Barnard commencement

I loved this speech by Sheryl Sandberg. She really highlights some important aspects of why women still aren't equal in the workforce.  She uses the phrase "Lean In" which I also really liked. One of my favorite quotes is,

"Women almost never make one decision to leave the workforce. It doesn’t happen that way. They make small little decisions along the way that eventually lead them there. Maybe it’s the last year of med school when they say, I’ll take a slightly less interesting specialty because I’m going to want more balance one day....

These women don’t even have relationships, and already they’re finding balance, balance for responsibilities they don’t yet have. And from that moment, they start quietly leaning back. The problem is, often they don’t even realize it. Everyone I know who has voluntarily left a child at home and come back to the workforce—and let’s face it, it’s not an option for most people. But for people in this audience, many of you are going to have this choice. Everyone who makes that choice will tell you the exact same thing: You’re only going to do it if your job is compelling."

How many people do you know who fit into this category? I know plenty. Women who hate their jobs, yet stay. Or even worse: women who think their jobs are OK and stay just because it is secure and their path is set and every 10 months they will get a promotion and a 6% raise. I have heard that Sheryl Sandberg is a super intense woman (and I totally believe it), but I really like what she had to say to Barnard and her speech was incredibly genuine. 

i love google chrome

This video is so adorable, I nearly cried when I watched it and then had to watch it again. I love google chrome.

My little princess

Happy graduation part two

Happy Graduation, mel!

weekend planning

I am in the midst of finding myself some part-time summer employment. It may or may not involve feeding babies, teaching reluctant tweens about X and Y axes and picking up dog shit, but hey, I want an ipad. So, judge me later.

I have a dear friend in town this weekend. It's his first time in Seattle and the forecast calls for rain. But, in the event it doesn't rain, we will be going to a Sounders Game (my first ever!), visiting Pike Place Market, running through the arboretum and  eating late night pizza at Via Tribunali. Actually, we will do all of this even if it does rain. I have to get back into this Seattle thing at some point, right?

Speaking of the Sounders, apparently the Portland Timbers are testing Seattle's hipster street credit at their soccer matches. When is this going to be on an episode of Portlandia?  I am trying to pick my favorite quote but the entire article is downright hilarious so take a look right here.

I will let you know who shows up in more kilts, dreadlocks and if I can get my hands on some decent tempeh in between corner kicks.

in between doctors appointments and lattes

I am back in Seattle. My day has involved:

• looking at grey skies
• running (read: jogging) in the rain
• getting yet another rabies vaccine
• getting my eyebrows waxed (hallelujah!)

Now am off to yoga, and I leave you with my new favorite song!

Best and Worsts... reflections on an amazing six weeks!

7am tomorrow I will depart Central America and make my way back to the US! I can hardly believe my time is done. Some days it felt like it would never come..others it seemed like time was flying. These past six weeks have been very special for me. My trek was definitely my personal highlight becuase it really challenged me, but I also felt the whole trip helped me through some rough spots in my life and was a great time to meet new friends, see amazing new places, spend six weeks just being a traveler and a tourist and overall relax (something that will not feel too familiar come late August!)

So, Julie and I made our OWN lists of Bests and Worst from the past six weeks (catagories we decided together) and we compared them tonight over a few glasses of wine. This is the absolute best way to reflect on a trip with friends. Here are mine (and here is a link to Julie's!)

Best Town: Cuzco, Peru. It  was perfect. Lots of history, amazing backdrop, great culture, phenomenal cuisine.
Worst Town: Puerto Viejo, Costa Rica... rained all 5 days. enough said

Best Beach: Playa Grande, Costa Rica. Sun, surf lessons, beautiful water.
Worst Beach : Puerto viejo, Costa Rica. didn't get to swim because of all the rain!

Best Day: Machu Picchu. Such an amazing experience, one I will never forget
Worst Day: The five hour bus ride (with a totally crazy woman and also crazy driver) to Puerto Viejo. It poured rain the whole way.

Best Hostel: Hostel Amaru in Cuzco. Phenomenal view, service, HBO (on a flat screen), great free breakfast and AMAZING beds.
Worst Hostel: La Terraza, Nicaragua. Two girls were ill, no air conditioning, power went out for 3 hours in the middle of the night. All together shitty!

Best Bed: Hotel Barcelo in Managua. King size bed and room service. What more can a girl ask for?
Worst Bed: First night in Lima. The bunk bed was hard and the pillow was more like a sham

Best Guide: Our guide who took us around Ometepe, Nicaragua (and I can't remember his name. I am a jerk). He was so m,uch fun and completely hungover. He even forgot to wear underwear. It was hilarious.
Worst Guide: Our horseback riding guide in Ecuador. He didn't speak english and didn't have any interest in talking with us at all. zzz

Best View: The view from Wayna Picchu overlooking all of Machu Picchu. Truly breathtaking.
Worst View: The bus ride from the pacific side of costa rica to Rio celeste. borrring!!

