Madrid

After a ten hour flight to Amsterdam followed by a three hour flight, we arrived in Madrid.  We caught the bus and metro to our hotel, which was quite easy and I was very proud of myself since I was the one who looked up the directions. Gold star for me!

We stayed in Madrid for four nights and had three full days to explore the city.  We went to the Royal Palace, two museums (Museo Nacional Del Prado and Reina Sofia), saw a Flamenco dance, and went to Toledo for a day (it's about a hour away from Madrid).  We also had tapas twice at Mercado San Miguel, which was one of my favorite places in Madrid.  Anthony Bourdain featured this market on his show No Reservations.  It was amazing, the market was filled will vendors selling everything from jamon iberico to sushi.  We just wandered around the market, bought whatever looked yummy, found a table, and ate it. 

*side note: if you go to Spain you MUST try jamon iberico.  It is cured ham from the black hoofed pigs that only eats acorns.  It was the best ham I have ever ate in my life and it better be for about 90 bucks a pound.*

Now for the fun part, picture time!  Here are a few pictures from Madrid...

Entrance to the most amazing market.

 
Look at all the black hoofs!

Jamon iberico & cheese...yum!

 

In front of the Royal Palace.

Dan admiring a painting at Reina Sofia.

 Random statue in the city..hehe

Flamenco Dancers

Toledo, Spain

Our beers, guess which one is mine.

Madrid's coat of arms a bear and a cherry tree.

You can't really tell from this picture, but the streets were packed!

Despite being jet-lagged for the first couple of days, we enjoyed Madrid.  Next stop...Valencia!

Jet-Lag

Traveling 18 hrs back to Seattle + Being up for 26 hrs + 10 hr time difference = Major jet-lag.

After traveling for three weeks through two countries and seven cities, we flew back to Seattle last week Tuesday.  We've been back for almost a week and I'm finally getting over being jet-lagged. 

Overall, our trip was AMAZING!  We loved it! We did pretty much everything we wanted to do in each city we went to.  Here are some of the highlights of our trip....

*Bike tour through Barcelona
*Relaxing on Playa de la Concha in San Sebastian
*Watching a Valencia CF game
*Seeing the Parthenon in person
*Swimming in the hot springs of the Caldera in Santorini
*Learning how to cook at traditional Spanish meal
*Seeing a Flamenco dance in Madrid

Once I download all my pictures, I'll write a post for each city we went to. 

On another note, in exactly one week we will be on a plane to Hawaii!  I can't believe we're finally moving.  We are pretty much all packed up, we only have a few more boxes to mail and we drop off Dan's truck on Wednesday to ship.  We dropped off my car last Wednesday and now I'm driving a little Hyundai for the next week.  I have a feeling this next week will fly by.  ;)

tapas & gyros

Once we decided to move back to Hawaii, we also decided to do one last big trip to Europe since it's pretty hard to get to Europe from Hawaii.  It was also another excuse to have a long vacation before we get married which is why I started calling this our "pre-wedding moon" hehe.  Dan wanted to go to Spain and I wanted to go to Greece, so we decided to do both. 

In just five days, we leave for Madrid and start our three-week Europe vacation. I'm very excited to eat tapas in Spain and gyros in Greece. Yummers!  Starting on Monday, Sept. 26th this is our plan....

Fly from Seattle to Amsterdam and Amsterdam to Madrid.  With all the flying and the time change we will arrive in Madrid on Tuesday evening and we'll stay for four nights. 

From Madrid, we'll catch a train to Valencia and stay two nights.  Dan hopes that we can get tickets to the soccer game.

Then we'll catch a bus (for six hours...ugh) to San Sebastian. We'll stay for three nights and hopefully eat at one of their Michelin star restaurants. ;)

Of course, our last stop in Spain is Barcelona and we'll stay for four nights.  You can't visit Spain without going to Barcelona. One of the things we're going to do there is a cooking class.  We're going to learn how to cook a traditional four course Spanish meal.  Exciting!!!





After two weeks in Spain, we're off to Greece for the final week of our trip.  We'll fly from Barcelona to Athens and stay two nights before going to the islands.

