Awesome Day Twenty Nine: Coming Home

I travel a lot.  Not as much as a business person, I suppose, but definitely more than the average person.  I'm on a plane at least once a month--sometimes way more--and as much as I love that feeling of taking off into a new adventure, I really, really love the feeling of landing and coming home.

On Awesome Day Twenty Nine, I did just that.  I came home.

Now, maybe this doesn't sound so Awesome to some of you out there--but if you leave a lot, like I do, then you probably get it.  I love traveling.  I love adventure.  I love exploring new places and cultures and meeting new people.  For me, that is one of my favorite parts about life.

But travel is a funny thing.  While you're busy appreciating a new place, with all its differences and foreign wonders and new approaches, you also find yourself appreciating where you came from in ways you never have before.  At times, you find yourself longing for the mundane that you were excited to leave.  It's a great gift; if I never left, I would never truly appreciate all that I have in my life at home.

(And then when you get home, you miss all the Awesome you saw on your last adventure, and long to leave again--this is the endless cycle known as the "Travel Bug."  Once you have it, you can't get rid of it.)

On Awesome Day Twenty Nine, I wasn't returning from some mind-blowing trip abroad or any kind of backcountry camping adventure that left me longing for hot showers and soft beds.  I was just journeying down the coastline from a trip to San Francisco.  With my family, no less.  And it was a great trip.

Still, I had that familiar flutter in my stomach when I looked out the window and saw the Downtown LA skyline.  I soaked in the warmth of the overly hot late summer LA sunshine.  I immediately had an appetite for tacos served out of a truck.  I was even happy to go straight to work from the airport, smiling my way through a (pretty terrible) $40 shift at the bar after a five day break from it all.  (It's amazing what going away can do.)

I can't even explain the Awesomeness of returning home to my mini-family.  The warm hug from a boyfriend I haven't seen in days and the excitement of furry puppy-blurs zooming around the apartment was a highlight to the whole month of Awesome.

There really is no place like home.






In Other Awesome News:  My new passport came today!!  Kudos to the State Department for getting that back to me in less than the estimated time (it's only been nine days).  I guess I'm ready to leave again...

Awesome Day Twenty Eight: A Brief Trip to Prison

For me, Alcatraz has always been one of those places shrouded in mystery (I'm guessing this is probably true for most people).  Back when I was a kid, my grandparents got me a shirt as a souvenir from their trip to San Francisco that said "Alcatraz Swimming Team" on it.  When I found out what Alcatraz was, and why that shirt was supposed to be funny, I couldn't stop picturing what such a place would look like.  And why they would send people there.

Fast forward about 20 years.  I have been living in California for nearly a decade (dear god), but trips to  San Francisco have not been numerous.  It's a six hour drive; I don't like six hour drives.  So, despite living on the west coast--and in the same state--as the famed prison for years, it was not until Awesome Day Twenty Eight that I finally made the trip.

You guys, it is worth it.

Technically part of the National Park Service (news to me), Alcatraz has quite the history.  It was the prison of all prisons, the place a person was sent when regular prison just wasn't enough.  But before that, it was a military fortress, armed with canons to protect the newly developing west coast of the United States, and home to the first functional light house on this side of the country.  Later on, it became a military prison, and those military prisoners built the Alcatraz prison that still (mostly) stands today.

(It should also be noted that after Alcatraz was abandoned in 1963, a group of Native American Indians took over the island from 1969-71, hoping to create an Indian cultural center and a place for "Indians of All Tribes."  While this movement didn't last long, it's still pretty cool--and a lot of the graffiti and signage from the time is still preserved on the site.  Didn't learn that in history class.)

Alcatraz is creepy.  It's damp and dimly lit.  The footsteps of the hoards of tourists echo in the silence as everyone listens to his or her individual audio tour.  Take off your headphones and all you hear is an eerie percussive orchestra of the shuffling of feet and the laughing of the seagulls as they slowly reclaim the island.  Fog, of course, clouds the island for much of the morning; standing outside, it's hard to tell there is a world out there, even though San Francisco is only a little over a mile away.  (Later on though, when the fog clears, you can see a pretty stunning view.  The presence of the modern city must have been a rude reminder to the prisoners of how they were missing out.)

It's crumbling and clammy and cold.  It feels haunted, and it probably is.  A lot of people died there, or at least wasted a lot of life there.

That's why you go to Alcatraz, though--to get creeped out.  To see how people who do the worst deeds may have lived out years and years.  To understand just how bad it must have been.  

