Darkaqua

The Pinhão – Brazil’s Pine Nuts

The pinhão is a pine nut that comes from the Paraná Pine or the Brazilian pine tree. These trees are native to Brazil but are critically endangered due to logging and agriculture. I was lucky to be visiting Campos de Jordão for a classical music festival and saw an abundance of these beautiful trees. It’s…

Traveling to India? You’ll need a Visa (From the USA)

As soon as my friend announced that she was getting married in India, I was immediately jumped online to look at airline tickets. Shortly after I purchased my airline tickets, my friend mentioned that I’d need a visa to travel to India. This was my first time travelling outside the United States to a country…

Cha vs Tea

I just got back from São Paulo 🇧🇷 Portuguese is their preferred language but there was one word they used that was not of European origin: Cha which is the universal word for tea in the Eastern world. For a European language like Portuguese, I expected them to say call it tea too. I was…

San Diego Comic Con survival guide (and other cons )

So comic con 2019 just wrapped up another success con. I had a great time attending. I had about 4 interviews and countless photos of my cosplay (I was Ruby from RWBY). People go to comic cons and other conventions like this to experience the culture, buy stuff, meet their favorite celebrity, cosplay, or just…

Dear Taylor Swift,

I read your article you wrote in Elle about 30 things you’ve learned before turning 30 in March and every single thing you mentioned resonated with me. I’m turning 30 with you this year too. We’re both made in 1989. I discovered your music back in college when my roommate was blasting your music our…

Dreaming of white snow shredding every winter

My passion for snowboarding started ever since I played a lot of skateboarding and snowboarding video games in my childhood when I was about 10 years old. I didn’t start skateboarding until I was in college, though I wasn’t very good. My first snowboarding session was when a co-worker invited me to go to with…

My 1 year recap living in Silicon Valley

It’s almost my one year anniversary of moving to the bay area, getting out of small town Santa Barbara where everything moves too slow while you’re watching the coastline. That’s one thing I really missed about SB, nothing was ever stressful and you can take long walks on the beach to feel at peace. Life…

The Windy City

So that one time in May 2017, I almost moved to Chicago. I was lured by their delicious deep dish, bursting city center, and Lake Michigan.

Mascapone frosting

I made a chocolate cake, and I wanted cream cheese frosting, but the only thing I had was leftover macapone cheese, from the last time I made tiramisu. Looking all over the internet for a frosting with macapone, without heavy whipping cream, or butter (because I didn’t have any of that), and low sugar, I…

2014, what a year

So it’s January 2015, a lot of things happened last year and it was… amazing! I was looking through my photos, and I was just wow, did that really happen to me? So here’s a year in review I went to Death Valley twice once in March and another time in November Went to San…