My trip to Washington, DC was quite packed, considering I was there for less than 48 hours. The first pleasant surprise was finding out that I was flying first-class both ways across the country--I had gotten my tickets using frequent flyer miles in the end and just assumed I was going coach. Wahoo--that was nice.



I had a chance to catch up with Li Mei, see thousands of Harley Davison bikers, view the WWII Memorial, visit the International Spy Museum (very cool), and of course attend Linda's wedding at Mount Vernon, VA. It was really good seeing Mei, Sabina & Linda--three very good friends from Smith. I miss them dearly.



Back in Seattle now. Today, Hemant invited me to see a SIFF film--Bonjour Monsieur Shlomi--a film from Israel. It was really good--very touching story of a young boy and how he touches the lives of people around him. Not necessarily that original of a story; but I walked away with that warm, fuzzy feeling.

Jigna & Vidya organized an engagement party for our friends, Hemant & Sindya, which I hosted at my place last night. Check out the pictures. It was a great turnout and very successful with yummy food--lasagne, baked ziti, homemade tiramisu (which Jigna & I made!), gelato cake, salad, etc....Congrats to the two of them!



I haven't gone out salsa dancing in awhile. I really need it, especially this week. Looking forward to tonight.



I'm very excited--decided to exercise some options I've had sitting around for awhile...and exercised the Amazon stock today at $47.19, which I'm super happy with considering today's range (44.85 - 47.83). This is always such a nerve-racking process.

I've finally posted my pictures from the trip to Spain. Lots of them. Trying out a new photo album generator, aside from Photoshop and modification of html. What do y'all think?

Sri and I had a very successful evening of tapas and sharing my photos and video from the Spain trip to Brendan, Joe, Jigna & Matt. We went all out and made a lot of food we'd never tried making before. Our menu for the evening:



Sangria

Olive Oil Toast with Jamon Serrano or Jamon Iberico

Tortilla Espanol

Garlic Shrimp

Almejas en Salsa Verde (Clams in Green Sauce)

Oven-Roasted Wild Mushrooms with Goat Cheese

Fried Calamari

Marinated Olives

Assortment of Spanish Cheese







It was all quite successful and we had lots of fun making all the food!



To add to the continuing saga of my love life, Brendan and I sadly decided to break up today. [sigh] It was rather abrupt and unexpected, especially on this beautiful Sunday sunny afternoon....but we just got to talking and could no longer ignore the words and thoughts that we had exchanged. I've been more upset than I expected, considering the short time that we have known each other...guess it shows I cared more than I realized. I'm hoping that he's okay. Our conversation was extremely emotional. We'll talk soon I'm sure. There is absolutely no doubt in my mind that we will continue to be friends and be a part of each other's lives. I feel fortunate to have met such an amazing, kind, talented person---I just hope that he can realize that about himself and can find some peace from within.



Tonight, I retreated to Jigna & Matt's---thanks for being there for me guys.

I haven't been doing a good job of post-vacation resting...this whole week has been busier than I expected. Monday, I had dinner with the Cassanitis and got to see my friends Julia and Jocelyn (who finally graduated from law school---congrats!). It was so nice to see all of them again and to catch up with Julia. I really need to go out to Chicago sometime to visit her. Tuesday, I ended up going to Trivia Night at Cooper's with Eric (and feeling rather stupid after my only contribution was recognizing a movie scene from Porky's). Afterwards, I caught up with my Chinese friends for a last minute karaoke get together, crooning the night away til 1am. Wednesday, I helped assist a Salsa 2 class at Century Ballroom and then headed off for a bar-b-q/game night at Phoebe & Ray's with Lukasz. Very fun catching up with everyone. Later that night, afterwards, Lukasz came over so we could work out a salsa combination...because the next night, I went over to the Microsoft campus for the first time ever to help Lukasz co-teach a salsa class to a bunch of MS devs. Ha! What an experience..especially with bunny and deer prancing about out on the lawn, underneath Bill's office windows. The evening ended with a chill dinner at a Morrocan style restaurant in my neighborhood with Lukasz, Jigna & Pierre. Tonight, I'll be catching up with Fred. Tomorrow, Sri & I are cooking tapas and showing my amateur raw footage tape from the trip. Eeks!



