Night on Broadway

So this year I decided to skip the whole New Years Resolution's drama, instead I decided to do one thing a month that was something that I truly wanted to do for myself. Whether its something fun, pampering or personal but its something selfish for myself. The reason for this is because sometimes we get so caught up with our daily lives that before you know it the month has gone by and you didn't do anything for yourself and your left with "one day I will...". So I guess you can say 2017 is a going to be a very selfish year for me. Now don't get me wrong, these 12 things I plan to do I don't necessarily plan to do them all by myself, I will definitely enjoy the company of others. These 12 things are just things that I'm going to make sure I carve time to do for myself. 

Okay, so now that I've explained my 12 things theory lets jump into my first thing I did for myself for the month of January. It was something I've wanted to do for the past 2 years and it involves food, downtown, lights, carnival rides, and much more. Downtown Los Angeles has created a festival that takes you back to Broadway, a street that holds historic theaters and businesses that have amazing architecture and history. The festival is for all ages and all cultures. The entertainment ranges from chess boxing to Mariachi performers. So this year my husband and I jumped on the metro and headed downtown. Our first glimpse of this festival was boxing.

 I don't know if these are professional boxers, but it was fun to watch. 

Oh you know, just some Lucha Libre fighters having a conversation. I wonder what they were talking about. 🤔

The first theater we entered was The Million Dollar Theater. It was so nice to walk into this theater and listen to Mariachi music. The singer had an amazing voice and the mariachi performed flawlessly. It was amazing to see that people of all cultures were enjoying the performance. I wish I would've had better pictures of the performance to share with you guys but I was enjoying the show and honestly didn't have the opportunity to snap better pictures.  

We decided to eat dinner at the festival, in search of what to eat we decided to go into Grand Central Market just to take a looksey of possible food options. Of course we found lots of options but we decided to keep walking and circle back if nothing on broadway was enticing. As we kept going we saw so many interesting people and acts. 

After walking a few blocks we decided a cheeseburger was the way to go. Oh my GOD you guys, this burger was so good.

When my dad was still alive, we would go to downtown every so often and he would like to drive down Broadway and tell us how when he first came to the United States he would shop on this street, and watch acts at these amazing theaters. He would talk about how clean and new it all looked, and how he was in awe of this amazing city. So for me to walk down these streets and finally walk into these theaters was very emotional. I held it together and thought of him along the way. 😢 Lets keep going because I didn't want this to be a sad post. 😉

Some of the artwork that was on display that night. 

As the night ended we made our way to the metro station and jumped on the subway. 

One More Stop

Our vacation this year was one of many first, it was our first time visiting certain cities, national parks, eating certain foods and visiting the Hoover Dam. After leaving the Grand Canyon we headed to Las Vegas, Nevada. However, prior to arriving in Las Vegas we made a pit stop at the Hoover Dam. We arrived just in time for sunset. 

In case you're not familiar with the Hoover Dam, here are 5 quick facts:

1. Built between 1931 and 1936

2. It's a concrete arch gravity dam in the Black Canyon of the Colorado River

3. On the border of Nevada and Arizona

4. Cost over 100 lives

5. Named after President Herbert Hoover

The Hoover Dam was not a stop we were 100% sure of making so we didn't book a tour. We roamed around for a while taking in the massive construction and pondered on how such an enormous construction was completed in the early 1930's, a time when workers didn't have the heavy machinery, equipment or technology we have now. It's quite impressive. 

Don't you guys just love when the sky is filled with clouds and cast a shade of beautiful colors? I'm not a fan of sunset because it makes me sad, but I do enjoy watching colorful clouds move in. 

Before we knew it the sun had disappeared and the night was upon on, so we made our way to our car. I took this picture while walking back to the car and wish I would have paid more attention and tried to capture a clearer picture. Look at the size of the moon! 

p.s. The whole time I was there I was reminded of the the movie Fools Rush In. I've always enjoyed that movie and I think it's time to watch it again. 

Museum Day

I initially wrote this post to describe interesting facts about the museum, but then I thought you can find those details online if you google the museum. So I decided to write a brief recap of our experience. Saturday my mom, sister and myself decided we would escape the heat and hang out at the new Broad Museum in Downtown Los Angeles.  The admission free, but you need reservations. With no reservations we made our way to the long line of people like us that had no reservations. After standing in line for less than 10 minutes, a gal comes up to my sister and asks if we are a party of three. Turns out she had three reservation tickets and was not going to use them. Just our luck we were a party of three. We rushed our way to the line with people that had tickets and after 30 minutes of standing in line we were inside the museum.

The museum is three floors and the majority of the galleries are on the third floor. As soon as you enter  you see a 105 foot escalator that takes you up to the third floor.  Knowing nothing about art we started walking around and reading the descriptions of pieces that caught our eye. While there were plenty of pieces that were interesting and looked very intricate there were some pieces that made us wonder if these pieces were really considered art. We joked that we could probably create something nicer. As we kept walking, we came across some pieces that also made us wonder if they were appropriate for children. We were not alone with this thought, we saw some parents that seemed concerned of what their kids were seeing. With no kids in our party of three, we kept walking.

All in all I thought it was a very cool and interesting experience. I think my favorite pieces were the large installations,  some of these pieces are pictured above.  One of the coolest installations at the Broad was Ragnar Kjartansson, The Visitors. I don't want to give too much away but it's a nine screen video installation and it should not be missed. What we did miss was Yayoi Kusama's Infinity Mirrored Room, there was a five hour wait! It looks amazing and hopefully we can go back soon and check it out. 

If you find yourself in the Los Angeles area you should definitely check it out!

p.s If you are able to visit The Broad Museum take some time to appreciate the building itself, that alone is a piece of art!