The New Adventure 13 Nov 2017 3:28 PM (8 years ago)

October 28 was an emotional day for me. It's the day I decided to face my fears and allow myself to be vulnerable. It's the day I moved out of my apartment in Lafayette and moved in with my man-friend in Marin.
Back in September, I asked Kellin where our relationship was headed. What was next for us on this awesome adventure? We talked a bit about our future, what we wanted for ourselves and what we wanted for our relationship and decided that we would keep the conversation open over the next several weeks and see what made the most sense. Over the following weeks, we talked, we considered all options, we decided to move in together, we searched for places to live and we decided that it made the most sense to move into his place. I told my family and friends, I gave my notice and I started packing.
Packing was hard for me. Where do I start? What do I keep? What do I donate? I built this home for myself out of necessity, out of self preservation. It was perfect for me and exactly my taste and style, it was mine and I worked really hard to be there. Packing was very overwhelming for me. I had to remind myself to breathe.
My little home was a good home. It was cute, quaint, and welcoming.
I had tons of parties, movie and TV show marathons, started family traditions, laughed, cried, cooked. It protected me when I was feeling insecure and continued to remind me that I am smart, capable, successful and worth it. I wallowed in self pity, I suffered, I fell out of touch, I had serious heartache. I endured, I persevered, I grew, I made life-long friendships, I fell in love.
I had my last party a couple of weeks before my move out date. Girls only. And it was perfect. I had been feeling a overwhelmed and having most of the women who have supported me over the last several years all in one place drinking champagne, eating cheese, laughing, listening to my 'Thong Song" radio station, reminiscing, karaoke-ing the night away at the Round Up and staying up way too late eating all of the leftovers was exactly what the doctor ordered. After the party, I felt at peace. Ready to take on this next adventure.
When I woke up on October 28th, I called my mom and asked her to come by, one last time. The movers arrived and, in less than an hour, they had packed my furniture and loaded the moving truck with all of my belongings. When my home was empty, I cried and my mom held me. I soaked up the space and was taken back to the day I saw the apartment for the first time in July 2014 and knew it was perfect for me and the warm day I moved in with the help of my mom and some of my dearest friends. I considered the milestones that I have conquered over the last several years and I was overcome with love, pride and contentment. I cried happy tears. I cried because this home helped to shape me into the woman I am today. I have countless memories from that home that will forever be part of the very core of myself.
Cheers to this next chapter of my life. Cheers to facing your fears. Cheers to new adventures. Cheers to moving onward and upward.

The College Dude 2 Nov 2017 1:06 PM (8 years ago)

After having deleted all of the dating apps and taking some much needed time for myself, at the end of last year, I decided that I was interested in getting back into the dating scene. I also decided that I wanted to be more thoughtful about who I dated and I wanted to be in better control of how the dates went. I was looking for something more authentic, genuine and real. All of that said, I was still terrified of any sort of commitment. I re-downloaded the apps and began to go out on dates again. What was different this time around? I went into each date with confidence. Really knowing and believing that I have a lot to bring to the table, I deserve respect, that I am worth it and truly went by the mentality that if it didn't work out, that was okay - it is all just practice. I dated a few people between December and March and really enjoyed myself. I felt like I had more control over the entire experience which made dating more enjoyable for me. Less desperate, if you will, to have the other person like me regardless of if I liked the guy or not. Then, into my life walks this dude who I met in a marketing class in college, and he completely flipped my world upside down. In the best way. In February, he posted a picture of a Pliny the Elder beer on Instagram and in similar fashion to every other post since 2008, I liked it and I commented that I had just had the Pliny the Younger and loved it. He responded to my comment, which was not the norm, we exchanged numbers, I went to NOLA for Mardi Gras and he told me that he wanted to take me out on a date. I told him to slow his role and that I would let him buy me a beer 😜 When I got back from NOLA, we met for that beer and had a great time . I even let him take me out on that first date the same night! He was clear about his intentions. He wanted to date me. I told him that I was scared. He told me that we could take it slow. I told him that I wanted to be pursued. He told me that he was old fashioned and liked to open doors. I told him that I was nervous about commitment. He told me he would be patient. We went out for more dates. We went on more adventures. We introduced each other to friends. We introduced each other to family. We started dating at the beginning on March and in the middle of April he asked me to be his girlfriend. Is it just me, or does 'girlfriend' sound silly for someone who is 30? I call him my 'Manfriend.' Yes, I realize that that sounds just as silly! Since March, we have made an intentional effort to be thoughtful, honest, patient, kind, loving and open to ourselves and to each other. He teaches me to breath, how to savor all of the little moments and how to focus on the big picture. He has been patient and calm and understanding. I have worked hard to break down the walls that I have put up and to trust him and to trust that what we have is special and long lasting and I am so glad that I have, because it's totally worth it.

found here

To Close A Chapter 19 May 2017 12:01 PM (8 years ago)

Last night mom and I went to a book signing for the release of her friends new book: May It Be. I rushed home after work, mom and I grabbed a glass of wine and snack and then walked over to the local library. We arrived a few minutes late but caught the tail end of Chrissa's book intro. We listened to the other authors talk about their inspirations, sat through some Q&A and congratulated Chrissa on this exciting chapter in her life.
Mom bought a copy and as I was flipping through the pages, reading a few random entries I came across this one:

When the time comes

to close a chapter,

may you honor the ending

as much as the beginning,

just as a hug is an act of

both claiming and releasing.

May you go with integrity,

finish with dignity.

~May It Be, Chrissa Ventrelle

It really spoke to me.

As most of you know, I was married in the Catholic Church. When I separated and then later divorced, I reached out to the priest who married me and was told that I apply for an Annulment with the Diocese so that, in the future, if I wanted to marry again I could do so in the Church. I paid the fees right away; but, I sat on the paperwork for about a year - for no particular reason - more because it was a lot of work that I just wasn't mentally or emotionally prepared for. About a year later, the Diocese contacted me to let me know that the fees would expire if I didn't get moving on the paperwork or I risked having to start over from scratch. So, I submitted the request.

To clarify, this is all 'in the eyes of the Catholic Church. This has nothing to do with my legal marital status. I am legally divorced. Going through this process will not change the status to annulled.

Fast forward to last fall. After having submitted all of the paperwork and asking several family members and friends to provide testimonies, the Diocese contacted me telling me that my case wasn't 'strong enough' and that the Cannon Judge would likely not approve the request. To say that I was hurt and devastated is an understatement. To be honest, it completely shattered me. It felt like an old wound was being reopened. I was already legally divorced, how could the Diocese do this to me after everything I had been through. After a bit of wallowing in my own self pity (shocking, I know), I picked up the phone and called my contact at the Diocese to figure out what I needed to do to make my case stronger. My contact told me to wait until after the New Year to see if another Judge would see my case and possibly grant me a different decision and if that didn't work, we would present the case in a different way.

After calling the Diocese to check the status of my case almost weekly for the past 5 months, I received a phone call from my contact at the Diocese last Friday. She told me that the Judge had made a final decision in the affirmative - that my annulment was granted and that "as of today, you are free." (Yes, she used the word "free.") I basically jumped for joy, I told everyone who has been part of this arduous journey with me and toasted a ~~not so great~~ margarita in celebration.

Now, back to yesterday. I received the paperwork with the final ruling in the mail. I felt relieved last Friday, but there was something about reading the words on paper with the Cannon Judge's signature that made it all the more real and sweet. As I was flipping through May It Be, I stumbled upon the above entry, read it aloud to my mom, we teared up, embraced and then I bought my own copy of Chrissa's book. While she signed it, I told her my story and she congratulated and thanked me for sharing about how, in just a few moments, her book touched me.

