Wow I took a long break!

Hello friends! I think it's time I start writing again as I'm hoping I'll be getting more readers, plus the usual friends may want something to read...

I've been quite busy and I guess sort of uninspired to write, especially since I want this to be a travel blog but it seems that my summer vacation was forever ago and it's hard to go back and write about now---> lesson: do not procrastinate these things!

Life has been treating me well for the most part. I finally began interpreting for REAL, and it's going really well! I've only had a number of jobs but as it turns out, it's something I really enjoy doing. I like that it's challenging, but doable, and I feel accomplished when I'm finished. Sometimes the topic is really mundane, like research for beer commercials, but other times it's medical research, conferences, etc and no matter what it is, I always learn something new. Another large perk is that it pays well and there's much more demand so I'm no longer rationing out every penny and turning down trips to movies and such due to lack of funding. I'm caught up on rent and car payments also and I don't hyperventilate (as much) when I have to look at my bills at the end of each month. I'm also really working on doing my job as Marketing Director for our translation company but I'm finding it really really challenging. 4 1/2 years of college and my marketing degree is apparently useless =/  Anyone have experience with advertising and sales out there?

My friends have been the greatest: lots of dinners, parties, game nights, movies, and wonderful meaningful/ meaningless conversations that all mean just as much to me nonetheless. I finally seem to have pulled myself out of that rut and I find that I'm focusing on everything and everyone that I love in my life and how lucky I truly am. It's becoming more clear what's really important to me and it helps me to get through the harder obstacles to remain conscious of these things. I won't get too into it on here but for a while I had a potentially perfect boy and it really seemed that everything was falling into place for a while. October was an amazing month! Then I lost said boy, so lately I've been pretty sad on and off, but trying not to think about it and reminding myself of everything I said above. The travel plans are still very unplanned due to a difficult family situation, but it will happen, I just don't know when. BUT, my point was that I still have a lot of great things going on and supportive people to surround myself with. I think my new attitude is serving me well because I know that, yes, sometimes I will be sad, or angry, but then I'll get better. I've been through bad things before and gotten through them, and I'm sure I'll go through more hardship many times over, but it never fails to get better. All I can do is acknowledge how I feel for what it is, accept it and move forward. Such is life. 

I've gone all philosophical here, so I'm going to stop and save the overdue travel post for next time (it will be soon I promise!)
And to make this more visually appealing, here are some pictures from the last couple of months. I'll also be posting some fun Halloween and holiday pics in the future I'm sure, butthese will have to do for now.

My aunt had a "where the wild things are" themed birthday party so I made some appropriate yummy things to go with it. Those little wild thing rum balls were also just featured by my blogger friend Katie, who is a chocolate loving vegan with a super cute blog and if you visit it, she donates money to charity. So go see my handiwork there! chocolatecoveredkatie.com

I went on a family vacation to Boston and got to experience a real fall! The colors were absolutely beautiful, we don't have that here in Houston. As you can see, my brother and I had fun with all the leaves!

Don't worry guys, I'm keeping Starbucks afloat in these difficult times. Lots of coffee has been and will continue to be consumed. Especially because it pairs so well with my baking :)

A tout a l'heure mes amis!

A little ME break

Hello again faithful blog readers! (Are you there?)

Before getting into my guide to Menton, France, I'll give updates on ME :) and talk about travel again next time.

My life has just been more of the usual. I've had more translations coming in,some tech work and more marketing. I have been practicing my interpreting and have my first job as an interpreter beginning of October. WOOOOO!!!! That will be exciting. I know I can do it! My skills are there at least going from Spanish INTO English. I just work best under pressure and being on the spot that way, I'm sure I'll be fine. I also decided that I need to take the leap with going to Argentina. Family circumstances allowing, I'm going to go in the spring and hope to find a job there, since it will be a lot easier in person than expecting people to respond to emails from some random person they don't know in the US. I may do an online TEFL certification to be better prepared.

