Allie in the South of Spain

Parents in Paris Last weekend my parents came to Paris and as I was able to find a cheap flight, I decided to meet them there. They arrived early on Thursday morning and I flew in that same night. I have been to Paris on several occasions before (once with my sister during the Christmas holidays and another with Jose during our honeymoon) but ended up having a very different experience with this visit. It was pretty great! My parents got a hotel in the Latin Quarter, one of the 20 arrondissements (neighborhoods) that is pretty close to the Notre Dame Cathedral. Since it was too expensive for my vacation budget, I decided to find a youth hostel within walking distance. I have stayed in many hostels before but it has been a while since my last time. This hostel was right on a busy street lined with bars and restaurants so it was fairly noisy at night. Add to that 5 more people in my room who came in at all hours of the night and the result was not much sleep before waking up early...

FINALLY!!!! We have finally finished our bedroom. It was the last of all our projects in our apartment that we wanted to accomplish and now it is DONE! I had been holding off for a long time with hanging anything on the walls because I wasn't sure what I wanted exactly. It took one more weekend of motivation and another trip to IKEA, my Mecca, for us to finally complete our bedroom.  Here is how it all started. No furniture, no paint, recently moved in. After the paint then came the contentious construction of our wardrobes (definitely a marriage test if there ever was one). And our bed: We later added a few night stands, curtains, lamps a headboard and a dresser (for some reason I cannot find any pictures of these steps, whoops). Most recently it has been art on the walls and a chair. The final product: So there you have it (though not exactly all the angles). Done for now and no more projects on the horizon. Enjoy these other before and after...

The other day I read a really good blog post about bucket lists and how if they are really to serve the purpose of helping guide your life towards goals they should be flexible, changing over time. (Read it here ). It got me thinking. I first wrote my 30 before 30 list a little over a year ago and figure it's about time to re-evaluate the things I decided I wanted to do before the big 3-0 in 2016. So far I have accomplished 12 things with a 13th in the works for next January (a trip to Turkey we have already booked). Priorities change, life throws you curve balls and some things just don't seem as important as before. That being said, I have decided to make some alterations to my original list. The things that I have completed are crossed off. Some things I have left the same, some I have explained a bit more, some will change thus eliminating others. Here goes the new and improved 30 before 30 list: 1. Go on another cruise. We are still checking into the possibilities of an...

Did you know that the World Cup soccer tournament starts soon? If you live in a country which revolves around this sport (anywhere outside the US) then chances are you do. Around these parts almost all advertisements are focusing on this big event. (Mostly for televisions and team apparel so that you can follow the action in high def and sporting new duds). Jose has already let me know that he plans on watching all (or as much as he can) of the 64 games soon to be broadcasted. This is going to be my personal hell. But as a good wife I understand that the World Cup only comes around once every 4 years (thank God) and I can appreciate that Jose has been trying to get me excited for it. He first bought me a team USA t-shirt to wear while we cheer on America. Apparently they are in a pretty difficult bracket with Germany, Portugal and Ghana so he has also been preparing me for disappointment. Next game the World Cup sticker album (I wrote about Jose's obsession with these cromos bef...

If you have been following my blog for a while you know that I love the yearly Eurovision song competition which takes place each May and features musical performances from countries around the continent. This year Eurovision was in Copenhagen as it moved to the location of the home country of the winner from the last year. The hosts´did a great job with the show and I especially liked how they asked each contestant to create their country´s flag in a unique way to be shown during the introduction to their song. I first discovered this phenomena two years ago (read about it here ) and followed last year´s competition as well ( this blog ). I can honestly say that 2014 had a pretty awesome line-up of songs and artists so I was excited to watch. This was only compounded by the fact that I actually liked the song to be performed by the Spanish singer, Ruth Lorenzo, and had heard that she was one of the favorites to win. Though I think she rocked her performance, she came in 10th plac...

Jose and I had some days off a few weeks ago thanks to the celebration of Seville's fair. We had bought a Groupon for a rural house a while back and decided to take advantage of our free days to go stay in a cabin in the mountains of Cadiz, specifically in a small village called Prado del Rey. We really enjoy this kind of weekend away because we get to know a new place while spending some time outside in the great outdoors. Plus as a bonus we get to bring Cooper and we never spend much money! We prefer heading to the mountains in Andalucia and you can read about other short trips we have made  here and here . Our cabin During this visit we went to another of the Pueblos Blancos (white villages famous for their buildings, read about our first visit to this area of Andalucia here ) called El Bosque to do a bit of hiking with Cooper. The path we took went next to a river and it was a great 5 kilometers through the woods because we were able to stop and cool off every once in a...

Bullfighting, though controversial, is a popular sport here in the south of Spain, especially during the spring and feria seasons. Neither Jose nor I had ever been to see a bullfight but were lucky when one of his students gave us two front row tickets for last week. We were both excited to go but I was a bit apprehensive whether or not I would enjoy the show seeing as how they kill 6 bulls throughout.  Going to a bullfight during feria is definitely an event. You have to dress nicely because it is a place to see and be seen. We were seated in the shade (sombra) which was a blessing because the sun was hot that day and our spots were about the best you could have with a great view of the action. This was a nice teaching perk! Headed to the fight I am by no means an expert in bullfighting but the way it works is as follows: Stage 1- the bull is released into the ring and after a few passes with the bullfighter and his team it is weakened by a guy (picador) riding a horse...