With all of this said, this annulment was the final string, the final attachment, the final chapter of that part of my life. I want to thank everyone for listening to me, for holding me, for loving me, for supporting me, for celebrating me throughout my life, but especially over the last three years. I truly would not have made it this far and am beyond grateful for the relationships that I have made, cultivated and cherished.

Thank you does not do my feelings justice.

Onward and Upward.

Whole30 x2 8 Feb 2017 1:17 PM (9 years ago)

I just completed my second Whole30!! This is a huge feat, well, big enough and I have to admit that I am quite proud of myself. Let me set the stage:
Back in 2015, I went to Africa and on the island of Zanzibar I ate shrimp and got super sick. I saw a doctor when I was in France and I saw a few doctors in the US and no one could figure out why I felt so terrible. I had no appetite, so I wasn't eating much, was exercising and I was gaining weight all while being in terrible pain. (Let me preface by saying that I was by no means fat, but I felt like a stuffed sausage in my all of my once fitting clothes.) Anyway, I was basically feeling sick for over a year. The way I felt became my new normal. I was sensitive to everything or nothing. There was no rhyme or reason as to why I felt so terrible.
One day, in the summer of 2016, my mom and I went on a walk and she told me that one of her gym-friends was doing the Whole30 and that she felt and looked great. Knowing my issues, she had suggested to my mom that I try it out. I did some research and realized that I didn't have 30 days to commit, but decided to buy the Whole30 book and started following all of their social media channels. I decided that since I was going to Germany, I would begin easing myself into this lifestyle and when I got back from my trip, I would take it on full force.
I went to Germany, ate way too many sausages and drank my body weight in beer for sixteen days so to say that I was ready for a 'cleanse' of sorts was an understatement. I started my first Whole30 the day I got home and with a full blown cold. Ugh. (PSA: emergen-c has added sugar and chicken noodle soup has, well, noodles :P )
I made it through the 30 days in a breeze. It wasn't hard, the food that I was eating was super tasty and for the most part everyone was supportive of my decision. Another aspect to the Whole30 is to help overcome your food dependencies and bad habits; which I typically don't have. I do not self sooth with booze and I do not punish myself with food - I am not an emotional or bored eater.
I lost 20lbs - I know that weight loss isn't the intention of the Whole30, it is just a side effect - and I had never felt better. I hadn't had a stomach ache in 30 days. I was eating whole and delicious foods, had great sleep and overall had a lot more energy.
After the 30 days, I followed the suggested reintroduction plan to see if there were any foods that I was potentially sensitive to; there was nothing. The main thing I noticed was after eating gluten, I felt that sugar coma - that feeling of wanting to just put my head on the desk and take a nap kind of food coma - especially when I am at work. Depending on the gluten, that feeling is worth it; but to be honest, it isn't always. That's what they call Food Freedom; to know how your body reacts to certain foods and to either make the conscious decision to continue eating it, or not. I went into the holidays with this new sense food freedom and I will admit that I over indulged, um, a lot and had a great holiday season, all of my decisions were worth it. When it came to food preparation for myself, I stayed compliant: I ate a compliant breakfast and lunch every day. As fas as dinner and outings and happy hours and dates (oh yeah, I am dating again, more on that later) I wasn't so compliant. But I made the conscious decision not to be. I had a very Merry Holiday Season!
- Now on to the January Whole30 -
Because I was raving about it the first go around, I convinced a few friends to join in the fun and do it with me again in January. I will admit, January proved to be much harder for me than when I did it in October. I think it was harder for me for a number of reasons (1) I went out a lot more in January than I did in October - dating and otherwise (2) Work was really, super busy for my in January with all of my projects coming to a head at the same time (3) I think as a byproduct of the aforementioned things, I wasn't sleeping well and all I was jones'ing for was alcohol after work - which is so so so unlike me! I will say, though, it was interesting with this round of Whole30 because a lot of people made comments about the amount of weight that I had lost/was losing - about 10 lbs since the one I did in October - I have been getting stopped in the hall at work, facebook messages and comments on photos.
Even though this last Whole30 wasn't as life changing as the first, I know that I will do it again when I need another reset. That said, I know that I will continue on with my Food Freedom and when I want to indulge in that wine and cheese night or have a margarita with some chips and guac, I will. I will probably do it again in October, before the thick of the holiday season, and possibly a few shorter than 30 days in between. If you are ever interested in doing it, let me know and let's encourage and support each other!
tldr; do the whole30! it is awesome!

Köln, Germany 10 Nov 2016 1:49 PM (9 years ago)

Today, I am sharing my last post recapping my awesome 2016 Europe trip. I am sad to be finished recapping, while also relieved because it has taken me far longer than it should have to complete this post :-)
Köln, Germany was beautiful. We arrived in the evening on Tuesday, headed straight to our hotel for a quick check in since our train was delayed and because of technical issues we had to change trains part way through. But never worry, we were able to watch both parts 1 and 2 of the 7th Harry Potter movies just in time. Because we were checking in after hours at our hotel, we had difficulty checking in and I had to turn on my cell phone to call the hotel for them to let us in remotely.
We dropped our bags and looked for a place to have dinner nearby. We ended up at a Mediterranean place down the block and it turned out to be one of our favorite meals on the entire trip. We went back to the hotel for a good nights sleep for our last full day of my leg of the trip.
We woke up on Thursday morning and headed to a local coffee shop for espresso and pastries. It was my last day, so we were going all out. After breakfast we walked to the main square to check out the Köln Dom. It is spectacular from the outside with its gothic architecture. Sadly, they were doing a lot of external renovations, so there was scaffolding around the outside of the church. Nevertheless, it was beautiful.
We went inside to check out the interior and so that I could say my usual prayer of safe travels and healthy living for my family and friends. The stained glass windows and the architecture and the artwork and the sculptures were just breathtaking. It is free to enter the cathedral; however, when you walk in and at each corner and at every alter there were collection bins. Which was totally fine. I am happy to donate. But I drew the line at the fact that the priests were wearing (yes, I said wearing) collection containers around their necks and while we were sitting at one of the alters, someone came around to collect the money from one of the bins. Can't you do that after hours? It was really disappointing. When I travel, I love to visit churches and to say a prayer. For me, it is a spiritual experience. Now, I understand that that isn't the case for everyone, but I was really upset at hour touristy the church was. If you are hurting for cash, charge an entrance fee and then leave people in peace to take from the site what they will. {end soapbox}

After we finished walking through and admiring the beautiful cathedral, we walked across the famous Love Lock bridge: Hohenzollernbrücke over to the Rhine Promenade for some beautiful cityscapes and views of Cologne. We walked back over into Old Town by Deutzer Brücke and we headed to the Chocolate Factory. I wouldn't recommend the tour. It was kind of pricey and if you have done a Chocolate Tour before, you have done them all. But definitely make sure to enjoy a spiked Hot Chocolate. Caitlin and I both enjoyed the Geist der Azteken - hot chocolate made with chili, tabasco, tequila, white rum and whipped cream. Oh.My.God. This was soo good, I can't wait to replicate it!

After the Chocolate Factory and lunch, we headed over to the birthplace of the famous Eau De Cologne 4711. We walked around the shop, I dipped my hands into the Eau De Cologne Fountain and I found a perfume that I loved to purchase. We did a little shopping, since we were so close to the shopping district then for the rest of the day we brewery hopped. We had a few beers at one brewery next to the Cologne Cathedral and then went to another for our last dinner.

