It's here!

I've been waiting or this trip pretty much since I first found the CIA during my intensive college research about 5 years ago in Bolivia. Through the years I've been trying to make the decision of where I would want to go, considering all options and finally choosing Spain. After a hellish 8th Term that I wish on NO ONE it's finally here!Tomorrow I'm getting on a plain with some of the best people I've met at CIA and going to a country that has captured my undivided fascination. I know exactly what I'll do there every day, but I still don't believe it's finally come. I have my bags packed, I've researched all the places, gotten an adapter to charge my camera and mi iPod, I have my notebook to take notes and draw, I even have snacks for the plain ride, but I still don't believe it. This is literally the trip of a lifetime,and I'm so glad I get to share it with people I love. The odds of me writing while I'm in Spain are very slim, and considering all the things I'll see I really don't know how I'll transfer all that information on here, but I'll try to not let this die again! lots of kisses and love to anyone reading, I will of course take a tone of pictures that will make you dizzy and maybe even hate me for uploading so much, but that's the beauty of being part of my life :) off to Spain!!!!!

8th Term

Trying to blow the dust off this blog took me a while. I've completely forgotten that this even existed. Well anyway, I've been a very busy bee these last 3 months, all my classes and extra curricular activities have kept me plenty busy. In all honesty I should be doing my Beverage Management homework right now, but it seems like I need to get my mind off it.
 So yesterday I had a fabulous fotoshoot with Kat and Justine, it was wonderful, we even took different outfits and makeup and food so we could have a picnic. It was really fun to dress up and walk around taking pictures of each other, I'm sure we'll do it again very soon. 
As far as my life in general goes, well I'm going to Spain in 13 days! I think about it every day, it's driving me crazy, but I keep trying to fight it because I just need to focus on all that needs to be done before I go! I've also decided to take 2 electives next term, technically I don't need to take any, but I really want to take those classes so I will. I think I'm also adding the Italian class to my tutoring list, so I will be tutoring 6 classes, taking 6 classes as well as being the president of the Honor's Society my final term. Sometimes I think I should take it slow but then that would make me feel like I'm being lazy, and I hate to think of myself as a lazy person. 
Still trying to figure out what I will do after graduating, please don't ask me because I don't know :P I'm sure I'll figure it out, probably while I'm in Spain as I think I might move there when I finish, at least I hope I will. 
So that's pretty much everything that's happening in my life right now. I shall post again if anything exciting happens, which is extremely rare in my life nowadays but you never know...
(pictures of the fotoshoot are on facebook!)

this is how you know it's finals season

I just realized it's been almost 20 days since the last time I posted! did not intend to wait this long but I have literally not had the memory space to even remember I had a blog! Finals season has been kicking my ass, the last 2 weeks have been insanity, running around trying to get the projects done, write the papers, study for the exams and do everything else I do! I believe you were all informed that I joined ESD, the honors society at my school; well now I am happy to announce that I am the Vice President for it! I'm very excited tho a tad nervous. I've been told by many people that the term I'm going into is the hardest, plus I chose to take 2 electives which apparently is suicidal and ESD on top of it all! But  know I have a lot of support from the rest of the board, and I a honestly very excited to do some good, so hopefully everything will turn out ok! As for my life well, nonexistent in the last 2 weeks, along  meetings for fair trade and latin fusion, dean's council and now ESD not to mention all my tutoring hours, I have had my hands quite full! I am however very glad to see the summer approaching quickly. only one more week of class and then I will get to spend an entire week with my lovely sister, mother and cousin in CHICAGO! I can not wait for next weekend! Chicago is truly one of the cities I've been looking forward to exploring the most. I know it has amazing restaurant, kind people, and most importantly my fantastic Leela! I really need some family time with my girls, and what better city for it than Chicago?!!
I will attempt to keep you posted on my travels, tho by the looks of it I will have a very busy and fun filled couple of weeks (be jealous :P). 
don't know if anyone other than my father reads the crap I write, but even if he is the only one that's enough for me. te amo papito :) 

Calm before the storm

hello short list of followers! nothing new or exciting to report except that I am officially a member of Eta Sigma Delta, the honors society at my school. I know you probably all knew that already but I'm very happy I got in so I'm sharing the enthusiasm :) next weekend will be Justine's birthday and we will be going to Boston to celebrate, so I can't promise I will even remember what will happen but I promise I will try my best! wish you all the best, hope the weather is being as nice to you as it is to us!

family really does make everything better

So I've just come back from an absolutely perfect weekend. It all started  Thursday at 4:30, robin and I got out of class and hit the road in summer clothing, windows down and music loud. it was a relatively smooth 6 hour drive down to DC (relatively as in there was a 20 minute delay due to traffic). so we get there, fin parking right in front of my building, go up to watch some tv and fall asleep. 


