Sickness

Playing: Konstantine-Something Corporate
Reading: wild wild west photo diary by Rumi Neely (Just enjoy all the beauty!)

Been living life in a haze for the past few days. Not really able to focus on anything really, so I've spent my time taking photos, reading, practicing walking in heels for school, dancing, acting like I'm Patrick Wolf, etc. Instead of my "Seven Days of Lonely," I think this is my Eleven Days of Sickness. Oh, and you should really watch this mariachi band serenade a beluga whale. Thank you Tosh.O for always showing the most random stuff.

PS I'm back in school. All my teachers seem chill and my history teacher loves Stephen Colbert almost as much as I do. And my French teacher is an ex-model.

Redhead

Playing: Daylight-Matt and Kim
Reading: The Fellowship of the Ring by JRR Tolkien

Photo Creds: Jane Aldridge, Girl on the Beach, Patrick Wolf, Nicole Kidman as Satine, Rita Hayworth, Gerard Way, Karen Elson

One of my dreams or goals is to dye my hair every single one of the major hair colors before I enter corporate America or whatever industry I go into. (If I work in the fashion industry like I'm hoping, they won't mind all my different hair colors hopefully.) I've done brown and I was born with black, so red was the obvious next choice. Redheads have been getting a lot of crap over being soulless day walkers lately thanks to South Park, which I admittedly find very funny even if it is crude. Everyone from models to bloggers to singers and actresses have been dying their hair red or reddish orange, so I compiled a collage of some of my favorites...

...and then I went for it right before the new school year started. I was originally aiming for a Patrick Wolf/Jane Aldridge red because they just have the most perfect auburn color, but I left with more of a Rita Hayworth/Satine reddish, orange tinted brown. So far, I'm not really liking it that much and I find the work that goes into it isn't worth it. It took my hair stylist three and a half hours to get my hair to this color and three rounds of dye, which all felt like they were burning my scalp. I'm really not liking how whenever I wash my hair, the water comes out orange, even though I'm using cold water like a good kid. I think it makes my skin color look too pink, but I've been getting a lot more compliments from guys that I don't even know ever since I dyed my hair, so maybe it's not that bad. What do you think? So far brown is my favorite.

PS I'm going back to school tomorrow and I'm horrified by the prospect of it all. At least Fashion's Night Out is only two days away, but why did it have to be on the same day as the VMAs? I really want to watch One Direction and Green Day perform, but there's no way I'm going to miss FNO!

Spain: Day 7 Part 2

Playing: Boys Don't Cry-The Cure
Reading: Elle September 2012

Since Madrid was exceptionally hot, almost as hot as Southern California in August, I found myself sharing lots of gelato with my brother, Ted. At Heladerias Italiano, which was practically right next door to the Hotel Atlantico that I stayed at, we shared two scoops of Frambuesa y Mora (Raspberry and Blackberry). The blackberry was definitely better than the raspberry. For me, the raspberry was a tad too sweet after the first few bites. The service wasn't very friendly at all, so I would suggest going to another place instead.

We pretty much just sat in our hotel room for awhile, since it was so hot outside and we saw practically everything the tour books and hotel recommended. I sat inside and worked on my summer assignments, but for dinner, we decided to go to the world famous, Sobrino de Botin, which is the oldest restaurant in the world and Hemingway even wrote about. Once again, my brother and I shared some food, but this time it was the Garlic Soup with Egg. Overall, it wasn't all that great. It had the texture of soggy bread and tasted mostly like bacon with no discernible garlic taste to it. I would definitely skip on this.

Of course, if you visit, you have to try what they're famous for, right? So it was pretty obvious that I had to try the Roast Suckling Pig. For me, I found it pretty bland and disappointing, but my dad and brother loved it, so who knows. I found the skin to be chewy to the point of being inedible, while the meat was dry and the potatoes had no flavor. Even though this is a world famous restaurant, I wouldn't recommend it to you, since the prices are unbelievably high for pork and the all the food I ordered was very average, if not below average.

