Look of the Day: Essentially Seattle

Posted on September 4, 2013 by Abril

I am so behind with my blogger duties, and with the unofficial end of summer already here, the pressure to get caught up has only gotten worst. So bear with me my friends as I attempt to keep up with sharing my summer adventures with you.

As you may already know, during my stay in Vancouver, I took a quick weekend trip down to the Emerald City a.k.a Seattle. One of my closest cousins (funny fact: I happen to have around 50 first cousins!) lives in this gorgeous city with her husband and kids, so this trip was more about spending time with family than exploring. Nevertheless, we managed to do a quick tour of some of Seattle’s must-sees, like the Space Needle and Pike Market. Luckily, Luzma (my cousin) has no problem being around a camera, in fact she’s awesome posing for it, but this time she volunteered to be behind mine to help me shoot a Look of the Day.

I am so happy to finally get to feature my beloved cognac backpack here on the blog, which I bought especially for my summer travels. I had been wanting a 90’s style backpack for a while, and this studded one from Aldo was love at first sight. It has been my loyal companion for the past 2 months, and I foresee us living happily together for many years to come.

Photos by Luzma Sobrino

Top: Gap – Dress worn as a skirt: H&M

Shoes: Aldo – Backpack: Aldo – Belt: Calvin Klein

Celebration of Light

Posted on August 27, 2013 by Abril

Vancouver is definitely the place to be during the summer, so I feel more than blessed that I got to spend all this wonderful time in this lovely city. Not only is the city itself gorgeous and the weather perfect, but there’s always something fun going on, an activity or event to make sure everybody maximizes their summer experience. One of these events is the famous Celebration of Light, which I got to witness this year, 2/3 of it at least.

This international fireworks competition has been celebrated since 1990, and it consists of 3 days of activities leading up to a massive musical fireworks show set up by a different country each night. The fireworks shoot up from a barge in English Bay, making English Bay First Beach the most popular place to watch all of the fabulous pyrotechnics. And this is exactly where you could’ve found me on the first night of the event this year, which featured the U.K as the first competitor. A picnic with friends on the beach, along approximately 400K people, and a fantastic display of fireworks will be an experience hard to beat for summers to come. An unforgettable night for sure.

The second night however, I decided to watch the fireworks by myself from a different vantage point. As you guys know, I finally pulled out my DSLR camera and I’ve been trying to learn how to use it, so I figured this would be a good opportunity to practice. I headed over to Burrard Bridge to watch Canada’s successful attempt at beating U.K.’s display. In fact, they beat Thailand’s display as well, thus becoming the official winner this year. I missed the last night of fireworks due to a weekend trip down to Seattle, but I’m still sure Canada deserved the first place. It was without a doubt the best fireworks show I have ever seen in my life. If only my photographic skills could’ve been better to really capture its magnificence. Nonetheless, I gotta say I’m pleased to have gotten any pictures at all, even if they’re fairly mediocre. I’m happy with the experience and the lessons I got from it.

Of course, you can judge my little photos for yourselves as I’ll leave you here with them. I hope you enjoy them, but still highly recommend you do a Google search for the amazing pictures some more experienced photographers took as they’ll give you a better idea of how awe-inspiring Canada’s performance really was.

Travel: Stanley Park

Posted on August 21, 2013 by Abril

Oh, how I’m gonna miss you my beloved Stanley Park! I can’t believe my time in Vancouver is almost over, 7 weeks really came and went in the blink of an eye. I am most definitely going to miss all of it, but if you follow me on Facebook/Twitter/Instagram, you know how much I’ve come to love Stanley Park. It might very well be my favorite spot in the city, and biking around its seawall my favorite activity this summer.

Stanley Park is Vancouver’s version of Central Park, but bigger and better… whoa, did I just say that?! Oh yes, I did. You guys know how much I love Central Park in NYC, but Stanley Park really captured my whole heart. Maybe it’s the fact that it’s almost in its entirety surrounded by the Pacific Ocean, making its seawall and beaches something you don’t usually find at most urban parks. Then there is the forest with its ancient and tall trees, the lost lagoon with the shooting fountain, the aquarium, the water park, the views, the totem poles, the fact that you can stroll right into the beach at English Bay from the park. I just love it all.

On top of all that, they make sure to have plenty of activities during the summer to bring people together. One of them is playing outdoor movies once a week at Ceperely Meadows, by Second Beach. Last week I went with some friends, and we had a picnic while we waited for Dirty Dancing to start playing in the giant screen. Not too shabby I would say.

The photos I bring you today are from my first visit to the park. It was actually the first place I visited right after I arrived in Vancouver. I went with my friend Norma and her mom, who was visiting at the time. We biked around the seawall, and even though I hadn’t been on a bike since I was 10 years old, I had way too much fun. I had actually been wanting to buy a bike of my own back in Phoenix for a few years now, but now I want it more than ever! I’ll definitely be getting one this fall. All these photos were shot by Norma, and as usual, they turned out amazing; I even included a few shots she took on the stroll we took through English Bay after our ride. We got the most beautiful sunset, and she was able to capture some gorgeous images of it. I hope you like them as much as I do, and remember that if you want to see more of her photography work you can head over to her blog at lapir0.com.