But beyond the prison life, another lifestyle existed on the island:  Kids grew up there.  Of course this makes sense if you really think about it, but the guards had wives and families--and they all had to live on the island.  A whole community was established on one side of the island, with a small grocery store and an area for the kids to play and everything, and that was how a handful of children grew up, right outside one of the most notorious prisons in history.  Nuts.

I will say it was a little weird to pay money to see how and where people suffered, to marvel at a jail cell that potentially consumed someone's youth, and then to visit a gift shop afterward.  Still, I had to keep reminding myself that a lot of those guys did some really bad stuff.  And the money goes to the National Park Service.  So maybe it's okay...

I can now also say that I'm thoroughly obsessed with the Great Escape of 1962.  I think those guys are still alive, living somewhere in South America.  I hope they are.  That's some badass, smart, crazy stuff they did--and they didn't hurt anyone in the process, like most escape attempts.

If my vote means anything, I think that's pretty Awesome.




In Other Awesome News:  We went to Chez Panisse Cafe in Berkeley.  The food was Awesome.  Our server was Awesome.  Alice Waters is Awesome.  The Slow Food Movement is Awesome.  Yum, yum, Awesome yum.

Awesome Day Twenty Seven: The One Where My Parents Took a Tequila Shot

I am wayyyy late to the game on Awesome Day Twenty Seven.  I blame it on the combination of a booze-filled night followed by an early morning family call time to get ourselves on a bouncy boat ride in the bay (ouch).

BUT STILL.  Here we go.

Awesome Day Twenty Seven was kinda all around Awesome.  Sightseeing in San Francisco, good food, good company, good weather.  Not. Too. Shabby.

But what really made the day Awesome came at the end, in the form of Trivia Night at a packed (and pretty Awesome) gay bar in the Castro--and then culminated with family tequila shots.

Yes.  Family tequila shots.

Now, some of you out there may have families that take shots together; my family is definitely not one of those.  In all my years on this planet, I don't think I've ever seen either of my parents shoot any kind of alcohol.  (Occasionally my dad has been known to drink the extra soy sauce after sushi like a shot, tilting his head back, all in one gulp.  That's the closest image my memory can match.)  And although my mom claims this was not her first, I've never seen any solid proof, so until then...

We didn't win trivia night.  We weren't even close.  There was a round where you had to name pictures of celebrity children, and none of us have kept up on People magazine nearly enough lately.  Our team name--"How do you cure a raging rim fire?"--didn't even win Best Name.   (But in all fairness, there were some creative names out there.)

By the end, though, we were all a little too hammered to even care.  Or at least I was.

Isn't it nice to watch new family traditions blossom?

Awesome Day Twenty Six: A Tour of Two Campuses

I kinda feel like I'm cheating on 30 Days of Awesome by traveling to a San Francisco in the middle of it.  Travel is just Awesome because it's travel.  It's new, it's something different, it's exciting.  The most mundane things are Awesome, and the Awesome things are Super Awesome.  For the next three days of Awesome, Awesome will practically fall into my lap.

So, yeah, I'm cheating.

That being recognized, let's discuss Awesome Day Twenty Six.

It involved two tours of two campuses: One in Menlo Park, and one in Palo Alto, both with my parents and my older bro.

First stop: Facebook.  Facebook was a kind of pilgrimage of sorts.  I love me some social media.  Judge if you will, but at least I admit it.  And even if you aren't as big of a fan of the social network, I'm sure you've wondered what it looks like from the inside.  I have.  Personally, I always pictured a bunch of people working inside a giant version of a desktop computer, hitting buttons and connecting cords like old telephone operators back in the day.

That's not really how it works though.

The thing with Facebook, though, is that they make you sign an NDA (a non-disclosure agreement) saying that you won't share or replicate or talk about or think about any potentially "ground-breaking" technological wonders you witness while on their campus.  So.  There's that.  It's a little hard to write a descriptive blog post after signing something like that with a major entity.  (As such, I could only take pictures of the outside of the campus--which is not exactly exciting.  Enjoy!)

What I will tell you is that the campus is pretty Awesome.  Basically a really nice college campus, the Facebook campus has the same laid back, do-work-but-still-enjoy-your-life feel.  It's got big open spaces and about a dozen different places to eat (most free, if not subsidized).  There's a barber shop and a dentist office and a gym and a clothing boutique.  You don't need to leave (why would you?) for anything (well, maybe to see your family, I suppose).

