Planes, Trains, and Running Shoes

Feeling... sick. I have an ear infection and have been under the weather since yesterday.

Reading... "The Zoo Keeper's Wife" by Diane Ackerman. I just started it and am less than 20 pages in, but I'm excited about this one.


This week, I finished "The Thirteenth Tale" by Diane Setterfield, which was easily the best book I've read all year.

I also came across this article about the "selfie girls" at the Arizona Diamondbacks game. I'm not sure if you've seen that video and I won't share it, but I was really angry when I saw that video. I'm so tired of public shaming occurring all over the internet. This article shows just how wrong the announcers were in their behavior...but even if the girls were just there, not paying attention to the game, they still shouldn't have been made into a national laughingstock.

Watching... Post-Season Baseball because my team, my wonderful, wonderful team, the New York Mets won the NLCS!!!!!

Thinking about... Christmas shopping. I've now gone into two stores that are already completely decked out for Christmas. While it made me really angry and I muttered angry curses to myself to never shop at those stores again, it made me realize that I should probably get a head start on my shopping for this year.

Needing... a new computer. My battery is completely shot and my laptop won't last 30 seconds without being plugged in. When I got the blue screen of death last week, I knew I needed to start looking for something fast.

Waiting... to run again. I had every intention of running yesterday, but then I got hit with this ear infection. I haven't run since Chicago and I'm starting to itch to get back out there. I took way more time off than I normally do, but I wanted that. I'm just bummed that I got sick when I was ready to start running again.

Excited about... The Mets! It's our first World Series appearance since 2000 and I'm so excited!

By "we" I mean the Mets because we don't have the kind of money to actually go to the World Series. The Pilot thought it was adorable that I thought we could get Playoff game tickets for $75/each. Try $400.

Loving... Peyton. She was sick last week and has been super sweet this week.

I was 22-years-old, fresh out of college and working my first job when I started this blog. I was living in Boston...a city I had moved to without having ever visited...just for a job that I didn't really love. One day, while flipping through a magazine in a doctor's office, I read an article called "Yes! You Can Run a Half-Marathon!" So, I decided to run a half-marathon and said that one day, I would run a Full too. I started this blog with running a marathon at the top of my 25 before 25 list.

You all know where that story went. Here I am...five years later...still blogging...still running...and I think it's time to nod my head to my roots and let you all know about something else I've been working on...my 30 Before 30 list.

In no particular order, following the theme of some personal, some professional and some just fun, here is my 30 Before 30 list. Some of these are repeats from my 25 Before 25...either because I didn't get to them...or because I'm starting them again. You can read that list here.


1. Travel to Cuba.

{via} Being a Cuban American, it's incredibly difficult to reconcile never having been there.

2. Run a sub-4 marathon.
3. Visit every Major League Baseball stadium. (22/30)
4. Cook my way through a cookbook.
5. Do a 30 day yoga challenge.
6. Go horseback riding.
7. Blog every day for a month.
8. Buy a Diane Von Furstenberg wrap dress.

{via}

9. Go to the ballet.
10. Run another international marathon.
11. Go on another layover with The Pilot.
12. Take a cooking class with The Pilot.
13. Attend a black tie charity gala.
14. Order a wedding album.
15. Put all of my photos from my past travels into an album or scrapbook.
16. Start writing the novel I have brewing in my mind.
17. Go back to New Orleans.

{via}

18. See Kenny Chesney in concert.
19. Host a dinner party.
20. Pay off my credit card debt.
21. Make my own article of clothing.
22. Read a book in Spanish.
23. Perfect French macarons.
24. Go back to Paris with my mama.
25. Make a lattice-top pie.

{via}

26. Master these 30 recipes (i.e. know how to make them without looking at the recipe).
27. Go to one spot during all four seasons and photograph it with my DSLR.
28. Tour the White House.
29. Take a painting class.
30.Visit Carolann in Hawaii.

It's baseball season...my favorite time of the year. While I haven't been to a game yet this season (sad!), you better believe I'm live streaming every Mets game (they're having such a good season!!!) and Rangers game (what is going on with them?!) and planning my stadium visits for the year!

Last week, The Pilot and I went out for dinner and, as it always does this time of year, the conversation turned to baseball.

We talking about the Cuba embrago being lifted...something that, as a Cuban American, I've been following very closely...and that, as a baseball lover, I'm very curious about.

We started talking about Dominican baseball...and that horrible book I read...and how soon it would be before the MLB starts scouting in Cuba...and then we started talking about the League in general and how so many of the players out there should really be playing Triple A. The game just isn't as competitive as it could be.

