regnar socal

a few weeks ago i did this crazy race called the regnar relay. picture this: 12 people, 2 vans, 200 miles...TWO DAYS. and i basically got 2 hours of sleep the whole time.

whats crazier is i cant wait until next years race!

nola

so it doesnt look like i have anymore room to take pics everyday and post them! how unfortunate....buuuut that doesnt mean i cant still write!

so in my previous post i mentioned that i had just gotten back from new orleans. it was my first time there and i had the time of my life! it was never a place i desired to go but boy am i glad i did.

i traveled with my good friend hana to go to jon kong's wedding. i had met hana through jon and jon i met through monica. the two of them were child hood friends back in toronto. monica, jon and a few of his friends and i met in vegas in 2005 (or was it 2006?) and then again when we went to austin, tx and when he would visit sf.

first off, new orleans (aka nola) was HOT and humid. i did a lot of sweating and smelling but stupidly only brought one casual outfit and three dresses. packing fail on my part....

day 1-we checked into the hotel and headed out to EAT. jon had told us about a restaurant called stanley's that had the best soft shell crab po' boys. we ordered one of those and soft shell crab eggs benedict. both were super yum but semi heavy. the best part about the meal was the hot sauce! (crystal's-official hot sauce of the new orleans saints btw). for a linner snack we headed to a place called mother's. it reminded me of katz deli but with soul food. i tasted my first bowl of grits and debris (nola dictionary: debris is the meat and fat drippings off of a roast beef) among other things. that place was awesome-especially for their homemade rasberry jam and biscuits! for dinner we headed to the rehearsal dinner for an authentic crawfish boil! hana and i got there a little late and it was already dark. by that time there was no more carbs left-just a ton of crawfish poured out onto a table. we just ate and ate and ate and there were still a ton of crawfish left! i got to meet hana and jon's uw friends at the boil and we headed out to bourbon street with the promise that jon would come meet us later that night.

wow bourbon street was so crazy awesome it deserves its own paragraph. it totally reminded me of dublin with people all over the place. it was even crazier because there was music blasting from the bars and people on the balconies above throwing beads. (dont worry, no boobs were shown by me and anyone around me) oh and did i mention that alcohol was CHEAP? there were shops that sold hurricanes (=red death) and grenades (=neon green death) and others that looked like a slurpee store but all the slurpees had different types of alcohol in them. so so fun and so so crazy! we ended up at an irish bar with an outdoor area for the night which was a little less crazy.

day 2-nursing my hangover. just kidding! hana and i headed back to mother's to try more of their awesome food. this time we tried the crawfish etouffee even though you would THINK we were sick of crawfish from the night before.

after lunch mon and i decided to go for a run to help us train for our relay race. lemme just tell you that 2 miles in humidity feels like 10 miles. my priss ass is so used to running in the gym that i simply couldnt run the 2 miles! i ended up going to the gym at the hotel to run more and then immediately jumped into the pool (one of the best feelings in the world!)

around 530 we headed to the W for the wedding. it was gorgeous and so was the bride! and true to new orleans fashion we paraded with a jazz band down to the reception dinner restaurant (paul k's which is the number one caterer in nola) i cant rave enough about this meal. it was the best meal ive had in a while. hana ordered the fried green tomatoes and crawfish etouffee. i had the crab cake and the blackened drum. holy crap just thinking about the food makes me salivate. and not to mention the BEST bread pudding for dessert. oh...and it was open bar top top shelf. talk about an awesome wedding.

then it was back to bourbon street and surprisingly back to the same irish bar as before. it was just that fun!!

overall nola = awesome (and way better than vegas) i want to go back. like NOW.

at least one resolution followed through

ive been so blessed this year - its only april and ive been able to travel to cabo, dublin and new orleans! not only that, i can check off my new years resolution of "travel to two new places". how exciting!!!

ji kang ga nai

sometimes i wish there were more hours in the day for me to do stuff besides work. it seems like the few hours after work are so freakin precious and time passes by way to quickly when i dont want it to. meanwhile, i can spend minutes at work just staring at the time or typing away and it seems like FOREVER but its not!! argh.

btw, how the heck is it already april!?

