today's yoga class focused on this god of the dance & how interesting it is that he's all about extreme opposites in constant flux, which is some sorta metaphor for life, which is filled with transitions, and we so easily get wrapped up in the extremes & forget about the bigger picture, that everything is in constant flow, and that even when we feel stuck or upset, it's just part of a cycle. so if we remember that it's just part of a much bigger picture, we can better relax & cope with it, and better enjoy the moments between the extremes... urgh, it all made sense somehow while i was in class & now that my neurotic kookoohead is trying to explain it all i'm totally confusing myself. am i even making any sense here??? look, i swear i'm not turning into a dirty hippie, but shit, i'm really into this. i'm just annoyed now i can't explain it simply. it must be all the chocolate i'm eating getting to my head.
if u want fresh authentic pralines in LA, this is where you go:
3364 West 1st Street, LA 90004
213.252.8721
i mean you just can't go wrong there & this is why... fyi, leonidas in belgium is considered the praline shop of the poor. it's the cheap place to get pralines. then again stella is to the belgians what budweiser is to the americans, so we don't exactly have the same standards. ok, well here's the problem, pralines from neuhaus or leonidas are much better in belgium than the ones you can buy here in LA. they actually add sugar to the recipes of the pralines they make to export to the usa because it lenghtens the chocolate's shelf life & the chocolate travels better when it's sweeter. so you're paying a fortune for a sweetened watered down version of the original. now a place like L'Artisan Du Chocolat was opened by an older french guy & his cute asian partner several years ago here in LA. they both have excellent training on how to make chocolate in the same way the belgians do (even if their training was actually in paris; close enough), except they make them here & you get them the way they were meant to be, as if you were back in europe. this being LA of course, they went a little crazy with experimenting with flavors but trust me, they're all really good. go check them out, try the best chocolate you can find in LA, and chances are if you get a box of pralines as a gift it will be more original --and tastier-- than getting some from leonidas. hell, get me a box just for tipping you on this!
on a much sader note, what happened in minneapolis st paul today is extremely sad. horrific. it's sooo "third world" i might add. not to make a tragedy all about me or anything, but it reminds me of caracas, where i lived for a while in the 90s... except the bridge we all thought was going to fall under us never did. and what would be expected to happen in a corrupt "third world" country happened right here in one of the wealthiest & safest nations in the world. amazing!
back to venezuela's capital of caracas, a city of over 4 million right along the carribbean but 3000 feet high in altitude. if you take the sea port of maiquetia & suburbs into account, it's a city of almost 8 million people. after the oil boom in the 50s, caracas blew up into one of the most modern & wealthiest cities of south america. once the city airport became too small, the larger simon bolivar international airport was built right on the beach, by the port of maiquetia. with the rising traffic, in the 60s, a large bridge connecting 2 mountains was erected, as well as tunnels were dug, to pave way for a connecting freeway that would cut the drive between the city of caracas & the simon bolivar airport to 35 minutes instead of almost 2 hours of dangerours windy mountain roads. cut to 1993, i move to caracas. as we drive up the freeway from the airport to the city, we get to this massive bridge that towers over an extremely deep & scary ravine. as we get to the bridge, i notice that suddenly all the cars accelerate from what seems to be a steady 70 miles an hour to over 100. i think i was jet lagged that first time & didn't really give it any thought. over the years, i drove over that bridge many more times. for some reason i never questioned why everyone accelerated so much over the bridge. one day, my stepfather broke it to me. here's the deal, since the 60s, most of the money awarded to the bridge's maintenance had been diverted into the private bank accounts of city officials (duh!) and engineers had warned that the foundations of the bridge were so damaged by earthquakes or hurricanes that it was just a matter of time till the bridge collapsed. everyone knew about it, but chose to take a chance rather than taking the safer & longer route. CRAZY! so we all took the chance. and it was kind of exciting in a way, to make it to the other side as if we had defied death. you almost get that kind of feeling at six flags when you get off a roller coaster, except you know there's no chance in hell you're gonna die at six flags. and if you do, you can sew them for millions. well your relatives can! anyhew, i miss living on the edge like that, that kind of collective state of mind of living in the moment... take a chance, live it up, cuz u could just die tomorrow. whatever you own today could be worth nothing tomorrow. spend it all before u go to bed! then again, i'm way too americanized by now. i'm kinda liking "safe" lately. i want safe! i'm tired of not feeling safe. i'm exhausted actually! hey, living on the edge was fun. i miss it, but i don't... anyhew, here's a pic of plaza altamira in caracas, close to where i used to live:
the waterfall in the middle of the stairs falls into the metro station below. this plaza was the center of a rather tranquil part of town, if you compare it to the rest of the city with skyscrapers against one another & insane traffic everywhere... the mountain in the background, el avila, is a national park. my house was right against it & we had a great view of the city from up there. the closer you get the the mountain, the greener it gets, and the area has tennis clubs, a large country club & golf course, etc... el avila is a national park, with tons of trails. it took about 4 hours to reach the top from my house, & from up there i could look back on the whole city to the south, and to the other side i would look north onto the caribbean sea where the international airport was & the port of maiquetia lied below...
ps: they finally did all the maintenance work on the bridge later on in the 90s, so if you ever go, don't be scared; if cars still speed up, it's probably just outta habit. that's how traditions are made!