The influx of Cuban talent into the League is going to change that by bringing a lot more players to the game. Baseball is going to become a lot more competitive and 30 teams just might be too much for the competition. Wouldn't the game be a lot more interesting if the MLB eliminated two teams.

I've been saying for awhile that the MLB needs to shift things around. Houston moving to the AL was an excellent idea but I think some restructuring is in order. Eliminating two teams would help with that. Which teams? Well, that depends on a lot of factors. We talked about record, fan base, stadium attendance, team perception...everything.

Some of our contenders...Colorado, Arizona, San Diego, Kansas City...this was a long conversation, with a lot of Googling.

Who did we ultimately decide to axe?

The Tampa Bay Rays - With the 2nd to worst stadium attendance in the League (Cleveland's attendance is the worst)...and arguably (well, honestly I wouldn't argue this at all), the worst stadium in the League...it's time for the Tampa Bay Rays to hang up their helmets and call it a day.

Efforts to build a new stadium have been unsuccessful. As recently as this fall, rumors of moving the team to Montreal had surfaced with the team's owner threatening to sell the team if a new stadium isn't built. My thoughts on moving them to Montreal will be discussed in a minute, but if the population of Tampa can't get behind financing the stadium publicly and they aren't showing up to games, they aren't all that interested in having a team, so adios Tampa Bay.

The Toronto Blue Jays - Get baseball out of Canada. I repeat. Get baseball out of Canada. Moving the Montreal Expos to Washington was an excellent idea. Moving the Tampa Bay Rays to Montreal would be a terrible idea. Baseball didn't work there the first time. It's not going to work again. When I went to Toronto and headed to a Blue Jays game...every single Canadian I spoke to said "Why? There are so many other things to do in Toronto." The only reason the game was well attended is because the Yankees were playing and all of the Yankee fans in Buffalo had crossed the border for the game. The Blue Jays are actually a decent team, but Canadians are too interested in hockey to really care about baseball all that much.

You know what else I would do? Move the Miami Marlins...to Orlando. With a brand new stadium and the 4th worst attendance in Major League Baseball (the White Sox are third), the Marlins need help. When the Marlins 2012 Manager Ozzie Guillen praised Fidel Castro just after the stadium opened, he pissed off just about every Cuban in Miami...and, in case you don't know...Cubans hold grudges. (The vast majority of 1st generation Cubans still hold a grudge against the Democratic Party because of the Bay of Pigs invasion.)

Orlando is a huge metropolitan area with a lot of Minor League teams and a high enough number of tourists visiting every year, that you'd get a good number of baseball fans who would take their Disney vacations as a chance to cross another stadium off the list.

So, there you have it...if I suddenly replaced Bud Selig as MLB Commissioner...this is what I would do. I have nothing against any of the teams listed here...these are just mine and The Pilot's fun musings on the League. Neither of us anticipate either of these changes actually taking place. 

I always pictured Pittsburgh as a run-down, industrial, depressing old steel mill town. I never had any interest to go there but knew that it was another ballpark I'd have to cross off my list. When Daily Candy sent out an email a few months ago about all the fun things to do in Pittsburgh, I knew I could sucker convince my mom to take me on a weekend getaway to P-Town. She loves baseball just as much as I do, remember? So we planned our trip for shortly after I came back from India.

I couldn't have been more wrong about Pittsburgh. Not only is the city unbelievably beautiful but PNC Park quickly climbed to the top of my list of favorite ballparks. Of course, CitiField will always be my #1 but PNC Park? Definitely takes the #2 position.

The Park is right on the water!

As always, we decided to get to the park early to walk around and explore. All of the streets around the park were closed to traffic which was awesome since it allowed all of the baseball fans to roam around all of the restaurants within the vicinity.

Hello Roberto Clemente!

We decided to eat inside the park and see what the food was like. As soon as we walked in, we were given programs (that's never happened before, you usually have to pay for those) which not only listed the starting lineup for both teams but also detailed the park and its food options...including the plethora of vegetarian options.

PNC Park. You just won me over. I had a fantastic veggie burger with some ballpark fries and it was delicious! (Mom had a regular burger which she was very happy with.) We made our way to our seats to eat and as soon as we sat down, I was absolutely amazed by how beautiful the park is.


You have a perfect view of the city skyline and the Clemente Bridge from just about every seat in the ballpark. By the time we finished eating, the game was about to start. We were going to go for beers but I had just run and wasn't feeling too hot so we decided against it. I know...who am I??? Anyway, they showed this awesome video clip that is kind of like a movie trailer for the Pittsburgh Pirates...but like real Pirates...not the baseball ones. It was pretty cool. PNC Park definitely takes advantage of their jumbo-tron which is great. (It could have been a little bigger though.)

