“Cream colored ponies and crisp apple strudels, doorbells and sleigh bells and schnitzel with noodles…” okay fine, those aren’t a few of my favorite things but it is from one of my favorite musicals! Since I am new to Odyssey and to you all, I just wanted to open a curtain into the weird world of my life and let you in on some things that just make me smile!

Let me start off being relatable – FOOD. Well, two of my favorite things have to do with food, cooking is the first! Since I was about 10 I have been cooking daily. It’s funny because my passion was learned out of necessity but it turned into my passion! You see, I like to eat a lot (my second favorite thing) and in my home, if I wanted to eat, I had to learn how to cook. Of course, I love taste of freshly baked Cuban bread and the smell of baked brownies ooh and the golden runny yolk of a freshly fried egg, but more than that I love what food can mean – what it can tell you about a person. What better way to connect with someone than over their favorite pasta dish? Food lets you into a person’s life; it allows you to connect to cultures from around the world! Spanish blood sausage, Austrian chocolate, Pad Thai, Sesame Udon noodles – YUM! All of these foods connect you to different places around the world and let you travel through taste, is there a better way to travel?

Traveling isn’t only done by food, nor just by boat, car or plane, but ways to travel is through words – to go to places deep within the binds of a book. You readers out there know what I am talking about, when you get so invested in a novel that you cry when they cry, you feel their feelings. When you put down the book and wonder where you are. All of a sudden you aren’t deep in the jungles of Eelong or deep in the gang driven seaside city of Ketterdam, but you’re back on planet earth, sitting in your bed, wondering how it’s ‘till 4 a.m. and stressing about a test at 8. The point here is that reading is one of my most favorite things because it allows me to experience the supernatural and travel to worlds only imagined.

Traveling is fun, whether it be through food or words but my favorite place to be is in Florida, my home state. Florida has allowed me much, and I can honestly say I have never found anything quite like seeing the sunset. Watching the sun descend over a navy tinted horizon line, digging your toes are inches deep in the sand while the waves slowly crash upon your feet … aaah can you smell the salt air, feel the crisp breeze of the summer evening, the tingle of dry salt on your skin or the kiss that the sun has placed on your rosy cheeks? – that is what I call heaven.

Beyond cooking, eating, reading and the beach, I enjoy spending my time working out, napping and playing video games (Borderlands – to be exact)! What do you like to do? Do we share some of our favorite things? Let me know in the comments below!