There are a lot of companies with this approach to working, and as someone who basically faces the opposite every day (working in the restaurant industry under employers who can't even offer us 50% off employee meals anymore, much less health care or full-time employment), it was really interesting to see the other side of it all.  Wouldn't that be nice, I kept thinking.

(On the flip side, I love that I can take weeks off work, have my days free, and am available to pursue a different career path on the side--all while still making a relatively decent living.  Who's to say what's really better in the long run, I suppose.  Ask me in ten years.  I'll probably know then.)

But man, that campus is pretty damn cool.  I would love to have a free salad bar at my disposal every day.  And a juice bar.  And free frozen yogurt.  And health care (did I mention health care?).  And to know that, in general, my creativity and ideas and intelligence were encouraged, fostered, and expected.  That would be pretty cool.  (Maybe I just miss college, now that I think about it...)

Anyway, I reveled in the meta idea that I was on Facebook while in Facebook (and, subsequently, Instagraming from inside Instagram too), ate some good food, and saw a lot of top secret things that I can never tell you about.  (Not really, but maybe kinda, but no, I didn't, don't worry.  I think.)  Pretty Awesome.

Stop two was to Stanford University (a place that rejected me eight years ago, and because of that, I was somewhat bitter while stomping around the grounds).  Not nearly as exciting as Facebook, Stanford was still really pretty.  I'll give it that.  Not a bad place to attain an education, I'm guessing.

We ended the day with tequila drinks and Sprinkles cupcakes (there was dinner in there somewhere too), and a rousing family game of Farkle (I rolled two Farkles in a row, which was kinda my Awesome highlight of the day).

Actually, being with my family was the real Awesome highlight of the day.  Family is really Awesome.  Really, really Awesome.

Awesome Day Twenty Five: The Awesomeness of Flea Markets

If you've been keeping up with 30 Days of Awesome, you know that I love markets.  And festivals.  And generally anything that brings people together outside.  So when Downtown LA (one of my fav hoods in this fine city) announced that it was putting together a flea market--well, you can only imagine my excitement.

To understand the Awesomeness of this in full, I feel like we need to delve into a brief history lesson. Downtown Los Angeles (otherwise known as DTLA) did not used to be so Awesome.  Technically the oldest neighborhood in Los Angeles (it was settled in 1744 as a small pueblo over a century before California was even a state), downtown boomed in the 1920s, 30s, and 40s before the population began to sprawl out in search of other hot spots (in true LA form).  In an attempt to keep business (and people) in downtown LA, a building restriction that had formerly kept buildings in downtown under thirteen stories was lifted in the late 1950s.  This changed the skyline, but didn't necessarily bring back the nightlife or the economy.

Into the later part of the 1900s, Downtown LA was a financial hub of the city, busy with suits from 9-5, but otherwise void of a real population.  Deserted buildings and streets mean that Skid Row, or "Tent City," developed along the streets that had once been the city's finest, making Downtown a center for homeless and deviants and crack heads.  It wasn't exactly friendly.

When I moved to LA eight years ago, DTLA was not touted as a hot spot.  Occasionally, I'd venture into the fashion district for some cheap designer duds, but I'd quickly make my way back to the safe bubble of my college campus.  In the last five years, though, DTLA has been undergoing a kind of (very noticeable) revival.  There are things to do.  New restaurants and bars (some of the best ones in the city, no less) are popping up faster than I can keep track.  Sporting events and major concerts are happening almost daily.  People actually live in the apartment buildings and city lofts (the rent has skyrocketed as a result).  There is innovation and art and development.

Suddenly, everyone has realized the Awesomeness of DTLA, myself included.  Between the art deco buildings, the multi-cultural pockets (Chinatown, Little Tokyo), the various districts (there's even a piñata district, I kid you not), it is a great place to be a tourist.  If you ever have a free day in this city, it would be well spent wandering the streets of downtown (much more than the almost guaranteed wasted time you'll spend in Hollywood or Beverly Hills).

This flea market was just one more sign that DTLA is continuing on its path of unique Awesomeness.

The flea market had its first run last month (it runs the last sunday of every month), but I missed it.  This month, I was going to make it (big shout out to Cesar Flores for remembering it was happening!).  I even powered through a pretty potent hangover (thank you, Awesome Day Twenty Four) and 90 degree weather.   30 Days of Awesome is really keeping me moving.

If you've been to a flea market before, then there's probably not a whole that was different about this one--except the fact that is was sponsored by Red Bull, had a VIP tent, a live DJ, and a wide variety of food trucks (oh, LA...).  But all in all, it was your average assembly of vintage goods, salvaged materials, antique furniture, and handmade trinkets.  Like an interactive museum, flea markets are full of the kind of stuff you just want to touch and fiddle with and examine.

