Friday, May 11, 2007

Coachella, Bridal Shower, Barcelona

Today marks the day that linked a series of events that led me to Ireland. One year ago today, two of my friends were married in Vegas. It was a beautiful wedding at the Belagio Hotel in Las Vegas. It was also the day that triggered a series of events that led me here.

But enough about that, everyone's been asking me to post about Coachella and Barcelona so here is the rundown. My first day in LA was spent with Karen and the wedding party. We started with a dress fitting, hit CPK for happy hour and had a nice and much needed girly afternoon. My first night in town, was spent with the girls and family at Casa Vega of course. Had to get my dose of Mexican food in. The next day was a mini-run around day including haircut and seeing Jude before heading to Coachella.

Coachella was as amazing as it always is. We rented a 30 ft. RV and headed into Joshua Tree fit with everything including full DJ equipment with speakers (Even Steven DJing on the way) for our traveling entertainment for the first night. After much searching for a campground big enough to fit our RV, Rasmus and his co-pilot/best friend Vicke finally settled on a camping ground outside of the customary area and got the fire and fun going. Our fabulous chef, Captain Jack prepared an amazing meal while we created an honorary flag for the weekend. Rasmus and I woke up at the crack of dawn to take pictures and watch the sunrise and then we all headed into Coachella.

We saw amazing bands throughout the day and night including David Guetta, Digitalism, Felix da Housecat, Benny Benassi (Satisfaction was the theme of the weekend) and Bjork. Repeated the whole adventure again on Saturday including seeing MSTRKRFT, Red Hot Chili Peppers and Tiesto and headed back into LA on Sunday...just barely in time for me to make it to Karen's bridal shower.
       
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The shower was themed as a tea party. Everyone was dressed up and hats were a requirement. It turned out to be a wonderful afternoon, one of the best bridal showers I've ever been too and made me remember how much I really do miss home.

   
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As I had suspected, the trip flew by faster than I could breathe and I was back on a plane to Dublin. Only a few days later it was back on a plane for the 3 day holiday weekend to Barcelona, Spain with Christine and Aaron. We arrived late on Friday night and immediately headed for the local tapas bar for a bit of wonderful Spanish food and wine.

Saturday we did the hop-on, hop-off tour of the city and saw some amazing sites. We landed on the coast and had a relaxing and enjoyable meal and then walked up a street called Los Rambalas with the feel of 3rd Street Promenade back towards our rented apartment. We took an afternoon siesta as is customary in Spain, awoke around 10pm and headed to The Cat Walk for an evening of dancing until about 5am. And may I remind you that they are not lying when they say the nightlife does not begin until after midnight...it's more like 2am that things get hopping.

       
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Sunday we decided to explore the other half of the hop-on, hop-off tour which unfortunately for me was not as exciting as the first days tour, but we did get to see the Sagrada Familia which was quite an impressive structure. We then headed back towards the museums we had not stopped at the 1st day for an afternoon of walking and leisure. We had dinner at a lovely Italian restaurant and then wandered into a artsy underground bar which was hosting an acoustic evening for a night of traditional spanish entertainment.

Unfortunately, when we headed back to the hotel at 2am, we opened the door to find that the deadbolt was no longer locked, the lights were on and much of our electronic items were missing, including Aaron's laptop, 2 IPODs, a Nintento game system, my LA cell phone, my glasses and my sunglasses. In a shocked panic and after several phone calls on quickly dying cell phones, we were finally able to get a hold of the police to send a unit to our now tainted apartment. Unfortunately, when the owner had checked us in on the first night, he had also informed us that one of the keys was missing but assured us he thought the cleaners had it and would return it to us the next day. Unfortunately, that never happened and we were victims of circumstance.

We spent the entire next morning at the police station filing reports, had lunch at a cafe and headed back to the airport about 6 hours early as we were carrying our luggage at this point as it obviously could not be trusted to be left in the apartment with the "missing key".

I can't help but think that none of these adventures, the best or the worst of them, would have happened if not for the things that transpired at that beautiful wedding one year ago today. Those that know me, know the events and know I would choose not to repeat them in a public forum. In fact, I wish I could turn back time and erase most of that evening. But my plan instead is to spend the weekend at home, cuddled up, licking my wounds and getting some much needed rest until the new week begins on Monday.

p.s. I promise to post pictures of the trips soon.