After the first few footsteps in Gare du Nord, I knew our vacation’s time for adventure had come. Trying to hide my “holy shit, I don’t remember any French” face, I guided us to where all the taxis were hovering. I flagged one down, and the first words that came out of my mouth were not perfect French. Far from that, they weren’t even in broken French! It probably would have been excusable if I’d gave it a shot in Spanish/French, but nope. I might as well have been wearing a Hawaiian short sleeve button-up shirt, because this was me:  “Excuse me, Do you speak English?”.
Luckily, the cabbie said “Yes” and we managed to get to our hotel, giggling the whole way there because we just had a small preview of what our next 3 days were going to be like.

We stayed at the Hotel Eiffel Capitol Paris, a pretty modest little place that made up for its lack of modern amenities by its service, charm and above all: location. We were three blocks away from the Eiffel Tower, which we went and saw right after we put our suitcases away. And we saw it again, and again and again.

Time for the list!

• Unlike England, Paris was difficult to get around in. Sure, it was partly because everything seems to be named the same: Take two spoonfuls of maple syrup, hold your breath, and all the subway stops end up sounding the same.
  In addition to the language barrier, the subway is not entirely a subway. There is a combination of underground trams, above-ground trains and inter-city long-distance trains that make it worthwhile to double-check what train you’re getting on. Fortunately, we didn’t end up taking a train to anywhere we didn’t want to go, but we did sit on a train that didn’t move for 5 minutes until an inspector came by to politely ask us to disembark, since we had arrived to the end of the line for the day, since the rest of the route was under construction.
• Paris was the place where we wanted to be for our first anniversary of married life. In fact, that’s why we planned our trip! The other cities, all the other stuff… that’s just filler. Really awesome, memorable filler.
• The Eiffel tower is great. We did many things around it, as it meant something for Kelly and I before we even got there (and now it means even more).
  We took the elevator to the very top (reservations are the way to go!, we waited 5 minutes with a dozen people unlike the poor fools that were in line for hours with hundreds of others), took pictures and marveled at how vast and humongous Paris is.
  On one evening, we decided to go have an dinner appetizer on the fields by the tower and wait until the sun set and the tower is lit up.
  
  It turns out that this is a very popular thing to do, even amongst Parisians. Right next to us was a group of about six young adults that were not only obviously locals, but painfully superior in their partying ways: They had coolers full of hard alcohol, mixers, champagne, wine and beer. Oh, wait, they’re locals, so don’t forget to include the cigarettes that they all smoke like it’s the age before knowing that they’re cancer sticks. Anyway, these guys were pretty loud and fun to watch. We debated befriending them, but we had enough for ourselves with our modest plate of cured meats and a little wine bottle.
• Besides the Eiffel Tower reservations, we didn’t have much planned. We figured we’d play it by ear, and that’s how we ended up going to the Louvre on the day that it was closed. Oh well, we still got to walk around a lot.
• Since the subway was more trouble than it seemed to be worth to us, we ended up walking around a lot. This yielded a much richer experience in my opinion, there’s no way we would have walked by what seemed like an abandoned public showers underground plaza – and was now being used instead as a gigantic urinal that you could smell from a block away.
• One of the most picturesque walks we did was from the top of the Avenue des Champs Élysées to the Arc de Triomphe. Walking past famous shops, seeing people ranging from dressed up model wannabes to the stereotypical fat tourist, being almost run over by someone on a Vespa or trying to take a picture without a huge tour bus in it, we could have spent all day just hanging out there and not getting bored.
• Eating in Paris was pretty fun. Most of the fun comes from not knowing what something on the menu means and ordering it anyway by pointing a finger to it.
  However, most restaurants cater pretty well to foreigners, despite the preconception that the French will treat you like a second class human if you don’t parler le français. Once you understand that in Europe, waiters are laid back and you have to be assertive, the whole feeling of “service sucks” goes out the window. I have no complaints about the way we were treated, au contraire.
  While on the subject of food, I do have to say: The French know how to make fries, but they don’t know how to eat them. Mayonnaise is not complimentary at all!
• The gypsies are present in Paris, but they share their annoying ways with trinket salesmen with some sort of African origin. The gypsies hustle with their petitions just like in London, but the African tchotchke slingers are all over the place with tiny Eiffel Towers, magnets, t-shirts and whatever else one could imagine would be a good souvenir. They are all ready to take off in a split second, with all their goods on a blanket that transforms into a bag with a draw string.
  We saw this in action a lot by the Eiffel Tower, where the way of the black market (ouch, no pun intended) is to whistle when a cop is near. Suddenly, you see a bunch of thin and dark-skinned men running in one direction, and they’re all smiling and laughing because they know they could run two marathons before a pansy cop in full uniform would catch them.

