i'm no longer where jesús lost his sandals !!
hola fam and friends!
i am officially back in the bay area!! (to be honest I’ve been back for a sec but life is good and busy and it’s hard to keep up with this newsletter!) some updates from my last month of travels..
i went to roma!
i took a cooking class and we made 3 different pasta shapes and 3 different pasta sauces and it was delicious and so easy and the optimist in me thinks that this will be a regularly occurring activity in my life now that i’ve acquired the skillset (regularly occurring = 1x a year, possibly less) [author note - this has not become a regularly occurring activity in my life]
i visited the catacombs and saw a lot of big statues / fountains / structures. very gaudy tbh
i ate the yummiest foods ever - my fave was something called suppli (similar to arancini but there are some differences - see chart) (also in my research for cute images i found this interesting article about arancini/a)
rumor has it that a friend is using my baguette bar chart as an example of a “bad data visualization” in a work presentation which actually makes me want to make more “bad” charts >:)
once back from roma, I enjoyed my final couple moments in madrid (for now)
:((
then I went to London!! unfortunately did not realize that xmas holidays are the absolute busiest time of year there (every xmas i am yet again surprised, as a jew, the massive amount of people who celebrate the holiday)
on my first day there, i explored chelsea and notting hill and walked through hyde park and to kensington and buckingham palaces. i also ate the best scones of my life!!
then lucy arrived!! we checked out chinatown and got deelish pho (thnx jen)
and wandered a ton and also tried jollof rice!! (too spicy 4 me whoops)
then jamie and ruth came!! some of what we did included:
afternoon tea
spooky ghost walking tour [honestly a highlight. i did have trouble sleeping the rest of the trip and happened to keep waking up during what our tour guide dubbed as “witching hour” (3am) but that feels unrelated…]
explored the lil markets all over
went to an english pub (called rose&crown - there’s a rose&crown in palo alto too!)
went to harrod’s (giant department store and also lifestyle — it’s massive and very fancy shmancy and also has an indoor farmers market and chocolate shop and food court with erewhon-ey food)
and celebr8ed new years!!
and then, if you can believe it, we went to switzerland!!!! (zermatt to be specific)
switzerland highlights include:
skiing (SO FUN!! SUCH LONG BLUE RUNS!! GR8 SNOW)
apre ski !! (think fog machines and shots with strangers)
fondue !! (not gr8 for tum but delish)
dancing at train stations to keep warm !!
delicious pasta meals on the mountain (though prices could have been a taddddd cheaper 😀)
and then came home to sf!! so so lovely being back (to both sf and tahoe for más skiing duh). i love this city so much and the people i have out here :) and i’ve been attending a lil meet up group that speaks spanish to make sure i don’t lose my progress!!
speaking of español — let me explain the subject line. lots of spanish speaking countries have funny idioms (similar to how we say things like “putting your hands in the cookie jar” and this one is my favorite! :) to describe something that’s very far away, you can say it’s dónde jesús perdió la sandalia which translates to - it’s where jesus lost his sandal. so silly. so good. highly recommend you use it in english (or spanish).
thank you all for being a part of this journey with meee and for your excitement for me and support of me over the past few months!! i feel like i am finally out of it enough to reflect on the experience a bit more.. i feel extremely grateful to have been able to work remotely during this time. and i feel extremely lucky to have had the opportunity to have spent all the time in spain and the other countries ! i feel so grateful for friends and family who came to visit while i was there <3 filled my heart so much to have y’all engage with my newsletter and be excited for me! it’s so cool to be able to immerse yourself (if only for a weekend) in other cultures and languages and it helps make you feel a bit more connected to the world. to get a bit meta, the bodies and lives we’re born into are so random and it’s cool to be able to see the other lives that other people are born into! overall 100000/10 would recommend studying abroad as an adult.
xx
noa