Michelin-filled Vegas

In the words of Emeril Lagasse, my trip to Vegas was "kicked up a few notches" because my friends and I decided to nix the famous Vegas buffets in lieu of Michelin star winning restaurants. Big thanks to Yuki for picking out the places!

Las Vegas is known for many things: gambling, partying, lavish hotels, shopping, top entertainment, and world-class food. My favorites are definitely the entertainment and world-class food! We were able to watch the beautifully made Cirque du soleil show, KA, and eat at Michelin star winning restaurants, Mix at Mandalay Bay hotel and Daniel Boulud Brasserie at the Wynn. This was my first time in Vegas as a person over 21 years old and it was my sister's first time in Vegas too! Vegas did not disappoint thanks to our wonderful friends Richard, Yuki, Tiff, Tricia, Kevin, and Jeanie.

*Special thanks to Kevin and his professional camera taking skills*

In front of the Cirque du soleil KA theater at the MGM Grand hotel

Mix is located at the top of THEhotel so anticipate a grand view of the Vegas strip. We all chose from the prix-fix menu, allowing us to get a taste of everything like lobster, lamb, scallop, shrimp, and so much more...Delicious!

A group picture at the outdoor seating in Daniel Boulud Brasseire. There was a gorgeous water and light show throughout dinner. The servers were very personable and funny. They kept flirting with my sister and gave us a free "engagement dessert" because they thought Tiffany and Yuki were engaged (or about to be engaged). Haha!

Since Las Vegas is a city that never sleeps, we explored the night life and went out to TAO at the Venetian the first night. Entrance was free for hotel guests! Even though it was super crowded that night, I was still able to spot other classmates who happened to be in town that day too.

Downtown Las Vegas

Many people don't know or don't choose to visit Downtown Las Vegas, a.k.a. Old Las Vegas. Our second night out consisted of tourist stops (i.e. Fabulous Las Vegas sign) and the Freemont street experience in downtown L.V. Here you will see older Vegas hotels and casinos. It may not be as glitzy and glamorous as the strip but it's still something worth seeing once.

So Long Fabulous Las Vegas!

Thanksgiving Turkey Bowl

Football, Food, Fellowship, and Fun!

Midway Girl's Football Team!! We won 1st place!!

This was the first year I celebrated Thanksgiving without my immediate family and without the Nguyen Thanksgiving feast. The holiday season is different when you're living in an area of perpetual sun and 70 degree weather. I can no longer relate to songs like "White Christmas" or "Walking in a Winter Wonderland". Nonetheless, the wonderful summerland weather here provided the perfect temperature for the 2nd Annual Turkey Football Bowl! Four teams from four churches competed for the title of Turkey Bowl Champions. As you saw in the picture above, Midway girls won!

Coach Hieu made a fantastic video of our team on game day. Enjoy!

Hanh, our make up artist is making us look fierce with that black eye liner

Our team then attempted to make fierce poses to go along with the make up

The last time I played football was at last year's Thanksgiving at my parent's house. From what I remember, we tied and I almost got a black eye from running into my fellow teammate. I'm glad it wasn't repeated at this year's game! The girls on the Midway team were talented players and I'm so glad to have been apart of it all. Congratulations ladies and Midway COACHES (Richard, Hieu, and Anthony)!!

Thank you to ALL the football teams who came out and donated canned foods and toys for Isaiah house and the Orangewood Children's home. Great game and I hope to see you next year!

I had to throw this in here for fun. Hahah!

....An old picture from last year's football festivities on the east coast!

3 day weekend, 2 finished exams, 1 night in Hollywood

After two exams and 0 sleep, I get to use Columbus day off to relax and catch up on Grey's Anatomy and maybe The View...

Medical school has been a lot of work but it's also been so much fun! I think a new type of relationship develops when you bond with your friends over a cadaver. One cannot replicate that experience anywhere else. Does that sound messed up or what??

So our class rented 2 party buses (one was hippie-themed, the other was a fancy shmancy white bus) and we headed into Hollywood on Sunset to just go out and have a fun with our classmates. I will not go into any further details, lest it be deemed unprofessional. :)

"Study hard, party harder"- class of 2013

"Andrew, I need 2 people to get off the bus. No wait, I need 3 people!"

Here's to another 4 years!

In L.A. with The Killers and Kanye West?

