una memoria del verano porteño.

[this photo's actually from my friend tony's roof on charcas, which is a few blocks away from where i used to live. same idea.]

on a sticky, steamy night in buenos aires, my host family and i were finishing up with a late dinner when the power went out. as summertime in argentina can reach scalding temperatures (compared with boston, anyway) and the rio de la plata doesn't do much in dragging the humidity out to sea, power outages during heatwaves aren't all too uncommon. i mean, think about it: refrigerators, air conditioners, fans, you flick one switch too many in one of the most densely populated cities in the world and you're bound to exhaust some power lines.

the lot of us - mariano (host dad), ines (host mom), andrés y francisco (host brothers) and i were finishing up the wine and starting to clear the plates when all of a sudden the room went dark. mariano started grumbling, ines went to the kitchen for candles and andrés, francisco and i threw open the door to the balcony and shuffled outside. our apartment was the penthouse in a nine-story building, and though nine flights of stairs doesn't seem that high up compared with the sky scrapers i've previously known, the traffic from below was muffled and far away and an eerie calm settled over our corner of palermo viejo.

andrés and francisco, both lanky and at least a head taller than their father, leaned over the edge of the balcony and were looking out below when someone started banging a pot against a railing a few blocks away. andrés and francisco started laughing and shaking their heads, with francisco pounding his fists half-heartedly against our railing as andrés explained that this happened during el críses when people would lose their power on a regular basis. within minutes, that one resounding CLANG CLANG CLANG-CLANG-CLANG was joined by leaden thuds and aluminum refrains as the neighbors broke out various kitchen utensils and took to their doors and rooftops as we had. everything for the long length of our street, was pitch black - no street lamps, no illuminated locutería signs, just the occasional headlights from cabs creeping onto our side street in the middle of a cut through. mariano and ines joined us on the balcony, mariano chuckling at the ruckus echoing around us, and the five of us stood sweating nine stories up until the streetlights came on street by street and the dining room lights glowed behind us. just as quickly as it had started, the balcony railing clamor subsided and everyone went back to their TVs, their dinners or their bedrooms, and mariano and ines went back to clearing the table.

andrés, francisco and i stayed outside for a minute or two longer than our parents, and i stayed out for a minute or two after andrés and francisco got bored and moseyed back inside. i spent a solid fifteen minutes hanging over the edge of the balcony looking up and down my street to make sure that it wasn't a fluke, and i went to bed that night completely in love with a power outage and everything about my neighbors and my home.

maybe it's the world cup madness and the fact that argentina is kicking SERIOUS ASS right now, but i find myself missing buenos aires and my host family more than i have since i left.

(if we lose power in this crazy humidity, i think we should start bangin' our pots and pans together.)

X H

hello and goodbye from portland.

this is what my morning looks like right now (albeit far more calm and less shaky; forgive the impromptu Photobooth shot.) it's calm, cool and bright in portland.  i'm packing up the last of my stuff, heading down the street for some breakfast at the bread & ink, and then hopping on a bus and beginning the looooooooong (way longer than i thought) journey back to boston.  i'll be back in town tonight around midnight, if anyone wants to fetch a fair damsel from the airport :D

this trip was lovely and full of food and friends and beach and GREEN. this city is LUSH. natalie took some beautiful pictures i'll share with you once she gets 'em up on the ol' flickr.  we had three days of the definition of goooooooood.

oh, and we went to the sleepy beach town where they filmed The Goonies.

more later.