As we got further away from Munich, the beers got smaller.

We ended our day with a yummy German dinner - even if our waiter ended up being kind of an a-hole...
The next day, we went back to the same cafe for breakfast, went to the train station to figure out how we were supposed to get to the airport, bought train tickets, checked out of our hotel and headed to the airport. Caitlin then flew on to continue her solo trip, and I flew from Cologne to Munich back to San Francisco.
This was definitely a trip that I will forever remember. I learned a lot about traveling with friends and myself. I for sure have the itch to travel and have already started planning my big trip for next year to celebrate my big birthday that I will not mention :)

Berlin, Germany 3 Nov 2016 11:29 AM (9 years ago)

After Praha, Czech Republic, we headed on the train to Berlin. We arrived in the Berlin train station that is massive. Like, whoa. I was very surprised. We had to ask information how to get to our hotel, because we couldn't find a map in the station that we could understand. HA!
We made it to our hotel, dropped off our things and decided to head down to Checkpoint Charlie. We got down there and walked around a bit but felt that it was definitely a tourist attraction and we were expecting a bit of a different experience. We ended up getting tickets and audioguides to walk through the Checkpoint Charlie museum that ended up being extremely informative and really interesting. Both Caitlin and I felt like we didn't know a ton about the history of the Berlin Wall and the history of Germany after World War II. I highly recommend the Checkpoint Charlie Museum - there are a ton of stories from people who lived through the occupation and explained a lot of the history of the division. That being said, I would not recommend getting hung up on the attraction that is Checkpoint Charlie - it is almost like Disneyland and just overly crowded.
After the museum, we popped into a Tapas restaurant bar that was nearby. It was delicious and a nice change from sausages and beer.

These signs are not the original, the posts are.

This was our first site of the wall on our trip.

The next day we woke up and headed down to Pariser Platz; where Brandenburg Tor is located for breakfast and to meet our guide to start our walking tour. Our walking tour was about 2.5 hours and we walked around the main sites in Berlin. Our guide was awesome, very knowledgable and very engaging.

Our tour included:

Pariser Platz

Brandenburg Gate

Site of Hitler’s bunker

Memorial to the Murdered Jews of Europe

Checkpoint Charlie

Gendarmenmarkt

The Berlin Wall

Luftwaffe HQ

Bebelplatz

Book burning memorial

Humboldt University

The air was cool and crisp, the sun was out and shining and it was a perfect day to walk around the city.

After our walking tour, Caitlin and I headed to the East Side Gallery by way of the TV Tower and the Berlin Dom. The church was very busy with a ton of tourists, so we decided to admire it from afar. Which was kind of a bummer because it's so beautiful from the outside, but we figured it would be frustrating trying to walk around and get out of it what we wanted.

Before we visited the East Side Gallery, we stopped over at Burgermeister for the best burger in Berlin. It definitely did not disappoint and it was perfect timing because it started pouring rain once we sat down to eat, so we were protected by the overpass. Once we finished our burgers and the rain had stopped, we headed over to the East Side Gallery to admire the murals and artwork painted on the still standing portion of the Berlin Wall. Obviously, most (if not all) of the art was very politically charged.

We then headed into the hipster district of Berlin for drinks and dinner.

On our last full day in Berlin we took the subway over to Mauerpark, which translates into "Wall Park." The park is located on the East Side of Berlin and, when the wall was still standing, it was right up against the wall, hence the name. The park was actually pretty ugly, there was trash everywhere and the grass was brown where there was still even grass. On Sundays, there is a market with music and lots of people, and this day was Monday, so I hope that it was just looking rough because the market was the day before.

After we walked around the park for a bit to soak up some warm sunshine, we headed over to walk through the Wall Memorial. We spent a bit of time walking through the memorial then headed over to do some window shopping and have lunch in another trendy area of the city.

Throughout Berlin, you will come across these stones on the rode. This signifies where the Wall once stood. When you can read the plaque right-side-up, that means that you are on the West side of where the wall stood. Our walking tour guide told us that they did this because the East Side was 'wrong' and if you couldn't read the plaque ride-side-up, that meant you were on the 'wrong side of the wall.' Kind of interesting note...

After lunch and window shopping - it was only window shopping because all of the shops were closed because it was a national holiday - more on that in a minute - we headed back to Pariser Platz to walk over to the Reichstag to see if we could hop on a tour either that afternoon or the next morning before we headed to Cologne. Unfortunately, we weren't able to get a tour, so we just looked on from outside.

On our walking tour, we walked through the Memorial to the Murdered Jews of Europe and since we really just passed through, we wanted to revisit the site and walk through the museum. We spent a couple of hours in the museum and walking through the memorial and to say that it was overwhelming is an understatement.

We walked back through Pariser Platz and headed to the Adlon Hotel (where Michael Jackson held Baby Blanket over the balcony) to sit outside on their patio with a glass of Champagne and a charcuterie plate. We had a great view of Pariser Platz and the Brandenburg Gate. Now for the National Holiday. We just so happened to be in Berlin for the Day of German Unity - which is the Day of German Reunification. So, there were a ton of people, street performers and there was a festival going on on the other side of the gate.

We thought that we had wanted to hang around the plaza and be part of the excitement, but at one point a man wearing a nazi uniform and flying a nazi flag walked by. We decided that we didn't want to get in the middle of anything political so we headed back toward our hotel for dinner and to get to bed early.

We spent the next morning, before our train to Cologne, back in the trendy area where we had lunch the day before, to do some more eating and shopping.
Berlin ended up being another one of my favorite cities. Mostly because we were able to experience a lot of culture and learn a lot about the history of Berlin and Germany after World War II.

The architecture is just beautiful and I hope to revisit Berlin someday!

Praha, Czech Republic 28 Oct 2016 12:20 PM (9 years ago)

My first, like, hour of being in Prague was stressful and made me want to leave before we even made it to the hotel. We arrived in the train station without any Czech Koruna. Czech Republic is part of the EU, but does not use the Euro. This is kind of annoying to us travelers but it is nice because the Koruna is not as strong as the Euro, so our USD goes a lot further there. Our first task was to find an ATM before we headed out because we needed to take a taxi to the hotel. We find an ATM and I put my card in first. Since we were so used to Euros, we got a little confused on the conversion and I ended up taking out the equivalent of 450 USD. Now, we were planning to be there for 3 full days, but when a beer costs $1.50, $450 is a little excessive. We decided that between the 3 of us, we would split the amount that I had taken out. Needless to say, I was a little annoyed that I had just taken out so much money. Oh well, now was time to head to our hotel. We leave the train station and we find a taxi driver. I show him the address of our hotel and he mumbled and grumbled, pulled out his phone to show us a map and told us to walk. Now, let me preface with: when I looked it up, the walk was going to be about 20 minutes and we all had all of our luggage. So, with some admitted attitude, I asked if he was refusing to take us and he said yes, that we could walk. So, now, Im floored. I'm like, I have 10,000 koruna burning a whole in my pocket, can you just f*cking take us to our hotel?! In hindsight, once we got to our hotel, I understood why the driver wouldn't take us. our hotel was in a sort of pedestrian only area and the hotel was really not that far from the train station. We finally made it to our hotel, checked in, dropped off our stuff and headed to the Old Town Square to check out the Astronomical Clock. We got there at the top of the hour so we were able to see it chime. To be honest, the clock is not as big as I had expected. We then went to a rooftop bar for drinks and a cheese plate and we read up on how to actually read the clock. Everything made sense, except for the time. Based on the clock, the time was one hour off - which is when we realized that the clock doesn't take into consideration: daylight savings. Which also accounted for why there were a bunch of clocks that had the correct time all around the square. Ha! It was pretty funny. We had scheduled a spa treatment so we headed to the appointment and stopped along the way for a trdelnik - which is basically a churro and it is delicious and totally worth all of the things.

