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

Snow in Houston!

Hi readers! I just wanted to quickly update because, get this: It's 30 degrees and snowing in Houston!
Actually it has snowed the last few years in a row. Yes, it's only for a day usually and only just barely accumulates an inch or two before turning slushy, but it's still such a novelty for us native warm weather people. I find it super exciting!
The photos from my 10th floor balcony don't look like much but I'll take more and post them if it accumulates later. My parents might get some nice snow out in the suburbs. I live in the downtown area, which is also not the norm for Houston.

This brings me to my next point, since this is a travel blog, there are a lot of great and unexpected things I could share with you about my own hometown. Maybe I'll convince some of you to come visit! I promise it's not all big oil, astronauts and cowboys!
Of course I want to plan this out and do some research before doing a long Houston post but I wanted to get you all excited for it. So is there anything you want to know? Any myths or anything you've heard about Houston? I'd love to share all the cool things that have been going on in Houston lately and the improvements that have been made in the last couple of years. Houston is becoming a real city!

So be prepared for this post, and in the meantime, I didn't want to leave you hanging with nothing to read for so long. I've been busy with LOTS of interpreting, friends and family visiting, game nights and lots of cooking and baking. My friend gave me her bread machine because she never used it, so I've been having fun with that along with inventing new dinner recipes such as this one:
http://pomwonderful.com/community/vegan-sweet-and-spicy-cocoa-mole-pom-enchiladas/
and hosting a nice dinner party to test it out. Go and vote for me! There are sooo many great recipes though so I'm feeling the competition, but it was fun nonetheless to participate.
I have a lot to be thankful for! My thanksgiving was huge, over 30 people at my parents house. I loved it! Everyone was together, my brother came home from Austin, family was here from Argentina and we put ourselves into a pleasant food coma and sat down and watched Religulous  by Bill Maher to finish off the night, haha. I hope that gives you a good insight into what my family is like.

The snow is still coming down hard so I think I'll leave you with some pictures and maybe bundle up and go play! Hasta la proxima!

This picture makes me really happy! We're almost never all together like this. These are my "little" brothers. There's David, me of course, and Michael. Interesting tidbit: I'm almost 5'9, so they're really not so little anymore :\

Awww my puppy! Percy is 13 years old and has gone completely gray. 

What's Thanksgiving without pie? 

A real change of season- Boston

While it's still fresh in my mind I wanted to do a recap of my trip to Boston at the end of October.
I was able to go to Boston twice last year through work trips, but that also meant that we wouldn't get out of the conferences until after 4 or 5, so I mostly saw Boston at night. And both of those trips were REALLY cold.
This time, however, the weather was perfect! It seems we made it right in the middle of that very brief period where all the leaves are bright reds, oranges and yellows and it's still 50-60 degrees and sunny (well mostly sunny). It also happened to be a mini vacation added on the front end of one of my parent's work trips so we had 3 full days of tourist-ing. This was mostly on account of my little brother since the rest of us had hit all the big spots on previous trips. Also, he's 16 and in American History so we absolutely HAD to do every historical thing in and around Boston. Not complaining though, I had a lot of fun, and our trips are always these non-stop "go go go" type vacations anyways so I'm used to it and just had to sleep for a week after getting back (I think I'm getting old)

Day 1- We arrived late on a Saturday and it was rainy and cold so we bundled up and walked a bit before grabbing dinner- a cozy Italian place where I had them create a pizza just for me, no cheese, lots of veggies, and really delicious crust. Boston has a lot of good Italian places but you have to find the usually tiny authentic places among the many overpriced North End restaurants (Italian area of town).

Ok maybe Mike's Pastry Shop is worth the price and the line the goes far beyond the door every night.