Best Purchase: A wool alpaca hat theday before our trek. So necessary.
Worst Purchase: A second does of Cipro. I never took it!

Best Country: Peru. hands down amazing
Worst Country: So hard to decide. I went with Ecuador becuase it was not as great as Peru and the weather was not great and I got bit by a dog. But alll countries were special and great in their own ways!

Best Meal: A phenomenal and gourmet lunch in Cuzco the day after our trek. It incuded beet ravioli, fresh salad, and I can't even remember what else. oh the best dessert (read about that later..)
Worst Meal: the first night of our trek... becuase I puked it all up!!

Best Dessert: following the best lunch, we had this delicious mango, chocolate pastry thing that was to die for! It also included basil ice cream. yum
Worst dessert: we had a lemon pie in some country at some location I can't even remember anymore. I guess that was how shitty it was. woof.

Best spa: In Banos, Ecuador. The massage therapist stretched my whole body, the best stretch and massage I got the whole time
Worst Spa: In Cuzco after our trek. Massage was not fab

Best Person we met: Our trusty surf instructor/real estate agent/new dad/taxi driver Heinz. He was so eccentric and hilarious. And he was great at teaching surf. Truly the definition of a quirky man!
Worst person we met: Crazy ass woman on our bus ride from San Jose to Puerto Viejo. Divorced former alcoholic turned into a yogini. Wouldn't stop talking. woof.

Best Transportation: Sadly, getting from the US to my hostel in Lima was the best transportation experience for me. Everything else was, to put it nicely, very "latin"
Worst Transportation day: getting home from Machu Picchu. After waking up at 345 am that day, to get back to Cuzco we took 2 trains, a bus and then a taxi home. We also left our bag on the bus and had to get the taxi to take us back. We also tried to eat dinner and my stomach went to town on me. long day.

Best Laundromat: In Cuzco, mostly because we so desperately needed it. She folded our clothes, sorted them AND dropped if off at our hostel. bliss
Worst Laundromat: Puerto Viejo. It was expensive, clothes were barely folded and the women doing it looked like overweight whores (actually, I think they were)

Best Thing I packed: Bananagrams. needs no explanation
Worst Thing I packed: A khaki skirt I wore once. wa wa

Best Animal: Our neighbor's dog in Playa Grande.. Ringo.
Worst Animal: The little shit white dog who bit me in Ecuador

Item of clothing i WILL wear again: My chacos, becuase they last forever
Item of clothing  I hope I NEVER wear again: my raincoat. That thing has no gortex left

Best Deal: Our booze cruise! I successfully knocked 34% off the price. Go me!
Biggest rip off: Our hotel in Ometepe. Expensive, shit air conditioning, small room and expensive

Best unexpected fun: all the awesome yoga classes I took! I didn't expect at all that I would have the chance to do yoga!
Biggest letdown: The Caribbean. I really wanted turqoouise water and snorkeling. Instead I got rain and reading my book under cover.

Best body of water: Rio Celeste, Costa Rica. I can't describe it so just wait for pics.
Worst boday of water: the costa rican caribbean.. didn't even get to go in it!

Thing I am looking forward to most at home: catching up on all my tv shows on my couch with my mom and a bowl of homemade popcorn (oh and also 3g!)
Thing I am not looking fwd to at home: rain in Seattle

That's it!!! I hope you enjoyed my memories. Heading out tomorrow morning at 7 am so going to bed soon. updates (with photos) from Seattle coming ASAP!!

xoxo

Update from the caribbean

It's still raining.

Lauren Verrilli
Sent from my iPhone

Spanish with a rastafarian accent

Definitely the wierdest accent I  have heard  on  my travels has been here in the Caribbean, it involves a deep, raspy rasta voice but actually speaking Spanish. I hardly know to answer.

We arrived  in Puerto Viejo on May 4th after a 5 hour bus ride from San Jose with a CRAZY divorcee from west virginia who was an  alcoholic, now is a yogi and has left all her furniture at her parents and moved to the costa rica. Needless to say, it was a long ass bus ride.

On the 5th we got up and walked to yoga and  had a delightful morning. Unfortunately,  it rained all day. We wandered  around town, got massages, checked out all the places to get our hair put into dreads. wah wah.

The next day it rained all damn day as well. We actually had a couple hours without rain and  Julie and I  rented cruisers (with back pedal breaks) and went  a 16 mile bike ride on the beachside road through beautiful jungle. It's  amazing how many hotels there are here. In case you were thinking of opening a hotel in costa rica, the market for it in puerto viejo is saturated.  We got caught in nasty  rain on our way back and finally submitted  to it. We showered,  watched a movie  in english and ate popcorn  and beer in bed.