Now for our Spa Treatment. It was hilarious and totally one of the highlights of my trip. I actually found a Beer Spa while I was perusing pinterest and trip planning. It looked hilarious and the girls were in, so we booked it. It was hilarious. We arrive, change out of our clothes and into robes and then we hopped into tubs of water, bubbles and hops and enjoyed some fresh beer from the taps. We soaked for about 45 minutes - mostly laughed the entire time - and then got some back massages. It was glorious. If you are traveling to Prague, I definitely recommend checking this out. We were sent home with a certificate - don't ask me - some more beer and a commemorative photo, that I won't be sharing. Ha!

Our first full day in Prague we spent it walking for 5 hours while eating all of the yummy Czech specific food. We started our food tour at a cute little bakery with some cookies, because who doesn't want to start their days off with treats? And then we moved on to an assortment of open faced sandwiches and butcher shop meats. Oh.My.God. Everything was so good. Then we had a sauerkraut soup that was to.die.for, a pork belly spread with a hard cider and we ended the day with the traditional beef, bread dumplings and gravy with a glass of wine. Everything was delicious. We did the tour through Eating Prague Food Tours. We had an awesome guide who was very knowledgable about the history of Prague and he was able to tell us stories and point out famous areas of interest and give suggestions about what else to do. I would definitely suggest the tour, it was delicious and informative!

After our food tour, we walked across the Vltava into Mala Strana in search for the John Lennon Wall. I loved seeing all of the brightly painted and colorful houses throughout the entire trip, and Prague was no exception. The weather was perfect for a stroll, especially after all of that eating.

We found the John Lennon Wall and spent a bit of time reading all of the quotes and looking at all of the artwork.

This was my favorite quote that really resonated with me:

"I don't know what the future holds. I know who holds the future."

After checking out the Wall, we walked back into Old Town via the Charles Bridge. This bridge is famous for all street vendors and performers. They were selling anything and everything from postcards to jewelry to performing music with string instruments.

Jess had to head back to the hotel to do some work, so Caitlin and I decided to find some beer and food. We headed over to U Kunstatu which had an advertisement on our city map and a couple from our food tour had recommended it. Unfortunately, they were closed for a private party, so we found another spot nearby to grab a drink so we could head back over there to meet Jess once they reopened.

We obviously went big here. We ordered 2 different tasters with all different beers so we could try everything. We sat at the bar, the keeper was friendly and the other patrons of the bar were really nice and fun to chat with. Jess met us there to help us finish the beers and food we ordered and then we headed home and to bed. Jess had an early morning since her flight left out of Prague at 6am.

The next day, Caitlin and I headed over to St. Nicholas Church in Mala Strana and then for a self guided walking tour of the Prague Palace. The St. Nicholas church is very understated from the outside and breathtakingly beautiful on the inside. I would say that this was, hands down, my favorite church in all of the cities we visited.

We walked up to the Prague Palace just in time to see the changing of the guards. We were wondering why this ceremony existed because there isn't anyone living in the palace, so we figure that is just for tourists. We thoroughly enjoyed it, so no complaints here. The church within the Palace is massive and beautiful, but we didn't tour around it because it was so packed with tourists - it was a bit overwhelming. The Palace grounds were green and beautiful and provided unobstructed views of Prague. It was simply beautiful.

We headed back into Old Town via the Charles Bridge where we bought our souvenirs and then headed over to U Fleku - Shannon's recommendation - for some beers and lunch before we headed over to see the Dancing House. The Dancing House was a bit underwhelming. It is an office building, or at least that's what it looks like, and you go in, take an elevator to the top but you can't go outside unless you buy a ridiculously expensive drink or a ticket. We decided against it, which was, in hindsight, a smart choice.

We made our way back to U Kunstatu for the beer tasting and boy did it not disappoint. We sit down with another couple from Canada who had been traveling for 9 months around the world, and our host walks in already blasted. He was hilarious and was definitely a beer aficionado! We took a tour of the basement and the building, which is one of the 2nd oldest in Prague, and drank beer all night long. It was a blast. We ended up grabbing food with our Canadian friends and grabbing more drinks at our hotel with them. It was a blast!

Prague really made up for being such an a*shole at the beginning. We had a blast and it turned out to be one of my favorite cities on the entire trip.
Prague, I love you, I will most definitely return one day.
Next stop: Berlin!

Vien, Austria 26 Oct 2016 9:30 AM (9 years ago)

We arrived in Vien (Vienna) and took a taxi to our hotel. Our driver wasn't the most kind, but that wasn't going to bring us down. We were in Vienna, for crying out loud! :-)
We dropped off our bags, grabbed a map of the city and started walking. Downtown Vienna is a very walkable city. We started at the Opera House. We weren't able to get in to take a tour, so we decided to walk over to the Hofburg Palace and took a tour of the Crown Jewels. Everything was absolutely stunning. After our tour through the museum, Jess went back to the hotel to work a bit and Caitlin and I went to see a show. We saw a Classical music/Ballet/Opera Concert (that was absolutely geared for tourists). The concert was in the Palais Auersperg which is a concert hall famous for being the first place Mozart performed. We felt so cultured and it was great to get a few different art forms in one show. We were definitely happy we went.

On our second day, we went back to the Hofburg Palace to the Spanish Riding School. This was extremely informative and really cool to watch. The trainers work with 4 or 5 different sets of Lippizan horses teaching them dressage. The horses are beautiful and so talented.

After the training, we walked across the way to the Kaiser Apartments and took the tour of the Imperial Palace, the apartments and walked through the Empress Sisi exhibit. The entire tour was really interesting, very informative and totally cool!

There is, what seems to be, a circle around the downtown area of Vienna that is very walkable and takes you near all of the major sites. After our tour of the Palace, we walked around the city center to see all of the rest of the sites all while stopping for souvenirs, pictures and to say prayers in all of the churches.

Vienna was beautiful and full of lots of touring and site seeing. Next stop - Prague.

Salzburg, Austria 25 Oct 2016 12:07 PM (9 years ago)

Let me first start by explaining the difference between "burg" and "berg"
Burg means fortress Berg means mountain
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We arrived in Salzburg by train from Munich and hopped into a taxi. We learned the above from our taxi driver because he saw that I had spelled Salzburg Salzberg. Amateur move, I know, but we learned something from it at least.
We got to our hotel, checked in and dropped off our bags and asked the front desk where we should go, since we only had the rest of the day in the cute, little city. She suggested that we take the Cable Car Up to the top of Untersbergbahn Mountain. It is the mountain that Maria (Sound of Music) is running through in the opening scene of the movie and it provides the most beautiful views of Salzburg.

We hiked around the top of the mountain, there were a ton of people up there. And then we found a table to join to have some beers and lunch. We sat with some local Austrians who turned into our friends and we ended up toasting a lot with them and they bought us a round of drinks. Everyone was so super nice and the Radlers (beer and lemonade) were so refreshing and delicious.

We took the Cable Car back down and the bus back to the main part of the city to Mirabellgarten. The grounds were beautiful and in full bloom.

