If you go to Cal or went to Cal, there are definitely situations that you have experienced that grind your gears. When you try to explain these things to people who do not go to Cal, they may find your complaints to be very trivial. And although they are very trivial, when these irksome situations occurred, your thoughts were probably similar to something like, “10 out of 10, would punch someone in the face right now.” Here are a couple of things that might aggravate you if you are or were a Cal student:

1. When the Campanile just won’t stop … especially during midterms and finals weeks. We love the Campanile’s beautiful array of chimes and tunes, and we always love guessing which song it’s playing at the time. But when you have 24 hours until your next econ exam and your classical music study playlist is being overpowered by the sound of Katy Perry’s “Firework” in bell form, there’s a point when you have to say to the Campanile, “CAN YOU NOT?”

2. Studying on the weekends at night. This is especially troublesome for those living in the dorms and apartments on Southside. It’s a Saturday night, and you’ve got an exam on Monday. You told yourself you were going to be a responsible student this weekend and stay in on a Saturday night in order to finish answering all of those questions on that study guide. It’s 10 p.m., and you hear the stomping of the pregamers leaving down the hallway. You’re jealous that you aren’t one of them, but at least they’ll be gone for a solid couple of hours and leave you in peace. Three hours later, you’ve gotten a good amount of studying done, and after your third coffee, you’re ready to take on some more. It’s at that moment when you hear what sounds like the background noise of animals from “The Lion King” outside of your window and down the hallway. Nothing better than the sounds and smells of the intoxicated to get your brain waves going, are we right?!

3. Getting fliered at when you haven’t had your coffee yet. We all know the feeling. Especially if you have morning classes, the feeling of being the victim of active flier distribution on Sproul is essentially the same feeling you get when you see the person in your life who annoys the shit out of you the most. It’s really awful to think that, we know — and to those of you who pass out those fliers, please don’t take this personally — but we just can’t help it! The thought of having to force ourselves out of bed, crawl to our 9 a.m. classes and then be attacked by someone who is clearly on a much superior level of happiness than we are makes a person cynical.

4. Fliering at someone who hasn’t had his or her coffee yet. It works both ways, everyone. When you’re fliering for whichever organization you are a part of and you approach a random pedestrian with your flier, you may receive a look that suggests a phrase you might know: “Fuck off.” Your initial reaction might be “WHY DOESN’T ANYONE LIKE ME?” But please do not blame yourself, and please do not allow your self-esteem to go down just because someone ninja’d his or her way out of receiving your flier. It’s OK. It’ll all be OK.

5. There’s only one dude in the row, and he decided to take the seat on the very edge. Honestly, we’ve all probably done this. Of course, lefties are exempted from this category. But there’s always that one person who thinks that it’ll be a great idea to sit on the very edge and then get annoyed every time someone has to squeeze past him or her to get to a seat inside of the row. We have something to say to this person: “DUDE! YOU BROUGHT THIS UPON YOURSELF, OK? Stop rolling your eyes at me! And stop acting like my butt (rubbing against your desk and knocking over your papers) is Satan!”

What Cal pet peeves do you have? Let us know in the comments!

Image source: greg westfall. under Creative Commons

Contact Gabrielle Nguyen at gnguyen@dailycal.org.

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If you’re back at home for the summer, it’s probably been a little while since you’ve been back in good ol’ Berk. Being at home is nice and relaxing, and the break that you’ve had has probably given you enough time to recover from last semester’s stress. But for most, if not all, of us there is a point where we realize, “It would be really nice if I could just go back to Berkeley right now.” Here are a couple of reasons why:

1. We love our families, but … we’re ready to go back to being on our own again. If you’re back at home this summer, you’ve probably had the opportunity to spend time with your parents and your siblings, but the consistent clean-your-rooms and could-you-run-some-errands-for-me-todays are getting old. We love you, moms and dads, brothers and sisters, and don’t take this this the wrong way, but we need a little Berkeley break from you guys. And if we’re all being honest here, you probably need your break from us, too!

2. We miss our Berkeley buddies. At Berkeley, you get to share some of your best and worst moments with some of the coolest people around you. Yeah, every so often your best friend or roommate might leave her shoes on your side of the room, and you might kick them (literally) over to her side without telling anyone (and it might be one of your biggest pet peeves). But after a period of time without that in your life, you oddly begin to miss it. We love our high school friends and our hometown friends, but after a while, we need Berkeley bud(dies) back in our systems to make us feel in high spirits again.

3. FOOOOOOOOOOOOD. If there’s one thing that we can all probably agree on, it’s that the Berkeley cuisine is the dankest of the dank. We apologize for using two forms of the word “dank” in one sentence, but we really have no other way to accurately describe the foodgasms that you can achieve in Berkeley. We miss our CREAM, our Sliver, our Cheese Board and our so-easy-to-access Asian Ghetto. If you’re back in Berkeley already and are ready for some good eats, check out Eating Berkeley to get some ideas.

