Belly Dancing Part II: So Uncoordinated

It has been a couple of months since I started taking my belly dancing classes and I must say that I am in love!!! I must admit, that it did take me awhile to get used to doing chest lifts and drops, snake arms, shimmies, undulations, traveling twists and everything else in between. Now, my teacher taught us this awesome choreography that we will probably perform in a recital later on the future. I'm not looking forward to that. Anyway, it is a pretty simple dance with all moves we have learned so far. Welllll, I always knew how uncoordinated I am, but I never realized how bad I am until I'm dancing with others. Why they're going right, butt is going left. While we're doing traveling twists, which I LOVE, I tend to lose my balance, lose my place in the song and then eventually lose my mind. And she wants ME to perform on stage with people actually watching me dance?!?!?!? *runs away while screaming* *takes deep breath* But a couple of positive things I can say about the mistakes I make in class is that I don't give up. I am also able to laugh at myself when I do make the mistakes. I stumble, I fumble, I laugh and then try again. Like they say, whoever they are, practice makes perfect. :D

What Happens in Vegas, I will share with you!

*taps mic* Is this thing on??? Good evening all!!! I haven't post anything in a long time because of work. I mean I have been working a lot these past couple of months and I'm glad it slowed a little bit before the storm a.k.a holiday shopping. Anyhoo, back in September I finally got the chance to go to a city I always wanted to visit....VEGAS BABY!!!!! First, I would like to say that it was just a day trip, so I have no problem sharing my experience there. There was no time to doing anything "risque", but next time...most definitely. Flying to Vegas was pretty uneventful until we started flying over the Graaand Canyon.

I was totally blown away by the mountain scenery; absolutely amazing! Soon after that we landed in Vegas! :D Since it was only a day trip, we decided to take a tour through all the hotels and casinos on the Strip. This was my best friends third time going to Vegas, so she knew some attractions to see while we were walking around. Luckily for us we were able to catch a shuttle ride to and from the airport for just $12! (I can't remember the real price, but it was cheap)

The first hotel we visited was the Venetian hotel and I fell deeply in love with the extravagance of this hotel!! There was gold and replica's of paintings everywhere!!

And of course there was the very famous Gondola ride. We didn't take ride because we were on a budget and the cost to take trip in one of the boats was pretty pricey.

After the Venetian, we walked on one of the connector bridges, that connect all the hotels together, and headed to the Wynn hotel.

On the way there, we saw this awesome waterfall and I had to take a picture next to it!

Every hotel, there were really high priced stores like Chanel, Louis Vuitton, and a whole lot of the stores that we didn't even bother walking into. But they were nice to look at as we passed by.

These flower balls were made out of real flowers and I was just totally fascinated by them. We pretty hungry, so we walked over to the Fashion Mall (Or something like that) to get something from the Food Court. This mall looked like an UFO. Neat.

While walking through the mall, we saw the biggest Forever21 ever and I wished that was a shopping trip soo much, but sadly it wasn't. After that, Treasure Island and the Mirage!

Instead of walking, they provided a little tram that went from Treasure island to the Mirage. Which was nice, because it was getting outside and our feet were starting to hurt.

After the Mirage, we went into Caesars! Holy moly, that place was large and amazing!! I thought the Venetian was over the top, but the Caesar hotel was beyond that! Connected to Caesars was a shopping called the Forum, which lead into the hotel. Now that I think back on it, it got kind of confusing trying to figure out where you were, but I enjoyed the scenery as we walked around in circles.

I think we were in Caesars for almost 2 or 3 hours..whew! Next is the Bellagio (which as the awesome water show at night) and the Cosmopolitan hotel! I loved the Cosmopolitan for one reason only....

This stuff!!! There was strands of crystal all through the casino and I loved it!

Let me fast forward to my other favorite hotels, because we did so much and I took so many pictures, I would typing for hours!! The Paris hotel was my second favorite hotel, right after the Venetian. They had an Eiffel Tower right in the middle of the casino!

Then New York New York was freaking amazeballs! It was like you were in a mini version of New York city.

As it got darker, the city came to life. There were street performers everywhere!! Whether they were in costumes of random characters (Spongebob, Sonic the Hedgehog and Transformers) guys dancing in the street and musicians of all types (there was a guy playing the bagpipes). Our last show of the night was the water fountain show at the Bellagio.

I definitely can't wait to go back because there is still so much to see and do and I can't wait to experience it all!

Enjoying the Festivities in my Town!

Good Evening everyone!! Haven't posted anything in awhile because I've mostly been lazy and exhausted! Resetting my department in the store where I work has really been taking it out of me! So, it's great when I'm on my days off, I can enjoy hanging out with friends and exploring the our city! First festival of the summer was SpeedStreet 2012! Me and one of my good friends love going to this even every year because we get to walk around uptown seeing the people and get a whole lot of FREE stuff!!! LOL! When one hears The Wobble, you MUST get up and DANCE! LOL! The weather was absolutely amazing and I had to bring out the lacy shorts!! I was nervous at first about wearing them out, but I was tired of wearing my jeans and I have these fabulous clothes in my closet...why not actually wear them?!?!?! After more free food and some wine from the Epicentre, we head back to watch Evelyn Champagne-King perform and she did an awesome job! Fast Forward to last weekend when we went to The Taste of Charlotte!!! I love the Taste of Charlotte, because you get to taste all the different kinds of food from soo many different restaurants!! Food Heaven! Even though you have to pay for tokens, we found free parking not too far away from the festival, which made everything taste soo much better! LOL!! I ate ribs, chicken, Indian food, soul food, cupcakes, cocktail shrimp, pizza (that was free), and a whole lot of other food! I was super full after the whole thing. These guys from Fuel Pizza did a cooking demonstration and made a veggie pizza. At first I was like, "yuck", but then after taking a bite of it, "Yuuuuuum!!" It was soo good! At one time during the demonstration, they asked my friend to come up and toss the pizza dough in the air.....it fell back in her face. *womp womp* After sitting down to rest our feet (and digest some of that food) we decided to take pictures!!! *squeals! Even those are the most popular things to do in town at this time of the year, there is always plenty of to do and I can't wait to enjoy them all! :D