We walked over the Salzach River and over to the Augustiner Braustubl. It is one of the largest beer gardens in Europe (if not the biggest) and the beer is brewed out of old wooden barrels and by monks! We walked into the building and it looked like an old church. There were a couple of large halls where you could sit inside, but if you walk through and down a few flights of stairs you end up outside where the tables and beer are. You order your beer from a man behind a register, pick up an unmarked stein, rinse it and then hand it to a monk and they poor the beer for you. It was awesome!

We walked over to the main cathedral but the square was all set up for Oktoberfest celebrations, so we weren't able to check out the church. We found food for dinner and then went to bed. We left for Vienna the next day.

Touring München 24 Oct 2016 10:59 AM (9 years ago)

I was in Munich for just over 4 days and it was jam packed. We went to a futbol match, concentration camp, Oktoberfest and on our last full day we walked around Munich and into a few different parks. I am a huge fan on clocks. I just love them. In Marienplatz, there is a glockenspiel that chimes at 11am, 12pm and 5pm. We made sure to be in the square at one of the times, along with the other tourists, and watched the show.

Yes, this was day 2 of wearing our dirndls. When in Munich...

We also were able to walk through a few different gardens around Munich. The weather was perfectly fall. The air was crisp and the sun was warm.

We walked through the Hofgarten through to a Parliament building where we walked through a WWI & WWII memorial then through Englisher Garten. It reminded me very much of Golden Gate Park or Dolores Park. There were people out picnicking and playing lawn games. The walking path was lovely and we came across a pretty stream and little waterfall.

Munich was beautiful and definitely treated us well. We had a great time and I would definitely go back to Oktoberfest. Maybe not next year...my liver needs more of a break...

München - Dachau 17 Oct 2016 2:59 PM (9 years ago)

On our first full day in Munich, we visited the Concentration Camp Memorial at Dachau. To be completely honest, I don't have words to describe this visit (which may come as a shock, since I rarely don't have words :-) ). The sky was blue, the air was crisp and the sun was strong. We walked around the memorial site for about 3 hours.

Dachau was classified as a labor camp, one of the first concentration camps to open and quickly became one of the more famous camps based on the type of prisoners and based on the sheer amount of prisons who were interned here. It was was built to house 6,000 people but by the end of WWII there were 30,000 people here.

Again, I don't have many words to describe this experience. I have been to a handful of Holocaust Memorial Sites and Museums, but they don't hold anything to actually visiting a camp. We went on a weekday, during Oktoberfest, so it was actually pretty empty - which I really appreciated. Walking around the camp was eery with so few people around and I feel like I would have gotten frustrated with a ton of tourists there.

'work sets you free'

The memorial site is free to visit and they charge you a couple of Euros to get an Audio guide. If you didn't want the Audio Guide, there is plenty to read and there is an entire building dedicated as a museum. I didn't spend a ton of time in the museum because we walked around the grounds and listened to the audio guide for about 3 hours before we went into the museum. By then we had listened to everything and, to be honest, felt a bit overwhelmed to walk through the museum and get most of the same information as was offered in the audio guide.
--- I don't really know how to end this post.
All of the tourists visiting the memorial with us were very respectful and overall, I walked around and left with a heavy heart. I pray that something like this doesn't happen again, ever - where one, power-hungry person decided, arbitrarily, to wipe out an entire race and almost succeeded. Disgusting.
Maybe this post is meant to be without ending. Maybe it is meant to leave you thinking and wondering how this could have ever happened in the first place and praying that it never happens again. Ever.

Bayern München vs Hertha BSC 14 Oct 2016 1:23 PM (9 years ago)

Our first night in Munich/the first night of my trip was spent at the Allianz Arena watching a soccer game - err... a futbol match as the locals like to say :-) We hopped on the u-bahn from our AirBnB and we headed to the stadium. Caitlin and Shannon grabbed some swag (scarves) and Jess and I were sporting our team shirts that we bought at home. Well, my shirt was meant for a toddler, which turned into a joke for the rest of the trip, but it did the job.

We grabbed some beers and pretzels outside of the stadium and then headed in to find our seats. We grabbed some food and more beers and finally made our way to our seats. Caitlin and Shannon sat together and Jess and I were supposed to sit together. I bought our tickets online and our two seats were in two different rows, one in front of the other and smack in the middle of the section, so that was kind of a bummer, but our seats were great!

this is my tired face

Caitlin and I have decided that we are now huge fans and that we are going to bring this new hobby (of watching futbol matches) with us back to the USA. We bought jersey's and everything. The only issue is....the games are in the middle of the day on week days and at the ass-crack of dawn on the weekends - so finding a time to watch is posing to be quite difficult! We will figure it out and once we get into a rhythm, we will be Bayern Munich's biggest fans!
But don't worry, we will still cheer for USA during the country matches :-)

München - Oktoberfest 2016 12 Oct 2016 3:13 PM (9 years ago)

Let's start this off with a bang, literally. The first stop on my Europe adventure was Munich or München (I really wish that we didn't change the names of cities to make them more "American" what is that all about?) Anyway, basically the entire reason for the trip was to go to Oktoberfest, so we went to Oktoberfest - 3 times and to multiple different tents. It was a blast.
To be honest, I am not sure what I expected from Oktoberfest, but it definitely exceeded my expectations. It is a free festival and you can walk around all you want. There are carnival games and rides and food vendors with the tents sporadically located around the grounds. The tents are massive. Like, massive and there are a ton of people everywhere. The energy is definitely something to soak up and then go home to take a nap afterward. There are several big tents, medium sized tents and beer gardens (outside) around so there are many areas to grab a beer, even if you don't have a ticket. Having a ticket gets you a reserved seat at a table, lunch (or dinner - depending on your time slot) and 2 beers. For the most part you won't be served if you aren't seated, so if you don't have a ticket you either need to get there early to grab a seat at a non-reserved table, go toward the end of a sitting once people have left or snuggle up to a local who has a seat and looks lonely. I would say that typically you don't need to have a ticket if you go during the week. If you try to go on the weekends, I definitely would recommend it. We went Thursday night, Friday and Saturday night. We had no trouble on Thursday and Friday (we had a ticket for the first tent and were able to walk around afterward) and Saturday we weren't even able to get into the tents or beer gardens to try and cozy up because there were just sooo many people there.
Oh! And, they make you check your big bags outside of the gates. So, if you go, don't bring a big camera - well you probably don't want to anyway, because of all of the beer - or a big bag. A little clutch will suffice.
We went to Oktoberfest the first time on a Thursday night after dinner and a lot less crowded. We went without our dirndls and tickets but the beers are cold, tasty and huge (a liter each!), the company was awesome and we easily got a table. I would definitely say that it was a success. It was pretty funny because we all stood out because we weren't in our dirndls!
After our beers, we decided to ride one of the roller coasters. It was awesome!

I wish you could edit pictures in blogger...oh well, too much effort...ha!

Our group had tickets for the afternoon seating on Friday. So, we got up, Jess and I got into our dirndls and we were off to find dirndls for Caitlin and Shannon. Fortunately, it was a success and we headed into the festival. We were immediately stopped by a group of Italians who asked us to take their picture, then we asked them to return the favor and they decided to photobomb us!

Then we headed to our tent: Lowenbrau and to find our seats. The difficult part was that everything was in German, and none of us speak German, so finding out seats proved to be a difficult task. The Google Translate App really came in handy. I totally recommend it - if you are traveling abroad to a country where you aren't fluent in the language, download the app and the specific language and you can use it offline. It was a serious lifesaver! Anyway, I digress - the Lowenbrau tent was awesome. We made friends with the Berliners who were sitting at our table, the energy was high and we learned one of the chants:

Ein Prosit

Gemütlichkeit!