Our next stop is Santorini for four nights.  We decided to fly between the islands and Athens since we're going in October and it's considered to be off-season for tourists.  I'm really thankful we decided to fly since there was no 'fast' ferry between Athens/Santorini during that week and it would have taken us seven hours to get there. 

From Santorini, we'll catch a ferry to Mykonos.  We're only staying here one night since there weren't any ferries the day before. 

After Mykonos, we fly back to Athens for a night.  We have to wake up super early that morning to catch a 5am flight to Amsterdam.  Then it's a 10 hour flight back to Seattle.

Once we get back to Seattle, we ship my car the very next day.  We'll be in Seattle for 12 days before we officially move to Hawaii on the 31st.  I can't believe it's coming up sooo fast!

*Note: All photos were from wikipedia.com under each city's page*



♥ engagement photos ♥

In August, we finally took our engagement photos.   We wanted to take our pictures in Seattle (pikes/gas works park) since this is where we met.  Our photographer Letty Hingtgen was referred to us by my friend at work and she was amazing.  We got our photos last week and we LOVE them.  I can't wait to use them on our save the dates and other wedding stuff.  Here are a few of them..

Gum wall ;)

DIY wedding banner...it was a little windy though :(

Fun jumping picture

I'll post more later on facebook. Thank you Letty for all the great photos! 

The biggest wedding update is while I was back at home I found my dress! *insert happy dance here* hehe. I love it!  Here is a picture of my mom and I right after I bought my dress.

As for right now, we booked majority of our wedding vendors.  We'll probably start doing more wedding stuff once we move back and get settled in Hawaii. :)  In the meantime, we're busy packing up our apartment and planning our 3-week trip to Europe which starts in less than a week.





5 years in Seattle!

As of this month (Sept. 17th to be exact), I've been living in Seattle for 5 years. I can't believe its been 5 years and in less than 6 weeks I'll be moving back to Hawaii. Despite the rain, the cold, and sometimes snow, I have to say I had a great experience living here and don't regret any of it.

I originally moved here to work for the PwC Seattle office after the Hawaii office announced it's closure. Call me dorky, but I really wanted to work for PwC even if it meant moving to Seattle. After 5 years, here are the things that Seattle allowed me to experience that I am deeply thankful for...

- Becoming a grown-up: Moving here forced me to live on my own, pay my own bills, and become financially independent. I learned how to take care of myself and stand on my own two feet.

- PwC Seattle: I could not have asked for a better place to start my career. Despite the long hours and working on weekends, I loved the people I worked for and with. The T-mobile was like my second family and some of my best memories in Seattle was with the T-mobile team, from our Chelan trips, the food-fight in the Mariners suite, dressing up on golf day, to our famous Nick nights and happy hours. I will miss all of you.

- Traveling: In the past 5 years, I've been to more cities, states, and countries then I have in my life time.  Whether it was for work or for vacation, I was able to travel to over 20 cities, in 7 states, and 5 countries.  I can't wait to add 2 more countries and 7 more cities to that list since we leave in 6 days for Spain and Greece.

- Friends: My group of friends here are the best and thank you for making the winters here tolerable.  I know we will all stay in touch and I love that. 

Last but not least, I am truly grateful for meeting my best friend and love of my life here.  Not to get all mushy, but Seattle will always hold a special place in my heart since this is where we met and fell in love.   I am excited to move to Hawaii with him and start our life as a married couple there.

♥

Thank you Seattle for being such a great city! 

Next post...engagement photos and wedding updates!

Our Seattle Bucket List - Updated

I can't believe its already September and that we move to Hawaii in just TWO MONTHS! Ack!  In the next two months, we are going to California for a week to visit Dan's parents and then going to Spain/Greece for three weeks which means we only have about a month in Seattle (five weekends to be exact).  That's why I wanted to update our bucket list which I blogged about in April (Our Seattle Bucket List.) to see what we have left to do and note the items that are sadly not going to happen...

