Fly...

Fly.. Today's prompt is "fly." I knew what I wants to write about when I saw this prompt, I just had to figure out how. 

I live under three different landing patterns for LAX. Planes have alway been a constant in my life, I've been on them while traveling, or under them while at home. 

I have trouble sleeping when the skies are quiet. When I first moved to Long Beach, it took me a month or so to get used to how quiet it was. After the planes hit the towers on 9/11 and all the planes were grounded, I remember being so scared because it was so quiet. The house didn't rumble, you could always hear the tv and there wasn't a "hold on, there's a plane" in the middle of phone conversations.

I used to love the window seat when I traveled, then I grew. When I fly, I prefer an aisle seat with as much leg room as I can find, especially on longer flights. There is one awesome thing you give up when sitting on the aisle in a plane: the window pictures. Seeing the world from thousands of feet in the air is magical. You fly through and over storms, through clouds and you get to see sunrises and sunsets from the most magnificent place. 

In 2009, I was able to cross something major off my life's bucket list. I saw the sunrise on the east coast (on the way to the Dulles airport in DC), flew home and saw it set into the marina in Long Beach that same night. I didn't realize the impact it would have, but you see the sunrise over the Washingtom Monument and tell me it doesn't strike a chord. 

Here's to the land above the clouds, friends. Enjoy it whenever you can. 

4 months later.

Well, that was an unexpected break from this thing, but a lot can happen in 4 months.

I decided to give NaNoWriMo (National Novel Writing Month) a go... whoa. I wrote about 30,000 words in a month, while working graveyard and barely sleeping, so to say it was difficult is an understatement. I have a beautiful half written story that would be somewhat of my fairy tale life, but it doesn't need my attention right now.

I went head first into college basketball season and loving it and my team is doing really well. Work was awful, and I barely slept most of the time, so November through January was kinda awful other than basketball. I did a lot of friend, and regular housecleaning, and since then I've felt a lot better about things. And as of the end of January, I'm no longer working.... again. So, 2014 is yet another adventure, but an adventure with lots of goals and a good outlook.

Here's my list of goals for 2014:
- write more
- cook more
- write about cooking more
- go on adventures, near and far
- write more about cooking without an oven
- budget and use some of the money that I've saved for the baking adventure to get it off the ground
- get tattooed
- get a new oven
- bake and bake and bake some more
- secure a fantastic job that makes me happy and isn't an awful environment
- do really fun things and write about them
- get a new computer and camera

I'm actually really excited about this year. It didn't exactly start off the way I wanted to, but I truly believe that things happen for a reason and it's never for the reason you believe or when you want them to happen. I have working and researching for the last 2 years what it will take to get this baking excursion off the ground, but it hasn't happened yet, much to my dismay. However I know that it will this year. I'm hoping to have it going by the holidays so I can provide delicious things for lots of people.

Here's to starting the year in March and not paying attention to the actual calendar when you're pursuing dreams.

Italy!!

wow. what a week. i'll try to break italy into a couple posts, but whow knows.. i might just go on forever.

needless to say, all the people that told me that i wouldn't want to come home were right, the ones that said that venice was going to be my favorite were wrong and the idea that i would love the food was completely spot on. the only bad thing about the entire week were my allergies. The part of Italy I was in is incredibly agricultural and therefore sneezy and crazy for me. oh... and the rain. so much rain, thunderstorms, lightening, everything. I was lucky that it didn't flood. When I was flying in from Madrid, we passed over a storm, and I saw the lightening but didn't think it would end up affecting much of my trip. Luckily it didnt. It ended up pouring friday and part of saturday but overall, rain is just water and it dries eventually

I landed on Wednesday night after an insane day and a half of traveling and flight connections. luckily all my luggage made it and we ended up landing 10 minutes early in venice..Thursday was spent getting registered on the army post, running errands and making sure that i had everything that i needed and getting food for the week. Part of my payment to Jen and Scott was that i had to make mexican food at some point, which happened. We went to dinner at a place called La Vecchia Fattoria that night. I had oricchette pasta with cherry tomatoes and broccoli. it was a great first meal and the food of Vicenza spoiled me, almost for the whole week! We also went to the fresh wine store and got three liters of wine from the tap. I had heard of this, but I'm still pretty sure it's magic. It was delicious wine and fairly cheap too. It was just over 5 euro for all the wine. Bring your own bottles, they fill and seal it for you, amazing.

