fair verona...

ahh verona! the backdrop for shakespeare's Romeo and Juliet. i wasn't sure what was here, expect for the carlo scarpa building (banco populare di verona) but it surprised me...


this was one of the first images that i got from there. i <3 nikon!


lisa enjoying gelato, nothing makes the day better than a gelato!


this is the fabled balcony where juliet utters "romeo, romeo, where forth are thou romeo?! deny they father and refuse they name, for if thou will not be sworn my love, i will no longer be called a capulet!" or something like that. for the romantics out there, legend has it that when you are under the balcony you should make a wish, and it will supposedly come true... =)


this is where people leave their numbers, hoping to get lucky...


after an exhausting day, we sat down for dinner while this violin and accordian player serenaded us

day 1 and 2: melide and lugano

on that day after realizing that i needed supplies to survive, and hoping that my luggage would arrrive the next day i went down the hill, which took about 1.5 hours to the market, which was basically a convenience store and got the necessities, tooth paste, laundry detergent, shampoo and soap.

i waited for lisa to arrive and then we went to dinner and after i went to bed in my dirty clothes...

the next day when more people arrived we went to lugano and i had probably the best gelato ever...

pistachio and stratiacella, yummy!

and we walked by lake lugano

and rode segways. those things are pretty hard to ride, but i think if i had an hour on them i'd be alright on them

and then later that night every one arrived and we had dinner in our little outdoor patio

sitting under the canopy with the scent of concorde grapes and kiwi's in the air (l to r) leili, ross, jody, yoolee, stephanie, john, kari, coy, lisa and me

the best thing i've seen so far...

okay, i know what you're thinking... suitcases? so here's the story...

a few months ago, when i made the decision to go abroad again we were given a packet that laid out what we should bring with us. without an art supply store within the small resort town of vico morcote, and the nearest one in milan, the packet stated that we should bring any and all of our architecture supplies. x-acto knives, olfa blades, cutting mats, straight edges, computers, and cameras filled my bags. our instructor also advised us to bring drawing pads, graphite dust, pencils (hard and soft leads), pens, and artist tape of varying sizes. my luggage became a small art supply store, it also became a small khiels store, and diesel store.

i packed so much stuff that i had to pay extra... yikes...

so i left lax and arrived at dulles without a hitch. but that's where it stopped. i had a 1 hour lay over to catch my next flight, but i was so confused in the airport. apparently dulles airport is composed of parallel terminals, all of which are connected by these big trams (think hummers and prison buses combined, but not as cool). i walked the length of one of them, on the advise of a airport information worker, to find that i needed to go another tram. at this point i had about 20 minutes to get on my flight. it might sound like a lot of time, but i had never been at this airport to gage time. at this point i'm sweating and rushing towards the ticket booth to alitalia airlines (which apparently isn't that great to fly on). they totally know my name b/c i'm one of the last people to arrive. everyone has already boarded...

so i get on the plane and sit right by the wing and the emergency exit. things are looking up, i have all of this leg room!!! i'm also sitting next to this old, but friendly italian man who starts to tell me how he's going to show his friends around milan and how he flys between d.c. and milan. he also suggests places and things to go see in milan. in the middle of our conversation he starts to tell me about watching my back and beware of the gypsies.... (which totally reminds me of the time we were in chinatown in london and these kosovo gypsies started begging for money. i think it was a diversion so that they could steal our wallets and money...) he also tells me to watch my back in with the swiss people, he doesn't trust them b/c he's italian.

anyways, i get to italy and wait for my baggage for like 30 minutes and apparently, IT'S BEEN LOST!!! it might have had something to do with all of the liquids that i brought and they thought it was a bomb, or they're just kind of incompetent people and didn't get it right... in any case, i got lost in milan, but found my way to the lugano via a tram, that seemed kind of shady, got lost in lugano and basically took a $50 taxi ride into vico morcote. the funny thing is that even though the taxi driver had a gps in his car he still couldn' find the villa.

so i get in the villa and no one is there except for the cook beppi. so far this trip has been great.

and what makes it worse was that there was no internet, and i had to share a room...

boo!

goodbyes... part 1.5

The night before I left, I had a little visitor,

Matthew, my nephew,

he came with his papa.

He wanted to say goodbye to Uncle Andrew and show me he could...


WALK!!!

goodbyes... part 1

the wednesday before i left i had a little going away gathering, nothing fancy, it wasn't my birthday! lol i didn't know how many people to expect, but once again i have the best friends and family... EVER!!!

thank you all for wishing me well. it makes it hard to say bye, but i know it will feel good to return...

