Wine tasting and uphill walking

Though not advisable to do at the same time.

This post is about SAN FRANCISCO!!! What a gorgeous city! I would describe it as hill after hill of beautiful row houses all painted in different colors, parks and open green spaces, and an abundance of quirky atmosphere. It has several museums, tons of outdoor activities, nightlife, funky shopping, and places to eat. I would really love to spend more time in the parks bike riding, reading, or walking, and of course picnic-ing! I do have to warn you all that if you're not a native SF-onian (?) your legs might be rendered useless after one day of climbing up and down to get everywhere! I managed with only minimal soreness this time, but last year I decided to climb to the top of the twin peaks the first day for the views and OUCH. Everyone that lives here is in fantastic shape.

I was there for the second time about 2 weeks ago for a conference at UCSF on Multiple Sclerosis. My parents were interpreting lectures led by leading specialists from the University for doctors visiting from Spain. One day I'll do the same, but for now I'm just there as the technician/ assistant.
This was my second time in San Francisco, I was there for a similar job last year, but last time I had a lot more time to see everything. And the way I tour, I literally do see everything!We still enjoyed ourselves this time with the few hours we had after conference activities had ended to walk around and find good places to eat.

The first day, though, was so much fun! My parents picked me up from the airport and we drove straight to Napa. As it turns out, two friends of mine from college moved out to Napa Valley 4 months ago. Talk about a lucky couple! They were married last year after graduating.She's studying to be a pastry chef at the Culinary Institute of America and he found a job at a small fancy winery giving tours and helping to run administrative things, etc. Wine? Pastries? Adopt me? We drove to his vineyard and he gave us a personal mini tour because one of his scheduled tours had canceled and he had a bit of time. The place was beautiful. The machines and wine making processes are so interesting! Not much was going on now because it's not really grape growing season, but I can only imagine how cool it would be to see the rows and rows of grapes in the vineyards, and see all the grape squishing in action! Oh, and of course we tasted :) In order to taste several I had to learn to spit some of it. I know that's how you're supposed to do it, especially for my friend who works there and gives several wine tastings a day, but it kind of feels gross! So that was my great first experience in the wine country!

After that, we returned to San Francisco and had a day to do some touring before starting the conference on Tuesday. I was lazy this time and didn't take many pictures, and the ones I did take are on my mom's camera. But I can post some from last year!

 

This is the Castro District. We stayed close to here this time because it's very central.If you can take a guess from the picture, it's known as the "gay capital of the world". Those words are taken straight out of the tourist guide. It's true, for you Houstonians, it's like a crazier Montrose. It's filled with bars and trendy vintage shops.

China Town! This area is so much fun! It's 24 blocks of shops filled with imported goods, clothes, and food, restaurants, and temples. 

Excuse the shadow across my face. This is Lombard Street, the crookedest street in the world! Well, I don't know about the world, but it's very crooked and very famous. 

Did you know San Francisco is the home of sourdough? I did not until last year when we went to the place where it all started- Boudin bakery. There's a restaurant and a deli, and you can watch them make cute little (or very large) animal shaped breads, plus all the traditional loaves. I don't like sourdough at all, but I could tell this was good bread, and I really enjoyed their multigrain! It's also a great place to eat in Fisherman's Wharf with a nice view of the bay. 

Pier 39, where all the seals like to hang out. They're so cute! And they like to make a lot of noise. The aquarium is also here and the Ferry to the Alcatraz prison is nearby on Pier 33. Unfortunately it was off season so the ferry wasn't running. The prison tour would be really fun, so do some research before you go!

I had a picnic here. It's a plaza between the 3 art museums and the Jewish Museum and it was beautiful! 

The pictures from the wine tasting remain lost, but here is a link to my mom's facebook album from this year- Belvedere  These are mainly from the adorable bed and breakfast we stayed in called the Belvedere. You can also read my Yelp review on here. The two reviews that follow that one are for the well known restaurant Greens, and the other one is a small German place called Walzwerk. I loved Walzwerk! 

So question: Are any of my readers on Yelp? Just like my blogging style, I'm an infrequent reviewer, but I love being on there, finding out about cool new places, or old undiscovered ones. And my favorite thing to do is find out what's going on around the city! There's always fun events listed and I've been able to participate in some really fun activities and met nice people this way. If you're on it, add me as a friend! Also feel free to add me on facebook (Be sure to add "Gaby" not Diana who is my mom and will be confused) I love to find bloggers on facebook :) 

Hope you're all enjoying the long awaited  spring weather and having wonderful, or at least productive weeks like mine!