Friday was spent resting and sleeping and then sleeping some more. My allergies had me incredibly congested and subsequently exhausted because of the inability to breath and sleep or just be comfortable in general. The different pollen was attacking my eyes and for 4 of the 7 days in Italy, i wanted to rip out my eyes. I fought through it though, no way i was going to miss out on such an amazing place. Friday night we went to dinner at a place a little further out of town. i don't remember the name, but I remember the food. I had the Bigoli pasta with duck ragu and had to take a moment while i had the first bite. It was heavenly. So good. Scott had penne with a pistachio sauce, and sliced chicken with mushrooms as his second course which was delicous and Jen had truffled fettuchini. All of us thoroughly enjoyed our food and I could have eaten that same meal the entire week and been happy. I am so grateful we didn't have a strict agenda and were able to move around plans so that i was able to get acclimated. The wine there was great too, I'll miss good house wines and the quality of the fresh wine available all over.

I never thought I would be so excited to not be in a plane for a week. Once I landed in Venice, this whole trip finally became real. All the work, the internet scouring for ticket prices, the stress and budgeting, everything was finally real and more than worth it. Seeing my friends was even better and knowing that they would get to show me the cool places they had found over the past couple years was ever exciting. After friday, I was almost back to normal, the swelling in my feet from the hours of traveling was about gone, the blisters were getting better and my allergies were calming down. I had scheduled a skype date with my family for Sunday afternoon (early morning back home) and was looking forward to the rest of my time in the Veneto area.

tuesdayyyyyy

well, tuesday morning was fun. I walked around SoHo a little more, and into the Bowery area. Got a new pair of Warby Parker sunglasses and a new pair of toms because my other shoes were eating my feet and giving me blisters everywhere.. from there, I went to eat at The Meatball Shop on Stanton. best decision of my day. After having their sandwich at Googa Mooga, I wanted to go and eat their stuff fresh. BEST. EVERRRRRR. 

The special of the day was a Chile Verde meatballs with salsa verde, the risotto was chives and scallions and everything looked and smelled delicious coming out of the kitchen. I sat at the bar, and the bartender was super nice and talkative. He gave me a copy of the Meatball Shop cookbook to browse through while I waited for my food and asked about where I was from and going and whatnot. I talked to the guy next to me a bit, who told me that he came in because he was craving their meatballs. To me, that says something. 

I ordered a slider of the chile verde goodness, the risotto and then a meatball sandwich with the spicy pork meatballs, tomato sauce and mozzarella cheese. I said I was going to take it with me to the airport, but that ended up being a total lie because I didn't realize how hungry I was. Apparently that happens when you don't eat the whole day. 

Here's how it looked:

From there, I went and picked up my luggage that I had stored, and headed to the airport. It was a beautiful day and i was sad to leave the house that morning, and sad to leave the city, but Italy and my friends were waiting. 

Check in and everything went well, and the flight on AirBerlin was great. BUT, I barely slept. the people behind me kept getting up and using my chair as their push off point, waking me up every 20 minutes or so. I was real mad. real real real mad. the food was good, there were free movies, tv, games and magazines on the little tv screens and it would have been even better if i had gotten sleep on an overnight trip. 

The Berlin terminal, where i had my 6 hour layover however, was crap. I'm just mad that I even had to be there. The chairs were awful, there were no plugs to charge anything and the food choices were yuck. The terminal itself was small, smaller than Long Beach Airport, but luckily the majority of people were really nice. The ride to Barcelona was okay, a little turbulent, but not too bad. My luggage made it everywhere safely, and the Barcelona airport was really nice. The flight to Madrid from BCN was sure to be the death of me, it was crazy turbulent and it felt like the pilot was doing things crazy on purpose, but really just ended up being a lot like the up and down of the flight to Oakland from LA. Madrid to Venice was really nice, I got to sleep on the last three flights, which was really nice, and seeing Jen and  Scott and knowing that I wasn't going to be on a plane for 7 whole days. 

More on Italy over the next few days, so far, the food is beyond words and i love everything other than the rain and the amount of nature that is causing my allergies to go insane. Oh well, dont care, its freaking great.

Touchdown! and no, it's not football season yet...

Good morning!! I'm in New York now!! 

i'm incredibly exhausted, there was so much turbulence the majority of the flight that it was almost impossible to sleep. I probably slept about an hour and I won't be able to take a nap until about 3:30-4pm this afternoon. yay coffee!! 

I've been trying to figure out how to get to the city and store my luggage for the greater part of the last hour, mostly because my brain is not exactly working at top speed. I finally figured it out, i think. we'll see how that goes in a bit. 

i can't believe i'm here, that this trip has started and that i didn't wuss out. maybe i'll believe it after i take a nap. i'm only in the city for 4 days, but i'm incredibly excited. I get to see one of my old track teammates who lives in New Jersey and my friend Kristin is staying with me for the weekend. So many friends in just a couple days, I don't quite know what to do with myself!

as excited as i am, i really just want to sleep... did i mention that i'm tired? haha 

Here's a glimpse of the sunrise from the sky :)

Wheels (almost) up!

There comes a time when we all have to venture, when we set off on our own to travel and see places and experiene things that we never could have imagined. 

