If you haven't seen me in the past couple days

You're lucky because I've been the sickest I have since a lonnnng time!

Usually I crush germs inside my body like little bugs (but not really cuz I'm scared of killing bugs), but this one has lasted FOREVER. Well, since Coachella! I actually got sick a few hours before leaving Coachella, so at least the amazing music wasn't ruined by phlegm and bacteria. But for some reason, it won't go away!!!

Mike bought me some flowers to make me feel better! Although if he really knew me, he would have just bought me ice cream:

99 cent chocolate covered cones! Mmmm!!! I ate all the chocolate coating and gave the yucky faux vanilla soft serve to Mike :) I'm the best girlfriend ever:

Maybe its because I refuse to get more sleep, haven't really been eating healthier, and ran 8 miles right before I started to get better, and stayed up till 3:30 AM chatting the night away with one of my best friends who is on Spring Break from med school in NY! and then it was all downhill from there... I was feeling good 2 days after I first got sick, but since I ran last week, my symptoms have been so bad that I am actually considering taking medication... but I decided I'm gonna stick through it and FORCE my body to recover! Fight through, tiny white blood cells!!!

If you haven't been around me, you're lucky also because I've been doing a lot of baking, cooking, and EATING... and I try to pawn off whatever I make to people around me, aka Mike. It's usually the other way around, and people are lining up for freshly baked goods, but not in my case... I brought a batch of mint chocolate cookies to work to share, and only 2 was eaten! I'd like to think it's not cuz my cookies taste like charcoal, but because it's passover. yeah, that must be it...

Since Mike is so fortunate to be in my vicinity, he's been forced to eat cookies, muffins, chocolate covered strawberries, chilli, fish, basically anything I feel like cooking, and the tons of candy that I stash around to keep me happy. I think I introduced the concept of candy and junk food to Mike's house. Can you believe there is a person in existence who doesn't enjoy that stuff?! I refuse to believe it, and instead will just keep making Mike eat them until he is addicted to MSG and saturated and trans fats like moi!

I also cooked for my mom and promised her that whatever I make will be yummy... what a fool she was to believe that one! She should know me better by now and have cooked a back up meal because the one I make is guaranteed to fail. People burn veggies all the time, right?

Also, April is grilled cheese month and I've been craving a grilled cheese sandwich FOREVER! This is from Clementine, which is the most adorable cafe ever and is creating 15 different grilled cheese weekly in honor of the beautiful dish! [Grilled Philly Cheesesteak]

Yummy breakfast with my favs also makes me feel better :D [Apple Walnut French Toast @ Nick's] Hmm... I wonder if I should make my own french toast...

It's SOOOOO nice out that I think I HAVE TO go running today!!! Even though I still feel kinda crappy and I've been drinking so much water that I have to pee ever 10 minutes... but the sun is calling my name!

Lets hope I feel better by friday morning because I'm heading to New Orleans for 4 days for the Jazz Fest and also for heart-attack inducing foods and brain-cells killing drinks!

YAYE!!! :D

LIFE

Here's a list of things that comes from being born with the wanderlust bug. Hopefully I'll keep this blog long enough to be able to document them all when I accomplish them! 

Climb Machu Picchu September 2014

Cruise down the Amazon River September 2014

Visit the pyramids of Egypt, go down the Nile River, ride a camel!

Go to cooking school in Italy or pastry school in France

Participate in La Tomatina in Spain

Go skydiving, bungee jumping, paragliding!
Learn how to fly a plane

Climb Mt. Everest, the Himalayas

Visit every US National Forest and camp out Grand Canyon June 2014; 
Visit the Galopagos Islands
Salmon Run in Alaska

Learn Salsa, Swing or Tango, (become a dance instructor... too ambitious?)

Be part of a band (Drums?)

Own international property --a cabin in the mountains, flat in London

Publish a novel
Wander through the Scottish Highlands for a week+

Go to Architecture School and design my own house

Visit Quebec, Montreal (Once I master French)

Make my own clothes and jewelry

Road trip across America and visit all 50 states

Run a Marathon SF 2011, LA 2013, BOSTON

Hike Half Dome June 2014
Visit Tibet

Go to the World Series
Visit Moscow and St. Petersburg
See the Taj Mahal and get sick on Indian food
Attend the Kentucky Derby

Ride a gondola in Venice

Visit a Renaissance Fair

Perform in a play, choir, and musical

Get a PhD in English Literature or Economics

Visit Japan during the Cherry Blossom blooms

Go to Turkey and get hopped up on turkish coffee, be in between two continents

Learn how to fly a plane

Ride a hot air balloon in New Mexico

Visit the Nordic countries (and become a socialist)

Become a citizen in three countries (US, Taiwan, and counting...)

