Sacramento

My parents and I took a little trip to downtown Sacramento one day for lunch. We ate at a great little brewery called "Brew it Up". Off of H st and I believe 14th? (you'll know you're close when you start smelling the hops, it was quite potent). Delicious food. I ended up with a GIANT taco salad in a flour tortilla bowl. My dad tried out their beer sampler, 4 mini glasses of whatever flavors you like. You can also brew your own beer there, and they'll keep it stored for when you visit with friends!

after we took a little stroll down to the capital.




the trees were blossoming


then we visited the vietnam war memorial



someone placed flowers in the hands of statues, it was pretty neat:

POW monument:





it began to POUR down rain all of the sudden, so we took refuge under some orange trees

we then moved onto some bamboo, which were cool but did not actually provide much coverage



some blue sky in the distance


my failed attempts at capturing the downpour:

part 1 - the drive

to sum up the whole week in one word=relaxing.
MUCH needed.
but i didn't get to do everything or see everyone I wanted.
(apologies shanny and lorrin :C )

so the boy made us get up BEFORE the crack of dawn:



surprise #1: taking the scenic route, the 101.
he made us get up early so we could see the sunrise along the coast
...except it was foggy and overcast


but we didn't let that bother us.
it was still beautiful.


nothing beats that stretch of ocean on the way to santa barbara
(also quite enjoyable by train if you get the chance!)

and long periods of sports radio were broken up by musicians like jackie wilson.
we have a habit of singing "your love (is lifting me higher)" at the top of our lungs.

he loves to travel in style (yes he wore a 3 piece suit WITH dress shoes...hehe)

all the while, my trusty tomtom led the way...

to surprise #3! lunch in monterey :D

this was the only part of our trip that the sun actually came out, it drizzled the rest of the way home.



it took about 2 or 3 extra hours as opposed to taking the 5 but it was worth it!
stay tuned for more of my trip

(though I must admit my photo taking steadily declined after this, in exchange for sleep and food and sitting on couches with the ones I love)

vacation!

oh spring break, i have been waiting so long for you.

tomorrow the man and i are taking the drive up to the top half of california. apparently there's some surprises in store for me? he likes to do that, and as much as i love being surprised, i hate knowing that one is coming...if that makes sense. next week will be much relaxation with side trips to downtown sacramento and hopefully san francisco!

get ready for actual travel posts in a travel blog! (what a concept!)

i wish our 7-ish hour drive will be as glamorous as this vogue editorial:

but i won't get my hopes up :) it will probably more likely involve comfy clothes, chex mix and gatorades, which is quite wonderful as well.

fantasies

now that this dreadful quarter is over and spring break has commenced, i once again have full command over my brain.

i have a minor girl crush on zooey deschanel. ok, that's a lie. i adore her. she's just so fun and whimsical, and i've been told that i look like her a little?

well she and matt costa star in this little promo video for oliver peoples and it is my inspiration for today's post:


wouldn't it be so fun to take little weekend side trips to quaint hotels and completely play a character? just pretend to be someone else, dream up elaborate stories to tell your waitress and bring fanciful "costumes". that would be such a relaxing and fun escape. whether with a dear friend or significant other, so many laughs would be had, inside jokes created and stories to tell all your friends when you get back.

p.s. for more zooey love you MUST listen to her musical album she made with m. ward, their band is called "she and him" and the first album is titled "volume one". so wonderful!

pounds and pence

While traveling through Europe we decided to fly rather than take trains. The travel time was much less giving us more time to enjoy our destinations, and for airline Ryanair (recommended by many), the fares were dirt cheap. one of our fares was NOTHING. zero pounds.

sounds all fine and dandy, until you start adding up all the extra fees, charges and things you don't normally think about. they charge you for checking in, checking a bag (that must be under 15 kilograms i think, that's kinda small and i had to do the embarassing unpack stuff in front of the line and stuff things into my uncle and cousins bags and carry ons), food and beverages on the plane are not free, the airports that ryanair flies in and out of are tiny and out of the way requiring taxi/bus fares, no assigned seating (much like southwest used to do) only it was completely unorganized and people would rush the gate because they would start boarding late (and i must admit no one in europe seems to have learned the concept that cutting in line (or the queue) is rude...)

i wasn't impressed and all in all i'm not sure it was worth the money or stress unfortunately. and now, according to this article by The Guardian, ryanair is considering charging to use the bathroom. while paying a pound for a public restroom in london is actually common (just a heads up), it still doesn't seem fair for an airplane where you have no other option.

moral of the story: try to allow yourself enough time to take the train. (you also get to enjoy the countryside)

facially speaking...

