Mexico

Off the Grid

Written earlier this afternoon…

As I write this, I am sitting at my gate in Cancun waiting to head back to DC. Although I won’t be able to post this until later tonight, I wanted to start writing while all of the memories are still fresh in my brain. The past three days have been unbelievable for a few reasons — first, I got to be a bridesmaid for one of the most unique weddings I have ever seen or heard of. The wedding of my cousin Raleigh to her husband Tom was a traditional Mayan ceremony held on the beach. There were dancers in body paint, a shaman and, perhaps best of all, everyone in attendance got to take part in the ceremony. I could not be more happy for them and I am so grateful I got to be a part of their special day. Once we get the official photos back from the photographer, I’ll try to post a couple on SLB.

Second, my trip to Mexico pushed me as far off the grid (and out of my comfort zone) as possible. Zero cell phone, zero internet, zero communicado with the outside world. Just me and my family and the beach and new friends and moments uninterrupted by all of the background noise that seems to fill up my day-to-day. When I first arrived at the resort, I was a little disappointed I wouldn’t be able to share my experience via Instagrams, tweets and blog posts. I realize now that being able to just enjoy being in the moment was such a gift — I told Raleigh this morning that I don’t remember the last time I had gone this long without checking my Facebook. It was a total social media detox that I didn’t know I needed until it was out of my life. I won’t be falling off the face of the earth again anytime soon, and I am really looking forward to all of the muploading I’ll get to do when I get home, but my trip was made even better when I could just forget about my virtual life for a few days.

That being said, I am really excited to now be able to share all of the pictures I snapped from my trip! In some cases I tried not to risk bringing my camera everywhere with me (I found out the hard way one night that DSLRs + sand don’t mix) but I did get to capture some pretty cool moments:

More photos from the ceremony are on the way, so stay tuned for those. Here are a couple of songs that made up the soundtrack to my trip:

More adventures to come, so happy to be getting back into my blogging routine!

Capital Food Fight

The last 48 hours has been pretty nuts — between design work, a midterm and packing for Mexico, I feel like I have barely been able to catch my breath. Last night I had the chance to take a break from all the madness to attend Capital Food Fight, a huge culinary event to benefit DC Central Kitchen. I started working as the graphic design intern for DCCK this summer and a huge part of the internship has been doing all of the design work for the event (everything from the program to posters to promo cards to invites). It was pretty surreal to walk into the Ronald Reagan Building and see hundreds of people holding the program I designed — definitely one of the most rewarding experiences I have had as a graphic designer so far.

The event in itself was amazing. I now know the true meaning of having eyes bigger than my stomach — over 60 restaurants made tasting plates for the event and I think I attempted to try a good 30 dishes. As a college student in her first semester without a meal plan, this change in my consistent “soup, salad and occasional Chinese takeout” diet was like foodie heaven. Below are a few photos I snapped from the event, but first here’s what I decided to wear:

I chose to go with a feminine/masculine pairing. For some reason, I was really inspired by both Carrie’s tuxedo for Stanford and Anthony’s wedding in Sex and the City 2 and Anne Hathaway’s tuxedo look when she hosted the Oscars. No idea where that inspiration came from, it just sort of popped into my brain as I was digging through my closet and I just thought I’d go with it.

And the perfect way to end the evening:

I leave for Mexico in T-5 hours. Maybe I will finish packing? Maybe I will sleep? Both seem pretty ambitious at this point in the night. Looking forward to sharing all of my travels with you guys, for now I need to figure out where I buried all my sandals and stashed my sunscreen…