Ein Prosit
Ein Prosit

Gemütlichkeit!

Caitlin and I really got the song down and continued to sing it throughout the trip.

I 100% hated that stupid hat - so I finally got a picture without it...ha! It didn't even make it home with me...that night!

After our seating time was over, we headed out to find a new tent. We ended up at a beer garden and met a group of dudes from the bay area. Talk about a small world! We had a couple more beers with them, rode all.of.the.rides (no, I am not kidding) and then ended up at another beer tent where we saw an actual fight. Like, there was blood and stuff. Anyway, we got out of there and then went to a club - because that was a good idea after drinking 6 liters of beer after only eating a 1/2 of a chicken at lunch time.

Needless to say, our big day at Oktoberfest was most definitely a drunken success. We all cannot wait to go back...maybe not next year though, I think we will still be tired....

EuroTrip 2016 11 Oct 2016 4:42 PM (9 years ago)

As you all know, I love love love to travel. I definitely work to make it a priority and to - well - afford it. In March, my friend, Caitlin, and her friend, Shannon, told me that they wanted to go to Germany for Oktoberfest. Part of me thought that it was only a pipe dream, since it was only a few months away. I told them that I wanted to go, too, and waited to hear back. Caitlin forwarded me an initial interest email at the beginning of April, I responded and didn't hear back until the end of June. I made a game time decision and on July 19 I bought a plane ticket and the planning began. Oh, and I convinced my friend, Jess, to join in on the fun as well!
There were lots of emails and gchats and phone calls and get togethers and we were finally able to pull it together and had a very successful trip!
Caitlin and Shannon left about 12 days before I arrived, Jess left 3 days before I arrived and we all met at the Munich Airport. We spent the first part of our trip in Munich drinking too much beer and having far too much fun. Shannon headed back to San Francisco and Caitlin, Jess and I moved on to Salzburg, Vienna and Prague, where Jess headed back to California and Caitlin and I continued on to Berlin and Cologne where I left Caitlin to travel on her own for about a week more.
Over all, I had an epic time; but, I am looking forward to getting settled back into my life and work back in San Francisco because jet lag is a b*tch and I brought a cold on my trip, it decided it wanted to see Europe and fly back across the pond and punch me in the face after I got back.
More posts to follow! Can't wait to relive this awesome trip!

We are Certified Open Water Divers 20 Sep 2016 7:30 AM (9 years ago)

Since, well - my whole life, I have been terrified of the ocean. I think that as a kid, I was taken under a wave and thrown around and just never got over it. Also, in college I took a Marine Biology course that opened up my world to all kinds of crazy (read: terrifying) underwater animals and the fact that there are whales out there that are as big as 747 airplanes (and there is more than just one - what?!) makes me want to barf, just a little. In reaction to my fear, for as long as I can remember, I have wanted to get SCUBA certified. There has just always been something else going on, it is too expensive, no one I know wants to do it with me, the list goes on. I decided on my 28th birthday that I would give myself the year to get certified. I convinced Rachel, who has also always wanted to do this, to do it with me, so we set off to find a dive shop where we could take the courses and then headed to Monterey for the certification dives. An Alpha Gam friend of mine suggested checking out Bamboo Reef in San Francisco - where she and her husband got their certifications. The instructor for the classroom and the pool was awesome. He was patient and listening to our concerns all while curbing our fears of breathing under water. Without a doubt, if you are looking for a dive shop in SF, I would recommend this place.

Now back to my goal, I was certified on the 11th, my birthday was on the 9th. Even though I didn't make it before my 29th birthday, I will still count it as a win! We drove from SF to Monterey on Friday afternoon, we stopped along the way in Pescadero for some World Famous Artichoke Bread at Arcangeli Grocery Co - it was the best thing, I think, that I have ever put in my mouth - omg. In Monterey we stayed at a Diver Friendly hotel - Lone Oak Lodge because on Saturday and Sunday our dives started before 9am. The check out dives require you to go on two dives on both Saturday and Sunday. On Sunday, we finished both of our dives with still an entire tank of air left, so we decided to go on our first dive as certified divers. It was awesome! We ended up tagging along with another group and the instructor was super helpful and pointed out different sea life. We were wearing so much equipment that we didn't even have time to be cold! It was such a cool experience and I can't wait to take a trip to a warm water location to practice our skills! We have a boat dive scheduled for Monterey in December and I know we are all super excited!

Alpha Gamma Delta Convention: Orlando 2016 19 Sep 2016 3:14 PM (9 years ago)

As I have posted, many times before, I was in a sorority in college and since I graduated have volunteered for the organization in a few different roles, most recent is my role as Province Director for a collegiate chapter. Regardless of my involvement, Alpha Gamma Delta hosts an International Convention every 2 years. It is a time where we get to learn about what is up and coming with the organization as well as network with other sisters around the world. I just love Convention. I get to meet sister for the first time who I send email and have conference calls with multiple times a month and it is also a place for me to visit with sisters who I don't get to see as often as I'd like. This biennium, Convention was hosted in Orlando. A few local sisters and I decided that we couldn't pass up the opportunity to go to Harry Potter World and Epcot Center. The weather was disgusting hot/humid, the butterbeer was flowing and the real beer was also consumed. Can you believe that the butterbeer is nonalcoholic?? Boooo, Harry Potter World, booooo!!!!

we were caught at dinner in an incredibly beautiful thunder storm

We got to Orlando on Sunday night, went to the parks on Monday and Tuesday and Krissy joined us on Tuesday night. Convention started on Wednesday evening and went through Saturday night.

Wednesday during the day, Krissy and I went to the hotel spa. I had a massage and got my hair blown out. It was very luxurious!

I was presented an award for the support that I have given to the sorority since I have been an alumna. It was pretty cool!

We had shirts made for all of the sisters who were at convention from California. We tried to coordinate a picture with everyone, but we only got the San Francisco Alumnae.

These are the lovely ladies that I work with on the regular!

We dress up quite nicely, if I do say so myself!

tldr? We had a blast in Orlando. The end.

Sam turns 18 16 Sep 2016 2:46 PM (9 years ago)

So, I am officially old. The kid that gave me the 'Big Sister' title turned 18 this summer and graduated from high school. This kid had a big weekend. He graduated from high school on a Friday and turned 18 on Saturday. This kid is bright, kind, loving, generous and all around awesome. I am so happy that I get to be his big sister and ~~help him~~ watch him grow up into the cool dude he is today.

We were supposed to go on a little weekend trip away, just the two of us, but some unexpected scheduling conflicts got in the way, so we decided to go to an A's game instead. I got us some awesome seats behind home plate, and put in a good word to get some fireworks - okay, fine, the fireworks were already planned, but it sure was an added bonus. We ate hot dogs wrapped in bacon, cheered on our boys and had a great night out, just the two of us!

Can't wait to see what the world has in store for you little brother (who is taller than me). Love you to the moon and always!

BottleRock & OutsideLands 2016 15 Sep 2016 2:40 PM (9 years ago)

Can you believe that I have lived in the Bay Area all of my life (save 3 years) and I have never been to a music festival? Well, maybe you can...can you believe that I am now 29 and have never been to a music festival? That sounds more reasonable...right?
My friend Greg sent me a chat back in January about this fun festival in Napa called BottleRock. BottleRock is basically downtown Napa and is a three-day music festival. The music is more "my style" and it in the sunshine. The headliners were Stevie Wonder, Florence and the Machine and The Red Hot Chili Peppers - sold. We bought tickets, found an Air BnB that was walking distance to the festival and had the.best.time.

