More Nomaditude

Here's an awesome photo of my bellydance troupe, taken shortly before our performance at MedFest---such wonderful ladies to dance with!

Beckham coming to Seattle!

Yes, seriously--David Beckham is coming to Seattle....D.C. United and Real Madrid finalized plans just today to play a friendly game in Seattle on August 9th at Qwest Field...and lucky me, I found a pre-sale password from a Microsoft DL and just bought 4 tickets at a really great location to watch the game with Matt and my parents. I've been fortunate to have actually seen Real Madrid play once in Madrid with Sri couple years ago (after much bargaining and sweet talking in Spanish around Bernabéu Stadium on our first night in Spain) -- but I'm really excited to check it out with my fiancé, who's a fútbol fanatic and my parents!

Sweltering heat

Oh dear lord. It's 93 degrees right now and it is HOT! Now, I know for all you midwesterners and east coasters, that's nothing compared to what you've been experiencing lately. But here in Seattle, we're used to our comfortable mid-70's summers...and with it hitting the 90's, the heat is really getting to me. I just spent about 45 minutes with my team playing an altered version of bocce ball (for our team "Friday Festivus") and I just got back in. I think I may've even gotten a decent tan during that time.

I'm going to head out tomorrow again for another hardcore day of dress shopping with the girls--this one is packed, visiting FIVE places. Hopefully, I can narrow down to a few dresses by end of day so that when my mom visits in a few weeks, I can pick the final one with her.

VoIP?

Got my phone bill today - $56.47. One of them for a 7 minute phone call to Hong Kong that was about 26 cents a minute. I just checked out the rates on Vonage and it's 4 cents a minute to Hong Kong. Plus, they have a package that really suits--just a flat rate of $14.99/month which includes 500 minutes anywhere in the US, Canada or Puerto Rico. I talk less than 500 minutes easily on that phone. Tempted to switch---and I keep that number just cuz' I've had it for 7 years and it's, sadly, my junk phone (where I send all telemarketers and what not). Also, my mom still calls me on it. What are you experiences with Vonage?

Nomaditude!

After a fabulous wedding dress shopping spree at Marcella's on Saturday, I whisked off to West Seattle to perform at MedFest with my bellydance troupe, Nomaditude---and it was so much fun! This was our second performance ever but definitely to the biggest crowd and we had a fabulous time. I was also oh so psyched to see the number of friends that showed up to see me perform---way more than I expected! And some I didn't expect so it was an extremely pleasant surprise. To those friends that showed up--THANK YOU for coming! It really meant a lot to see so many familiar faces in the audience on this beautiful, hot day! Also, thanks to Jigna for taking a bunch of great photos---check them out!

wedding stuff

Somehow, I got on some mailing list for brides in Seattle. I'm starting to get totally random postcards and mailings from reception sites and wedding boutiques advertising "the dream wedding" in Seattle. Ha Ha. Matt swears it's because I'm registered on theknot.com. Grrrr. This weekend, I'll be wedding dress shopping for the first time: there's a Monique Lhuillier trunk show at Marcella's La Boutique, which sounds pretty cool. I have no idea what happens at trunk shows but it sounds like a great way to kick start this dress shopping.

It's rather ridiculous the number of wedding magazines I've acquired in the short time I've been engaged. It's like, after having the ring on the finger, there's a lightbulb that pops in the head and makes you pay attention to everything wedding and in between. [sigh] Speaking of weddings, I was excited to see in Seattle Bride's 2006 "Best Of" edition, Newcastle was listed as the Best Sunset Wedding spot. Yay!

Weekend wrapup

Great weekend--on Friday, we finally went out and watched An Inconvenient Truth after a yummy pizza dinner at Tutta Bella. Al Gore puts on an influential powerpoint presentation, which surprisingly is quite entertaining in the form of a movie. The movie is definitely thought provoking and I'd recommend anyone to check it out.

Saturday, we went hiking with Petey, Carrie & Erin on the Lennox Creek Hike near North Bend. Man, what a hike! It ended up being way more difficult and strenuous than I had expected certainly. We literally hiked along a creekbed which, at times, got extremely muddy and full of vegetation, to the point where we felt like we needed a machete to get through the thick bush. It was a much more technical hike than any of us anticipated--still, it was quite fun and beautiful. Sadly, we never saw Anderson Lake, which was the end of the whole hike--but alas, the hike took longer than we had planned. One thing that contributed: the road to the trailhead was washed out--so we had to park down the river a bit and hike 2 miles to even get to the trailhead. That added 4 miles roundtrip! By the time we got down, we were tired and hungry and more than satisfied with our McDonald's dinner. Here are pictures.

Sunday, Matt and I headed over to Gray and Aileen's for their BBQ in celebration of both Gray's birthday and the accomplishment of the relay Seafair marathon that Sandra, Mike, Gray and Aileen participated in earlier that morning. Super fun just catching up with people we hadn't seen in awhile.

Photos from the weekend

I uploaded the pictures I took over the weekend from Sumit & Neha's wedding. Here are the photos from the Sangeet and here are the photos from the actual wedding.

Smithie in Seattle news...

I just found out that the new assistant conductor at the Seattle Symphony beginning this fall is going to be an ASIAN-AMERICAN FEMALE who is a CLASS OF 1999 SMITH graduate! How awesome is that?! It's Carolyn Kuan, who I totally remember from my economics classes. I'm excited since Matt and I subscribed to the symphony this year---I'll have to try to ping her to see if we can get a backstage tour sometime!

Old friends, new lives...

Just wrapped up a fabulous Fourth of July weekend. Saturday evening, I headed to the Alibi Room to meet up with an old, really good friend--Jon Pak--who was in town for a wedding. Jon and I hung out a ton when I first moved to Seattle as we started around the same time at Amazon and lived down the street from each other.

On Sunday, Matt and I drove down to Portland to attend Sumit & Neha's wedding. Sunday evening was the Sangeet, an evening of mehndi, song and dance. Below is a great video that a few of our good friends organized in honor of their wedding---check it out!

Overall, the weekend was wonderful and it was incredibly special to attend the wedding. The weather was ridiculously warm and all the guests sat baking in the hot sun for the 1.5 hour ceremony. Indian weddings are so full of song and dance, it's wonderful. I could only hope for that much dancing at my own wedding...

Drove back today, just in time to join Spencer & Gabe grillin' up on the rooftop for Independence Day. The fireworks, as always, were beautiful to see. Happy Birthday America!

BTW, before leaving Portland, Matt and I caught the Italy v. Germany game---what a game! To score a goal in the 128th minute was ridiculous. To score another goal, like, 30-45 seconds later was even more ridiculous. What an ending. Congrats Italy.