Our visit to France went pretty smoothly, except for the very last hours. We boarded our train to our next destination, settled into our seats and we were away! Relaxing and looking forward to the rest of our trip, we weren’t expecting the bucket of ice-cold water that was coming our way.
The train captain came by asking for tickets, we handed him our passes. He told us that there was a problem, and that we hadn’t gotten our pass validated right before boarding, and we were going to have to pay a fine of €150 because we were missing a stamp. He gave us a shake of his head, literally asked us: “Have you not read the tickets’ instructions?”, told us to get our stuff together and that he’d be back to see what could be done.
Freaking out because that was a lot of money, we read and re-read the train pass booklets. He was right, we apparently needed to check-in before we used the pass on Continental Europe (this train pass didn’t count for the Chunnel trip, but was our transportation for everything else). It would have taken us less than 5 minutes to get it validated, but we were already miles away from Paris.
After about 10 minutes of panic, Captain MeanPants showed up again. He told us that he’d decided to waive the fine and proceeded to stamp our passes without much problem. Although relieved that we didn’t have to spend a ton of money to cover up for a small oversight, we couldn’t help but wonder why he had to be so rude about it all. Sure, we could have paid attention to every single word on the tickets, but if he had the power and ability to make it all work out with a simple little stamp, we only had one conclusion to draw from this experience: he was a dick because he could, and also, because he’s French.

We certainly look back into our time in Paris with much fondness, despite the small hiccups. The many wonderful memories will definitely outlast the bitter time on the train. Even so, we have even gotten to the point where we can laugh about it all, and that’s when you know that not even a snotty train captain can ruin traveling with your better half.

Oh yeah, the pictures are here: http://www.flickr.com/photos/nicoyogui/sets/72157627273975309/

London:

• We stayed at the Waterloo Novotel. It was a very nice hotel, just a couple of blocks away from the subway (aka, the Tube) and also from the Parliament. The only bad thing about the hotel was that they didn’t include breakfast. I don’t think pegging the hotel for the rude Italian tourists would be fair, so I’ll leave that for later.
• England was definitely the easiest city to get around in that we visited. Perhaps this was because the maps we got were well designed, clear and understandable. Perhaps it had to do with everything being in English, and the lack of a language barrier. It definitely helped that the Tube was straight forward and not a spaghetti-like mess of lines and stops.
• It only rained once on us! We were expecting to experience the famous London crappy weather, but we saw the sunshine more than half the time we were there. However, when it did rain, it was pretty awesome, and we walked around under an umbrella in the early evening as we tried to find a place to eat. The day after the rainy night, there were puddles everywhere.
• For anyone traveling to London for more than a couple of days, look into the London Pass. We had one, and it helped us figure out what we wanted to see, and there are plenty of discounts in there that in the end, the Pass ends up paying for itself. We even got a free canal trip out of it, which saved us time and gave us a unique view that we probably wouldn’t have sprung for if we had to pay for it.
• There are tons of tourists everywhere! Specially with the “nice” weather, walking around the major attractions (the Big Ben, for example) was pretty hectic. People pile up trying to get a picture, gypsies bring on the hustle and try to get you to sign a petition of some sort(which I think is a distraction to get into your pockets, bags and purses). On one hand, it’s a pretty colorful experience because there are people from all over the world, but it can be a bit stressful if you’re not ready for it. Luckily, we didn’t have any bad experiences (or got robbed by a gypsy).
• On one day, we walked several miles and tried squeezing in as many sights as we could. Our feet got pretty tired early in the day, but we kept on keeping on.
• An early morning, we took a trip to Abbey Road, which turned out to be lots of fun and costing us a trip on the subway and nothing else. We crossed Abbey Road on the same intersection as the famous Beatles album cover, and got tons of pictures.
  Kelly told her mom that we’d be there, and since it was early morning, it was only about 10pm in Reno. Kelly’s mom happened to be looking at the Abbey Road webcam, and saw us goofing off live over the internet! She says that she could hear us laughing and yelling “Go over there!” and counting down for pictures and the like. Good times!
• As many will tell you, the most forgettable thing about London is the food. Our best meal was at an Indian restaurant! We did experience “pub food” at a very friendly little joint near the hotel.
  If I had to talk about our culinary experience in England, it’d be pretty simple to explain: Fish & Chips, Indian food and above all: beer.