Oh wait. It's not Kanye West, it's actually Jimmy Kimmel making fun of Kanye West.

The sold-out Killers concert was held at the Hollywood Bowl in Los Angeles and Richard managed to snag tickets! Loves it! This was my first time at the Hollywood Bowl- a huge outdoor amphitheater consisting of roughly 18,000 seats. I took a few photos but for the most part, I was busy singing/dancing along with Brandon Flowers (a.k.a. B-flow, Favorite Mormon Man).

I last saw The Killers in 2007, after their release of Sam's Town. With the release of Day & Age, the set list consisted of the oh-so-popular "Human" (or are we dancer??) and other songs from their new CD. Of course they played the crowd favorites like "Mr. Brightside,""All the things I've done," and "Somebody told me". Opening for the band was the group, The Psychedelic Furs...An act that we missed since we were busy eating at this great sausage grill known as Wurstküche.

The show was just as fabulous as I would imagine it to be. Brandon sounded even better this time around (not that he wasn't fantastic back in 2007) and their new acoustic version of "Smile like you mean it" truly caught me off guard. As my mother would say, "A-MA-JING!"

I was able to find a recording from a previous performance. Listen to the new vamped up version that I was able to hear live:

The stage after the concert finished

For all you Killers fans who wished you were there, here's the set list!

1. Opening: Human

2. Somebody Told Me

3. For Reasons Unknown (B-flow played the bass for this one)

4. Bones

5. Joy Ride

6. Bling (Confession of King)

7. Shadow Play (Joy Division cover)

8. Jenny Was a Friend of Mine

9. Sweet Talk

10. Smile Like you Mean it (Acoustic and original version mix)

11. Spaceman

12. A Dustland Fairytale

13. Can't Help Falling in Love (Elvis Presley cover)

14. Read my Mind (my favorite)

15. Mr. Brightside

16. All These Things I've Done

Encore:

17. This is Your Life

18. Pretty in Pink (With the Psychedelic Furs)

19. When You Were Young

Food and Fashion Frenzy in France

Q: WHY DID WE GO TO PARIS?

Christine: Fashion, Fashion, Fashion, Fashion

Most people don't know that Christine writes a really succesful fashion blog. She even gets sponsored by some companies to advertise and give free gift giveaways through her site. No wonder Paris is her favorite city in the whole entire world! Here's a link to her fashion blog

Aivi: Art museums

Aivi is the most creative one in my immediate family. Lam and I are complete idiots when it comes to art but homegirl has an eye for it. She used to take lots of college art classes when she was only in highschool! Too bad she's doing the asian thing and getting into the math and sciences...j/k.

Me: Food and wine...and maybe a picture here or there with some special buildings...

Looking back, I realized that I spent most of my money in Europe on food. I did the occasional shopping but a lot of my money was spent in restaurants. Isn't it the law to have 3-4 hour dinners with a bottle of wine in Paris?? No wonder everyone in Paris thinks America is too fast paced.

Chris: Sight-see like a military sergeant and experience France in the most American way

This was the first time Chris was in Paris and he did what every good tourist did- he saw almost every major monuement in France. When everyone got too lazy to walk into the Notre Dame, he stood in the looonng line to take a 5 minute walk through Quaisimodo's crib.

It's not Gawdy, it's Gaudi.

The city of Barcelona is Antoni Gaudi's master piece. From an interpretation of Hansel and Gretel's candy house in Park Guell to the Sagrada Familia , his approach to architecture and usage of color led me to take over 200 pictures in one day. Let me also add that the man lived in a pink house!

Antoni Gaudi was a Catalan architect who died in 1926. The top most picture is a snapshot of the Hansel and Gretel house that is at the entrance of Park Guell. The picture below is of the impressive Sagrada Familia, a catholic church. Gaudi worked on the Sagrada Familia for over 40 years and it remained incomplete after he died. The city is trying to finish his work and hoping that they can have it completed by 2026, a hundred years after his death.

When I saw the church in person, I was like "Whaaa? How is that a church? It looks like the total opposite of a church..." Like I said, Gaudi had his own individual style.

More Gaudi architecture:

The colonnade, "La Ola" in the park

Gaudi's usage of tile mosaics in the ceiling and the wrap around bench. Do you see snoopy's face in this picture below?

