October 8, 2006

Hasta luego!


I mentioned in my previous post that I was going to Mexico for my best friends wedding. Katia and I were inseparable throughout high school and I practically lived in her house half the time. However, she went off to Switzerland for college and I stayed here. As the case is with many of my other close HS friends who have moved away, we would only get to see each other when she'd come home for Christmas. This was a friendship that no lapse of time or distance could ruin.

When she announced her engagement to me during her visit last year, I was beside myself with happiness! Her fiance was with her at the time, and seeing how genuinely happy she was with him was all I needed. I knew I had to be there with her on her wedding day wherever in the world it would be. They currently live in Los Cabos but had opted to tie the knot in Mexico City where his family is from. This got me even more excited as I've always wanted to travel to Mexico!

While I was making arrangements, my travel plans morphed into a more extensive holiday. So aside from a week in Mexico City, my itinerary now includes a 3-night stopover in Phoenix, AZ to visit another old friend from school, one week in Las Vegas, NV where my sister and her daughter are flying in from Vancouver to meet me together with some other relatives (I am so psyched about this as I haven't seen them in years!) and another week in San Francisco, CA (one of my favorite cities in the world) for more visits to friends and some work as well.

I hope to be able to post while I'm away, but even if I don't I will definitely check in once in a while. So if you have any recommendations for any of the cities I'll be travelling to, I would really love to hear it. Now, I need to finish packing and get some sleep. Hasta luego! :)

October 6, 2006

Tagged by Rob

I got tagged by Rob the BriliantDonkey for my first meme a few days ago. Took me a while to get around to doing it but always better late than never, right? So anyway, the rules of this tag game are:

1. Grab the book nearest to you...no cheating!
2. Open to page 123.
3. Scroll down to the fifth sentence.
4. Post text of next 3 sentences on to your blog.

The book nearest me on my night table, is On Mexican Time by Tony Cohan. Although I've had this book for 4 years now, I just started reading it a couple of days ago. You can say it's part of my preparation for an upcoming trip to Mexico for my best friend's wedding. (I leave in 3 days! yay! can you feel my excitement through the screen?!)

Ok so here's the excerpt from page 123:

"Se murio, instantaneamente". Another San Miguel story, I thought, in a town rich with them. "Her two half-Mexican daughters inherited the house."

So there you go. I'd like to tag Joey of 80 Breakfasts, Wysgal of Rants and Raves, and Mila of Watergirl, who are all avid readers. So I know they've got books all over the place. :) No pressure you guys, only if you'd like to. And of course, everyone else is welcome to join either by posting in their own blogs or by leaving a comment here.

October 4, 2006

Luxe goes to Europe!

You may remember that I recently posted about my infatuation with these stylish mini travel guides. Shortly after I discovered the guides during a recent trip to Hanoi, I sent an email to the people behind Luxe, imploring them to publish a Manila guide as well as guides for European cities. To which they promptly replied:

"...While we are very keen to produce a guide to Manila, there is, unfortunately, no room in our publishing schedule in the immediate future to do so..."
"...If you are a resident of Manila and would be interested in possibly contributing to a future guide, please let me know, and I'll keep your details on file..."

Then last week, I received this bit of good news in my inbox:

Dear Christine
Just a note to say many thanks indeed for your kind coverage of LUXE on your blog. It's most kind of you to feature us, I'm so glad you enjoyed the guides. We've just released our newest guides LUXE Paris, Madrid and Istanbul in case you're travelling to Europe!
Again all thanks

With best wishes
G
, Publishing Editor

So, yay! Now, we just have to wait for Fully Booked to start selling them here. :)