Liverpool:

• We took a day trip to Liverpool because we wanted to do the Magical Mystery Tour. Kelly is a huge Beatles fan and looked forward to this for a long time. I like them too, but I pale in comparison to Kelly’s knowledge of their history and music.
• The trip started by taking a train from London to Liverpool. It was my first time on a train, ever!
• From the Liverpool train station, we walked all the way to the Beatles Story museum. It’s a self-guided audio tour that takes a good hour or more to go through. I learned lots of new Beatles trivia, got to hear some music from before the band was official and enjoy my wife being a happy fangirl.
• After the museum, we got on with the actual tour.  The bus was pretty goofy, very old fashioned and smelled like cabbage. Ok, maybe it didn’t smell like cabbage, but it wasn’t a fresh smell either.
  
  The bus took us around to many places in Liverpool, like the houses were each of the Beatles were born or raised. Everytime we went to a place that had a song named after it, they played the song through the bus; for example: “Penny Lane” and “Strawberry Fields”. Pretty fun!
  We’d stop at most of the places and take pictures. A total act of herding tourists, but we enjoyed playing our part and we absolutely got out, took pictures and looked around with big eyes taking it all in.
• The tour guide on the bus definitely made this worthwhile. We had to look him up after we got home, so we’re not 100% sure about his name being Neil Brannan. Anyway, he was funny, witty and shared a lot of cool stories about the Beatles. He was even in the movie “In His Life: The John Lennon Story“. Here’s a YouTube clip I found of him giving out the tour: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9ZFAk8lqrSQ. If you’re going to Liverpool, do this!
• Liverpool was a perfect one-day trip. We got in, we did everything we wanted to do and we even had time to spare to hang out downtown. We debated going to Stonehenge and having a day trip for that as well, but it just didn’t happen. No regrets though, Liverpool was definitely worth it and a very cherished memory.

All of the pictures from England are on Flickr, so go there to see a bit of what we saw. Here’s a link: http://www.flickr.com/photos/nicoyogui/sets/72157627396790814/

• Leave Reno at 3AM (in about 6 hours!). Destination: San Francisco. By car.
• Leave San Francisco at noonish. Destination: Heathrow, London, England.
• England – Paris via the fancy Eurostar.
• Paris to Amsterdam in some sort of high-speed train.
• Amsterdam to Berlin.
• Berlin to San Francisco.
• Drive from San Francisco and get home.

We’re so excited! Bags are packed, camera batteries are ready, and our passports and plane/train tickets are lined up.
We don’t have any idea of when we’ll be getting online again, but if I can, I might try to push a picture or a small update up to here… otherwise, look for a trip report sometime in August!

Au revoir,

The main lasting impression about Fiji in itself that I can share is that the people there are wonderful. From the moment we stepped in the Nadi airport, we were greeted by genuine smiles (saying Bula!).
We were at the very end of the customs line, so we were one of the last people from our flight to get out to the transportation area, where a van was supposed to pick us up to take us to our hotel for the night. But since we were holding up the van with a few people, the van left us behind… and one of the manager from Rosie Holidays took us, and was totally cool about it.

But anyway, more to the what-when-where of the trip report, as it should be!

The first night we landed into Nadi after dark, so we couldn’t go to our resort because it was on another island, and they don’t navigate to small islands at night. So we were taken to a hotel in the mainland, Sofitel. We didn’t really get to enjoy it much, because we were so tired from traveling that we pretty much ate, went to sleep, woke up, ate, and left.

After an hour-long boat ride in the Captain’s lounge, we arrived at our destination: Tokoriki Island Resort. Our boat was too big to come near shore, so the resort from the island sent a small boat to pick us up. About 12 people fit in the boat, with our luggage and all. Getting out of the boat, my feet landed on the beach, where I got my feet both in the soft sand and the warm water at once. I probably smiled from ear to ear.