Arizona Part II: The Grandest of Canyons

Woohoo, lookie me being all "responsible" blogger :) I've been pretty busy trying to find work and getting back into the Houston groove. The weather has been beautiful, sunny and 60's, so I've really been taking advantage of that by hanging out in parks with my friends, and working on a sexy shirt tan while reading on the Starbuck's patio. It's also made it a lot easier to feel motivated to continue my running training, I can't believe how quickly I'm improving!  I spent the last 23 years of my life thinking I was simply not capable of running more than a mile and I've accomplished two 5 mile training runs already! Along with several 3 and 4 milers. This last Saturday I participated in the Shamrock Shuffle 5k for Ronald McDonald House, and then Sunday I did the AIDS 5k walk. Whew! That was an exhausting but fun weekend! I love being able to participate in such great charity and community events. I am finding it hard though to continue doing yoga as much as I should AND run, but I think it will become easier to manage my time and not get so worn out once I'm in better shape. This weather also makes me want to take my bike out all the time, but I haven't been able to do that yet for fear of wearing myself out before runs. But the runs are already getting so much easier, and my legs don't hate me as much anymore.

I also am continuing to meet interesting people. I went to a talk on Ayurveda this last Monday. Maybe I'll get into that a little more in the future because I"m really interested in studying more alternative medicine. And this Saturday is National Meat Out Day so I'm going to a pot luck picnic at a park and am sooooo excited for that! Check out the website and see what it's about, join me if you're in Houston, and if you're not, try and be meat free on Saturday! You're welcome to email me if you want recipe or food ideas to make your day extra special :)

Then Sunday early early early morning I leave for San Francisco for a conference on Diabetes. No, I cannot interpret seminars on Diabetes research yet, but my parents are the Super Heroes of interpreting and I go to conferences and handle the technical equipment and generally help out. It's shocking, but I can actually pretend to know about technology when I need to!
Since I leave for yet another trip so soon, I thought it best to squeeze in the second half of my Arizona trip before jumping my next airplane. The jet setter life is rough, I know.

So here's my not so short summary of the Grand Canyon:

Mid Sedona trip, my family had planned on taking a 2 day segue to the Grand Canyon to see the park and, for the more adventurous of the group, to do a shorter half day hike. My mom, aunt, and grandmother of course, staying up top and doing....not sure what in the meantime. Our plans were somewhat foiled, though, due to a huge snowstorm hitting on the day we got there. Even the park rangers said this kind of snowstorm was unheard of in that area, and the park in particular had never been covered by that much snow. We arrived late afternoon with the snow relentlessly falling and already building up several inches, but it was still decently bright out so we went to walk around the park and try to see the Canyon. Unfortunately with the fog and clouds the Canyon was completely invisible and it was too cold and wet to do much walking. That first night we managed to make it to the cafeteria closest to us for dinner and then just had to spend time in the rooms.

Upon first arriving. The snow was coming down but it was still manageable. This was not the case about an hour later...

Our view into the Canyon the first night. 

The next morning it was still snowing but we were determined to at least see a bit of the Canyon trail. I was kind of wary because everything was so icy and foggy and the trail was covered in snow, therefore pretty much invisible though we knew it was only a few feet wide. The boys were much more gung ho and of course I had to show that I could hold my own too and not be wimpy and go sip hot cocoa with the ladies. Plus it's THE Grand Canyon, I had to hike it. I had so many layers of sweaters and jackets on anyways, I don't think I would have felt it had I taken a fall anyways. We took the Bright Angel Trail which was closest to us and I think maybe a bit easier than some others. I'm not sure because my dad did all that research beforehand. We went in about an hour and a half before it got too steep and slippery and we turned around and marched back up. I will admit the trek up is much harder (duh) but my cousins and I left our old men pretty far behind :p. Afterwards of course we needed fuel but it was too snowy to go to any of the other cafeterias on the park premises so of course it was back to the trusty one around the corner from our lodge (Can you guess where dinner was that night too?)

 Mid way down. I had to keep shaking off the snow accumulating on my head!

