through the beautiful gardens of the Real Jardín Botánico.

El Parque del Buen Retiro: wow! I'm so jealous of Madrid for this. A big chunk of one day was dedicated to exploring its gardens/monuments/trails/parks.

El Mercado de San Miguel: yum! What an awesome gourmet marketplace. Our dinner one night consisted of tapas & pinchos hopping between booths.

The Mr. enjoying his first of many Mahou beers.

La Puerta de Toledo. We woke up to this everyday as our hotel was right in front of it. Some days it was overcast and gloomy, others sunny and warm. Always a beautiful sight to start our day.

Cuesta de Moyano: we heart books. It was so much fun walking this long stretch of independent book stalls and browsing their collections. Too bad we were traveling with only our backpacks, otherwise we would have brought home a ton of books to add to our growing collection.



Plaza Santa Ana: super touristy, but still worth a visit to one of the busiest and liveliest plazas in Madrid.

Chueca: this was one of my favorite neighborhoods in Madrid. Great restaurants, cute boutiques, pretty architecture. It's also a popular area for the gay community...which means fun nightlife and good vibes all around!



El Palacio Real: the old school Royal Palace. Everything about this palace was so impressive.


We also took a day trip to Toledo, Spain's original capital (before Madrid).

Don Quixote de la Mancha.
Dulcinea was no where to be found, probably because she was imaginary huh?

La Perejila: we happened to come across this tiny tapas and cava bar located in the La Latina neighborhood on our first night in Madrid. We couldn't help but return at least a few more times. It was that good and the decor was so nice!

Callos y cava. Perfect.

Real Madrid vs Hercules de Alicante: I'm so stoked that we were able to catch a Real Madrid game! I admit that I was a little sad at first that Cristiano Ronaldo didn't play at this game, but it didn't take away from the excitement of the event.

El Rastro: Madrid's famous Sunday morning flea market. You can find all sorts of goods, art, and straight-out odd items for sale. It was a lot of fun to just browse through all the stalls and chat it up with the friendly vendors.


Finally: the vino tinto and sangria, which flowed like water. We became very good friends.


Next up: Sevilla y Málaga !

Grilled Cheese Goodness

Last night, my coworker mentioned that she and her husband would be heading to downtown for the Grilled Cheese Invitational. We had no idea this was going on this weekend, but since we had a free afternoon we gladly joined them. I can't remember the last time I ate a grilled cheese sandwich. The dairy stuff tends to not sit well with my digestive system, but indulging for one day at the festival was well worth the risk!


The invitational was held at the Los Angeles Center Studios, a spot located on the west end of downtown with plenty of space for the festivities.


We didn't hesitate to run to the Tillamook booth for free samples of the grilled stuff.

Cheese brought on the thirst and it was a warm day, so we continued on to find some dranks.


Besides the several rounds of grilled cheese competitions, they also hosted a costume contest. Check out the block of cheese and grater. hah!


They also brought in local chefs for some head-to-head gourmet sandwich grilling. I was happy to see Ricardo Zarate participating! He's the chef of Mo-Chica (which I blogged about here). Aaaand did you know that he's opening a new restaurant in west LA in May?! Yeah, I didn't know either until today. Going on the list fo sho. Anyway, his lamb grilled cheese à la Peruano was so good.


We made our rounds, making sure to properly stuff our faces.

mmmm...Nutella+blueberry grilled cream cheese

We emerged from the festival bloated and sunburned, but content as can be.

The Grilled Cheese Invitational was good times. Time to mark it on my calendar for next year!

Weekend. Need Sleep.

Feliz fin de semana!
Today I was reminded that, no, I have indeed not blogged about our Spain trip. (thanks for the reminder, K. The challenge is on!) So, I'm hoping to dedicate some time to that this weekend. I'd also like to catch up on sleep, watch the netflix movie that's been sitting on our coffee table all week, indulge in some grilled cheese sandwiches, and celebrate Easter somehow. Pretty ambitious, eh?
Anywho, back to Spain- above is a picture from Sevilla. That's a start, right?

Running

Excuse the blackberry pic, but that's all I've got for today. It was taken today during a pleasant evening run through Runyon Canyon. I really should take the dslr there one of these days.

Crumbs

Wow, this week is going by incredibly fast. Hell, this entire month almost seems like a blur. I have a long list of personal to-do things that has been taunting me. Plus, I just received some really sad news that is forcing me to take an emergency trip to visit the family up north again. Sigh... Such is life.

You know what would really be nice right now, though? A fresh baked cookie. :)

Protest

If it's not a movie filming shutting down the streets of downtown, it's a protest or another public gathering. I love my vibrant community.

Yellow

Nothing interesting to share today, folks. Just another pretty wall.