The next thing that happened was the welcoming. While our paperwork was checked, a fresh fruit beverage was handed to us, and the manager Ramsey gave us a welcome speech. The end of the speech consisted of him and most of the staff within earshot singing to us. Check out this video, which even though is not us, shows you just how happy everyone that is greeted in such a way looks. We sure were!

From there, we were shown to our room. Ramsey himself (who I found very appropriately named akin to Ramses, because he is huge and imposing) showed us in, and told us “Welcome home”.

The decorations in our cabin bure had fresh flowers as decorations everywhere, but what they did to our bed took the cake. Kelly was speechless, and we were both feeling indeed very welcome, and at home as well. The magic had started.

Our daily activities consisted of sleeping in, enjoying our delicious meals from the very tasty resort kitchen (which is a VERY good thing if you’re going to an island that doesn’t have anything but a hotel on it!), sunbathing by the pool or on the beach, taking pictures and enjoying each other.

One of the most unique things we did was visiting Yanuya village, where most of the resort staff live and commute to and from by boat every day. We took a small boat with a few other people and a couple of “guides”, who were actually young men who live there and do work at the resort.
We were shown around the village, had a Kava ceremony with the Chief, checked out the women’s art market and visited the school.
Most people would say that Fiji is the 3rd world. This island only has electricity from 6 to 9pm, most houses consist of  metal sheets nailed together to form a one-box room, there barely is phone service and you can’t even think of using the internet. But they seem so happy.
We saw three toddlers playing together, with a plastic yellow toy bucket full of sand and dirt. It was so simple and just plain awesome. That kind of thing really makes you think and wonder about some of the things that we see everyday in the “first” world and we accept to be the norm.

This all ties in with how nice Fijians are. They’re well aware of how much they depend on tourism, but I don’t think that’s all there’s to it. Take for example tipping, which is not expected nor demanded; people are nice to you not because they’re trying to get some extra coin out of you. Also, even when we saw them talking in Fijian amongst each other, there was always laughter, smiles and a jovial tone. I might have a skewed point of view, but I’m comfortable in saying that Fijians are easily some of the nicest people on this planet. Whatever they’re doing as a culture, seems to put a lot of value on respect and friendliness, and many other cultures could stand to learn from this one.

On a more personal level, my favorite thing about our entire honeymoon was spending it with my wife. It seems obvious, but it’s also important. The moments leading up to our wedding were busy, and we didn’t get to enjoy each other as much. Having two weeks to ourselves, where we spent every minute next to each other, was the perfect way to start our marriage. We shared many memories, and we’ll always be able to look back on when we got married and remember the dreamy honeymoon before any of the busyness of the actual wedding.

We took lots of pictures, but there are some particular special ones there. We took pictures at sunset, every night. I’d set the camera on a tripod, place Kelly somewhere on the frame, get all photo-nerdy with aperture and exposure settings, set a 10 second timer and run to get in the picture. We would do this at least a handful of times, to make sure we got at least one good picture for every night we spent in our little paradise island.

Looking at those pictures makes me happy. I’m a lucky person, and the pictures remind me of it. I’m very lucky and very grateful of being able to experience a place like Fiji, with its wonderful people, incredible landscapes and warm weather. But above all, I realize that I’m the luckiest (and most grateful) when I think that I’m sharing all this with a wife that surpasses any dream I could have.

———–

Oh, one last thing which is just a funny anecdote: When we were leaving Fiji, on the boat ride to the airport, something strange happened. A song that we heard at a most random time in our trip to Argentina came on the radio: Gangster’s Paradise, by Coolio. We looked at each other in disbelief, and agreed that from now on, we’re bound to hear this obscure hit from our youth when we’re abroad, traveling together. Which we hope is often, and plentiful.

Tomorrow, we leave on our honeymoon. The destination: Australia (Sydney and Cairns) and Fiji. Oooooh yeah!
We’re packing our suitcases right now, so I’ll have to share about our wedding day when we come back from our honeymoon, in a couple of weeks.

Until then,

~The Aguileras

I’m really excited about all this. For the last week I’ve been waking up from my sleep with thoughts related to the event on Sunday: Do I have everything on my checklist? Am I going to be in shape enough to not bonk half-way through? Am I going to make it to the venue on time? Thankfully, I’m feeling pretty well prepared, so I can answer: Yes, I have everything; no, I’m not going to bonk in the middle of it; and maybe, but who cares if an old lady passes me.