My dad and uncle taking a break on the way up in the walkway, doesn't the edge look foreboding? 

We were supposed to head back to Sedona that afternoon but the snow hadn't let up at all, roads ended up closing, buses stopped working and we ended up having to stay an extra night. This worked in our favor because the next day was gorgeous! The snow finally stopped and left piles of fresh soft powder glittering in the sunlight for us to play with.

 Outside our cabin, my brothers climbed the pile of snow that reached the second floor.

The kiddos of course threw snowballs, and I went camera happy. The best part was that it was an amazingly clear day and we were actually able to see all the way into the canyon. It would have been so sad to go all the way there and never see into the bottom! The canyon itself is beautiful, the other side sort of looks like a painted backdrop. We didn't have time to hike again, but it's probably best that we hiked the day before despite the snowstorm because the day after the storm the trails turned into muddy snow sludge and was probably even less safe than hiking under the snow. But we did have time to go for a walk along the rim and take a lot of pictures.

 One of the Natural Wonders of the World- WOW!

 

Posing with my cousin, brother, and dad. Dad, Team Zissou wants their hat back.

There's a lot more you can do at the National Park with more advance planning, and given that you don't get hit by any major weather systems. My dad has been dying to book one of the cabins at the bottom for years, but our work schedules are so unpredictable it's hard to book something as far in advance as would be necessary. Usually the wait list is about a year! Maybe one day I'll manage to hike all the way down just to say I did it. 

The Canyon itself, as you can see is very impressive, but to be honest I feel like it's kind of one of those things you do to be able to say you did it. There are of course many more trails we didn't see, and I know trekking to the bottom is surely an amazing experience and an impressive feat, and for my two best geologist friends this is rock heaven, but like any National park, there's not much else to do when not hiking the Canyon. So given the conditions, it was a bit boring. The cabins and hotels they have are really nice and they have about 5 or 6 dining options throughout the park. I'm not sure about the other ones though because we were snowed in and had a hard enough time just getting to the cafeteria 50 meters away. It wasn't bad, and they did have about 2 vegan options, but after having the bean chili about 4 times I was a little tired of it. 

I also have an extreme aversion to cold and would of course choose a beach vacation any day, but since the park is so nice and I really enjoy hiking, I used my expert layering skills and braved the frigid temperatures to admire the landscapes. I even found Bambi, look how cute!

So that's my recap. Hope you enjoyed the pictures!

Not sure what I"ll get to next. I may save Argentina for some monster posting in the future, but you're sure to see some of the Cali Bay Area soon! Much <3 til next time!

Getting back into fighting shape

Hello readers, remember me? I was prepared to come back and grovel, plead for forgiveness for disappearing for so long, but truthfully, I've been too busy living and shouldn't be ashamed. It's not that I've been constantly "busy" busy, in the sense that I didn't have a lot of time to sit around on the computer. I've done plenty of that. But even when I haven't neccesarily had things to do, I've been too caught up with my thoughts and changes I'm working on for myself and my life that I don't have the energy, desire, or even words to share it all until I understand it myself. While I'm not quite there yet, here I am, ready to share at least what I've been busy doing in the standard sense of the word because I have done quite a bit and gone to many many places that I need to catch you all up on. It kind of feels like I'll never be able to remember it all but I'll get started. This is, after all, meant to be devoted to my travels.