The weather was perfect. The food was delicious. The beer was cold. The music was awesome and the company was the best. To say that we are excited for BottleRock 2017 is an understatement.
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In preparation for BottleRock, we got a little excited and also bought tickets for the San Francisco Music Festival OutsideLands. OutsideLands was a little bit less "my style" music, which was fine. I actually didn't know most of the bands that were performing. To be honest, I wanted to sell my ticket, but in the end, I am so glad that I didn't. I will speak for everyone when I say that we had an epic time. We danced the cloudy days away in the cold nights, drank too much and just had and overall super time.

getting fresh with Range Dave - we liked it more than he did....

we were totally sober, mom, don't even worry about it...

I can't actually compare BR and OSL to each other because they were two very different shows, feels, vibes. They were both awesome and I can't wait for my music festival circuit to commence in 2017!

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Music festival suggestions: (1) Splurge for VIP if you can afford it. You will be so glad you did. You won't have to wait in the crazy lines for the nasty bathrooms, and the crowds will just be overall less (2) Carry as little as possible (3) Remember what you learned in kindergarten, share! Be friendly, people may share with you, and you can share with others (4) Don't try on the wristbands before the day you are ready to wear them - Greg....(!) (5) Bring a reusable water bottle. Stay hydrated! (6) Omg, dance you heart out and have the best time of your life!

Divorce Party and New Pretties 1 Sep 2016 12:33 PM (9 years ago)

Alright, so....I had a divorce party. If that bothers you, come back another day for another post. If it doesn't, the party was pretty awesome and hilarious and you should keep reading.

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So...how to write this post?

On the one year anniversary of being final, I threw a little party at my house. If you know me but at all you would know that I wasn't celebrating divorce and I wasn't celebrating my divorce, I was celebrating that I have come a long way since I was separated, since I was married even, and I wanted to celebrate the awesome woman I have become with the awesome people who have been by my side through it all, tears included. And you know what? I have come a long way and I am better because of all of this and I wanted to celebrate it. Is that so wrong? No, I didn't think so.

Now, since this was my party, I could do whatever I wanted. So, I ordered the same cake that was my wedding cake and had the bakery inscribe "Weir Done" on it, because it was only fitting - I had so much fun with that name, I couldn't let my last chance go to waste, you get it. The cake was a huge hit.

I may have made some off handed comments - hey! it was my party - but all in all, the party was a success full of laughter, lots of love and a stripper. I will say that I felt tremendous love and support and thought I could make it through a toast, which was a joke. If I remember correctly, I pour champagne for everyone, told everyone I was making a speech, got up there and said, 'I love you all' and couldn't make it through anything else. I don't like that kind of attention on me.

Oh yeah, back to the stripper. A friend of mine rented a stripper (wait, 'rented a stripper'? that sounds weird, what's the right way to say this?). He was disgusting and I think everyone at the party was excited for him to GTFO. He showed up in military fatigues (first no) and then he was smelly and gross (all of the rest of the nos)

my friends know me too well!

Now for the second part of this post. I have been sitting on the diamonds from my engagement and wedding rings for all of this time. I, initially, wanted to sell it but the jeweler I took it all to offered me a silly-low price and my mom was very adamant about me repurposing the jewelry into something that I would wear which gave me a little anxiety. When I thought about it, I thought that it would be too sentimental and I didn't want to spend the money on something that I would never actually wear. Skip ahead to January 2016, 16 months after we separated. I was chatting about this dilemma with a friend and she showed me this gorgeous tiffany necklace that I could model my jewelry after. I told my mom and she reminded me that I also had the diamond from her engagement ring from my bio dad and that I should try to incorporate them all together.
So that is what I did. I took the two diamonds, from my engagement ring and my moms, and made them into one necklace that is both white and yellow gold (because you never know your mood) and I had the jeweler make a sideways cross that curved out of the diamonds on my wedding band. I wanted the chains to be on the shorter side because I wanted to be able to layer them with other necklaces since they are so dainty.
I could not be happier with the outcome. I wear them all of the time and I always get compliments on them. And the best part is that the necklaces were ready for me to wear at my party! It was awesome!

Tiffany necklace inspiration

29th Night 31 Aug 2016 9:56 AM (9 years ago)

I have spent many a day in Napa/Sonoma this year and boy has it been awesome! My lovely friend Amanda traditionally celebrates the 12th night - a Swedish Holiday akin to Christmas. She grabbed a bunch of us and we decided to head up to Napa, albeit later than the 12th night, so she so lovingly called in the 29th night! It was a beautiful day filled with lots of laughter, great wines and yummy food!

We wine tasted at JCB and Raymond, at lunch at Archetype, and did more wine tasting at Nickel & Nickel.

If you are looking for some yummy wines, I definitely recommend checking out these spots! Everything was great and the company was even better!

Las Vegas After Christmas 2015 30 Aug 2016 9:45 AM (9 years ago)

I accidentally this update, oops! I visited Las Vegas a couple of days after Christmas last year to hang with my family. It was a great visit: I had a facial got my hair cut, ate great good, drank delicious wine, planned a run in with Rachel, spent lots of quality time with my family, had a girls night out with the gorgeous Chippendales (Thunder was way better...!) and was once again sad to leave.

If only this dude was into me, I think we could make each other very happy....

Grand Canyon 2016 29 Aug 2016 1:34 PM (9 years ago)

Along the same lines as my post about Seattle, I went to the Grand Canyon for the long weekend in February, to expand the United States travels. Can you believe that I have lived on the WBest Coast my entire life and have never visited Seattle or the Grand Canyon?! Yeah, me either. So, in my effort to visit new places closer to home a friend of mine (also a Grand Canyon Virgin) and I decided to take on the Canyon, and we are both sure glad we did.
As I have mentioned before, I have family that lives in Vegas, so Caitlin and I decided to make Vegas our home base. We flew in on Thursday mid day, picked up our rental car, worked for the rest of the day on Thursday and had dinner with my family. Friday, we woke up, worked for most of the morning and then hit the road. On our way to the Grand Canyon, we stopped and took a tour of the Hoover Dam. The weather was beautiful!
We made it to the Grand Canyon after dark, dropped off our stuff in our lodge - The Bright Angel Lodge and walked around a bit. It was cold, like, snow was still on the ground. We had eaten a late lunch so we weren't too hungry for dinner so we resorted to wine and cheese that we picked up on our way out of Vegas.
We woke up early to grab breakfast in our hotel restaurant and get to hiking. We decided that we were going to do the Rim Trail which is pretty basic with a bunch of look outs. We were looking for something semi-easy with great vantage points along the way. We walked along and stopped at almost every overlook. We hiked for maybe about 2 miles then turned around and headed back to the area of the trail where the lodges are and we stopped for a snack and drink at El Tovar. We went back to our lodge for a short nap.
After our nap we hiked the opposite direction to catch the sunset over the Canyon. We packed our bags with cups and a bottle of wine and set on our way. The sunset was freezing cold, mind blowing and we were a little tipsy. After the sunset, we went back to our lodge for dinner then back to our room for some serious Sisterwives binging. (I am serious you guys, once you start, you can't stop)
On Sunday, we woke up before the sunrise, drove over to the bus station, hopped on a bus to
Yavapai Point to watch the sunrise. Wow. Just wow. Like the sunset, our phones and my fancy schmancy camera did not do it justice. We hung out there for a bit, walked around and hopped back on the bus to head back to El Tovar for breakfast, to pack up our bags and head back to Vegas - today is Valentine's Day.