Another awesome thing is that I set myself a 30 day yoga challenge. My studio has one but I know I can't commit to that financially and time wise but I knew I could do it for myself. The deal was at least 20 minutes of yoga a day for 30 days straight, even if some days all I did was lay in savasana and breathe. I actually ended up doing about an hour or sometimes more every single day, it just felt so great! I think there were only 2 occasions on which I stuck with lighter 30 minute practices if I was really tired. It's been really fantastic for me both physically and mentally. I can see visible differences in my body and have noticed increases in strength. I mastered a few new arm balances and the other moves have become easier. I've also learned to value the meditative aspects of yoga too and that's done wonders for my stress levels as I navigate this transitory period in my life. Some days, as I said, I did 20 full minutes of breathing exercises. I used feel so weird doing breathing exercises and felt that meditating was just kind of kooky and didn't really work and just wasted time. Well, I still don't meditate in that stereotypical sense, but taking a few minutes to clear your mind can work wonders. I can't imagine starting my day now without those stretches to wake me up, or taking time to focus myself for the day. I definitely recommend that every do this! You don't have to be super flexible, or have a lot of time, or go all out yogi. It's really as simple as 10 minutes a day, and it's all about YOU! If anyone wants some online resources and videos I have tons so just send me a message and I'll give out links.
Now that my 30 days are over I'm still going to keep it up. I just might not be so strict about it, maybe some days I'll go bike riding and not feel up to it, or some days I'll be busy or traveling, but I know I need yoga regularly.

The baking and cooking has continued in my abode as well. I have to keep my home well stocked with baked goods at all times and have been particularly enjoying biscotti of all kinds, as well as some other pretty cupcakes and cakes. I'll do a post full of those pictures one day too and see if I can maybe promote a future catering business ;)
My friends and I have also held some dinners and potlucks, and Houston has been a fun place to hang around too. I'm serious! Houston can be really fun! We have great parks with a lot of free events such as concerts, dance performances, movies, and classes. Midtown and Montrose areas are full of cute coffee shops and bars and vintage stores. And where else can you continue lounging by the pool well into October?

That's all I've got for now so I'll leave you all with some pictures and bid you farewell for now!

My cat when she was tiny. So cute!








Playing with my camera.










The peppers that have been plentiful on my balcony all summer. I think their season is coming to an end and I'm going to miss them.

Nice: beyond nice!

Ready for the next installment of my Euro files??
"YEAH!!!" (that's what you're all supposed to say while jumping up and down excitedly)

I left off when we arrived in Menton and went out to dinner for my birthday. Menton was really our "home base" and we took day trips from there. I'm tempted to stick to chronological order, but I think Menton deserves a longer post of it's own so I'm going to skip a day here and go back to Nice. After spending the first day in Menton settling in, it was time to go meet one of my bff's, or as we dubbed it- "bfff" for best friends in france because we are really clever like that. She came to spend a week with us and her flight was landing in Nice so we took the opportunity to take a day trip to Nice to meet her and tour this popular French Riviera destination.

She met us at the train station around 1 and had not eaten yet so we took her to a Brioche Doree nearby. This chain is all over Europe and it's really good (isn't all European food!) It's mostly just sandwiches or quiches, lovely baguettes and desserts, and they have really good meal deals that include coffee. Bread + caffeine = love.

Our first stop was the waterfront to admire how shockingly blue the water is. This is due to the beaches being mostly rocks all along the Mediterranean. I really like this, it means no sand clinging to you and all of your stuff, and it also means adding several pounds of pretty rocks to your backpack for the trip home for your rock collection. At the end of the waterfront you reach the cliff where the old village is located.






We climbed (in the elevator for 1 euro) to the top for more views such as this one of the port. At the top there's a nice park with a playground, the usual hotel, restaurant, touristy things. There was also an archeological site that people were excavating so we got to watch. This was cool because I have several good friends that are geologists who would have loved to see that. On the hike down there's also a man-made waterfall, so we took some quick pictures but we were ready for more important things.