I left for Argentina at the end of January, but had never caught up on my trip to Arizona. I then spent 5 weeks in Buenos Aires, came back 2 weeks ago, and have been trying to get my life back in order since then. That means trying to do a lot of work to make up for the money I spent, increasing my workload by expanding on my interpreting abilities so that I can finally make a decent income (meaning one that is at least enough to live off of). I'm determined to start studying for the legal certification exam, and in the meantime I've applied for many hospital interpreting jobs. I'm still doing a lot of simultaneous interpreting for the market research industry, and trying to get our company's marketing plan and strategies in order. I've also considered doing some on the side marketing consulting for start ups, but I'm not sure how that will work.
I'm back to yoga as well, doing a lot of hot yoga to learn teaching techniques and the sequences so I can get up in front of a classroom as soon as possible. I'm so intimidated by this! It's one thing to be able to DO yoga, I know I'm good at that, but it's totally different to teach. I get up there and go blank, my voice is monotone, I forget the routine, I'm too quiet....ugh, kind of sucks. Any teachers out there have some tips?
I also recently, as in last week, started running! Like seriously running. For years now I've done this thing where I decide maybe twice a year that it would be really cool to be a runner, I go jog half a mile maybe twice and then decide I can't run. But there are so many marathon runners at the yoga studio, and so many blogs I follow now that focus on running, and it just seems like so much fun! I love the sense of community, being able to run races for charity, and the emphasis on physical fitness. And that doesn't even begin to describe the endorphin rush during and after runs, and how great it feels to actually succeed and continue improving so quickly on something I never thought I could do. I began the Nike website 10k program last week and have diligently stuck to the running schedule. Yes, I let myself walk/ jog, as long as I get the mileage in but the walking has become a lot more sporadic and I don't really need it. My longest run has been 5 miles (this from the girl who thought she could never run more than a mile!). Yesterday I had a 4 mile jog and was absolutely running on air! It was amazing, I was singing out loud, sweating like crazy in the Houston humidity, and could have honestly kept running. I think yoga has really helped me in so many ways. I think what I always lacked was the mental stamina, but now I know how to focus myself more, plus my breathing stays a lot more stable, and I'm totally used to dripping sweat now that I do yoga in a 105 degree room. It doesn't bother me as much, I literally let it slide right off. Haha, gross :p).
Another thing I've been focusing on since getting back is getting more involved in both the yoga community, and the Houston vegan community. I've met such wonderful people and feel like I finally found a friendly and accepting environment where I can feel comfortable and share common interests with new friends.

So that's my life in a nutshell! But enough of that.

I want to get you started on Arizona, since it was WAYYYY back in December. (Geez Gaby, lazy lazy blogger!)
I visited both Sedona and the Grand Canyon with the whole extended family. My parents, brothers, aunt, uncle, cousins, and grandmother who was here from Argentina staying with us.

Sedona
This city is so beautiful! Of course the Grand Canyon is one of the wonders of the world and you have to see it, but I prefer to stay in Sedona for many reasons. For one, it's a city with things to do, restaurants, shopping, some cute historic things, all the hikes you could possibly want, and dazzling views. At the Grand Canyon you're in the National Park so there's nothing else there, plus if it's foggy or rainy, or in our case, giant snowstorm-y, you can't actually see into the canyon. In Sedona you're pretty much inside a big canyon, surrounded by colorful red clay and striped cliffs and mountains. The colors are truly unbelievable. See for yourself:

There are excursions such as mountain biking, kayaking, hiking, camping, fishing, among many many other things to do. Since my family is so large and has such diverse interests, we prefer to do our own thing. We split up a few times so that the more adventurous of us could do some more intense hiking. By intense I mean we climbed a 1 mile hike so some spectacular scenic views. Other than that, we did some scenic walks but nothing too adventurous. Everything is so pretty anyways! I really wanted to go mountain biking but each trip is upwards of $150 per person. There's a gorgeous stream we walked along with a few more rapid parts. My mom remembers this from the first time we went when I was 9 years old so she was excited to go back and see it.  I think this first picture should be my next album cover...when I learn to sing or play an instrument...That's my handsome brother causing the creek to glow, sorry ladies, he's very taken!

Arizona is also home to a lot of art galleries for people who happen to have millions of $$ burning holes in their pockets. At least they're nice to look at, and give me ideas for fancy abstract art I can recreate for my home that looks expensive. For the more normal range spenders, there's plenty of shopping you can do for cool indigenous things, American Indian artwork and jewelry, namely, and good local products like prickly pear honey I had to buy. We also checked out the farmer's market where I got bee pollen to try for the first time, goat's milk lotion that smells like butterscotch that the local "goat lady" produces. She also makes fudge but I didn't get to try any, no more samples :(
Aside from the prominent Native American culture, Arizona is also home to all the extraterrestrial type thing, psychics, tarot readers, and things of that kind. I didn't meet any aliens or see crop circles but maybe next time.
Though I'm not a huge ET believer or anything, the whole hippy atmosphere does mean that AZ is home to a lot of the major yoga and spiritual retreat centers. It has perfect weather for this and is such a beautiful and relaxing environment, I would love to one day come back and do a yoga retreat. However, I contented myself with doing my poses dangerously close to the edges of cliffs.