The next morning (Friday) we wake up kinda late, so my mom and my broth are already gone. we had agreed that I would make brunch so i did: the menu was Api, a Bolivian purple corn drink that she wanted to try again, and arepas with scrambled eggs, chorizo and pico de gallo. it was quite good, I think I went a little overboard with the salt, but the sweetness of the api kinda toned that down. afterwards we went up to the pool to tan a little, then came back down for her to get ready and by 1:00pm she was gone.at that moment I decided to procrastinate, I watched a couple movies, ate some cereal, checked facebook like a mad woman and re organized the fridge (as I'm sure most of us culinarians do every time we get home). so 6 o'clock rolled around, I had dinner plans with my mom and my dear friend Shayna who happens to be spending the summer in DC. Her and I are big fans of all of Jose Andres's restaurants, and knew some people who worked at his Jaleo restaurant in Crystal City so we went to visit. The food was absolutely perfect as always, Shayna's extern sous-chef is now the exec chef there, and my friend Andre works sautee station, so we got treated to more food than we could eat. amongst the highlights was the baby paella, the bread with tomato and Serrano, the seared scallops, the squid with ink sauce, the rice with duck and foie gras foam, and the grilled steak. Suffice to say the food was exquisite, the company very agreeable and the conversation very entertaining (always is with a couple gases of wine), and this was only the beginning of my weekend!


The next day was Saturday, the morning was a bit boring and pointless so I wont bore you with the details, but at around 2:30pm I left the salon with a new haircut and dolled up hair. I went straight home as I was missing the first half of the Champion's League final match. I get home and the score is tied 1-1, halftime, lots of beer, looks promising. I make myself a choripan as everyone else had already eaten, for those of you who are not Bolivian choripan is basically a version of a hot dog made with chorizo, crunchier bread and lettuce and tomato, generally hot sauce too. It was a beautiful match, Barcelona played brilliantly and won 3-1 against Manchester. after that I introduced my mom to Eddie Izzard, my new comedic obsession who she enjoyed very much. after that we got ready to go to the theater. we arrived at the Kennedy center about an hour earlier than we had to, which gave us the chance to enjoy the splendid view of Georgetown from the patio. the play was very entertaining, with an outstanding cast full of talent. The name of the play was Follies and was a story of two couples who were friends from the past with a very complex love triangle and some other artistic friends of theirs, I won't spoil it for you just so you can go look it up.  


The next day was Sunday, I spent the entire day looking forward to picking up my sister from the airport, but that wasn't until 7:00m so I had to find some other distractions, amongst those was going with my mom to a restaurant she wanted me to try, Leopold's. it's located in Georgetown, hidden between an alley of modern design stores and a steep flight of stairs. the menu is very unique, Austrian dishes and apparently fantastic deserts. we went for some soft poached eggs, grilled salmon with fennel, walnut and date salad, and a cold cuts platter. Indeed it was a very nice place, nice ambiance, and light meal. After that we went home and watched some more Eddie Izzard which made time go by quite fast. all of a sudden it was 6:00pm. we both got dressed up since we had to go to a party right after picking up my sister from the airport. we rushed to Dulles airport and waited around for my sister to pass customs. at about 7:20 I saw her come out, I ran to great her and help her get her bags to the car, my mom seemed to be very impressed by my technical ability to remember how to get to the car. we then immediately went to this party I told you about. it was a birthday celebration of a dear family friend. he lives in India, his daughters are very good friends with my mom and his granddaughter is like a sister to me. it was his 82nd birthday, and he had clearly been celebrating for a while when we got there!  we had a great dinner, one of his daughter's husband is a fanatic cook and so the food (and cheese selection) was outstanding. we went back home rather early as the party started to die down.


the next day was my last one in DC, a Monday. we were invited to the other daughter's house, a place that I like to refer to as my second home. this house is the place where I went almost every weekend for quite a while when I was living in DC, and the people who lie in it are closer to me than most of my family, so I absolutely refused to leave without at least spending a couple hours with them. We got there at about 11:00, we had a couple drinks, ate some nachos with guacamole that I made and waited around for Robin to come pick me up. she arrived just as the other guests to the party started to turn up, so I said my goodbyes, thanked everyone for the lovely weekend and drove the 6 hours back, listening to Eddie Izzard, yes I know it's a bit of an over kill but he's THAT GOOD!


