R&R

Memorial Day Weekend in 10 words or less:

Palm Springs.

Cranium, grilled pineapples, mojitos, dance party, friends.

Somuchfun!

Verde

Oooh yeaaaah, I love me a long weekend. We're spending ours in the desert, far away from anything green and dewy (like today's foto of the day.) We are looking forward to doing absolutely nothing at all except enjoying the warm weather and getting our grill on.

Mignon

Mignon: An intimate little joint in downtown. One of our new favorite places. Wine, cheese, communal table. It doesn't need much more.

It's also a sister establishment to Bacaro LA. Fun fact: the owner of the restaurants was my biology lab partner at USC. I guess he ditched the science field for the restaurant biz. Seems like it wasn't a bad choice at all.

Blur

...because sometimes, fotos taken with the wrong settings come out looking pretty cool.

Hump Day

Went out for a drink after work today with the hubs. Cuz sometimes, you really need that drink to make it over the hump.

Night Walker

There's nothing wrong with our own little Chinatown here in LA, but I gotta say: SF Chinatown wins.

Cerezas

It's cherry season! We grabbed a bag of these yummy cherries at the farmer's market yesterday. Plus, our latest issue of Bon Appétit just arrived and it's filled with cherry-inspired recipes. I just may have to try that cherry clafouti one out.

Mean Cloud

Why do the best weekends gotta go by so quickly? Grrr.

Today

We enjoyed a hearty breakfast while waiting for the husband's car to get an oil change.


Went grocery shopping.


Mosied on over to 5th & Olive to watch soapboxes race down the hills.


Bathed a smelly pug.


And carried on with life as normal.

Strangely, we were not judged, raptured, abducted by aliens, seduced by sirens, or anything of that nature.

Weird. Cuz I could have swooorn I saw this billboard a few blocks away threatening that some serious business was really gonna go down today. Hmmm. Maybe tomorrow?

Happy Weekend

It's weekend time! I'm looking forward to a weekend with absolutely zero plans, and it feels so good! All we have on our list is: cleaning the house, grocery shopping, and catching up on some reading. Couldn't ask for much more right now. :)

Neon

I was supposed to post this picture last Thursday after the downtown Art Walk. Better late than never, no?

Ugh

I didn't mean to not blog for a whole week, but here's what happened:

I wrote a long Spain recap post last Wednesday. The next evening I tried logging back in to post the picture of the day as well as schedule posts for the weekend because we were going to be out of town. Well Blogger had other plans and decided to go cray-cray that night. I couldn't schedule any of my posts and guess what? It effing lost my post from Wednesday. A post that I actually spent time on. SAD.

So here we are. I'm still hoping that the blogger team will magically replace my post (I complained), but I doubt it.

In other (good!) news, my brother-in-law graduated from UC Berkeley on Monday!

Go do big things, young one. We are proud. :)

Sevilla y Malaga

***Note: many, many thanks to my friend Ashley to helped me recover this post via her Google reader. Whew, what a relief!***

In my previous post about our Spain trip, I shared pictures from our week in Madrid. After that, we jumped on the Renfe to take us away to Sevilla. Again, I'm lazy so here are the highlights and some of my favorite pics.

After a three hour ride towards the south-west, we exited the train to a noticeably warmer and sunnier Sevilla. The day was still young, so we threw our backpacks off in the hotel room and ran outside to wander the streets.

We caught our first glimpse of La Catedral on our way to the historical city center. I love how the streets of Sevilla were lined with orange trees!

El Alcázar de Sevilla: a Moorish and Castilian palace. Doesn't it remind you of a fairy tale castle from the outside?


The trek up La Giralda (the cathedral's bell tower) was a long one. At least you are rewarded with an incredible view of the city once you reach the top.


Flamenco! We were told to go to La Carboneria, a small bar near our hotel. We followed instructions to get to this place, but couldn't find it. We literally passed it three times without realizing it. When we asked someone for help, they directed us back to this red door that we had already passed. It looks like someone's home from the outside, but once you're in you feel like you just walked in to a cave. It has a really cool underground vibe, and the place was packed. I couldn't believe how crowded it was for being so hidden. We squeezed ourselves into a bench near the stage and enjoyed the late night flamenco show.


Plaza de España: a beautiful semi-circle that pays homage to several Spanish provinces through tile work that lines the building.


Lunch at Taberna del Alabardero: an elegant dining room that offers a seasonal menu. Definitely the best menu del dia deal for the quality.