I’m sure I could have trained harder and longer, but I’m pretty satisfied with what I’ve done, so I’m not regretting anything. The hardest part of all the training has been the time juggling, because time I spent sweating was time I spent away from Kelly.
Regardless, she’s been super supportive and encouraging, and I couldn’t have gotten to where I am if it wasn’t for her.

She’s so awesome that she’ll be traveling all the way to Silicon Valley with me (a total of about 8 hours traveling, round-trip) just to see me get in a wetsuit, disappear for about 45 minutes, get on my bike, disappear for an hour or more, come back to leave the bike and disappear for another hour, while I run. Triathlons are not a very good spectator sport (unless it’s on TV!), so I’ll be owing Kelly a big one for being there for me.
But in truth, I’m very excited that she’ll be there, even if I’ll only see her for a few minutes while the race is actually on. I’m sure that seeing her as I go through my transitions will give me a much needed morale boost, and knowing that she’s waiting for me at the finish line will make me want to finish faster!

I really had no idea where this blog post was going to go, but I wanted to mention how excited I am about what’s in store for me this coming Sunday, and to also give a shout-out to my BB for being so wonderful.

Wish me luck! I’ll post results and stories after Sunday.

Plans to make it a memorable event had been in the making for many days, and the payoff was grand.

We woke up early, and drove to South Lake Tahoe. Reservations for Montbleu and dinner were taken care of, and Kelly even scheduled us for a fancy couple’s massage at the spa in the hotel.

When we checked into the hotel, I was a bit disappointed about our view. Our window showed us the roof of some buildings, and a mountain that wasn’t even covered in snow. Yuck!
I called the front desk and asked if we could upgrade. They told me that they’d have a nicer room available in an hour or so (for a small fee, of course), so we decided to take the offer. The new room would be facing Lake Tahoe, a sight well worth a small upgrade fee.

We had a couple of hours to kill before our massage appointment, and I had just the plan for that time. We walked over to the Heavenly village to catch a gondola ride to the top of the mountain. It was cold and windy out, but my hands were sweating.

Luckily for us, we managed to get in a gondola by ourselves. The sky was cloudy, but the lake was a very deep blue, so the views we were about to take in got us excited. Kelly sat with her back to the lake, as I took a few pictures of her with Lake Tahoe in the background.
I sat next to her, and whispered some sweet things in her ear. We kissed a couple of times, celebrating our anniversary with a very romantic and private ride. Seizing the perfect moment, I told kelly to “Look at the lake, it’s so pretty!”.

When she turned around to look back at me, she found me on one knee, with a ring on my hand and a huge smile on my face. I simply asked her: “Will you marry me?”, and she said yes. The ring went on her finger, and we spent the rest of the ride looking deep into each other’s eyes.

When we arrived to the top, we walked around in bliss, enjoying the landscape, the view, and our love for each other. Kelly had been questioning me about when I was going to ask for her hand, and little did she know that I’d been planning it all along.

When we first talked about such things, many months ago, she told me that she wanted three things: A ring (she showed me a picture of “a ring”), a private circumstance, and a surprise.
I took these things to heart, and made sure that they were true at the moment that I went down on my knee. Her face told me I’d surprised her. Being on a little cart dangling from a wire above pine trees and snow on the side of a mountain… that’s rather private, I’d say. Happily, the ring requirement was also met, and I did actually hear her say “wow” a couple of times. Success!

When we went back to the hotel, we headed to the front desk to check in into our new and upgraded room. Kelly totally pulled a move from Friends (the TV show) and announced to the concierge that we had just gotten engaged. Luckily for us, it worked! The manager was there by coincidence, and we got a free upgrade to a mini-suite.

We had our couple’s massage at the spa in the hotel, and it was wonderfully relaxing. It was a royal treat to our bodies. The therapists were super nice, and we both felt at the end as if they had transmitted a lot of positive energy our way. If they hadn’t disappeared after leaving the room for us to get dressed, I probably would have given them a hug.

The last item on our anniversary plans involved a fancy dinner at Evan’s, the fanciest restaurant I could find. It had great reviews on Yelp and Zagat, so we had to check it out.
Dinner was very tasty , and the things we ate were straight out of Top Chef. However, the highlight of the experience wasn’t the incredible food. There was a small wedding party dining there, with the bride wearing her white dress and the groom in a tuxedo and all. I took it to be a very good sign of the day’s events.