a life without smart phones

today i was in line with my friend grace at whole foods and she asked me if i would be able to go back from a regular phone to a smart phone. i told her that i think i might be thankful for it. i seriously think we are addicted to our phones. im constantly checking it and using it as a "im bored" fix. are our attention spans just getting shorter?

it also REALLY annoys me when im at dinner with people and they are always on their phones. ugh it would be so nice to just have a meal with friends and not worry about who is calling or that email or blah blah. i remember when people used to talk about blackberries and joke they were crackberries. umm...ALL SMART PHONES ARE LIKE CRACK.

cant someone write a column on social etiquette about cell phone use and cant it become taboo to use your cell at dinner? pleeeease?!!?!?

recognition

i got promoted this week. it's good to know that i get recognition for having two all nighters and working my butt off last year. it's time to make this next year a crazy one and work even harder.

this is just the motivation i needed to keep myself busy and working hard for busy season which is just around the corner!

yay me!

nice to meet you kelly o'shaughnessy!!

i finally get to write about my dublin experience! unfortunately our trip was cut one day short and we spent one night innyc but that's what happens when you travel on standby....i call it EXTREME traveling. luckily the hotel did not charge us for our cancellation since we were still staying two nights.

so after work on thursday amish, meeks and thomas meet me at penn station and we head to jfk to our aer lingus flight. did you know aer lingus charges for alcohol on international flights? NOT COOL. they also dont provide an overnight kit with an eye mask and stuff to make it a comfortable flight. i only slept 3 hours on the 5 hours flight because i was watching easy A (movies were still free!) and the stewardesses were going around the entire flight selling duty free items. another NOT COOL thing about aer lingus!

friday morning the four of us arrive bright eyed and bushy tailed (NOT) into dublin and take a cab to our hotel. we stayed at the central hotel which was exactly that-right smack dab in the center of everything. the only time we had to take a motor vehicle as transportation was to and from the airport. otherwise we were able to walk everywhere.

first stop was lunch at cornucopia. apparently it is the oldest vegetarian restaurant in dublin. second stop was THE GUINNESS BREWERY! this building is a must if you head to dublin. not only do you get to see how guinness is brewed, but at the end of the tour you end up in this amazing room withpanoramic views of dublin and of course a free pint of guinness. we were so so lucky to be in dublin that day because it was sunny and gorgeous!

next stop is the best place for fish and chips in dublin-burdock's! we found a little grassy area and had a little picnic action!

fastforward to night time when we decided to do our very own pub crawl! another cool thing about our hotel is they had this bar called the library bar with huge chairs and books lining the walls that served awesome irish coffees. we of course started there and proceeded to hit up at least 5 other bars and didnt sleep until 4 am! one of the bars had the best sampler platter (which they called "after work nibblers") my fav on the platter were the chicken wings...id have to say they were one of the best ive ever had! while on our pub crawl we encountered gypsies begging formoney which made me and meeks so angry and in our insobriety yelled at them. that was basically when it was time to head home to eat halal food that we discovered and introduce the boys to the writing game.

the next morning amish found this brunch cafe at the top of a clothing store which reminded me a lot of anthropologie. we had heard that the national leprauchan museum was a must see so we ventured there. in my opinion it wasnt worth the money....end of story.

then we decided to go to this shopping street called grafton street which reminded me a lot of the 3rd street promenade in santa monica. lots of street performers and cute boutiques! that night, which was our last night, we went to a pub where the tables have beer taps in the center. SO AWESOME but so dangerous. we stayed there for a long time and ate traditional irish fare (bangers and mash and guinness beef stew) and watched them do some irish dancing. oh, did i mention we played the writing game AND kings? (btw by the time we were finishing up with kings we had gone through almost 12 pints of beer among the four of us.) a rule that was made during kings was that we had to make up irish names for ourselves (mine was kelly o'shaughnessy) and everyone had to use that name for the rest of the night. the next rule that was made was we had to SING the person's name.

basically....we left the bar to roam the streets of dublin singing each other's irish names. SO. MUCH. FUN.

dublin was hands down one of the best places ive been to. everyone was super friendly (except the gypsies), their accents are super cute, and the city was so incredibly chill. i definitely want to go back in the near future!

next stop....paris? barcelona? amsterdam?