After dinner, we just walked around and came across the Mercado de San Miguel, which was absolutely lovely. I loved how it housed tons of placed to get hors d'oeuvres and main entrees too. It looked very trendy and it seemed like everyone was getting small bites from all the places. Prince Charles and Camilla were there, according to a yogurt place that claimed they had eaten there. I definitely wish I had eaten here at least once, since everything looked so good.

Both Barcelona and Madrid seemed to have had a large gay population. In Barcelona, I stumbled across a Gay Pride Festival on my first day and in Madrid, they had tons of rainbow themed food. It was fun to see all of this, since I don't see a lot of this, where I live. Plus, all the rainbow colors were fun to look at. I was tempted to buy one of these to see if each color was a different flavor...

In Spain, my family and I walked around a lot, looking at things with no real plans. It was nice though at night to see all these college age kids running around because most of the other places I've visited catered to families and not the party scene. At night, I liked to go up to the top floor of my hotel, the Hotel Atlantico, just to look around. Everything just looked so pretty from up above.

★All American★

Playing: I Bet You Look Good on the Dance Floor-The Arctic Monkeys
Reading:Vogue September 2012

It was one of those weekends, where I had no idea what to do and decided to just head down to the beach area. Recently, the USS Iowa moved to San Pedro, so I decided to go check it out. (Smooth transition!) Down in San Pedro is Gaffey Street Diner, which is one of those all-American restaurants that looks like a complete dive, but actually sells really amazing food. I originally saw it on Diners, Drive Ins, and Dives, but I've gone back to it many times. The breakfast food tends to be better than the lunch courses, but my Country Fried Steak With Biscuit and Home Fries was pretty good although it was a tad burnt. The gravy is definitely one of the best things at the diner, so I highly suggest the Biscuit With Gravy there.

Parked in the lot right next to the USS Iowa was this wonderfully retro car. I feel like the cars from the fifties and sixties had more personality than cars do now, but I suppose that's because car manufacturers are aiming for more aerodynamic cars to increase fuel efficiency nowadays. You can actually see a lot of these vintage cars around the beach areas here.

As for the actual ship, it was incredible how large it was, but you didn't get to see a lot on the ship. They roped a lot of it off, so it felt like a tour, but the traffic was awful. You'd be standing at one spot for ten minutes to get into a room and then you'd be rushed through the rooms. In a few years, I think they'll improve it to a near perfect tour. However, this launched my dad into one of his Proud to be an American speeches that he gives me whenever we visit anything semi-patriotic. Like baseball games...

The whole area of San Pedro and Long Beach is filled with areas for commercial shipping. The boat pictured here carries around crates that are later attached to eighteen wheelers and ships them from country to country. Also, the red nub, for lack of a better word, protruding from the ship's front is used to break waves for a smoother ride and the people who operate the machines used to load and unload the crates make around $400,000 a year. Sounds like a good job to me and sorry for the random facts. My friend, Chelcee, always complains that I share useless facts with her. It's a trait I picked up from my dad.

Overall, the area around the USS Iowa is very lovely and if you're into military stuff and the USA's defense systems, I suggest visiting it. I actually saw quite a few foreigners there from Germany, France, and I believe, Belgium. At least, that's what I picked up from listening to them speak. If you'd like to, San Pedro and Long Beach also offer deep sea fishing trips, helicopter tours, seafood dining, and lots of Mexican culture, especially at this one port that is filled with Mexican seafood places. It's actually one of my favorite places to get seafood now.

 Also, I recently bought some Alexander McQueen sunglasses for myself, so that I can go out in the sun without my eyes watering, plus a Vince Camuto blazer. If you would like to see more photos of them, you can see them on The Suburban Urbanites. I did a perfume trade for the first time, where I got Dolce and Gabbana's Light Blue in exchange for my L'eau D'Issey. Super excited to wear it! At Target, I bought 10 Things I Hate About You, which is one of my favorite movies ever, and some notebooks for me to jot down ideas in. I like how each one is focused on some of my favorite cities: New York, Paris, and London.
Ooh, and then I purchased some more Sentimental Circus stationary to use for writing to my friends. It's so cute in a creepy, Tim Burton-esque way. Anyways, I hope you're enjoying your summer, while I sit at home doing my summer assignments and moan about how school needs to leave me alone.