GELATO!!!!!! This is the greatest place ever and I wish I could spend several weeks in Nice so that I could try every single flavor. This place is in all the guidebooks so you're sure to find it. It's called Fenocchio and is well knows for not only tasting amazing, but also tasting amazing in 98 different flavors. My choices this trip included a dark chocolate sorbet and fig sorbet- super combo!
After that we were ready to catch the train back to Menton, but not before taking a quick look into H&M because Houston is not fashionable enough to have one here.



That's all for Nice for now. There are definitely many more tourist spots and museums that I'd recommend seeing if it's your first time, but we were just there half a day so we took it easy.

Til next time!

Back to our regularly scheduled program

Hello lovely friends!
I'm feeling a better after letting all of that off my chest. This week has been pretty boring but there has been some work and I make sure to keep busy, even if it means making things up for myself to do. Several weeks ago I cleaned out/ reorganized my apartment so I'm finishing that up this week and have added new paintings and gotten some essentials I've been putting off. All this in time for a little dinner party I'll be hosting tomorrow for some of my favorite people. I have a lot of teachers in the family who all went back to work this week and are stressed out, and I like to help out in the best way I know how: vegan Mac and "cheese"!! I'm so excited!
I have also set a goal for myself to do yoga every day because I notice such a huge difference in how I feel when I practice regularly. I decided this after a class on Saturday because even getting in 20 minutes of stretching a day makes me feel amazing. So I know this will be good for me and it gives me something to work toward. I think I'll start with ....30 days? I think that seems reasonable.

Now- back to France!
From Barcelona we made our way through the French Riviera. We took a 3 hour train to Perpignon where we spent a few hours walking around. We were able to leave our bags at the station, and though this costs some Euros, it's worth not lugging it around. Perpignon is a small town but has a nice commercial center with all the major shops, tons of bakeries, creperies, and gelato places. One thing to keep in mind when traveling in both Spain and France, however, is that everything closes between 2 and 5 pm for their lunch and resting time. Those French do know how to live well!






These bike stations are all over Europe now from what I've seen. They're all over the city so that you can pick one up when you need to go somewhere and drop it off at another location. And they only pay something ridiculous like 20 Euros a year. How awesome and eco-friendly!

Mid-afternoon, we took another train to Montpellier. We spent one night here so the first thing we did was take the train to our hotel. The train is this cute above ground system painted with all kinds of funky designs. Then we headed out to explore. There are some nice pedestrian areas with restaurants, a large park by the river, lots of monuments and one of those old stone dams on the river. And the best part was that we happened to get there on the first day of their summer festival! They had a huge open market, street vendors, free giveaways and performers!















Those were little kids at the top! My guess would be the youngest were about 5 or 6.














Here's the big bridge.


The next morning we took a train to Nimes and planned to spend a few hours there but couldn't find anywhere to drop off our luggage. But we made the best of it and quickly ran to the Colosseum and took pictures before hopping on the next train.















We arrived in Avignon soon after. It's a little bit larger of a city, and absolutely beautiful. All of the old architecture is still intact, I love how Europeans preserve their history. I think that's so important, and here in the US we tend to like bigger and newer. Shiny metal replaces brick and cobblestone.

Our first stop was the Pope's Palace. Inside is the Papal History Museum, which is what the name implies, the ENTIRE history. The place is huge and you can see everything from the lavish banquet rooms, to the kitchen and servants quarters. There's also an audio tour included that goes into detail about every last corner of the palace and every single pope. Give yourself at least 2 hours (more if you plan to listen to every audio chapter). I don't want to offend anyone, but the excesses of the old Catholic church are astounding. The history is really interesting.