X H

london: you make me happy.

i haven't uploaded photos yet, but i need to jot down SOMEthing about london because there's no way in hell i can go without documenting this incredible trip in some fashion or the other.

thursday: i arrived at heathrow, esme met me at the terminal with a chocolate orange in hand. we came back to her flat in east london, picked up a cheese plate on the way, made some tea and had proper girl talk/catch up time before going for an AMAZING indian feast on brick lane.

friday: sightseeing party timez. walked up and down the south bank, saw the london eye, st pauls, the millenium bridge, trafalgar sq, shopshopshopppped (absolute vintage on brick lane is MECCA), dined in covent garden, ran out for drinks in bank with esme's friend aj, spent the night dancing our faces off with suits galore until we piled into a black cab at 2am and came back and danced around with es and her dear friend aj to nina simone passing out.

today: slept in, went for breakfast in shoreditch at a gorgeous french spot called la vie en rose, stuffed our faces with eggs and toast and sausages and pan au chocolat, esme's sister sophie happened to be walking by and came in to say hello with her fiance, aj and esme and i got incredible coffee brewed on the street at broadway market and we moseyed through the most cheerful, gorgeous, treasure-filled flea market/food market/flower market for hours. we bought cakes, brought 'em back to es' flat and had tea. we're now watching grey's anatomy reruns [britain's a few seasons behind] and resting before going to sophie's christmas party and then out to dinner with es' friends.

tomorrow: our friend jon, who es and i worked with at an arts summer camp nearly five years ago, is gonna meet up with us and we'll stroll portobello road. and then we're going ice skating by the british museum, and then we're going for high tea at fortnum and mason.

the pictures i'm taking are great. i can't wait to share them with you.

seriously? this is exactly what i needed. thank you, london and esme!

stulle-berlin wallets: definitely worth the international shipping fee.

almost exactly two years ago, los and i were finishing up eurodyssey, the two week trek we took from istanbul to amsterdam after our semester in spain came to a close. we started in istanbul, then moved onto the greek islands for a few days, then hopped on a plane to amsterdam and spent the last leg of the trip in berlin, one of my absolute favorite cities in the whole wide world. my friend konstantin, who i had met in my latin american econ class in granada, is a berliner and he oh so generously offered to play tourguide to los and i during our stay in germany's capital.

konstantin was the best possible friend we could've hoped for in berlin: he knew the city like the back of his hand and made it his personal mission to make sure that we saw all tourist attractions and all local underground spots in every neighborhood in our 3 full days there, which is no easy feat seeing as berlin is MASSIVE. knowing that we're fiends for anything shiny or pretty or beautiful and creative, konstantin took us to Hackescher Markt in West Berlin near Alexanderplatz to mosey through the community of boutiques, galleries and show rooms. i've been shopping in paris, buenos aires, rome, tokyo, all MAJOR fashion capitals of the world, and i haven't seen ANYTHING like the shops of berlin: Each store was literally a design studio where the decor was just as eye-catching as the goods and garb on display. when i say we spent HOURS leafing through hand-pressed comic books and trying on dresses that were silk-screened by the designer who happened to be working the register too i'm not exaggerating. los and i were totally enthralled with the hackescher markt, not gonna lie.

anyways, the point of all this "ICH LIEBE DICH BERLIN" business is to talk about stulle-berlin. my big purchase when we were there was a wallet that i found in this tiny, airy studio in the district that was essentially chock full o' gorgeous billfolds and bags and belts. the 45 EUR pricetag slightly deterred me at first, but nothing was going to stop me from getting that wallet. i had been using some shoddy urban outfitters canvas wallet that was entirely too big, and it was falling apart anyway... so yeah. long story short, i sucked it up and bought this beautiful baby:

two years later and we're still so happy together.

i think it may be love.

but ANYWAYS! i've been meaning to look up stulle for ages just in case, god forbid, my wallet happens to disappear or wind up, gasp, stolen. bored on the train home yesterday, i googled it on my blackberry and found, to my delight, that YES! stulle has a website. [i don't know why i assumed they wouldn't; at the time they seemed like a small operation, but now stulle wallets are being sold in the giftshop at the MoMA and it seems to be the only place where you can purchase them in the states.] i'm browsing through it this morning as i'm sitting here waiting for los to pick me up for our breakfast date [ohhh biscuit, i miss frequenting you on a daily basis!], and i'm dangerously close to picking up a new one. favorites from the site that i've seen so far:

i'm stoked that they now have leather ones instead of vinyl/imitation leather, so that may be my default wallet. i can't bring myself to throw away my blue beauty just yet, but i think it may be time for a replacement soon enough. i'm definitely eyeing the leather one. thoughts?

in other news: McAlister Drive is playing at precinct tonight and jessie and i will definitely be in attendance. if you want to see me [maybe!] sing with peter loring and the good time band around 10, or if you want to see jessie shaking a tambourine like a maniac with christoph and the boys, come by precinct around 10. dance dance pahtee timez for EVERYONE!

the happy list, april fool's edition.

this is what came popped up when i google image-searched "happy" this morning. lolz.