We ate dinner with a great new  friend we met from NYC (on vacation from her super cool job atVh1!).

Today we awoke to some sun! Iwas so excited!!  We went to yoga and walked on the beach and met Lacey at her hotel. We swam in the pool, laid out at the beach  and  I finished one book and started the next. All together a good (and relaxing) day. Tonight we are out to see what happens here at night.

Nothing too exciting to report but there are some obnoxious girls in this internet cafe who are messing with my ability to function.

Home on Tuesday!!

What lonely planet doesn't know....

Greetings from the big, ugly and loud city of San Jose. Julie and I spent the night here last night in our quest to make it to the eastern side of costa rica and to finally lay our eyes on the carribean sea! Upon departing Playa Grande, we hitched a ride from our surfing instructor (who apparently does a little bit of everything.. including being a taxi) to the nearby city of Liberia. From Liberia, we caught a very crowded bus to a town called Bijauga. From Bijagua we took a cab up a windy, steep, dirt road to a little ecolodge where we instantly plopped on our beds (killed some major bugs) and read our books in silence for 2 hours. It felt great to have some alone time after 2 weeks traveling with a group of 5!

The next morning we were up early and drove about an hour to the trailhead for our much anticipated hike to Rio Celeste. The river, we had been told, had spectacular chemical properties that made the water this beautiful robin's egg blue. It sits near the base of a volcano and the volcano provides the river with tons of sulfer, colbalt, copper and possibly iron (i need to learn all the chemicals in Spanish!)

Anyway, we embarked on the hike with our driver/guide and our first stop was this gorgeous waterfall called cataras. I can't even describe the color. It looked like the Tiffany's boxes!! We weren't able to swim at the first stop because apparently someone died once jumping off the waterfall. We also saw a sloth on our way to waterfall number 1! They really do move impossibly slow. It was super cool!

Next, we came upon these unbelievable pools of water. Most were cold but one in the corner was a natural volcanic hot spring and different sections of it were hotter than others depending on how close we were to the source. Julie and I jumped into the cold pool first (really not that cold) and then made our way up to the hot one, back to the cold and then out. The water was also stunning!

Next we saw the final "Laguna Azul" which was more stagnant than the other water but made the color that much more amazing. This final pool was more like a bay and the water was so still. We also got to see the exact location where the river turns from brown/brackish to bright bright blue. The photos are amazing! I will post when I get home (which is in a week by the way!)

We then hopped on a local bus (only white kids on it!) to San Jose. It was 5 hours long and we were definitely ready for our fancy hotel when we arrived last night. We even split a cheeseburger. Now we are off to the carribean. It's supposed to be really rastafarian.. .I am excited! more later :)

Also, send me your address if you have not yet done it!

I am a slacker

I know, my blog is having a bit of a dry spell. This is the result of having way too much fun surfing in playa grande in costa rica and also our vrbo condo leaving some things to be desired (such as the wifi they had promised and the tv to watch the royal wedding!)

So, without these modern amenities we took the time to do smacks activities in the area! Pretty good compromise, right? We took surf lessons not once but twice from a super nice local surfer named Heinz. We met he and his American wife (and their 8 week old baby) at a pizza place the first night and they quickly told us that Heinz (the new dad) could give lessons.

We had an awesome lesson with him on Friday and i actually was able to "drop" into the wave as opposed to riding the white water. We were so exhausted at the end of the day and sore the next day!

Saturday morning we got up early and headed to a nearby hotel for yoga. It was such a great class (outdoors!). After yoga I finally got my second rabies vaccine... Only 8 days late! Then we went into tamarindo and got on a catamaran for a 5 hour open bar booze cruise! It was so much fun and we meg great people- including a group of 5 women from canada who said they were just like us 30 years ago! We took tequila shots as a whole group, did some snorkeling, and generally lounged. We came back and ate dinner, tried to muster the energy to go to the bar that opened at 10 pm but were basically asleep at 930. Oops.

Sunday morning we were up early surfing with Heinz and repeatedly wiping out. It was so much fun and I feel way more confident on the surf board now.

We spent the afternoon doing what I like to call the best trick in the book: we went to the nicest hotel on the beach(w awesome pool) and ate a cheap lunch and kept our tab open all day and used all their amenities all day! Score!! Such a relaxing afternoon.

Today we left playa grande and Julie and I parted ways from our 3 Seattle friends who all have jobs to go home to! We are now in a small ass town called bijaugua and are at a pretty much empty ecolodge. Tomorrow we will go to rio Celeste (google it!) and then head to San Jose for the night before going to the carribean. Whoo!!

PS- should I be worried about bin laden aftermath? I think no but I am a little out of the loop....