My time starts in a few minutes when I board a plane for New York City. I decided to take this trip for so many reasons... many of them coming after I initially planned to go. 

I decided to go to Europe because a dear family friend, who is more my cousin than anything else, is getting married in Spain. That said, I hemmed and hawed before I decided that yes, I was going to go to Europe. After coming to terms with that, I figured it would be smart to see if my friends from college who are stationed in Italy. Okay, Italy and Spain. Sounds great, right? Right, I thought so too. Once I got the date for the wedding I started looking at my vacation time (I was still working at the time) and savings and realized that I could take an "extended" trip and have a grand adventure. When looking at prices, I figured it would be cheaper to fly out of a hub on the east coast because it was a shorter flight. Good decision for sure.. so then okay, flying to New York, no big deal, Jet Blue has flights there every day. 

I was able to book my flights from JFK to Barcelona and back, knowing that I would be able to arrange flights aroud Europe later on when I had more of an idea of what was going on. Two weeks in Europe was already the trip of a lifetime, especially beacuse I would be seeing good friends/family and going to a wedding. Another big decision then came up: New York. Should I stay there a few days and see the city, or should I just use that as a stopping point? Knowing that I had always wanted to visit the city in some capacity, I figured why not? Why not spend 3 or 4 days visiting a storied city that has forever been on my list of things to do?

That's when I realized that I had made a promise to myself a few years ago. "Go to NYC, even if for a few days, and get to Europe before you're 30." That's what I had decided after graduating for college. I didn't tell anyone, because that would 1) hold me accountable; 2) make it worse if it didn't happen; and 3) because that would have just made sense. Regardless, I made that promise to myself, and low and behold here I was at 26 making plans to cross two things off my bucket list. 

4 days in New York, the red eye out from Long Beach, everything was making so much sense. I was working a ton of overtime, pushing aside any criticism and doubts from friends and family because I knew that in order to pay for this trip without cleaning out my accounts, I would have to work a little extra. It's a damn good thing I did. In trying to calculate my vacation time, get it approved by my managers, the more I pushed to do the right thing and work with them, the more hoops I was told to jump through. No matter what happened, no matter how hard it was not to scream, or how much I really began to hate my job, I worked through it, I did a good job and made sure that no matter what I did, it was always the right thing. I jumped through their hoops as best as I could, but still there was push back because my new manager "didn't like that people were taking long vacations." Well, I had already booked the tickets and begun reserving rooms and hotels. There really was no turning back and by this time, I was determined to go. 

Thanksgiving and Christmas passed, the new year came and that's when everything got a little crazy. Things at work were stressful, but still, I came in, did my job to the best of my abilities, and did my best to do it with a smile, no matter how hard some days were. That's when, on my aunt's birthday, I was let go. Fired really.. Well, as the official papers say, I was "terminated." Cue me completely freaking out. This wasn't how things were supposed to go. But here I was, walking out with bags of things acccumulated from the last two and a half years. I won't lie, I wallowed for a while, thinking of cancelling my trip, trying to figure out a way to get everything firgured out financially as quickly as possible, constantly overwhelmed by the entire thing. Once the inital wave of freak outs subsided and my ego started to recover, I realized that things were going to work out. People always say that things happen for a reason, and yeah, I believe that to, but this?! In the beginning, this was just added stress, added worry, and added fear that I didn't need if I was going to be traveling thousands of miles away. Now it was a complete and total blessing, allowing me the freedom and the ability to do as I pleased without having guilt hung over me that "I was leaving." Now, I'm going on a grand adventure and excited about all of it, even just the idea. 

So here I am, sitting in the Long Beach airport, my bag checked, comfy travel clothes on (yes, with a change of clothes in my bag - there's no way in hell I'm walking around New York looking ridiculous), books, movies, podcasts and music at the ready, waiting to board. Waiting to start my grand adventure on my mom's birthday (best kid ever!). Yeah, I was fired on my aunt's birthday (what a birthday gift, right?!) and I'm leaving on my mom's birthday. If you know my family, you know that we have this weird thing where dates line up. DIfferent important things for our family will happen on the same day, years apart, or on someone's birthday, so I shouldn't have expected this to be much different. 

I'm headed for New York for 4 and a half days, then a travel day so that I get to Italy on May 22nd. then to Spain on May 30th. I'll be back home June 7th, and as much as I am excited for this trip, I'm extra excited for what will happen when I get home, I have a lot on the horizon. 

I'll be posting updates as much as I can, probably at random times, but expect lots of stories and pictures about what I ate, where I go and pictures of random, pretty things. and some of me and my friends of course. Then, when I come home, I'm determined to do what I've always wanted to do.. some of you know, some of you don't, so for now, I'll keep that to myself.. it'll give me something to talk about when I get home, too. 

Here goes nothing, and everything, all at the same time. Wish me luck, I'm going to go have fun for a few weeks.