While we were at the Grand Canyon, my friend Amit had sent me a text asking me about a lounge at the Cosmo that went to when I was there after Christmas was a ton of fun. We realized that we were going to overlap by a day and made plans for the three of us to go to dinner on Valentine's Day. Caitlin and I made it back to Vegas mid afternoon, showered and changed and headed to the strip for our triple VDay date (with, I will say, the worst uber driver on the planet; not an important story).

We had sushi at Shibuya at the MGM Grand and then went over to the Bellagio for a snack and cocktail at Yellowtail. After dinner, we went back to my family's house and drank some wine around the fire pit and played cards.

On Monday, Caitlin and I treated ourselves to spa treatments: facials, massages and pedicures. It was much needed!
Loved the Grand Canyon and I would definitely go back and hike down to the bottom...well, let's be honest, ride a mule down :-)

Seattle Weekend 2016 26 Aug 2016 11:40 AM (9 years ago)

After all of my travels from last summer (#afroeuroland), I decided that there is still so much of the United States that I haven't seen and I decided that I wanted to explore my own country in 2016. Little did I know that I would make a last minute trip to Europe in the fall...but that is neither here nor there.
First up on the list was to hit up Seattle with my sweet from from college, Melissa. Melissa and her husband live in the suburbs-ish of Seattle. Before the trip, we both did a bunch of research (asking friends and pinteresting) and we found a bunch of 'must-dos.' I will say that we lived it up in Seattle for the long weekend in January and it was definitely a trip to remember.
We stayed with my family friends in their condo only, like, 3 blocks from Pike Place. We had a gorgeous view of the entire city, as you can see - so we decided against a Space Needle Tour. I flew in, Melissa picked me up, we headed to the condo, drank wine, settled down and went to sleep.
On Saturday, we walked around Pike Place, took a ride on Seattle's Great Wheel and decided to take an underground tour that I would absolutely recommend. The tour focused on how the city was formed, prohibition and what culture is still around from its history today. It was super neat. After the tour, we hit up Beechers for lots of cheeses deliciousness then dinner and drinks with my family friend.
On Sunday, we dressed up for the Seahawks Game - I know, I apologized to my 49er fans, don't worry, checked out a Lululemon Factory Sale (like, serious sale - pants were $29 marked down from $150 - I spent too much). Here is where the story gets good....
After the Lulu sale, we were dropped off in Ballard to walk around, hit up a couple of bars and make our way to the Ballard Locks. We stop into a bar, have a snack and a beer and there was a group of sort of rowdy people that we were mocking a bit. One of the dudes comes up to us and starts flirting and he tells us that he is the proud owner of a famous sandwich shop, Paseos, in Seattle - which, funny enough, happened to be on our list of places to visit on this trip. We told him Paseo was on our travel itinerary and he offered to take us there and buy us sandwiches. (Don't worry, I know what you are thinking stranger danger. He was harmless) They were amazing. We ordered: #2 Caribbean Roast, #5 Chicken Breast, and #5 Sautéed Prawns and it sure did not disappoint. If you find yourself in Seattle, I definitely suggest visiting this place. Anyway, we told the dude that we were headed to the Ballard Locks so he decided to tag along. We checked it out, ate our sandwiches and went to another bar for another drink. At this bar, our new friend had decided that he wanted to take us on a helicopter, so he proceeds to call around to a bunch of companies to no avail (darn it) then suggests that we go to dinner. We all hop into an Uber and he takes us to one of the finest steak houses in Seattle, The Metropolitan Grill where he orders us steak and lobster dinners along side cocktails and wine. Melissa and I had to call it a night - we dined and dashed...well, dashed on the dude, because he definitely paid the full bill...don't you worry, the lobster was not on the house!
The entire day, Melissa and I were cracking up at how random the entire situation was because none of it made sense. We could not figure out if the dude was for real of not, which sort of added to the way the rest of the day went. He definitely wanted to come up to the condo and we had to be very stern with him and tell him that that was definitely not an option. Ha! So random!
On Monday, we checked out Gasworks Park then headed on to Snoqualmie Falls for a bite to eat, a drink and a little walk.

Overall it was an awesome weekend! Seattle is beautiful and I can't wait to visit again!

The time I donated my Wedding Dress 22 Aug 2016 9:34 AM (9 years ago)

I have typed and retyped this post. Not liking how it sounds and not liking how vulnerable it makes me seem.
I donated my wedding dress on Monday night to a great cause: Angel Gown Project. I specified my search, looking for a donation center where I could drop it off myself and did not have to mail it. I also felt funny selling it or donating it to another bride. Maybe I was being silly, but I felt that I wouldn't want to wear a used wedding dress from a woman who was divorced. Not that we divorced ladies have the plague or anything, but more that I would be worried about the bad juju. (ha!)
When I was doing my research and reading about the different organizations I could donate my dress to nothing really stood out to me and when I stumbled upon Angle Gown Project I knew that this was exactly where I wanted my dress to go. I wanted my dress to mean something to someone, to make a different for a person, for a family, for a loved one. This organization takes used wedding dresses, and other formal dresses, and repurposes them into bereavement dresses for babies who pass-on before they leave the hospital.
I donated my dress with a heavy and loving heart, knowing that it is going to a good cause. I dropped the dress off near my old apartment with a woman who is a law student at UC Berkeley. I *sort of* wanted to tell the Universe to just leave me alone for a bit, but that just seemed par for the course in this entire experience. I am not going to lie, I cried when I got home. I cried, not because I was sad or because I was angry. I cried because something that brought me so much joy and happiness and that was so beautiful is going to be repurposed for a great cause and provide closure for a mourning family. Also, because I believe that it provided closure for me.

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I wrote the above post right after I donated my dress, so almost a year ago. Needless to say, I was in a very different place in my 'grieving' process. The reason I hadn't posted it was because I was waiting on the organization to send me a picture of what they made my dress into, and because, as I mentioned above, it makes me feel vulnerable to share this. This was on the list of "last few things to take care of" for my closure, for my peace of mind.

On Friday, I was scrolling through facebook and decided, on a whim, to change the display from 'most popular' to 'most recent.' I did this and began scrolling and 24 minutes prior to my changing the display and scrolling through posts, the Angel Gown Project had posted the below picture and said that one of the gowns was made out of my wedding dress. I wasn't tagged in the post, and I honestly believe that I wouldn't have seen this had I not randomly changed my display. I squealed a little bit. I have been waiting for this picture to appear.

My dress made the sweet little dress that is second from the right, and I am sure many more. It is with a heavy and loving heart that I share this with you all.

Part of me wanted to re-write this entire post. And then I thought about it some more and decided that this was important to for me remember how I felt after donating and realize how far I have come in just a year. I had an epiphany last week, that I am still working out, and once I can articulate it, I will share it :-)

Castro Theater Updates 19 Aug 2016 3:38 PM (9 years ago)

The Castro Theater provides entertainment, beauty, art and culture. It is hard to believe that I spent 5 years in college, basically up the road, and my first visit to the Theater was so many years later. I have seen mostly drag queens reenact cult-followed films and have recently dabbled in sing-a-longs. I love to get a good group of friends together and check out what the Theater has to offer on one of these special occasion nights.

Since October, I have seen Addams Family Values in drag and Spice Rack (AKA: Spice World) and sang along with Ariel in the Little Mermaid and got to hang with the Pink Ladies in Grease. We stay for the show, and usually after the show we head over to the dance club that is across Market street and dance the night away with all of the pretty boys while pretending they are our boyfriends, because they are beautiful, even if they have their own boyfriends.

We just have a blast!

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