Just got notice from Willie that he's going to visit me first weekend of June from San Francisco! Haven't seen that boy in ages. Can't wait to catch up and talk-talk-talk all night.

[sigh] how much is my time and comfort worth? i've been a procrastinator and have yet to book my flight for linda's wedding in d.c.---since it's 1.5 weeks away, i'm in slight panic mode and trying to get my ticket asap. so far, this month, my total trips on a plane:



seattle to austin

austin to seattle

seattle to madrid

madrid to barcelona

barcelona to madrid

madrid to seattle



that's a lot of flying in one month. and my hip is starting to act up today from all the stationary seating. argh.



anyhow, i *could* use up my frequent flyer miles from northwest for a very long, multiple-stop, sleepless flight to ronald reagan international airport. or i could chuck over $500 for a nice, direct flight.



what to do.

hi---haven´t had much time or ability to blog lately as our hotel in barcelona had limited internet access...so i´ve been away from the computer for the last few days. anyhow, to sum things up:



sri & i arrived to sunny barcelona on wednesday. ah, what a beautiful city. our first day there, we embarked on a crazy long walk all over the city. this won´t mean much if you don´t know the city...but we walked from our hotel (the derby hotel) which is near the metro hóspital clinic along the avenida diagonal...down the paseo de gracia, across the plaza catalunya, down las ramblas, and then crossing all the way over to the olympic port. whew! hours and hours of walking...but very enjoyable with all the quaint shops, palm trees, people and waterfront to view. that night, we ate like queens at the El Cangrejo Loco Restaurant in the port olympic--i had a very yummy lobster and sri had monkfish. yum yum...after dinner, despite how tired we were, we wandered over to one of the many bars in the olympic port--a shisha bar nonetheless! .. although it was quite a ripoff: 15 euros just for one bowl of shisha! but shisha just sounded so wonderful at the time so we just went for it...and it was quite a good decision. we hung out there until, oh, 2 or 3 in the morning and then headed back to the hotel.



thursday, we woke up very late and headed straight to the catedral de la sagrada familia, my third time there...but still awe-inspiring each time. fortunately, there wasn´t a line and we got to go right in. sri & i climbed the 75 meters up the spiral staircases for an amazing view of barcelona. i´m hoping that this cathedral gets finished within my lifetime....it´s that spectacular. after that, we walked over to see Casa Milá, aka La Pedrera, another well-known Antoní Gaudí building. later in the evening, we met up for dinner with stephane, a former amazonian and friend who moved to barcelona earlier this year....very good to see him. we caught up over dinner at a cute local restaurant and then got a drink in the Plaza Real. Yay.



friday, sri & i woke up late...again (this spanish time of eating dinner late and staying out late makes it quite difficult to get up in the morning!). we got a café con leche and headed over to the Passeig de Graçia to meet up with Matt at the Avanade Spain office...very chi-chi...only to learn that he had quite the elaborate late afternoon plans with his coworkers. instead of kidnapping him to go to the parç guëll with us, we split up for the afternoon. the weather was absolutely gorgeous and Sri & I took a long walk over to the park. this was also my third time there...but i love that park so much. we lounged around in the sun a bit, took some pictures, breathed in the fresh air (which is hard to get in this smoke-laden country) and headed back to the hotel for a rest....before meeting up with Stephane again to check out his new flat, which is oh so cool. the ceilings there are so high and the place is so extremely quaint. loved it. after fussing around with his new internet connection, we headed out for an extremely good italian dinner at one of steph´s favorite restaurants in the barri gótica district. after dinner, we finally met up with matt & his coworkers for a few drinks in the born district. the night ended with me, stephane & sri checking out a place i went to back in 98, the maremagnum complex with two huge discotecas at the top. unfortunately, it wasn´t quite as hopping as i remembered it to be. the three of us chatted for a bit on the waterfront and said our adieus eventually, somewhere around 5am. it was very nice to see stephane and i think it was nice for him to see so many seattlelites.