Watch the World Cup live

Celebrate New Years Eve in Times Square
Travel through New England in the Fall

Learn how to swim, surf!

Be in Mexico for Dia de los Muertos
Go to Myanmar
Take the Orient Express
Sahara Desert April 2013

See the Northern Lights and Alaska, Iceland

Start a charity or non-profit

Visit New Orleans for Jazz Fest

Go to the Olympics

Learn to speak French fluently, and either Spanish and Italian

Black water rafting in New Zealand
Loy Kathrone, the sky lantern festival in Thailand

Grow a garden with LOTS of trees

Oktoberfest in Munich 

Scuba dive off Australia's Great Barrier Reef December 2010

Venice Carneval, Brazil Carneval

Ride through the Panama Canal
Eat chocolate in Belgium August 2013
Cannes Film Festival

Vienna Opera Ball February 2013

Love Parade in Berlin
Read (at least) a book a month
Apple or berry picking October 2014
Open A Swiss bank account (but not really?)
Visit the Taj Mahal (outside of vegas :)
Sell my own goods at the local farmer's market

Monarch Butterfly Migration in Mexico

Wildflower Bloom in South Africa

Great Migration in Tanzania

Visit Antarctica
Eat everything from every country, and document my travels as best I can

Open my own Cafe / Scotch Whiskey Bar

I SURVIVED COACHELLA 2011!

Coachella aka. Hipster Universe aka. there are randomly a lot of Australians and Canadians here!

So here's the rundown of my top favorite shows... I recorded a bunch of videos and if you could see them, Arcade Fire definitely takes the cake in live performances! Not to mention, you can probably see glimpses of Joshua Jackson and Diane Kruger in my video because I was standing right next to them (they would not stop making out)! But the video is gonna take too long to load so... go to an Arcade Fire show!!! :]

These were, hands down, the best bands we saw:

Arcade Fire

The Strokes

The Black Keys
Cold War Kids

Mumford & Sons

Kanye West

Kings of Leon

The Swell Season

Lauryn Hill (who was surprisingly really good live! guys, you know you better... WATCH OUT... that thing that thing that thiiiiiiing)

And the not so good ones... well you can read about those online (like how Ceelo Green was huffing and puffing after 3 songs and they basically cut him off after the 4th, and how every single song by Wiz Kalifa is about weed and rolling papers). We basically watched 10-11 hours of concerts each day, half of it in the sweltering heat, but when the music starts you almost forget that you're about to fall over from being so tired of dancing!

Here's a pic of a small section of Coachella... there were 5 stages playing music at all times, starting from 12pm everyday, until 1am. Unfortunately, I forgot to take pictures of the giant rows of port-a-potties, since I know everyone is dying to know how that looks like!

Sometimes we were close to the stage, sometimes we were SUPER close. Even if it took FOREVER and we were in high-risk suffocation locations! I honestly don't even remember who this picture is of, since we saw so many bands!

Coachella reminds me of when I did Dance Marathon in my sophomore year at UCLA. When I first purchased the ticket/signed up for Dance Marathon, there's was a sense of euphoria... I cant believe I'm actually doing it, I'M GONNA ROCK IT!!!!

Then as the day of the event draws nearer and you start to mentally prepare, your high hits a peak, but in the back of your mind, there's a tiny sense of dread. The idea of stinky, disgusting port a potties and not showering for 3 days followed by intense 100 degree sun exposure, sleeping in a car/tent, eating in your car, changing in your tent, brushing your teeth by your car, being covered in dirt and basically living out of your car for the next couple days... Not the most fun thing to look forward to.

And when you're at your 8th concert of the day(or 13th hour at Dance Marathon) and have been standing and dancing for 9 hours straight, being bumped by people who are just as sweaty and grimy you think to yourself... WHY THE HELL DID I DO THIS?!??

