Day 1: Entering Mexico Happy tgiving! Thu morning. Passport check, camera check, Sonoma wine check. A flight to Mérida, Mexico via Houston took off ~noon. This time, I am tagging along Carlos for his niece’s wedding in Mérida. Mérida is the capital of Yucatán state and it’s located 3hrs west of Cancun, facing the Gulf of Mexico. At this point, I’ve seen a glimpse of it in telenovelas :p Although I have technically “been” to Mexico, I’d say this would be my first time there. I don’t think la avenida revolución counts… A flight [View Full Entry]

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Day 1: It’s been 9yrs A redeye flight to AA arrived shortly after 6am, wide awake although I wasn’t able to sleep much on a plane. Still dark outside, the sun was just about to start to come out. On the way to AA, there were familiar names of freeway exits but completely lost - disappointing. It’s been a long time. But once I got to State x South U, it all came back to me Started to see places that I used to go to and I was in business. By far, the most appropriate place to kick off the [View Full Entry]

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Day 1: Destination - stiletto in the ghetto As usual, I pulled all-nighter and got on a 4am shuttle to SFO. Not much recollection of the flight except dosing off every two sentences of “Como Agua Para Chocolate”. After a lay-over in NJ, the flight took off to Dublin. On the in-seat screen, I had Gone with the Wind going - what a classic. The plane touched down at ~7am. The weather…misty rain. No surprise there but hoped for the better. Ok, first day, don’t be pessimistic. The goal was to reach the Spire at 9am. The spire is a 120m [View Full Entry]

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Las Fallas defined in Wikipedia: Las Fallas are a Valencian traditional celebration in praise of Saint Joseph in Valencia, Spain. The term Falles refers to both the celebration and the monuments created during the celebration. Each neighbourhood of the city has an organized group of people, the Casal faller, that works all year long holding fundraising parties and dinners, usually featuring the famous speciality paella. Each casal faller produces a construction known as a falla which is eventually burnt. * La Despertà: Each day of Falles begins at 8am with la despertà ("th [View Full Entry]

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4-hr bus ride to Valencia was pretty cozy. I arrived at a bus station, picked up another bus, then reached the next home. Unlike Barcelona, Valencia was smaller than I gathered from the map. If I wasn’t careful, I could overshoot the street easily. It was still raining in Valencia and of course, it was Sunday, and a lot of things were closed. I wandered around a bit in search of a glass of horchata. At least to me, it’s sort of like vanilla-flavored soy milk…not overly sweet, thicker than the Mexican versoin. Love it :D Monday was still drizzling. I [View Full Entry]

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I walked to Saint Paul hospital in the morning. Ya, it’s a functioning hospital but the building is super amazing. It has beautiful tile works everywhere!!! In the afternoon, I stopped by Tibidabo. There is an amusement park up on a hill. Not sure ´cuz it was late in the afternoon or because of smog, I didn´t have any view of the city. I grabbed a bocadillo for a really late lunch at 4pm. In the evening, I met up with some friends for a beer and another bocadillo. This one was warm like panini and camembert was nicely melted in [View Full Entry]

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Monteserrat It’s Friday already. I stopped by Casa Batlló first thing. We had lunch with the school and ate tapas with wine and vin chaud. It was ~3p by the time lunch ended so it was perfect to walk around Barri Gotic and city center. That night, I went to a bar for a live flamenco show. Oh man, the guitar was amazing. Playing so effortlessly but definitely sounded like it would take a lot of effort!!! Then we hit a bar for a cava cocktail and cubata. So the bar closed 2-3am and so did the metro, ha ha. Options…cab [View Full Entry]

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The arrival and the rainy days: Barcelona is bigger than I’d imagined. Hustling and bustling on Sun afternoon with diverse people. I had a half day to sort out cell phone and get a feel for the city. Cell phone was taken care of in no time so I went around Las Ramblas, then a mall close to torre agbar, an obscure-looking tower, let us call a swanky banana. I noticed Argentinean connection here and there. Not only Messi plays for Barcelona, but also there is Havanah café and you can get a packet of maté in the supermarket. I dined [View Full Entry]

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I had another day before my flight from Geneva to Barcelona. I arrived in Geneva a bit before 9am. It was brisk cold...a slight notch up from Annecy. Actually, I got lucky ‘cuz it was the weekend of l’escalade celebration. There were events going on at various places in the city and people were dressed up in the medieval outfit, from kids to elders, on foot and on horses. After covering decent amount of ground and encountering medievals, I sat down for a cup of swiss hot choco, not to be confused with swissmiss. Then grabbed roasted chestnuts on the street [View Full Entry]

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It was a cold cold day...hovering around 0 or sub-0 celcius. I took 7:30 train from Annecy and I was in the city center by 9am. I walked around all over town until bouchon for lunch. Bouchon is a staple in Lyon, offering hearty meaty dishes. The thing is I couldn’t really picture what the dish was going to look like, I asked the waiter to name a recommendation…boudin noir, a blood sausage. After having terrine as an appetizer, boudin noir arrived. Honestly, it looked scary…juicy plumpy black (I mean BLACK) links about to explode (1 was already exploded), sitting along [View Full Entry]

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