The famous Pont d'Avignon! Did anyone else sing that song when they were little? I sang it in Spanish but of course the original is French. The tune brought back fond memories. There is also an audio tour for the bridge that explains how it was knocked over so many times that they didn't bother to rebuild it all the way across anymore. From there we climbed up above the Pope's Palace to some gardens for some really nice views and a very much needed cup of coffee!


We spent the night in Avignon and the next day happened to be my Birthday! It's not so exciting anymore because I feel old. Oh well, we still had my birthday morning celebration there before heading to Menton that evening for a birthday pizza dinner :)
We spent the rest of our vacation based in Menton, but more on that next time.

This concludes another jumbo post. I at least hope the pictures held your attention throughout. Hope you enjoyed them!

Any job openings for professional procrastinator?

Yes, this is what I am, and lately I've taken it to an extreme. While it's sometimes just me being lazy, as per why I haven't moved on to the next destination on this blog....
I kind of want to touch on the bigger picture today and put off the French Riviera a little longer because my brain has been set to repeat for the longest time and I can't stop it. I think about this in my sleep, I wake up thinking about it, and I spend my days searching for ways to change it.

I've basically put my life on hold since I graduated in December. Some reasons for this I'm aware of and others I haven't figured out, but I don't know what to do about any of them.
I think a lot of it is fear, a large part indecisiveness. I know that even though I don't have a clear idea of what will make me happy, for right now it's becoming critical that I simply DO anything (and on top of all the pressure I put on myself, my parents seem to get more and more impatient with me each day), but then I just can't follow through on anything. I feel restless and unsettled all the time due to this stagnation, and then really afraid of what will happen once I decide on or manage to plan a direction for myself. Where to go? What to do? What will I miss by choosing one thing over another? Can I have it all???

Then there's fear of not succeeding. I was already rejected from the two things I had become seriously invested in, not to mention countless job applications. But I can't fail if I haven't really tried, so instead I try everything halfway. I've investigated a lot of opportunities but I'm stuck about what I'd really like and how to do it.

So this post was really just to vent a little, I'm still stuck, but I do want to post the options I'm investigating thus far, and think that maybe by revealing something a little more personal about myself on here and making my goals more public I'll feel even MORE pressured to do something.

First, I need to go to Argentina at some point. I don't know how long I'll go for or what I'll do there, but that will happen and hopefully sometime this fall. I've looked at the English school there. I know they have courses for English professors, particularly a 3 part seminar in November that I could do. However, it would be nice to find a job with them. If not I can take the seminar, and find some other fun classes to take while I'm there and simply make it a shorter trip. Due to some personal circumstances, a shorter trip might be better anyways, even though experience wise, longer is better. And I do have family and friends to stay with and who can keep me occupied anyways, not to mention a free place to stay!

Today I emailed a Portuguese school in Maceio, Brazil. I don't think I could afford their courses, and would like to do something longer than 2 weeks of classes anyways, but I asked about job opportunities teaching English that I know they've offered in the past.

This week I will get some interpreting practice and record myself interpreting some cassette tapes of old interviews I have so that I can start getting higher paying jobs. And now that it's written down I HAVE to do this!

I need to do some more serious investigation into volunteering in Israel. I know the programs themselves are free, but obviously other costs are involved, and I need to start preparing myself financially and otherwise if I do choose to go live in Israel for 5-10 months (depending on the program).

I will go to a few networking events for the family business, and search for potential clients online, since I live on the computer anyways.

I will not neglect my friends just because I feel defeated and want to stay curled up on the couch forever (yes guys, this is the reason, I haven't stopped loving you!)

I will stay or go back to being more politically active because I know this really does make me happy. I will start this by going to the Mayoral Forum tonight to hear all the Houston candidates speak.

I'll finish organizing my apartment because I like being neat and clean :)

This emotional spillage was brought to you by a quote on another blog I happened upon this morning:

“I wonder if I’ve been changed in the night? Let me think. Was I the same when I got up this morning? I almost think I can remember feeling a little different. But if I’m not the same, the next question is ‘Who in the world am I?’ Ah, that’s the great puzzle!