today--our last day--sri & i left barcelona and flew back to madrid. we checked back into the same hotel and immediately headed out to see picasso´s guernica at the reína sofía, only to be sadly disappointed to find out that the museum just happens to be closed today for some reason (we think it´s because there´s a holiday, but we´re still not sure...all the shops were closed today and we saw a bunch of festivities around the plaza mayor) so we wandered over to the Parque Retiro, which was just absolutely lovely. the weather in madrid today was ten thousand times better than earlier in the week when we were here. apparently, in the park today there was una fiesta de los niños, and all sorts of little spanish children were dressed in cute period outfits. everyone was out, soaking in the sun and enjoying a gorgeous saturday afternoon. i don´t think i ever got a chance to enjoy a nice day at the park retiro.



tonight, we had a great dinner at a place called Entretapas. afterwards, i insisted on taking sri to an area of town that i used to hang out at all the time, near the alonzo martínez metro stop. sadly, i didn´t enjoy it as well this time--because EVERYONE hanging out at the bars in this area seemed so young to me! of course, the last time i was here, i was perhaps 19 or 20...which was perfect for me at the time. after a drink, we felt awkward enough to head back to the puerta de sol area and try out a club that i remembered thinking "seemed like an older crowd" before...a discoteca called Palacio Gaviria, which ended up being so much fun and definitely more our style. after dancing a bit, we had to leave due to the inability to breathe much more (there was way too much smoke there...) but we had a great time. I forgot how beautiful of a discoteca that place was.



it´s now almost 5am and we need to wake up in a few hours to get ready, have a desayuno and head off to the airport for our long flight back....i don´t think i ever adjusted to spanish time (in the sense of going to sleep or waking up at any decent hour)...which, i hope, is good...so that i can readjust to seattle time quite quickly. we´ll see.



this was a short trip but extremely enjoyable.

Waking up late again, Sri & I went to El Museo Prado today, viewing all the various paintings by Goya, Velasquez, El Greco, Rubens, Bosch & many more. It was nice to have studied a large number of these paitings already from the class I took while I was a student here (properly entitled "El Arte en El Prado")---made me even more excited to see them again. I was most excited about getting to see Bosch´s Garden of Delights, which was on loan when I was last here.



After the museum, we grabbed a late-afternoon (er, it was like 7pm...but sure felt like late afternoon) snack at Vip´s, a place I also frequented as a student. Sri bought a Spanish Vogue magazine for us to browse through..and was disappointed to find it full of pages of butts, legs & products, rather than fashion. We then wandered around for a long time, even stumbling upon a very neat antique book fair, in celebration of the upcoming San Isidro festival. We saw things like the Puerta de Alcalá, the Plaza de Cibeles, and the Plaza de Colón. We even went window shopping along the very chi-chi Calle Serrano. Too bad it was so rainy---hopefully, we can hit the Parque Retiro on Saturday when we return (as well as the Reina Sofia museum).



Tonight, at 10:45pm--prime dinnertime, we had a yummy paella dinner at a restaurant called Torres Bermejas, which came with a very entertaining night of flamenco singing and dancing. Ah, eso es la vida. ¡Vale!

