livin' la vida loca

WOW, I just realized I didn't blog at all last month - first one in almost five years that I missed, opps. Life has been busy which is great but no excuse. In the last 6 weeks I hit about 7 cities - US and abroad! I'm very pleased to report that business continues to be funneling in, which I'm incredibly grateful for after a very slow ramp over the first two years of business. So in April I was in San Francisco, Portland and New York City followed by a brief visit in Philadelphia to catch up with my family. Then I was back in LA for two weeks before I jet off to SPAIN! And now that I'm back, all I can say is: wow, what an experience.

It's pretty wild that just a few short months ago I listed Spain as one of the top things I wanted to do in the spirit of truly living the spirit of "life is short." And it's as if all I needed to do was declare it as an intention and suddenly it came to be. Just a few weeks after I put it out to the universe I get contacted by a client about an coaching engagement and after speaking with him, it turns out he lives in Madrid and works for a large, well-known global organization. This couldn't have worked out any better - I get to go to Madrid for work and extend my trip to include some much needed travel and vacation time. Perfect.

So after much research and debate I decided to go to Madrid, San Sebastian and end in Barcelona. And while for the past several years I've always said I didn't want to travel alone, I finally realized that if I keep "waiting" for my person or the ideal travel companion I may never get anywhere I want to go - so it was time for me to be brave, go against my own grain and book this trip. So that I did. And just like above, when I put it out there, friends started saying they'd come meet me. So I had a nice balance of alone time where I met some cool people combined with time where friends from both childhood and college were able to meet up for different parts of my journey. Very cool.

I'm not really sure how to best sum up the trip so I think I'm going to attempt the top 10 things I loved / that I'll always remember. Here goes:

1. The tiny walkable streets and alleys surround by beautifully artistic architecture and floral balconies - LOVE.

2. The culture of food, family/friends, rest and play - all in abundance. Yes there's work, but by no means does it over ride these things -- Spain knows how life should be lived.

3. The beautiful, peaceful coastline of San Sebastian along with it's tiny town filled with tapas, bars, shops and restaurants that are all yummy.

4. The Vino Blanco and Vino Tinto - all of it is YUM.

5. The enormous, peaceful, beautiful park Retiro in Madrid filled with fountains, roses, black and white birds, kids playing soccer, rowboats, and castle like architecture - amazing. (also the spanish version of mickey and minnie -- really?!?!?)

6. The modern, colorful, incredibly unique design of Guadi all over Barcelona - truly like nothing else I've seen.

7. The pace - everyone has a "spanish stroll" no one is in a rush, even the dogs just walk about along the alleyways. It's peaceful, it's relaxing, it's so not America.





8. The Tapas - cold on bread, warm on toast, sizzling in olive oil - no matter how they are served they are all amazing. The bread, the cheese, the PIG (or jamon) and the seafood - all so so so so so good.

9. The markets - stand after stand of the day's freshest meat, cheese, seafood, fish, veggies, fruit, baguettes, desserts - you name it the market has it and it's fresh and delicious.

10. The people - all so friendly, passionate, accommodating, welcoming, happy and honored it seemed to have you in their country and to share what they love about where they live and who they are and of course their love for football. Amazing.

I'll try to capture my list with a few photos that don't quite do it justice but you'll get the idea. Thanks for reading - and I'd love to hear where you've been in Spain and what you loved. I'm already dying to go back to hit the southern cities - time to save up my euros, cheers!