-Alice, Alice in Wonderland

Now I'm off to start being productive!

Barcelona in pictures

Looking back at my previous post, I'm realizing more and more that I need to find the best way to keep all the information I want to share simple and to the point. It's difficult because there's so much to tell, but I seriously commend anyone that actually read through everything I wrote on Barcelona, because that was way too wordy and not very organized.
So I think this post will be better and much more exciting to "read"!
Here are the promised pictures of Barcelona:






Tiled ceilings in part of Parc Guell.














The crazy stone architecture at Parc Guell. Half the place looks like this, the other half is done up in that tiled style I show in the first picture.













On the rooftop of "La Pedrera"- The house designed by Gaudi.













View of the bustling port of Barcelona from atop the Old Village Montjuic.













Inside the market- Look at all the beautiful fruit!! I probably ate my weight in fresh figs on this trip. Why don't they grow like that here??












The lifesize mammoth replica in Parque Cuidadela with my brother and the kids underneath so you can get a sense of scale.












Entrance to the park. I'm not sure about when or why this was built but arches are always pretty :)














Next time I'll talk about all the little French Riviera towns we passed through. And if you'd like, you can leave comments telling me what you most like hearing about so I can make my posts more concise.


Hope you enjoyed the photo tour!

Ultra late vacation posts begin!

I know it's been a while, hasn't it? I've been home for almost a month now! Life has been treating me well enough, though the job hunt/ future planning is still at a stand still. It seems I go around in circles, get ideas but either I don't follow through or the plan falls through....I'm not too sure yet what I should do about this. The good news is that for now the family translation business has picked up some. This week I took over the secretary's job since she was on vacation. That meant a lot of phone answering, emailing, billing, etc. I also had several short legal translations, and I'm pretty sure I saw that I have some market research groups coming up. So I can slowly but surely start pulling myself out of debt and eventually start making money so I can take off somewhere. Right now I'll pretty much take any job short term whether I like it or not if it will make me some money to travel with.

So now on to the purpose of this blog- TRAVEL
I'm going to work my way through my three week trip and give you an overview of where I went and what I did, and if I write it right (hehe) it will hopefully inspire you to travel yourselves and help you along the way.

First Stop: BARCELONA
Here in Houston, we're lucky enough to have a direct flight to Barcelona. You leave in the evening and arrive early the next morning. That's great news for people like my brother who has the ability to pass out anywhere, and means a long night of bad movie watching for people like me. I don't mind though, I packed some good books and lots of meals/ snacks and it also turns out my mom ordered me the vegan meal so I had extras. Note to Continental users: vegan always = Indian. I'm not fond of spicy at all, particularly not on an airplane, but for the first time ever it included a vegan choco chip cookie! Score!
The first day, we were of course exhausted but that is no excuse when you're in Barcelona. So much to do and so little time! We had rented an apartment since we were so many people. I would really recommend doing this if you have a decent amount of people (3+) and are staying for close to a week. It's a lot cheaper than a hotel, saves you a ton of money on meals out, and is just more comfortable all around. Ours was really spacious and really nice. We went out and found lunch and then made our way to some touristy sites.
One thing we didn't see but that was near where we stayed was the Museum of Chocolate. Yes, I can't believe we didn't make it there either! But I read it in a guide somewhere and was really intrigued, so next time I'm in Barcelona, that will be a must.
The first thing we did was take the cable car up to Montjuic. Take this from the metro station rather than the main entrance on the Port and you'll save money and not waste time waiting in line. Montjuic is the old Spanish Village. It has a few craft/ tourist shops and a museum, which was closed, but the views of the Port are wonderful. The walk down has several sights- gardens, museums, fountains. We walked through the botanical gardens and found these giant slides that the kids (and me and my dad) had to go down several times. I do still love good playgrounds and this place has a lot of fun places to let your inner child out.
We then went to see the old Olympic Stadium from ...1992? It's now used as a fancy fitness club and has some nice lap pools and you can still see the broadcasting tower.
We walked by the 'Plaza Espanyola'. It seems to be kind of like a theme park but more historical, and a good way to spend the day if you have more time. We were tired and had the younger kids with us so we decided to pass that up.
At this point we still had a long walk back to the apartment but we eventually made it, walking back through the central area. We rested for a while, meaning everyone ended up napping for about 2 hours while I sat around, read and used the computer. I finally managed to get everyone up for dinner, we went out again, and that was it for the day. I slept really really well.