And yet it's an S&M relationship that you just can't get enough of! when Arcade Fire is blasting in your ears and a billion glowing bouncy balls fall from the top of the stage, or you finally hear The Swell Season perform "falling slowly" when you've been waitin 3 years to see them live, or when the flashing lights from Mumford & Sons makes you feel like you're actually high without smoking anything, and when the entire audience is screaming "YOUUUU, your sex is on fiiiire!!!!" to Kings of Leon, or when The Strokes perform mindblowing songs for 90 minutes straight, you remember why you decided to do something so crazy! And even though your legs feel like jelly and you have 3 days worth of sunblock, mud, dirt, and sweat on you, as well as the sweat, sunblock, B.O. and who knows what else that rubbed off from everyone else, it doesn't matter because the euphoria that comes with the music is just so freakin indescribably amazing!

I am actually kind of in love with the whole idea of it all. Bringing a carload of food and alcohol and camping out with your friends and other ppl who love music just as much as you do, chilling out and listening to good beats all day, they even have a small farmers market on site! not a stress in mind except which band you are seeing next! or I guess whether or not it would feel better to keep standing at the moment or chop your legs off...

I would do it again... if there is a lineup worth doing this for! I'm pretty sure I'm still high from inhaling 3 days worth of second-hand weed. By then, I will be a seasoned coachella go-er, and will know all the secrets to making it the best camp experience ever (bring spritzers, hand sanitizer, toilet paper, mini fan, and ok... probably get a hotel room)!

Go next year! :D

HELLS YEAH MUSIC!

COACHELLA IS TOMORROW AND I AM OFFICIALLY EXCITED!!!!!!!

I HAVEN'T EVEN HAD TIME TO LOOK AT THE LINEUP CLOSELY UNTIL NOW, AND IT'S EVEN MORE AWESOME THAN I REMEMBERED!!! There are people I want to see at almost every hour of everyday! SLEEP IS FOR THE WEAK!!!

MOST EXCITED FOR:

The Swell Season
Arcade Fire
The New Pornographers
The Black Keys
Cold War Kids
fun.
Chromeo
The Strokes
Delta Spirit

Also excited for:
The Chemical Brothers
Kings of Leon
Brandon Flowers
Kanye West
Ellie Goulding
Jack's Mannequin
Moving Units
Bright Eyes
Cage the Elephant
Tinie Tempah
Wiz Khalifa
Mumford & Sons
The Felice Brothers

Holstee Manifesto

10 to NYC

After brushing up my "100 Things to do before I leave LA list", I've realized that there are also A TON of things I want to do before I leave for grad school, outside of LA! Come next fall, I will probably have some kind of list for NY too! Hmm... that's a lot of lists for someone who hates lists, huh?

Here are some on my agenda that are already etched in my calendar, and some that I still have yet to plan, but have been etched in my brain for some time now! The countdown begins... let's do these things together before I move across the country!!! :D

1. Coachella ella ella! - 4/15-17

2. Vegas Girl's Trip - 5/20

3. Las Vegas again! - 6/10

4. New Orleans Jazz Festival -4/29- 5/3

5. Hike Half Dome at Yosemite 7/8-7/10

6. Surfing! 4/15- 5/6 (I got me and Mike lessons because he's been wanting to do this forever and sometimes I feel like being nice... maybe I should learn how to swim before I do this huh...)

7. White Water Rafting! 7/8-7/10

8. Palos Verdes 1/2 Marathon - 5/14, UCLA Run/Walk - 5/15 (yes list nazi, I know this is in LA)

9. Run the San Francisco Marathon - 7/31

10. Napa - 7/31 (after the marathon!)

Possibilities (if time and wallet permit):

Hawaii

Seattle + Portland

savoring the simple things

Today was supposed to be Hike Day with my momma! My sister decided to join in too, but of course instead of actually hiking, we found a farmer's market and bought a bunch of stuff and that was about the only walking we did. That's how this family gets things done!

I love spending weekends at home. I savor having silly conversations about life with my high school friends until 2am. Hopefully we will always be able to have these even when we're 50 and our convo topics revolve around menopause and hot flashes and the best cougar-ing strategies :)

I savor the days thats I am home, sleeping in and not feeling bad about it (And by sleeping in I mean getting 8 hours of sleep... bliss)! I savor eating junk food like a fatty when I come home because the snack closet is always stocked and stuffed with cheetos and ruffles and chocolate! And I savor feeling like a little kid when my mom is around and going, "CAN WE PLEASE GO TO SWEET FACTORY?!?!?" And buying a piece of every single candy at the store (goo-filled strawberry gummies and grapefruit slices are bomb).

That is all I have to say for now. Life is simple when I am home, and I love it with a passion :]