=)

bev, andrew and ja


lori, andrew, alex

here you go jason... happy now? you can put it on myspace... LOL

blaine, andrew, katie, jonny


fernie and andrew


jeff and tin


leia and andrew (thanks for the new tunes!)


charito (one of my dad's new dance partners) and jason


monz, jackie and andrew

I made it to the villa safely!!!

the view from my room

after a long sleepless night, well i took about a 45 minute nap, a nice little visit from somebody at the airport (THANK YOU SO MUCH STEVE!! =-*), security check, a flight to dc, and then a hurried boarding on to alitalia airlines, missing luggage, getting lost in some town in switzerland and taking a $50 cab ride to the villa, i'm here!

i'm a little overwhelmed right now, but i'm sure that once i get settled and people start arriving i'll be fine.

btw, you know how i was all saying, "it's like 30 minutes away from milan!" well.... it's not quite that... i'd say it's about a 45 minute bus ride, and a 10 minute local bus ride after that and then about a 20 minute taxi... but it's all good, the drive was pretty nice.

it's pretty amazing...

together for 24 years and...

going strong!!!

so i was at my sister's graduation last weekend and i must admit, arizona wasn't that bad, but i don't think that i'm going back.

anyways, so it's the end of the graduation and the family is outside taking pictures, in the shade. larnie is posing with the parentals, the brothers and sisters and people that she knows come up to her and take pictures with her too. so the president of the university comes up to congratulate larnie and take a picture. a smile and a click later, the president says to larnie and points to me and goes "so is this your HUSBAND?"

my jaw drops, eyes bug out and there is loud giggling and ewww-ing coming from mando, jackie, alvin and minette. so i had to set the president straight, "no, i'm not her husband, i'm her BOYFRIEND." (which somebody else said to me and larnie)

yak yak yak yak yak...

good grief...

the worst hangover EVER

old school... check out my puso shirt!

this past saturday was the annual PUSO directors dinner. it was supposed to happen at my house, but plans changed and we went to lala's in west hollywood and then to the bungalow club afterwards. everyone seemed to enjoy it and go a little taste of the la that i've grow to really love. everyone seemed to enjoy the argentine food and delicious sangria. it was nice to see a few familiar faces and meet some new ones.

i found that a lot of the traditions that we started back in the late 90's are still being continued, like all the traditional programs (the pre-health conference, medical mission gala...) i'm even more delighted to hear that they've started up new programs like a high school tutoring program with high schools. although some traditions have fallen to the way side (like PUSOgrams) i'm sure that they'll come back again.

i''m sure most of you know that the sangria at lala's is pretty good. between danny, danielle, rozanno, may and i, we had five carafes, and after that we went to the bungalow club where i proceeded to have a mojito, a cabernet, a raindrop martini, a grey goose cosmo, and another raindrop martini. and i didn't eat afterwards....

so this morning i payed for it... and i felt like this...

leia's favorite! airplane food!i'll eat it and all, but sometimes is just digusting...

and what makes it worse is that it so f'ing hot!!! i'm totally sweating right now...

the TOUGHEST week ever...

this is how if felt this week...

so this week has been pretty rough. i had to finish this model that i have been working on for the past month, plus on top of that one of my other supervisors was like "do these other models", and then like five seconds later he'd be like, "so now that you're doing that, you can do this too." i was getting so worked up that i wanted to scream!!! but that wouldn't have been a good idea with an open office plan and like 270 people in the office.

i was seriously getting annoyed, but then i started thinking about it. if i can't hang with all of this pressure, then what kind of architect am i going to be? architecture is a totally high stress job, and all of you probably on some level know i'm SOOO good at handling stress! lol. so i had to put a positive spin on this and start thinking that this whole experience is worth it and it is...

so with all of this going on, going to the getty villa on friday afternoon was SOO WORTH it. and plus it was on the company so even better!!! we wanted to be very environmentally friendly so we took the bus there, the metro 534. but we kinda lagged and we didn't get there till about 2:45 and were late for our tour. but the cool thing was that we were treated like VIP's. seriously. like we got shuttle service (which was out of a minivan, but it was still pretty cool) and we got those headset things too. they're actually pretty cool. i always thought they were kind of geeky, but not so much anymore. here are some shots from there...

the classic villa shot

part of the remodel... it's supposed to symbolize the sea that was adjacent to the villa papuri, which the getty villa is a duplication of

some of the cool thing that machado and silvetti did...

the best detail that i've seen there. you see how the railing starts of as wood, but then it transitions into the wall which then becomes the handrail... SPECTACULAR!!!

some witch looking lady... just for kicks...

it's a new cousin!