Day 2- My family went to Salem because of course all the witch museums and activities are really cute to see, especially Halloween week. I passed on this since I did all those same Salem museums the last trip about 6 months ago and it really would not have been worth it to pay to see the same talking robot witches and pirates again. But I promise it's worth it the first time around! When I went with just my parents we got a 3 museum pass that makes it a bit cheaper too. Salem itself is a really cute Northeastern style town with little shops and restaurants, so I'd also recommend just giving yourself time to walk around and enjoy it too, especially on a nice day.
I also had a great day walking around Boston. I discovered the South End Urban Market. It was kind of a walk from our Beacon Hill hotel (The place is called John Geoffrey's House- great price and location) but very worth it. There's a small food market but the arts vendors are really what it's all about. This weekend of course was Halloween themed with people in costume and each vendor stand giving out candy (free!). There were rows upon rows of stands with really unique creations. I bought a beautiful necklace which unfortunately broke so I'm still waiting on the replacement. I also sampled some jams and briefly checked out the large warehouse of antiques behind the market. After that I literally walked all over Boston. I didn't want to do any of the tourist spots without my brother so I checked out Trader Joes, walked through the park. Then went to Fanuil Hall, which in the past has been both a meeting place and market, but I held off on the historical part and just did some shopping. Then I stumbled on another Halloween fair while waiting on my family to get back from Salem. I got some decent flavored coffee and of course had to try a candied apple, and then listed to some Gay rights protestors.
When my family arrived I took them to a spot I had scoped out earlier called Pheonicia, a middle eastern place, that seriously had some of the best food I've had in Boston. Now I know Boston is not known for it's Middle Eastern food but we're going by my standards here, and while I love a good plate of homemade pasta, most places like that are really difficult for me to eat in because of lack of veg options and really heavy meals that tend to make me feel sick. This place was perfect. Several totally vegan versions of traditional plates like moussaka and the pumpkin kibby that I ordered. This was so good! I think I want to recreate it for our Thanksgiving. And the greatest thing was the real Turkish coffee at the end of the meal. I love finding the strong coffee grains at the bottom!

Boston Commons. I don't know if you can tell, but they were playing soccer with a giant rubber ball, FUN!

Day 3- Concord: We took the train to Concord where my brother had a whole list of places we needed to see. Outside the city is where you can really see all of autumn's brilliant and abundant colors, it's no wonder so many famous authors and poets found inspiration here. Writers like Louisa May Alcott (Little Women), Henry David Thoreau, Ralph Waldo Emerson, and Nathanial Hawthorne all had homes here and are now buried in Sleepy Hollow Cemetary. Walden Pond is also nearby and is suppoesd to be a beautiful national park but they recommend having a car to get out there. The Concord Museum also tells you about the small town's historical significance. You may remember learning about the Battle of Lexington and Concord, the first battle in the war for Independance. Like all of my family vacation days this was also an exhausting one of non-stop walking so after taking the train back we only made one quick stop into the Liberty Hotel- an old prison closed down for its continued violations and prisoner abuse, and now turned into a hotel. Dinner was just italian again...I don't really remember it but do remember passing out soon afterward.

I couldn't take enough pictures of these leaves!

Day 4- This day was rainy and cold but we were still determined to complete the whole Freedom Trail (http://www.thefreedomtrail.org/)  Much of the Freedom trail is simply walking by monuments, but it does include some interesting spots such as the first Public school, the Granary Burying Ground with people like Samuel Adams, the site of the Boston Massacre, The Paul Revere House, and the Bunker Hill Monument. After walking all of Boston to see these sites, I had a very much needed break while my parents checked on the conference site. I literally was about to lay down in the lobby of the Medical Conference Center but that would have appeared unproffessional since we were meeting with people I sometimes work with too. But sitting down for about 30 minutes gave me the energy I needed to then go to Harvard. We walked around campus though it was still rainy. We snuck a peek at the freshman dining hall that looks like a scene out of Hogwarts! I then parted with the family and met my friend Hannah ( http://1singlestep.wordpress.com/) for dinner at Wagamama's. This place is so good, please come to Houston! I had a great time catching up with her before hopping the train back to the hotel. I love public transportation :)

My brother and Ben Franklin

So that was my trip. If you want more information or have questions on any of the sites I visited just leave a comment and ask me. I just didn't want to make this post any longer than it already is. I give Boston two thumbs up, and definitely hope I get to go back, even for work, really soon.

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!