The sun setting on the field was awesome.

The Pirates were playing the Cardinals which means we got to see Albert Pujols at bat which was super exciting. Not only is he Dominican (heyy!) and extremely philanthropic, but he's one of the division's leading batters. Of course, he scored the first home run of the game giving the Cardinals a 1-0 lead but Andrew McCutchen came in and hit a 3 run homer giving the Pirates the lead int he 3rd inning. And then fireworks went off. YES!

And it's just as pretty at night under the lights!

The Pirates held on to their lead until the 6th inning when the Cardinals took a 4-3 lead. Another Pirates homer brought the game to a tie and extra innings! And in the 11th inning, Garret Jones hit a walk-off homer bringing the Pirates a 5-4 victory. (And then more fireworks went off and I loved it.)

Pirates Win!

It was quite possibly the most exciting baseball game I've ever seen live and I loved PNC Park. Everything from the food, the staff, the fans, the team, everything was awesome and I would absolutely go back to PNC for another game.

I'm thinking May. To coincide with the Pittsburgh Marathon. Any takers?

When The Pilot texted me last week asking if I wanted to come down and go to the Astros game, I couldn't refuse.

The Astros are one of the few teams that I've actually never seen play so I was excited to see a new team on the field...even though they're currently the worst team in major league baseball. We got to the game about an hour before it started so that we could walk around for a bit...and of course take pictures.



When we got to the Box Office, we were looking at the seating chart trying to decide what we wanted when the lady behind the counter said, "We have Field Box seats for $11 today, interested?" Field Box seats? For $11?? I'm in! We ended up sitting about 10 runs behind 1st base. It was awesome.

The jumbo-tron was huge!

The FiveSeven Gill

After we ate, we walked around the ball park for a while and (of course) stopped in the Team Store. I've been collecting pins from all of the stadiums I go too and the one I picked up in Houston is definitely my favorite.


By the time we got to our seats, it was already the 3rd inning and the Astros were up by 2 against Cincinnati. By the 6th inning, the Reds had tied up the game which made it interesting. In between at-bats, we stopped to buy some Blue Bell ice cream because they only have it in Texas and it's amazing. Of course, as soon as we left to get ice cream, the Kiss Cam started up and we missed it. The Pilot and I have been trying to get on the Kiss Cam at every baseball game we go too! And our seats were so good, I'm almost positive we would've gotten on if we had stayed in our seats because every time they panned the audience, our section was always shown. Bummer!

You can take the girl outta the Honky Tonk...

Anyway, we devoured our ice cream in about 35 seconds and watched the rest of the game. At the top of the 7th, the Reds scored another run taking the lead 3-2 but the Astros came back at the bottom of the 7th and brought the game up to 4-3 and scored another run in the 8th. Despite the Reds scoring at the top of the 9th, they were unable to take a 9th inning lead and the Astros won.

The Home Run train was...anticlimactic.

When the game ended, the stadium erupted. You would have thought they had just won the NL Championships or something! They had won the series which I don't think they had done in awhile and people were just jumping up and down, cheering, screaming, it was great! I don't think I've seen fans that excited over a win at any game before.

I loved Minute Maid Park. It's a domed stadium and they had the roof up so we were indoors but all of the windows in the outfield brought in enough natural light that you still felt like you were at a baseball stadium. That was my biggest gripe about Tropicana Field...it just didn't feel like a baseball stadium. But Minute Maid Park was great. The people there were all so unbelievably friendly. It felt like everyone at the ballpark was making an effort to make sure I was having a good time. Now that's how a baseball stadium should be...unlike my last baseball stadium experience.

Not to mention, the stadium is beautiful! I love the way it's set up. I love how all of the new stadiums are being built so that you can walk around the entire ball park and really see everything. And I have to comment on the paint job...it was fantastic! The way they painted that stadium to reflect the Astros colors was really nicely done!

Whenever I tell people I'm on a mission to visit every MLB stadium, the one question I always get is, "What's your favorite so far?" And I always have a tough time answering. On the one hand, I'm a Mets fan and I love CitiField but I feel like because I'm a Mets fan, I'm biased so when considering my favorite ball parks, I always try to leave CitiField out to be as fair as possible. Until last week, it was a toss up between AT&T Park and Camden Yards. But I think Minute Maid Park just climbed to the top of that list!

So that's that! 14 ball parks down, 17 to go! Making it before 25 is definitely going to be a challenge but hey, at least I'm having fun along the way!

When I came back from India, I swore I wasn't getting on a plane again until at least September when I have to travel for a wedding.