The next few days I failed to keep an accurate account in my written journal, but I did take note of other important things to see in Barcelona.
First up: All the Gaudi architecture is amazing. The most famous is "La Sagrada Familia". It's a giant temple that has been under construction since 1882 and still has anywhere between 30 and 80 more years to go before it's finished. We didn't go inside this year, but I had been with my mom in 2006. The inside has really incredible towers and windows but much of it is still covered up by all the construction. The outside kind of hidden too, but what you can see of the detailing is crazy. Really, all of his architecture is so interesting. He used a lot of intricate and weird designs and shapes and all of it is very unconventional. Other things to see by Gaudi are 2 houses he designed- "La Pedrera" and "Batilliou". We toured La Pedrera, but not Batillou, although I personally think it looked a lot more interesting. Whoever is in charge of all the tourist attractions thinks so too because it's also more than twice as much to get in. If I had had more time I would have gone, but I was babysitting our family friend's little ones this time so my museum and site time was limited to their attention spans. The other main site to see by Gaudi is Parc Guell. It was once someone's home but is now a large park with a lot of beautiful gardens, more cool architecture and houses. These are all hard to describe, but I'll make my next post a picture post.
My favorite things to do when traveling are to simply walk around and experience the city as the locals do. I love the shops, the food, people watching, and enjoying a lifestyle that's so unfamiliar to this native Houston/suburbanite. The best place to do this in Barcelona is Las Ramblas. This is the main street with tons of shops and restaurants and the huge outdoor market. The market has to be one of the greatest I've seen in Europe. So much fresh fruit and vegetables, and juices. The Spanish are meat lovers so they have several meat stands with cuts of Iberian ham, chorizo, or entire pigs ( I avoid these, poor piggies!). And even I must admit, the cheese stands smell quite enticing. More good people watching and shopping can be found around this area too on Passaeg de Gracie and other streets that all meet in the main square.
The kids really loved Parque Cuidadela. It's a really nice park adjacent to the zoo. There's fountains, a small lake with paddleboating, ping pong tables, widespread grassy areas for picnicking and soccer(futbol) and a lifesize replica of a mammoth.
We went to the beach on the last day just to see it. I had never been but it's actually a beautiful beach, full of restaurants, hotels, and water sports. With more time, you can definitely turn Barcelona into a beach trip too. From there we explored the old town streets to get back to Las Ramblas. These are filled with cute little shops and cafe's, just try not to get lost (or let my dad have the map) like we did! This is also where you'll find the Picasso museum. I had seen this back in 2006, and if you appreciate art even the slightest bit, or even if you don't, you have to go see it. The other well known art museum is the Miro Museum. I'm not as big a fan of his artwork, but I still think you should see as much as possible while you're there.
The Catalan language is a lot more prevalent than what I remember from my 2006 trip. It is used equally as much as Spanish, if not more, though everyone speaks both. For me, it was easy enough to understand, or I could at least get a general idea. I think if you speak both Spanish and French it might be even easier.

I was going to go into tapas style eating and also elaborate on the wonders of El Corte Ingles, but I'm actually hungry myself and this is already a monster post so I'll let you all rest your eyes and provide some pictures next time! (maybe including the cherry poppyseed muffins I'm about to devour :D )

Til next time.