Flea markets are rad, too, because they are different all the time and really have no rules.  A treasure hunt through piles of otherwise useless junk, flea markets are one of the only places left in this country where haggling is widely accepted.  A skill that I developed while living in the Middle East, I was upset when I returned home and couldn't talk down the prices of t-shirts at the local mall or barter for a two for one deal that wasn't advertised (I got a lot of weird stares during that culture re-adjustment).

Flea markets are a safe haven for the die hard haggler.  And I can do it in English.  Awesome.

We left with two old tiki glasses, a set of vintage champagne glasses, some antique keys, a hand etched bamboo iphone case, and some homemade lip balm.

I'll also take this moment to mention that the last Sunday Sessions at Grand Park in Downtown was on Awesome Day Twenty Five as well.  Talk about another super Awesome event to make DTLA uniquely cool.  Free music all day with a great community vibe set against the backdrop of high rises and palm trees.  (My phone was dead, or I would have taken a picture; you'll just have to believe me on this one, or go see it for yourself next summer.)

Those of you on the west side are missing out on some serious Awesome on the east side these days.

Awesome Day Twenty-Four: Costume Parties

I don't dress up enough.  I kinda forgot how fun it is to be someone else for a night, or just to wear something crazy and unusual.  I used to be in plays and musicals and wear costumes and heavy make-up pretty often.  Now it's only at halloween--and even then, I've been out of the country for the last two years when halloween rolled around.  Super sad.

On Awesome Day Twenty-Four, however, our friend was having his thirtieth birthday party:  A thrift store costume party, meant to celebrate his insistence that turning 30 didn't mean you have to "get married and get fat."  Basically, it was an excuse to drink and celebrate while wearing Awesome clothing.  Can't hate that.

The party description pretty much tells it all.  We were supposed to dress up in clothing we bought at a thrift store, which is a pretty easy task here on the east side of the city.  Thrift stores are on every block; people generally dress in thrift store clothing daily.  I guess the asterisk was that we should get clothes that we wouldn't normally rock.  (And even then, on this side of the city, anything goes, so who's to say  it's a purchase made in vain?)

I found myself a nice marching band hat and a 1950s style tropical dress (they may not have matched, but they sure were fun to wear together).  Cesar got himself a janitor (Or was it pilot? Or maybe an astronaut?) jumpsuit.

We finished off the night at the Short Stop (of course) where photobooth ensued (of course).  And then we got tacos from my favorite taco truck (Ariza's in Echo Park, they are hands down the best.)

You guys, it was saturday night--and I didn't have to bartend for the first saturday in weeks.   

What else was I supposed to do?  

Awesome Day Twenty-Three: A Day Date in DTLA

This week in LA has been summer in full swing.  Sunny, hot, with cloudless skies, these are the kinds of days where you want to wear as little as possible, and preferably be either poolside with a margarita or at the beach sneaking ice cold beers out of a cooler when beach patrol isn't looking.

Would if I could.

But Awesome Day Twenty-Three was scheduled to be cut un-Awesomely short by work.  So Cesar and I improvised with a quick (but Awesome) jaunt around Downtown Los Angeles--not exactly a place to cool off, but a cool place to go nonetheless.

First stop was the flower district, home to the LA Flower Mart.  The largest flower market in the country, this place is practically heaven to me.  It smells ah-MAZE-ing, and the flowers are all wholesale prices (aka super cheap).  This is where all the flower shops around LA buy their flowers earrrrrly in the morning; when the public is allowed in later in the day (we were there at 1 p.m.), the pickings are a little more limited, but you wouldn't even notice if no one told you.  I like it because I can buy a whole bunch of flowers, and accompanying vases, for practically nothing.  That kinda stuff makes my day.

Next stop was kinda the real reason we went to downtown: Ice cream.  It's not quite the same as a pool or the beach, but real, homemade ice cream is the next best thing on a hot summer day--especially when it's bicycle churned and organic.  Yep, bicycle churned.  A new place in DTLA just opened serving up small batch homemade ice cream, powered by bicycles.  They even make their own waffle cones.  This place is totally Awesome, and their ice cream is reaaaallllly good.

You can even sign up to be a peddler for them, to help make the ice cream and get free ice cream in return.  (Of course we both signed up--I'm going to pretend it counts as a workout.)

Flowers and ice cream: The way to my heart.