Gaudi's pink house

View of Barcelona from the park bench

Christine and I were really lucky to have our wonderful friend, Roser, give us a tour of her home city. She has so much Catalan spirit! I think I learned Catalan History 101 in just one day with her. For those of you who don't know much about the history of the Spain, Spain is split into Autonomous communities- Catalonia is one of them and the capital of Catalonia is Barcelona.

Did you know that Barcelona's official language is Catalan, not Spanish?

More pictures from Barcelona

Here's a list of Gaudi's other works in Barcelona

FOB: Fresh Off the Beach...From Cádiz

While Eva sunburned and Christine read, I was busy people watching. I should also add that I was wearing my reflective sunglasses and hat so no one really knew who or what I was looking at-that's the right way to people watch. People watching at the Cádiz beach taught me a little bit about beach fashion. You see, it's easy to differentiate between European and American men. European men wear speedos or tiny, tight shorts to the beach; the U.S. men wear big board shorts.

Let's play I SPY with this picture! I spy...With my little eye...A medium build man in a blue speedo. Hmm, where do you think he is from?

As for the women, let's just say that there was no fashion...Most beaches in Spain are topless. Sorry, no I SPY games for women.

Cádiz has perfect weather, gorgeous people, hoppin' beaches and great food- sounds like California! The only difference is that Cádiz is a really old city, like ~1100 B.C. old. It's no surprise that Cádiz is the oldest city in ALL OF SPAIN. The city is relatively small, thus, we were able to go sight seeing within 2 hours before the beach. We hit up the cathedral, famous theater, a few monuments, and even did some tourist shopping.

Cádiz Cathedral

Christine in her new dress she bought minutes before this picture was taken

Plaza San Antonio

Almost tanorexic at the beach

After the heatwave experience in Seville, heading to Cádiz via train was a perfect way to end our stay in southern Spain. Let me also warn you that most restaurants next to the beach close at 5PM and then open up again at 8PM for dinner service. Just remember to prepare yourself for super late dinners!

Celebrating July 4th in Seville, Spain

July 4th Schedule Spanish Style:

2PM-7PM Siesta

11PM-7AM Fiesta

Seville, the capital of Andalucia, made me appreciate the concept of having a siesta in the middle of the day. I just thought that people were so relaxed that siesta-ing would give them something to do. In actuality, it's because it's SO HOT IN SEVILLE, NO ONE WANTED TO LEAVE THE HOUSE IN THE AFTERNOON UNTIL IT WAS DARK. I'm talking about Las Vegas desert weather in the middle of July multiplied by 10. According to ExploreSeville.com, Seville holds the record for being the hottest city in ALL of Europe.

During the four days with Eva, our awesome Spanish friend (tour guide and translator!), we acted like vampires. Most of our activities revolved around the setting of the sun. We would do bits and pieces of tourist attractions before peak sun-hours (most of them being indoors), escape into the house for lunch, and siesta until the sun dissapeared. Our night life was great, however. The weather was perfect when there was no sun, especially on July 4th. Instead of BBQs and beer, we had tapas and tinto, a spanish drink consisting of 1 part red wine and 2 parts orange Fanta. I thought we were going to have a relatively chill night celebrating the fourth at a posh outdoor bar/club but one thing led to another and we ended up dancing until 7AM! We also celebrated the fourth with other locals and fellow U.S. students who were studying abroad. Viva America!

Eva, Christine, and me

I will do no justice to Seville if I only talk about the night life. Therefore, I will carry on with my favorite things about the city, starting with food. Seville is famous for their tapas, a spanish appetizer. When Eva took us to her favorite tapas bar called Caberna Colonailes, I was floored when I saw and tasted the fried quail eggs over slices of chorizo (a smoked pork sausage). It was definitely my favorite tapas dish.

Besides tasty tapas, Eva also took us to see the major tourist sites. I really liked the Plaza de España and the gothic Cathedral of Seville. We went to visit the Plaza de España during the sunset. It was so beautiful and colorful, no wonder the movie, Star Wars Episode 2: Attack of the Clones used the Plaza to film Naboo scenes!

As for the cathedral, it used to a mosque but was then rebuilt into a church. The cathedral also serves as the official burial site for Christopher Columbus! I can't believe I stood next to his dead body to snap a tourist picture...

Once again, I gotta say muchas gracias to Eva for taking us around Seville!