In the end, the weekend turned out to be out of a movie. We celebrated our year of falling in love with each other, and we also celebrated our promise to continue to love each other forevermore.

• We left on Thursday, September 3rd. It took us about 3 hours to arrive to our camping spot. Not bad!
• One of the first people we saw at Burning Man was a man in his late 40s, wearing nothing but shoes and a hat. His testicles were dangling around, remarkably stretched. The heat probably was to blame for that.
  At any rate, Kelly was welcomed by cock and balls. We gave the guy a nice and cold beer, and chatted it for a few minutes. It was a great way to start, with a friendly naked guy.
• Our camp, BRCU, was awesome. We had two big domes, one for partying (with our DJ, dance floor and lights) and the other one for chilling out (full of kiddie swimming pools, overflowing with stuffed animals). It was home for a few days, and it really kicked a lot of ass.
• There was a lot dust wind. Of course there’s dust, it’s a dry lake bed. And the dust is a pleasant experience as long as the wind comes and goes, or is a breeze.
  On Friday, Saturday and Sunday, the wind was strong. It was also consistent, starting at around 10am and dying down sometime around 11pm. Ridiculous, crazy and annoying.
  What’s one to do? Well, you can either find shelter, or you can spontaneously dance.
• I’d always heard the myth that there are a lot of orgies at Burning Man. Well, let’s just say that -without participating!- it’s not a myth.
• On a somewhat related note, and once again without being involved in it, I’ve learned about more and more people into polyamory. I guess my upbringing makes it something that would never work for me, but that my open mind makes it acceptable as long as it’s not shoved into my face.
• Our diets consisted of a lot of canned foods, like Spaghettios. All we used was a couple of plastic spoons, and not even half of a very small camping propane tank.
• The one thing I enjoyed the most this year is easy for me to decide on, and probably easy for you to guess: having Kelly with me.
  We spent most of our time together, sharing our experiences and caring for each other. Every single moment worth remembering involves her as an integral part of that memory, and I wouldn’t have it any other way. I love sharing my life with her!
• The second “best” thing this year was on Saturday morning. We rode our bikes into the “deep playa”, and checked out the random art installations that were there. There’s stuff out there that you can’t see from far away, but it’s definitely worth the shot journey. It’s far away enough from everything else that you don’t hear the incessant music, which is a welcome change.
  While cruising around, we found plenty of art pieces, ranging from a collection of statues to a huge guitar. We’d ride up to something, check it out, look around aimlessly until we saw that there was something out there, and then do it all over again. It was a very wonderful way to spend a day with Kelly.
  I’d like to share about one of the things we found: a typewriter on a tall desk, with a tall chair. There was roll of paper, and the machine seemed to be in very good working condition.
  I climbed on the chair, and while Kelly took some pictures, I figured that I might as well write something. Without difficulty, a love note was born. When I was done, I handed the note to Kelly. She smiled, and climbed on the tall chair to write a note to me.
  The notes that we wrote to each other will be a good addition to a little scrapbook that Kelly is making, but even if those were lost, I’ll never forget how we spent our time together. The fun, the playfulness and the love are things that I’m grateful for, and they sometimes make me wonder how I ended up being so lucky.
• Sleeping in a tent is nice, even with an air mattress. But it’s not nice enough for Burning Man, when your body needs good rest after battling playa whiteouts, climbing on art pieces and cars, dancing, walking and riding bicycles.
  We’ll try to rent an RV for next year, and hopefully we can share with a couple more people, to lower the cost, and share in the awesomeness of having some more comfortable living quarters.
• I’d never really gone and hung out at Center Camp, but this year we went there a handful of times. We had some iced coffee, and sat around enjoying all that goes on.
  The Center Camp scene is apparently what most people stereotype Burning Man to be: hippies hanging out, people doing Yoga, drum circles, dancing. And in a way, the stereotype is true – but with a twist.
  Most people’s stereotype includes the above mentioned activities, and that’s it. My stereotype goes a bit further, and involves the reason why people are doing such things. So of course it’s true that people are doing all those things that some people label as lame, stupid or childish. Of course they’re doing what they want to do. It’s obvious that all they want to do is enjoy themselves, and that there’s at least one place where they can totally freely do it, and that’s at Burning Man.
  I don’t really want to go deeper into how people could have fun in the “default” world, because that’s not what I’m trying to get to. My point is that I don’t understand the criticism of people doing things that they enjoy.
• I took my Canon 40D camera, and took a few pictures. I didn’t have it on me at all times (in fact, I had it with me very little), but when I did, I think I captured some decent photographs. If you’d like to check them out, head on over to my Flickr.I feel like Burning Man is my yearly test of how my photo skills are doing. It’s a good reference point to look back and compare, and -just like last year- I can say that this year’s pictures are better than last year’s. This is a nice feeling!
• Our “exodus” took us 5 and a half hours, with 2 of them being spent on the exit line from Black Rock City to the highway. We left on Sunday, because we were exhausted and ready to get home to our dreamy bed, and anxious to be able to spend at least one day snuggling in the morning. We got home, enjoyed the wonderful feeling of a hot shower, and went to bed.
• On Monday, Labor Day, we woke up 11 hours after having gone to sleep. And then we spent the rest of the day cleaning up, and enjoying each other. We had no regrets of having left on Sunday and missing the Temple burn.
  Our Burning Man experience ended on a high note. Additionally, we would have been dead to the world for the entire week if we had to do all the cleaning we did on Monday during the week, after very busy and stressful times at work. So busy, in fact, that it’s my excuse for posting this almost a whole week later!