Food is abundant and generally really good and diverse. Of course with a group of 16 Argentine's of varying (as in closed minded) tastes, I didn't get to try as many cuisines as I would have liked but I always manage to eat well! There are 2 raw vegan cafe's called Chocolatree that I did not get to try, but I did manage to convince the family to go to D'lish vegetarian eatery, which is kind of a small cafe with a lot of soup/ sandwich type foods. I admit it was not quite the dinner location we were hoping for but my family made kind of a big scene and complained a lot. That meant my brother and I simply had to eat our meals plus everyone else's. Oh well. There's of course a lot of your standard Mexican, and a lot of your fancy dining where you pay more for the views than the food. There is Korean and Thai but my family stuck to the typical American or Italian. Again, I love trying all kinds of things, but it's the company that counts. Here's everyone at a small family owned Italian place called The Hideaway that I chose for New Year's. It turned out to be really good!

Whew! Well that was definitely a long overdue and long in length post. Now that you're somewhat caught up on my life I won't feel like such a blog stalker when I comment on everyone else's blogs.
While I'm sure I've lost most of you already, I commend anyone who read all of that. Stay tuned and if you're lucky, you'll get a recap of the Grand Canyon before the weekend is over.
Over and out,

Gabs

VEGAN Sweet and Spicy Cocoa Mole Pom Enchiladas

Just a quickie post. I promise I'll write a post on Arizona this week, just super busy prepping for my departure to Argentina next week, eeeeeeeeeeee!!

But I entered this POM contest at the beginning of December with a recipe I came up with and the voting ends January 14th, so this Thursday. I don't think the contest winner is decided entirely on reader votes, but I would love it if you all went and voted for me! And maybe you'll even be inspired to do some cooking of your own :)

VEGAN Sweet and Spicy Cocoa Mole Pom Enchiladas: "VEGAN Sweet and Spicy Cocoa Mole Pom Enchiladas"

Much love,
Gaby

I'm ready for some warm weather again

Hello everyone! It's about time I post about my trip to Arizona, where I froze my bum off but had a lot of fun thanks to my ability to layer 7 sweaters on at one time. One would think coming home to Houston would give some relief from the cold but unfortunately it's been in the 30/40 range all week and is supposed to get down to the 20's by Friday. YIKES! I need a more powerful space heater.

Before beginning on my Arizona adventure tales, I realized I haven't updated you on Gab World in a while so here's a brief overview of what's been going on. Well...ok not too much I guess. Work is on an off busy so I guess that's good. This week is really dead for me and I find myself worrying about needing to pay bills and saving up, but then there are weeks like the week before Christmas where I could barely fit in a shower (yuck).

I also finally started training to become a yoga instructor. YAY!!!! I've thought about it for so long but just haven't had the money to invest on the certification. But, luckily I go to an amazing studio owned by some of the nicest people in the world, and they decided to start a teacher training program for me and a few of the other students interested in becoming teachers. We're the pilot program, so it's all very informal, but we get together for a few hours every other Sunday and work on our teaching techniques and learning the series, among other necessary yoga stuff. All of the instructors and trainees are really wonderful and positive people so I've really enjoyed getting more involved and getting to know all of them. I hope to keep hanging out with them more outside of yoga (can we say friend crushes?) I can start teaching as soon as I feel comfortable, and then I hope that later on with the certification it will be a good side job that I can take anywhere my interpreting job takes me. Wherever that is, I know I'll need yoga in my life and if I get to share that with other people along the way, even better! 

Another thing I've done a bit of is modeling. Nothing big, nothing paid, just a few fashion shows since October. I am very hesitant about posting that because I don't want the negative stereotype that goes with it. To be honest, I kind of have not enjoyed it. Yes, sometimes the stereotype IS true. The environment is stressful, the models chain smoke to replace eating, it's hours of waiting around getting make up caked on your face, funky hairstyles, sitting around in little dresses and freezing and then getting home way past my bedtime. On the other hand though, it has not been all bad, some shows have been fun, aside from a few really ugly make up/ hair jobs, I've gotten to wear pretty dresses, and had some good laughs with nice models who eat real food and have outside lives. I'll keep doing it once in a while simply because 1) it is kind of cool to be able to say I do it haha, and I think it will be good for my self esteem, which for a while now has been rock bottom; and 2) I'm getting free proffessional photo sessions out of it, easily worth thousands of dollars which may help me obtain paying gigs in the future. I like paying jobs :)