I know there are no pictures on this one, sorry but I was having too much fun to pick up my camera, will try harder next time :) thank you all for reading, I do hope you all had as much fun as I did! 

my month

So, it's  almost been a month since the last time I wrote a decent post, I know, shame on me, but the problem is I never found time to tell the story right. See I've had a crazy month so far, like seriously insane, and I didn't want to write a post that didn't truly expose the insanity.  ok well I should first tell you about the week right after easter. I can't remember a weekend when I had been more active. It all started Friday night, some friends of mine were having a house party so my friends decided it was a good party to go to. so we all met here, we did our hear, makeup, drank a little, discussed outfit choices, took pictures in the process, anyway it was a WHILE before we were all ready, but finally we were. 

so we go to this party, there's lots of people we know there and then lots e don't know, but then again who cares right? the House was amazing, 5 of our friend had decided to live together, and therefore found a fantastic house with a massive back yard, complete with an above ground swimming pool and a fire pit. of course smores were well on their way by the time we got there, and they were DELICIOUS! I love smores :). finally we all got really tired and so called it a night and came back home. the next day, Justine and I had plans to go walk around the Mills Mansion with Kat. the mansion is like half an hour away from our house so we had to get up relatively early (no idea how that happened). I had been to this mansion before, but it was in the middle of winter. it was still beautiful, and I did get some great shots, but man was it hard to walk! it felt like walking miles and miles because of how heavy the snow was. so I had a good idea of how to get to the abandoned houses i wanted to see again, I jut had no idea how long it would take us without the snow. Fortunately It was a perfect day outside, the sun was out, not a cloud in sight, the weather was nice and warm with a light breeze just perfection.

 so we went, we took a bunch of pictures (that was the point) and after about 2 hours or so, we decided we were hungry and wanted to go eat. Kat had to work later that day in Red Hook, so we thought it would be good to have lunch somewhere in Rhinebeck which is a town that's close to Red Hook. after much deliberation and assessment we finally went to one of my favorite places in Rhinebeck, Bread Alone. it's a little cafe that has the best iced chai latte you've had in your life! so all 3 of us got that and some kind of sandwich. 

after a delicious leisurely meal it was time for Kat to go, Justine and I were on our way back home when Monica calls us asking if we'd like to go to her house and hangout, maybe watch a movie and have pizza. We really had nothing else to do o we said yes. Monica lives about an hour or hour and a half away, so we thought it would be a good idea to take a night bag, just in case. when we get to Monica's house the suggestion is made that we go to woodbury commons, a massive outlet mall. Justine needed some summer clothing for school so we went. we were there for about 2 hours, really not that long a time as all the stores were closing, so on our way back to Monica's house we stopped by the pizza place she likes to pick up our inner. we went to her house and fell asleep watching the King's Speech, a truly fantastic movie - if you haven't seen it I strongly recommend you do. the next day we got up, had breakfast and noticed the sun was shining quite nicely, so we went to the back yard to tan a little. After a couple hours Justine and I left as I had made plans with other friends to have lunch.  on our way home she thought it would be a good idea to stop at a greenhouse and buy plants. so we did. now our garden looks so cute! we are growing tomatoes, cilantro, parsley, basil, lettuce and sunflowers and it all looks great!

so we get home, I get ready for lunch and my friends come pick me up, they tell me we are going to have a barbecue in a nearby park that I had never been to, I was excited. we went to get some stuff we were missing at the supermarket, make our way to the park and I ask if we had any coal, of course we didn't, why would we? surely there are stoves all over the damned park! so we go back to the supermarket to get the coals, lighter fluid and a lighter, only to come back to the park and find out that the only boy in the group didn't have a knife. what kind of boy doesn't have a KNIFE?!?! 

so finally we have lunch and beer, it was awesome I must admit, really nice lunch. we had hot dogs with potato rolls which I had never had before but man they r awesome! and we had some sweet corn, some marinated chicken that Herbert grilled, tortillas and plain yogurt, yum yum!

so anyway, that was all 1 weekend. Oh I forgot to tell you, after the barbeque we went to my house to make smores and pork dumplings which were fantastic as well, and drink chai latte, my latest obsession. ok so that was pretty much the last time I really had a weekend to myself until now. the past 2 weeks have been filled with homework, projects, presentations, papers and exams. it's insane how busy we've been, all of us would have collectively had a meltdown this weekend if the work didn't stop piling up! really the only fun thing that happened the week after my extravaganza was going to Monica's house again. her mom cooked us dinner, it was absolutely delicious! she made pork shoulder with beans, rice, tortillas and chimichurri. she also made us guacamole to have before dinner. Justine and I brought a big bottle of wine for them, a Valpolicella I think, which was delicious.

We ate so much that night we had to go for a walk, Monica remembered this park near her house and of course Santos wanted to go play in it so we did, it was awesome, we were 5 years old again, really that night was one of those memories you keep forever, it was so perfect!

after than came another 2 weeks of insanity, too much homework, massive projects, lots of working, and studying, and I really did not have a chance to write until today.

well I hope this has been fun to read, I left out some small details like going to the movies or having dinner at a nearby arab restaurant, but these were the highlights of my month, hopefully I will never again have to wate this long to post! thank you for reading. 

late!

my darlings I know it's been a while since you've heard of me, I promise I will have exciting news about my sunny weekend soon, with lots of pictures! don't hate too much :(