Fresh off the plane, and only a few hours later, my dad prepared a monumental asado to usher us into Argentina. Not only that, but we were joined by both my parents, both brothers and their girlfriends, my grandparents and my aunt. It was quite the committee, and even though I expected it, I think it took Kelly by surprise.

That was only a preview of what the next two weeks would be: an incomparable gastronomical journey, where we ingested food in both great quantity and quality. We had a little bit of everything, but I can’t miss the chance to mention some of my (and now Kelly’s!) favorites: milanesas, empanadas, alfajores and lots of delicious wine.

We visited a lot of people and places, and my mom had planned things for most days, which kept us plenty busy. I’m pretty sure Kelly met 90% of the family, all the way up to my grandmother’s sisters.
It was also gratifying to be able to show Kelly where I grew up. I showed her the schools I went to (and the one that inspired my tattoo), the streets I played in, the buses that I rode around and the places where I used to go.

There were a few memorable events that took place, which I will just itemize for brevity’s sake:

• We spent 4 days in a small apartment in downtown Mendoza. The place was very cold, but having to heat it up with precarious gas heaters was only a fraction of the weirdness.
  It was located right above a parking garage, which got unbearably loud as the business day started at 6am. Car alarms, traffic and people being loud woke us up, and would only let us be half-asleep until we gave up and got up half tired, and full cranky.
• On the first night in Mendoza, and in the apartment, Kelly was woken up at 2 in the morning by a very peculiar sound. There was someone driving down the street, with his music on full blast. Apparently, the car stopped at a red light. And the song that he was having all of the city listen to at this time of night was no other than Coolio’s Gangsta’s Paradise.
  When she told me this the next day, the song was stuck in my head for at least two entire days. Thankfully, we found it hilarious.
• We visited a couple of the finest wineries in Mendoza: Fournier and Salentein. We learned about the wine-making process, we sampled lots of delicious wines, and had a wonderful time with the family.
• On Saturday night, Kelly was brushing her teeth when a hose under the sink busted. Water was spraying everywhere, and the only solution was to shut off the main water line. This meant that we couldn’t flush the toilet or shower.
• On Sunday morning, we woke up and packed our stuff, and moved to a very nice hotel for the rest of our stay. Life was much better 6 stories away from downtown traffic, and with much better heating. As an added bonus, we also had internet access and my iPhone came in very handy to catch up and keep in touch with home.
• Hanging out with some of my old friends was just like time had never passed. We met, we talked, we had fun and we said goodbye in a “I’ll see you tomorrow” kind of vibe.

We spent the last 3 days in the country in Buenos Aires. The weather was perfect for walking around, and we did a lot of that: from the Congress to San Telmo (the Tango district), with stops at the Obelisk and the Pink House. We saw lots of things, and chose to walk because it’s better to be able to hear and breathe a city than to see it pass you by if you chose to ride a taxi from one destination to the other. And it’s also a lot nicer to walk when you have someone’s hand to hold in yours.