Boquirens are everywhere!!! she's the one to my right, not the weirdo over my left shoulder.

despite all of the stuff that's being said about myspace, friendster and facebook, or any sort of internet thing like that, i've happened to meet some amazing people on it. not everyone is a weirdo!

anyways so i just recently joined facebook and one day i was checking it and someone had written me a message. but the thing that tripped me out the most was that the person's last name was BOQUIREN! so after talking to her for a little bit, i found out that we're related! how awesome is that! i have a new cousin from texas!

so shara and i had dinner the on wednesday at the library alehouse in santa monica with katie and steve and she's totally a cool young woman. she's smart, graduated with chemical engineering from texas a&m and now she's working for a chemical company in texas. pretty amazing. she was in town collecting data from the phillips conoco plant over in wilmington (you know, gotham city just right off of the 405). very cool!

next time your in town shara let me know!

so long SWEET ANGEL!! my little s-6

larnie and leia have been on their road trip for the past week now and it's been pretty amazing... check out to see their adventures, if you haven't yet at

www.tripnsouls.blogspot.com

get ready for some road trip hilarity!!!

the product shots above are from c & o, where we went to lunch before they left. killer garlic rolls and pasta, excellent!!!

the family saying goodbye to their sweet angel! that name just sounds so
cheesy, i just had to use it...

THE BEST BIRTHDAY...EVER!!!

28 has started off really exceeding my expectations. I was surrounded by an amazing group of people of family and friends who helped make the evening and this weekend very special. we dined on a fancy italian feast at dolce and then headed over to east/west lounge to close off the night drinking and enjoying conversation. i hope all of those who attended had a great time as i did.

the best part of it for me was that friends that i've made from all the different parts of my life, elementary school, undergrad, grad, coworkers, my family and signifigant others, came together and were able to enjoy each other's company. i always thought that i needed to keep these different facetes of my life separate, but now i know that i don't need too. this birthday was seriously the BEST!!!

until next year 07.07.07... here are just a few pics

larnie and vic sippin' on some mojitos!

some of my favorite guests!!! jeff, tin, anna and jean

i think this picture of me and johnnie is so cute. we're doing a homecoming pose!

katie, david, steve and me, enjoying some drinks on the outdoor patio

this one is going on my wall... me and steve

jason and i hanging with our boys

fernie, me, lori and alex... these guy are great!

random thought for this birthday weekend. gloria estefans' "1-2-3" keeps running through my head. you know how it goes:

" 1-2-3-4 come on baby say you love me
5-6-7 times
8-9-10-11 I'm just gonna keep on counting

Until you are mine"

anyways, have a good one!

HAPPY 4th of JULY!

"C is for Cookie and it's good enough for me!" jenn, me, larnie, dad, mom, bambi carrying little matthew, vic and kit getting ready to eat the big 12" cookie!

today was great! i got to sleep in a little bit, my dad made spam (YUM!), watched the project runway marathon on bravo, caught up on the hills (steve and i have yet to show up, but i'm not holding my breath anymore, i'm sure we ended up on the cutting room floor, but i'm still hopeful that we didn't!). and then after that larns and i headed to the store to make 4th of july dinner! homemade burgers, tater tots, onion rings, skirt steak, complete with sangria and mojitos! it was awesome. and then to top it all off, one of my favorite things in the world, a big 12"...COOKIE with ice cream! so delicious... yummmm

but right before the cutting of the cookie occured we had to document the moment with a pciture in the kitchen. little matthew is all sleepy i his little yellow jumper. he's so cute now. he's learning to walk a little bit, well proping himself up, and making all of these really cute baby noises.

oh family...

CALLING ALL SWEDES!!!

i need your help. a group of us were in cambridge england back in 1999 and besides taking along the necessities (clothes, toiletries, money) i packed one of my favorite things, my GQ magazine. so i packed away "the comedy issue" which GQ has not done since then, with mike meyers on the cover. little did i know that this specific issue would not only become my favorite issue to date, but that it would haunt me for the next seven years...

so inside are all of these jokes from different comedians, but there was one in particular that we could never understand, and this is where i need your help. here's the joke:

"The king of Sweden was out hunting in the woods with one of his assistants. As they looked around, suddenly there appeared in the clearing another man. The king raised his rifle. The man shouted, "I'm not a moose!" The king fired a shot and killed the man. Stunned, the assistant said, "Sire, he said, 'i'm not a moose!'" "Oh," said the king, "I thought he said , 'I am a moose.'"

so help... anyone?

(Swedish King Carl XVI Gustaf (right) poses with Sunita Narain and the Stockholm Water Prize diploma awarded to Narain at the Concert Hall in Stockholm on Thursday. — AFP photo)

Martini Night!!!

enjoying an andrew-tini

so after a long week of work and getting home and cleaning my room, what else is there left to do but drink?

with my dad gone to be assistant D.I. (dance instructor) with my uncle and with it being so hot, the only logical choice of something to do on a friday night was to have martini night with my mom!!! i made my special andrew-tini's and we chilled for a bit.

my mom is a bit of a light weight so i basically finished my andrew-tini and working on her's right now. we then spent the rest of the night looking for her missing tsinelas.

oh friday nights with the madre...

CHEERS!