Plaza de las Cruces: a charming plaza near our hotel. It reminded me of Mexico!


Of course, Jamón Ibérico y vino tinto. Can't get enough. :)


We spent three days exploring Sevilla and getting lost in its streets. We were headed east after that, but decided to make a pit stop in Málaga - a coastal town famous for being the birth city of Pablo Picasso.

We didn't have too much time here, but we did make it a point to visit the house where Picasso was born,

take a stroll down the city's main promenade, Calle Marqués de Larios,

and taste vino dulce at El Pimpi.

The next day, we woke up early to try to figure out the best way to get to Granada. We decided to bus it there, so we set out to find the bus station. Looking at our city map, the it didn't seem too far away. So we loaded up our backpacks and set foot for el estación de autobuses. Little did we know it would take us two hours to find the place! I guess things look closer than they really are when all you have is a cheap city map to work with.

"are we there yet?"

Eventually, we found the bus station. Lucky for us, a bus was getting ready to depart. We paid the driver, hopped on, and continued on to our next adventure.

LowRider

Someone told me today that I look like a baby.
"huh?," I responded.
"Yeah. You look like a baby."

I couldn't help but laugh. I told the husband, who also laughed and called me a toddler. lol Really?! I didn't even know how to respond.

This is totally unrelated to today's foto, I know, but I just had to share the funny story of the day. That's all.

May Is Messin With My Mind

I'm not quite sure what's going on with the weather, but I'm not liking it. Last week brought back the 80+ degree days. I wore shorts & a tank top at night for the first time in a long time. Now we're back to highs of 60/70 degrees. It's currently raining outside. Raining! For real?
Yes, I am complaining. I don't pay property taxes to live in Southern California for nothing ok?
Sooo, ummmm, please come back Mr. Sun. Stop playing with my emotions.

Street Party

Fiesta Broadway was happening on the streets of Downtown today. We went for a quick walk to check out the festivities, but couldn't stay too long because we had dates with our Moms. I heard Ozomatli performed this year at the fiesta, though!
Anyway, hope all the mommas out there had a beautiful Mother's Day!

Mmmm

'lette. Downtown's very own macaron shop. Makes me very happy.

Spitz

Wow, this week really flew by. I can't believe it is weekend time already! We both didn't feel like staying in after getting home from work, so we threw the leash on the pug and took to the streets for a family outing. We ended up grabbing a bite to eat at Spitz.

Sangria + doner kebab. A great start to the weekend!

UFO Catcher?

I almost wanted to play this game only because it looked so cute. There were no UFOs to be caught, though.

De Colores

"De colores se visten las flores en la primavera."

Art in the Park

Today's foto of the day: whimsical street art in Beverly Hills.

Jazz

Have you heard about the Playboy Jazz Festival? It's a concert held annually at the Hollywood Bowl and they always feature a very impressive lineup of jazz artists. We've been meaning to go for a couple years now, but this time we finally got our act together and bought tickets ahead of time. I noticed on the website that they also host free community events leading up to the Festival. There was one yesterday at the Beverly Hills Civic Center featuring the Tamir Hendelman Trio (never heard of them, but they were great!) and Justo Almario's Afro-Colombian Ensemble. I've heard the Ensemble's name tossed around before on some of the latin jazz programs I listen to on the radio, so it was cool to see them live. For the record, I love me some latin jazz. Salsa, cha-cha-cha, cumbias, I'm all about it. The treat about this band is that their music is largely based on Colombian beats and rhythms. They were awesome! It was so much fun watching them perform live. I sort of wish they would be performing at the Festival, but it's okay cuz Eddie Palmieri will be there! (Is anyone else out there a fan?)

Good Foods, Good Friends

Aw man, I missed a day of blogging yesterday. It was so not intentional. What had happened was that we had friends over for dinner and drinks. Then after dinner we spontaneously decided to walk to The Association for more drinky time. I planned on writing my daily post after getting home, but, well, I was really in no condition to be blogging. So..I failed. But the night itself was a big win! Here are some pictures from our impromptu dinner party last night.

On the menu: roasted beef brisket with red wine reduction and scalloped potatoes.

Husband the carver.

After our meal we popped open a bottle of cava to have a group toast with Dan & Anthony in celebration of their engagement.

Oh, these two. A typical Kirstin & Anthony foto.

A bit blurry, but I love this picture! I don't remember what we were talking about here, but clearly it was very funny.

Impromptu dinner parties are the best! Must do this more often.