Last minute, Sri & I decided to take a half-day trip to the beautiful town of Toledo, which is just south of Madrid. I´ve been there before but I knew it was worth going to. We found an organized tour via our hotel and were on a bus this morning at 8am (and it was a bad night of sleep...er...lack of sleep). Fortunately, it was a rather nice & sunny day in Toledo and we saw everything from the Catedral to the Monasterio de San Juan de los Reyes to the oldest synagogue in Spain (dates to the 12th century!). Unfortunately, the tour ended at some factory where they tried to get us all to buy gold-plated little arts and crafts or huge, heavy swords. Everyone conked out for the bus trip home, finally getting back to Madrid mid-afternoon: time for lunch! I was sta-a-a-arving and rather grouchy. After wandering around a bit, Sri & I settled at a little terraza restaurant in the Plaza de Santa Ana, only to eat some rather expensive, greasy tapas that left both of our stomachs turning a bit. A short stop in a Starbucks for a blueberry muffin made my stomach feel all better. We then did some serious shopping. Ha ha. For the past couple days, we´d been eyeing various stores but didn´t have time to stop in to any of them.



Dinner tonight was memorable. We went to El Restaurante Botín, the oldest restaurant in the world according to the Guinness Book of World Records (also featured in The Sun Also Rises for all you literary fanatics). I had roasted suckling pig and Sri had roasted baby lamb...mmmmm mmmmm mmmmm. We literally closed the restaurant, being the last patrons to walk out of there. Fabulous experience.



Tomorrow, we´re definitely going to hit the museums.

We didn´t have a museum day today like we had planned. Sri & I slept in til nearly 5:30pm! It was ridiculous! We definitely have not acclamated to the time yet...and will need to force ourselves to sleep tonight. After getting out of bed, we headed down to see if we could get into the Centro de Arte Reína Sofia for the last hour..but I guess it closed at 6pm instead of 7pm. Instead, we went across the street and hung out at the Estación de Atocha for a bit. We then wandered back to the Plaza Mayor area and made reservations at a restaurant for tomorrow night. We´re going to try to make reservations at Gula Gula tonight, a restaurant I frequented with my friends when I studied abroad here. Our goal is to have a big meal with wine so that we can just pass out tonight.

My first 24 hours in Madrid have been so amazing. True sensory overload. Upon arriving, Sri and I located our hotel in the heart of the Puerta del Sol, right above Zara (for my fellow friends who shop with me in Vancouver, you must appreciate that). We immediately crashed. We were oh so tired from the long plane ride. We woke up around mid-afternoon and headed to the Plaza Mayor where we basked in the sun, sipping a café and eating some paella and croquetas de jamón. We then wandered around a bit more..and soon learned that there was a Real Madrid game in town that night...at 10 pm. Crazy huh? Well, that would explain all the Brits we´d been seeing on the streets. So we decided to take a chance and headed over to the Estadio Santiago Bernabeau to see if we could score some tickets. One hour later, 55 euros poorer each, we had tickets in hand. I grabbed a bocadillo de jamón from a random restaurant and we toasted to our first evening with a Mahou each. Gametime. Oh--it was so much fun. And we saw Beckham! Very fun game. Unfortunately, Real Madrid lost to Mallorca, 2-3. After the game, we meandered back to the hotel...by this point, it was somewhere between midnight and 1am. But in true Madrileño fashion, around 2am, we headed back out again to experience la marcha. We went barhopping until the bars closed around 3am...and then we went to a discoteca since they were finally opened...an Indian-themed one called Samsara. We danced the night away until about 5:30am...and here I am now, 6:02am, back at the hotel. Wow. It´s been awhile since I´ve gone dancing so late...but it was ooooh so much fun with Sri. We had a blast.



Let´s see how late we sleep in tomorrow. It´s museum day for us.

pack pack pack. i'm actually doing quite well considering it's "only" midnight. the only things i have left to pack are random things like toiletries, chargers, etc. i'm currently printing out all the flight and hotel reservations. trying to get organized...



i leave for spain in 10 hours!! yay!

ooo..I went from having 5 gigs to 28 gigs of hard drive space with the nifty new laptop. yay.

i'm finally upgrading my work laptop from windows 2000 to windows xp. so lame. my computer is about to croak..so it's about time i finally get something a bit spiffier.



3 days left before heading to spain. so much stuff to do!