Two weeks ago a dear friend and I finally visited LACMA's Vanity Fair exhibit. It was wonderful. A very simple display, the portraits were hung in a single horizontal line at eye level along all the walls of each room. There was a plaque beside each one with the subject's name, photographer and a small description. All were in plain black frames. and it was perfect. no more was needed, any other aesthetically fancy presentation would have detracted from the photos. Most were from places like the National Portrait Gallery in London, or the Smithsonian. So many people I'd heard of, and even more that I hadn't. So fascinating. To be among the work of photographers like Annie Leibovitz, there was so much to be inferred from each portrait. The juxtaposition of celebrity and humanity, these were people just like me. Some looked more like paintings than photographs. There was one room with a whole wall of just magazine covers. There were a couple video screens showing footage of photoshoots. It's a whole different world for most of us. Photos ranged from 1913 all the way up to 2008. These photographs showed progression in hairstyles, fashion, sensibility, glamour and yet still shared so much in common.




the exhibit ends March 1!

get ready for more LA adventures :)

...the cacaphony of mumbai

another country to check off my list is India.
i feel like it's always been tugging at me in the back of my mind.
mainly through movies i've seen.
i want to experience an exotic place like the beginning of a little princess
and the bright colors and grandeur of a parade like the end of vanity fair

and then moving out of its period as part of the british empire,
a film like the darjeeling limited, you can almost reach out and feel the richness of their culture.

(via imdb.com)
i went through a tiny bollywood phase in high school (bride and prejudice is brilliant!)
i mean it's like a musical on steroids, with glorious music and BRIGHT colors

yes, i'll admit, this post was inspired by the academy awards and slumdog millionaire.
it was so wonderful to see a movie about hope, and joy and faith receiving it's due recognition.
it helps me believe that our culture is about more than just the glitz and glamour.

which brings me to my next point.
a little organization called harvest india, lead by a bubbly and joyous man named pastor suresh, full of truth, love, and conviction. I've been in his presence twice, and both times have walked away inspired and teary-eyed. last spring was when i realized that this was the capacity i must go in to experience this vibrant culture.

saving the world?

so i'm taking an environmental policy class right now. and it's FASCINATING. not so much "let's save mother earth" hippie stuff, but "everything is interconnected and is affected by everything else and our very society is on a downhill slope due to anthropogenic climate change unless we start making some drastic changes". it's a little overwhelming at first. but it's becoming clearer that even the tiniest changes will have an impact and be able to spur a chain reaction.

it did however instantly spur an intense desire to get out of my current surburbian location and move somewhere where i don't need a car and can ride a bike/(good) public transportation. (a more in depth post about that later). since moving isn't an option at the moment, i want my next car (the first one i'll buy myself) to be some sort of hybrid. heck, i'm even embracing the smartcars that we all made fun of in europe. biodiesel reduces our dependence on fossil fuels...BUT it still pollutes and with so much corn/grain going toward fuel now instead of food it's causing other economic problems.

it gets better. apparently the US government was one of the only main countries that didn't join the kyoto protocol in 1992. it was because china wasn't joining and they thought it would hurt trade or something lame like that. we're at least one step behind the rest of the developed world when it comes to legislature concerning environmental regulations. which is weird, because the people and celebrity culture are totally on top of the "green fad". there was a great article in the Guardian yesterday about regulating the fashion industry because of "trendy" and "throwaway" fashion is contributing huge amounts of waste to landfills. England has its own "Minister of Sustainability" in parliament. I'm pretty sure we don't have anything like that here.

for once the bandwagon is doing something right for humanity, jump on it America!

recommended reading:
Plan B 3.0, Mobilizing to Save Civilization. By Lester R. Brown.

reason #9438570948375

one of many reasons i desire to visit new york:

(from teenvogue.com's fashion week blog)

ohhh fashion week.
i must tread upon the ground of bryant park and it's white tents.
one of my more girly guilty pleasures.
i scour style.com's runway photos each season for inspiration and ideas.
i just cannot deviate from the masses of women who follow these designers.
not when there's so much creativity, and brilliance and so many different ideas about what clothing and fashion mean.

barcelona

i mentioned the movie "Vicky Cristina Barcelona" in my last post and i feel the need to expand. it was such a beautiful film. first off i'm a HUGE fan of woody allen, love his style. scarlett johanssen and selma hayek are great and i'm becoming a fan of Javier Bardem. There was a bit of controversy apparently because Woody accepted money from Spain's tourism board. but i think it was worth it, that movie makes me want to brush up on my spanish and catch a flight to barcelona tomorrow morning.

i've never really had the desire to visit spain. to me it was another beautiful old european country, but there are plenty of those and i didn't feel any ties to it. plus i'm not a fan of warmer climates. a couple of my friends went to barcelona over a free weekend at cambridge, they loved it for it's beach resort type atmosphere (although i hear the men are outrageously crass and creepy...), again not quite my style.

but the movie painted barcelona in a whole new light. i'm ready to wear loose, comfy neutrals, let my hair hang au natural and spend warm balmy nights drinking wine, sitting at an outdoor cafe listening to the sounds of spanish guitar (one of my guilty pleasures is carlos santana...;D). i want to visit all of antoni gaudi's works, and the picasso museum, and the seaside carnival and art galleries and street markets.

here's some film stills to convince you:







(found here and here)