yeah...not happening

And finally, I have big time travel coming up!! I am set to depart to Buenos Aires on January 21st with my grandmother, who has been here visiting. For right now my return ticket is for the end of February. I had originally thought that I might want to stay longer and find a job, but my job prospecting has proven very unsuccessful, and the way work has been here, I don't think I can afford to be gone much longer. But I think it will be a great trip anyways, I'll do some traveling, and hopefully sign up for some classes while I'm there to keep me busy and meet new people. I do have my grandmother and some cousins there but other than that, I don't know anyone and would love to meet more people my age and get my Spanish skills up to par with people of my own generation. I know for sure I'll find some yoga and dance classes, but I'm also looking for something interpreting related or even just to build up my legal terminology in order to get my interpreting liscence when I get back and do more court room related interpreting. One of my besties, Eva, will be traveling with me on the way there too so I'm so excited to travel with her! She came with me back in 2006 and loves Argentina. She'll be there for a little over a week so I'm going to take advantage of having a travel buddy to maybe go visit Uruguay and some more central provinces of the country. She's already purchased several books and we're going to start planning everything soon.
Alfajores anyone? Nomnomnom 

That's all for now. Important rule of blogging (made up by me): Do not overwhelm your readers with monster length wordy posts. Woops! I do this all the time. So I'm sorry for that but hope you enjoy reading this anyways, and I'll spare you the Arizona details for next time, and I'll include lots of pictures!

Ciao!

<3 Gaby

Happy New Year!

I'm ringing in the New Year in lovely Sedona, Az!
This year I took a family vacation to come visit Sedona and hike some in the Grand Canyon. It's exciting as my aunt pointed out today, because it really is my WHOLE family and we're hardly ever all together like this, especially for such a big occasion. It's my parents, my 2 brothers, my aunt and uncle and 2 cousins and even my grandmother visiting from Buenos Aires. We've made reservations at a yelp recommended Italian place called The Hideaway and have some ice cream and apple cider to toast with later.

Must head out to dinner now but I hope everyone has a great night!

Look forward to a post about Arizona soon!

Houston, we have a problem...

No one knows how great a city you are!

Ok, so I'll admit that growing up I was one of those people that "couldn't WAIT to get out of Texas!"
But I don't know if it grew on me, or now I'm just mature enough to understand everything that goes into making a city a good place to live, but seriously, I LOVE Houston! It's really dawning on me now with upcoming travels, and real opportunities to move away that, even though I'm thrilled at all the possibilities I have in front of me and want to experience as much as possible, I do see Houston as the place where I could settle for the long haul.

Houston is just....easy. That's a strange word to use for a city, but really, life is easy here. Our cost of living is significantly lower than any other major city, and being such a huge city, there's a place for everyone. There's always something to do, places to go, people to meet, great schools, museums, art, diversity and culture, music, food... I could go on and on and on.

I consulted THIS amazing website (and finally discovered how to link, yay!) to help me get organized. I even ended up finding about a million things I didn't know about and still have to experience in Houston. I could be a tourist here forever! Since I already tend to be overly verbose and there's tons of information, I'm going to try to touch on all my favorite things to give you an insider's view and let you peruse the website yourselves.

First: Museums!
We have so many fun museums and all of them have at least one free day a week, in addition to probably hundreds of free art galleries. 
The Museum of Fine Arts is one of the most well known. They have beautiful permanent exhibits, and bring in some amazing artists. Thursday's and the first Sunday of every month are free, and they host workshops and activities for kids and adults alike. They show foreign films year round and also periodically have film festivals where they'll feature a specific country for about a week. They also have parties a few times a year for us over 21's where they'll bring in famous DJ's or bands, serve cocktails and free appetizers and let you dance the night away. These are so much fun! I'll never forget the party where we were waiting for one of my friends as they introduced Grand Master Flash and showed him walking in through the back doors on the big screen and suddenly we see my friend walking right behind him! They had closed the front doors so he went around and told a security guy he was with the press ha ha! Yes yes, I have sort of insane friends and I love them...or at least get to tell good stories about them. 