Bucket List - Updated 9/1/11
1. Blazers Game
2. Visit the San Juan Islands (not happening...boo)
3. Weekend in Chelan (not happening...boo)
4. Wake Boarding
5. Eat on the patio at Rays Cafe *we didn't eat on the patio but we did eat there, good enough*
6. Eat at Paesos
7. Brunch at Pesos
8. Hiking at Mt. Rainer (not happening...boo)
9. Visit the UW Cherry Blossoms
10. Hiking -Olympic peninsula
11. Brunch at Portage Bay
12. Picnic on the Kirkland waterfront *we didn't have a picnic but we did have shave ice*
13. Wine tasting
14. Brewery tour at Red Hook
15. EMP Museum
16. Kayaking *Updating this to SUPing
18. Pool party at our place (not happening...boo)
19. Weekend getaway at Suncadia
20. Romantic dinner Canlis

Also since I've been a stay.at.home.fiance for a few weeks now, I was able to cross off a few items from my handy-dandy to-do list:
1. Apply for my Hawaii CPA license
2. Make and order our France/Italy photo book
3. Finish at least another 400 cranes
4. Take my tory burch flats & wedges to get fixed
5. Figure out what we are wearing for our engagement photos on the 30th
6. Cook at least ten new dishes, including oxtail soup (2 down...8 more to go)
7. Plan our Spain and Greece trip (hotels are all booked, now just need to figure out activities)
8. Book our California tickets for Sept.
9. Take care of the car shipping details
10. PACK, PACK, PACK

Looks like we have some work to do to get everything done and crossed off! 

Anyway, a couple of weekends ago we crossed off #10 on our bucket list and went hiking in the Olympic National Park.  We did a four mile hike to the top of Mt. Zion  We decided to make it a weekend vacation and stayed overnight in Port Townsend.  Here are a few pics from our hike and weekend stay:

At the top...I used a cool camera feature to take this pic...

The super cute cottage we stayed in.

 After the hike, we deserved a beer! @ the Port Townsend Brewery

 View from our Sunday walk near the beach.

stay at home fiance

Right now, I'm a stay at home fiance.  This is what a friend starting calling me since I'm not working until I start work in mid-November.  I've been a stay at home fiance since I got back to Seattle last week and I love it!  Dan even said that he likes me being at home since we see each other a lot more now.

When I was working, I used to work 45-50+ hours a week and the weekends used to be a balancing act between seeing friends, spending time with the fiance, and getting the day-to-day household duties like laundry and cleaning the house done.  Now, my days consist of getting up when Dan gets up to make us breakfast.  I love that we get to eat breakfast together! After Dan goes off to work, I've been doing the errands that I've been putting off like returning things at the mall, getting my jeans hemmed, cleaning, etc.  I've also been doing a lot of grocery shopping since my goal is to cook as much as I can since it saves us money.  The best part of being at home when everyone else is working is laying out by the pool and having the pool all to yourself.  I even starting working out and went for a 2 mile run this morning...okay more like a jog/walk but at least I went. 

To keep myself busy and make sure I get everything I want to get done on this break, I made a handy-dandy to-do list...

1. Apply for my Hawaii CPA license
2. Make and order our France/Italy photo book
3. Finish at least another 400 cranes
4. Take my tory burch flats & wedges to get fixed
5. Figure out what we are wearing for our engagement photos on the 30th
6. Cook at least ten new dishes, including oxtail soup
7. Plan our Spain and Greece trip
8. Book our California tickets for Sept.
9. Take care of the car shipping details
10. PACK, PACK, PACK

Packing is #10 on my list since it is the last thing I want to do.  My master plan is to give everything away and only take back clothes. 

I can't believe I've been on 'vacation' for over one month now since my last day of work was July 15th.  I spent the first three weeks of my vacation in Hawaii which was great,  I loved being back.  Also my best friend who is also one of my bridesmaids came to visit me once I got back to Seattle. It was great spending time with her.  Here are a few of my favorite pictures from my trip back home and Louise's visit...

Welcome Baby Joely! The new edition of our family.

 I love these girls, we took them to Pearlridge to see the Ice Age exhibit.

 Birthday dinner for my Dad and I, yes we are born on the same day. :)

 Our birthday BBQ/party, I got a lots of presents this year. :)

 Spending time with the fiance on his last day in Hawaii.

Dinner with Chloe, Sharky, and Jared..no pictures of the boys just us girls.

 

Showing Louise around Seattle.

 Thank you for visiting me before I moved!

That's all for now, my next blog will have some major wedding updates since I got a lot accomplished while I was at home. :)