THINGS THAT ARE WONDERFUL:

+big plans for big weekends.  this weekend, by comparison to previous weekends, won't be that extraordinary, but dance parties, dive bars, brunch at deep ellum (to visit mr. chris sous chef extraordinaire), painting dates, playing outside and a night with the sea monsters are all on the table. bliss.

+scarfing chicken tikka masala from punjabi dhaba with some of my favorite people before running up to magoun square for trivia nights and games of pool at townie dive bars.  MEDFIHD BY CHOICE! (my family's actually from medford. i guess that makes me legit/a real townie? i don't know.)

+i think i'm going to get a bike.  i'm still terrified at the thought of riding one alongside the crazy people who drive on somerville/mass ave, but i've been convinced, i think.  i'll be brave.  i'll try, anyway.

+i've lived in this apartment since november and i only realized recently that i have WINDOW BOXES YAAAAY.  jessie thinks i should use one for a mini herb garden.  i want flahwiz.  (i don't want bees buzzin' right next to me when i'm sleeping  some rando stole hers from the lawn in front of her apartment in allston.  le sad.

+this week marks the two year anniversary of slovak attak '07, which consisted of a ten day trek through vienna, bratislava and budapest with los, nico, vince and katie.  during slovak attak, i ate enough sacher torte for a family of five, almost got arrested for riding the metro illegally in budapest and somehow wound up downing absinthe on a boat on the danube only to walk back to our slovakian hostel without my shoes on.  in short: it was epic and its anniversary is always worth noting.  that, and i miss nico, vince and katie so incredibly much :( 

now, it's off to the gym to work on my fitness, as opposed to staying home and making french bread french toast. gahhh. i would so much rather be doing the latter.  i HATE pulling pranks on people and will definitely be refraining from that today, but what are you guys up to for april fools?

(just playin'. you've been warned.)

H!L

color, japan, and more "I WANT SPRING" musings.

last july, i bought a roundtrip ticket on a whim and took off to visit a friend living in tokyo.  for two weeks, i spent my days exploring japan's teeming metropolis on foot and stumbled upon countless galleries, museums, bookstores and boutiques that were exploding with vibrant, bold colors.  i left tokyo for a weekend and visited the country's cultural capital, kyoto, and found that the same shades embraced by japan's creative elite could be found in the shinto shrines residing in kyoto's alleys.  i love looking at the following two photos side by side because i think that they're a perfect pair for their harmonious hues and contextual differences.  the chains of paper cranes pictured below were photographed in downtown kyoto off the beaten path: we had gone for a walk down the street from our hostel and stumbled across a tiny shrine set back a block or two from the city's main drag, and i was entranced by these meticulously crafted ropes that seem as though they were strung together by Technicolor.  the second photograph is of me at the front doors of design festa, an artist's collective in harajuku, which housed some of the most bizarre and inspiring sculptures, textiles and murals that i've ever seen.

(above: chains of paper cranes, shinto shrine, kyoto, japan.)

(above: hil at the front doors of the design festa gallery in harajuku, tokyo, japan.)

sitting here and looking back at these snapshots, i realize that what i'm looking forward to most about the melting of winter is the blooming, bursting nature of boston in the springtime.  the pastel shells of the candy easter eggs at the grocery store down the street make do for now, but i'm seriously counting days until i can shake this snowy lethargy and embrace the newfound energy that'll come blowing into town about a month from now.  i get that march comes in like a lion and out like a lamb and all that, but c'maaaahn.  i want brilliant shades in my life on a daily basis like they were when i was in tokyo; until then, i'll look at these pictures and paint my own and wait for the thaw.