New Orleans: Mardi Gras

Good evening folks!!! I know I said I was going to New Orleans for my birthday and blah, blah, blah!! Well, last month me and my bestie finally got our chance to party in the Big Easy for Mardi Gras!!!!!! Let me tell you, I was beyond excited for this trip!! Even before Princess and the Frog came out, I always wanted to visit New Orleans and I finally got my chance!! First, I must start off by saying, we missed our first flight in the morning and had to take the next flight. *womp womp* Which kinda sucked because we were going to spend that time walking around the French Quarter and looking at all the shops. Anyhoo, we finally get on our flight (we definitely weren't going to miss that one) and an hour and a half later, New Orleans!!!

I'm not sure how it is all year round in New Orleans, especially the French Quarter, but there were people everywhere!!!

Thanks to some very helpful party people that we met at the airport, we ate lunch at a VERY popular seafood restaurant in the French Quarters called Deanie's!! The place was packed with people, but yet the wait was only 45 minutes.

This was soo good!! It was fried shrimp, oysters, fish and soft shell crab!! I didn't get my Po' Boy sandwich this time, but next trip, it is on!! After that we head to the hotel to check-in and put on some more clothes. Brrr!! That was one of the downfalls of this trip...the weather. It didn't rain thank goodness, but it would of been soo awesome if it would have been a tad bit warmer. Moving along,the one thing we really enjoyed were all the different parades, that were held by different organizations or Krewes. One Krewe we definitely loved, was the Krewe of Tucks. And that is because they threw the most beads and other random objects than any other parade that we saw.

If you ever go to one of these parades, NEVER LOOK DOWN!! I say this because, there are numerous amounts of objects being thrown out into the crowd and if you look away, you will be knocked in the head by a strand of beads!

Don't worry, I left with a lot more beads than that!! And I didn't have to show one boob! :D Another thing that sucked, after that parade was over, we decided to wait for the next one...which took almost 2 hours to come!! And it was cold and it was windy!! Let's just say after all the parades that we saw this year, next year we decided 2 parades will be enough. Finally, Krewe Proteus and Krewe of Orpheus comes down the block!

These parades were loooonng and stuff was being thrown everywhere!! They threw beads, rolls of toilet paper, plungers (not really ones), coins, spears (again, not real ones) and even bags that all the stuff came in!!

Also, during many of these parades, were high school marching bands. They all did a really great job and you can see in many of the students faces that they were proud to be in participating in the parade.

One last thing that sucked, my camera battery died after this last parade. *womp, womp, womp* So, I took it back to the room to get charged, which meant no pictures of Cafe du Monde, the super famous cafe that serves the even more famous, beignets. We also went to the Harrah's casino, where I won money!!! Yaaay!!! Then we marched down to Bourbon St. to get some drinks and watch all the tomfoolery. To be honest, I was kind of disappointed about Bourbon St, but I think it was because I was tired from watching parades all day and it the temperature was continuing to drop. There were plenty of drunk people and some flashing, but most people were just walking around or standing around. *shrugs* I blame extreme sleepiness. After that, we decided to call it quits and head back to the room. I was soo tired, I barely had enough energy to take any of my clothes off before crashing into bed and not waking up til early the next morning. Lucky for us, our hotel served breakfast, which is always a plus in my book. After that, it was time for one more parade before we head home. Krewe of Zulu!!! Everyone always looks forward to the Zulu parade, because they give out the only thing that no one else does. Coconuts. That's right. Coconuts. No one knows why they do, but getting a coconut earns you bragging rights for many years to come.

If you want to get a good view of the Zulu parade, make sure you get up early to get a good spot. That parade gets very crowded and if you short like me, it makes things pretty difficult to see.

Of course I took waaaaay more pictures than this (around 100) but I would uploading for hours!! After that, we check out, walked up the street, ran down a taxi (literally) and was on our way back to the airport. Let me tell you, I truly did enjoy myself down there except for a couple of things, but I already cannot wait to go back next year. I just now know what to do for next year: 1. Staying for a couple of days instead of trying to cram everything into one long day. 2. Booking our hotel waaay ahead of time. We originally wanted to stay at the Double Tree, which is right on Canal St., but unfortunately for us, it got booked up really quickly, so we had to get the La Quinta, which was around the block. It was a nice hotel, but we decided we're staying at Harrah's next year. And that is because it's closer to the French Quarter and if it rains, we're still entertained by the casino and the night club downstairs. 3.Plan better for the weather. I didn't bring too much of a variety of clothes to wear and the super cold weather threw me for a loop! I'm glad I brought my coat! 4. Definitely more sightseeing! 5. Another battery for my camera! Can't wait til next year!!