I haven't been to the Children's Museum  in a really long time but it used to be one of my favorites. They have interactive exhibits and recently remodeled and added a few more that I kind of want to go visit. I remember I used to love going pretend grocery shopping and checking out at the little register. 

The Museum of Natural Science is a favorite among my family and friends and I love going there. They have had some incredible exhibits recently, including Lucy, the oldest human, and the Body World exhibit has been here twice. I thought I'd be grossed out by it, but I found that one fascinating! And of course I am in love with all IMAX films. I went and saw A Christmas Carol a few weeks ago with my mom and brother in 3D and the graphics were soo well done! Def recommend that movie, 3D or not. 

One place I still need to visit and have no excuse for not yet doing so: The Orange Show
Houston has a bunch of "oddities" and this is one of them. It's a house full of some guy's random collection of junk that he's turned into art. He is obsessed with oranges, and they also sponsor our annual Art Car Parade. 

There are many more museums but let's move on....

While our theater district is top notch- The Houston Ballet, Alley Theater, Hobby, traveling Broadway shows, The Houston Opera,Symphony etc ...I'm poor and therefore do not really get the chance to attend these events :\
However there are about a million places to go see free or cheap music shows. Many cafe's and bars feature live local bands or bands on tour almost every day of the week. Recently I've also discovered a lot of smaller theaters and dance troupes that are more reasonably priced, so I need to start going. The larger organizations also offer a lot of special events at places like Miller Outdoor Theater and Discovery Green Park. Miller Outdoor used to be my go to place for all these shows. It's an outdoor theater (duh) with standard theater seating and a huge grassy hill behind that where you can pack a picnic and watch a show. I love going to see dance shows. This is also a really nice park to just go hang out on a sunny day, and when I was younger (ok ok not that long ago) I loved rolling down the hill. 

While I still love Miller, Houston has a recent addition to its downtown that tops EVERYTHING. It's the new Discovery Green Park and is like an oasis in the ghost town that is usually our downtown. They have several free exercise classes every week like yoga, pilates, and zumba. I only managed to get to zumba once but found it was one of the most exciting ways to exercise ever. I felt like I was at a dance party! They also have a stage and feature bands and shows every week. In the summer and spring they show silent films, so my friends and I like to host pot luck picnics for these. They have a playground, and a big fountain- which is an ice skating rink at the moment, lots of grassy space, a dog park, traveling art exhibits, a low key burger place, and a fancy restaurant next to it. 
All of this was built on what used to be an old parking lot for our Convention Center that they moved underground. The Convention Center is also cool, or at least HUGE and brings a lot of international conferences to Houston. From the outside it looks like a big cruise ship, so I've taken some funny photos there, even though I can't find them at the moment.  

But here's my brother and dog at Discovery Green.

See that beautiful sunny weather? That also happens a lot here. Yes we get hurricans, and sometimes, like the last 2 weeks, it's non stop rain, but just as often it looks like that photo up there. And in the summer, even though it's a little unbearable unless you're indoors or in a pool, we manage to get nice tans (through my spf 50 of course).

All that great weather makes for good outdoor activities. And conveniently, Houston has several parks and trails, bayous, rivers, and lakes to do just that. I personally am a huge fan of biking (note to self: talk about the bike I got for Hannukah in next post, yayayay!) I do like going to the trails in Memorial Park and they have a very nice arboretum, but usually I just use my bike to get around my neighborhood and run errands or go to the local cafe's. I'd love to have more space to get into all the diverse neighborhoods but I think I've probably already lost all my readers. So check them out here. I live in Midtown, but grew up in the suburbs where the majority of people still live. Houston is quickly becoming more city like and high rises and new condos are popping up all around me.

Here's a group I led on a tour of Houston's many amazing farmer's markets! During college I worked as a bike tour leader for the University of Houston's Outdoor Adventure Club. We also took students on kayaking, canoeing, hiking, surfing trips, and many other outdoorsy things, and had a rock wall in the student gym too. I miss that job!

I can't talk about Houston without mentioning our gastronomic delights, but they are many and merit their own post. After all, we are one of the fattest cities in the US. I'm not sure what number we are now, it's #3 or 4, but it used to be #1. Come on Houston, what happened?!

Ironically, I'm off now to get to eating my dinner and maybe single handedly get Houston back it's 1st place title. Hope you've enjoyed this overview of my 'hood!

xoxo

Gaby