One of the reasons why we went to Buenos Aires was to check out a soccer game. And that we did. We stood in a long line, with lots of shady characters, and bought tickets from the nicest scalper in the world. Some teenage punk tried to spit at Kelly as we walked past the security line, and we didn’t really know if we were in the right line… but it all worked out, and we made it inside Boca Juniors‘ stadium. Despite Boca losing the match, we had a great time soaking in the fans’ passion, the songs, the fireworks and the entire experience. We even had a choripán from a street vendor on the way out!

We also spent a day walking around the more centric part of Buenos Aires, and we walked up and down Florida Avenue. We had lunch at my favorite restaurant, Los Inmortales. Oh, and I got a Rhodochrosite ring for Kelly, to mark the occasion of our unforgettable trip to my motherland.

You’re probably wondering where all the pictures are. It was hard for me to chose which pictures to include in my post, since there’s a lot of good ones. Instead, you get to look at all of them by clicking the link:
http://www.flickr.com/photos/nicoyogui/sets/72157620641833613/

And that’s that. Well, not really. There’s a lot to it, but I can’t do it justice without writing something akin to an essay. I can sum it all up by saying that it’s always great to see my family and friends, to be home and eat the stuff I grew up eating. But it’s even better to be able to do it in company of the love of my life.

But first, let’s spend Saturday hanging out and relaxing, and not getting stuck in traffic with everyone else.

Instead, we left on Sunday. We checked in at the Oakland Marriot at around 2pm, and right away we got in the BART headed to San Francisco. More specifically, to the Haight-Ashbury neighborhood.
We’d eaten a small breakfast, so by the time we made it there, we were ready to sit down and eat. And what better place to do that than Cha Cha Cha! The place was busy, but luckily we got to sit at the bar right away. A pitcher of sangria, and 3 different dishes later (plus an awesome caramel-covered bread pudding for dessert), we were feeling quite good, and more than satisfied. This is definitely a cool place to eat, and the food is delicious.

After eating, we went for a little walk around Golden Gate Park. Unfortunately, the weather wasn’t cooperating, so we didn’t get to enjoy the beautiful gardens as much, but that’s not saying we didn’t have a good time.
We walked through one of the many gardens, took some silly pictures, and headed back to the Haight.

We went into a few of the shops, killed some time and had some fun. Kelly even found something to wear at Burning Man that we could afford -because there are LOTS of things that would be great for Burning Man, but they’re just too expensive.

On Monday, Memorial Day, we headed out to Berkeley. We stumbled for a while looking for a place to eat, and we ended up going into Ann’s Kitchen, which served a glorious American style breakfast, perfect for the occasion.
The weather Gods (or the spirits of all those fallen soldiers) made this day much nicer, which we welcomed as we walked up and down Telegraph street, and checked out the shops and the diverse crowd that was doing the same thing we were.

We also checked out the UC Berkeley campus, where we proceeded to shmoop on the grass by the library. Good times.

With a lot of time to kill, we went on Wikitravel to see what we could do in the area, and that’s how we found out about the Indian Rock Park. Finding it curious enough, we went and checked it out.
Sure enough, it was just a big rock. But lots of people were there, mostly hanging out, and some practicing rock-climbing, some others photographing and at least a couple smoking marihuana.
From the top of the rock you can see most of the Bay. Sadly, it was mostly covered in fog, but despite that, we enjoyed the panoramic view.

However, the main event of our trip was a Flight of the Conchords concert. They toured the US in 2009, and this was their last stop. We HAD to see them, since Kelly and I both enjoy them.
At around 6pm, we sat on the balcony of the Berkeley Community Threatre. The opening act for FotC was Arj Barker, who played Dave in their HBO series. Little did we know that he’s a stand up comedian, and his routine was a great ice-breaker for what was to come. His style was sometimes very close to Dane Cook, but that’s alright by me, since it makes me laugh.

But then, it actually happened. Lights went dim. And …

Of course, that video is not from the same performance that we saw, but it was similar, and set the tone for what was to come: over an hour of silly songs, and the goofy kind of humor that only New Zealand’s fourth most popular digi-folk paradists provides.
There were lots of laughs, some songs I’d never head before, and a lot of singing along with Bret and Jemaine. It was a great live show, and some of the antics that they put on onstage were worth the ticket and the traveling.

To sum it up, we had a great time, and it was a weekend that won’t be forgotten. Or, to use the vernacular, an EPIC WEEKEND.