4. Our brains need some stimulation. And what better way to do that than take classes at Cal? We can’t think of any. For those of you who haven’t been taking any summer classes, taking online classes or working, your brains might feel a little bit … inactive. You’re probably ready for those inspiring lectures, those thought-provoking essays, those exams to get your gears going (or not). But after your mind’s been idle for so long, it’s probably best to get back in the game pretty soon. And we can guarantee you that taking classes at Cal will allow you to do so effectively!

Why do YOU want to go back to Berkeley so badly? Let us know in the comments!

Image source: eastscene under Creative Commons 

Contact Gabrielle Nguyen at gnguyen@dailycal.org.

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We know that this may not apply to all of you, but for some of us, checking and updating social media is a daily ritual. Sometimes, you may feel like it’s taking over your life. Instagram for breakfast, Twitter for lunch and Vine for dinner, you may find yourself thinking. But if your overconsumption of social media during the day is affecting your social interactions, your work and your life, it’s time to say, “Enough is enough.” Here are a couple tips to help you avoid getting eaten up by social media:

Play the Phone Stack. If you are grabbing lunch or dinner with some friends, and you find yourself saying, “What?” every five seconds because you have to read Amanda Bynes’ latest tweet about ugly people, enough is enough! One way you can force yourself – wow, we know, hanging out with your friends is so annoying – to listen to your friends and not be the douchebag who never listens is to play he Phone Stack game. If you haven’t heard of it before, the way to play is each person stacks his or her phone in the middle of the table, and the first person to grab his or her phone has to pay for everyone’s meal. That way, everyone gets to have real-life conversations with one another without having to say “What?” or “Huh?” every five seconds. Yay, everyone wins! Except the douchebag who picks up his phone first.

Give someone else your password. If you find that you’re spending way too much time on Facebook, Instagram, Twitter, Vine or whatever else you’re consumed with, give your password to a friend. Make sure it’s a friend that you trust so that you don’t end up with a Facebook status that says, “Oh no, out of toilet paper :/” or, even better, a political rant that is in complete opposition to everything you believe in just so all of your Facebook friends will verbally attack you and then delete you off of their friends lists. You don’t want that, do you? So give your password to a very trustworthy person — that person can change it for you, and you won’t be able to get on it until you actually think you’re ready to get back into it!

Try Sself-Control or Freedom. Self-Control is an app for Mac users that allows you to “blacklist” websites for a prescribed amount of time, and Freedom is a similar app for PC users. This is especially helpful during midterms, finals and for any work that you’re trying to get done. So if you have any willpower or self-restraint in life, it doesn’t matter! Why do you need that when you can just download it instead?!

Have any other tips to prevent social media from taking over our lives? Let us know in the comments!

Image source: scragz under Creative Commons

Contact Gabrielle Nguyen at gnguyen@dailycal.org.

The post 3 tips to prevent social media monster from eating your life appeared first on The Daily Californian.

Sometimes we have those days that just aren’t like the others. It may be beautiful outside, and the sweet Berkeley summer air might still be mild, but for some reason, there’s something different about the way you feel. Perhaps today is a Monday. Perhaps your inspiration just isn’t on point today. Maybe there’s just nothing to do. Or maybe the fact that the fall semester is starting in a month has got you feeling “blah.” Whatever it may be, we all have those days, and often, when we do have them, it seems as if it’ll be impossible to escape that funk.

But maybe, just maybe, instead of escaping the funk, we can learn to embrace the funk.“What do you mean by ‘embrace the funk?’” you might ask. We mean, maybe it’s just one of those rainy days when, even if it it isn’t actually raining outside, it’s raining inside your soul (deep, we know). We understand that this is an overly exaggerated, melodramatic version of any blase day, but hey, we all have one of those days once in avwhile. Here are couple tips to help you embrace the funk:

1. Listen to your rainy-day music. Even if it’s not raining outside, rainy-day music will get you into any sort of pensive mood. Check out this “Playlist of the week” to get you started. Try putting in your headphones and staring outside of your window at people walking by. If you’re looking to get extra hardcore with your brooding, listen to “Mad World” by Gary Jules while doing one of the activities listed below.

2. Write a sad poem. Even if you’ve never written a day in your life, try writing a free-form poem about how life is currently raining on your soul. Make sure to write it on a Moleskine journal or something similar. Maybe even invest in a quill and some ink. Even if your poem doesn’t turn out very good, at least you’ll probably get a good laugh from it afterward.

3. Read a book. Reading is not overrated. Some of us do it more than others, and some of us should start doing it more. Check out “The Book Nook” if you’re looking for a good read for a somber day. For extra fun, try this: Read 10 pages of your book, peer outside your window, sigh audibly and repeat.

4. Put your fluffy robe on. Or your Snuggie. Whatever floats your boat. Try doing this and sitting next to your window with your book and a nice big cup of coffee or tea. If this makes you too hot, you can just sit naked by your window and rub yourself with ice instead, or you can tell your roommates you’re doing it because your heart is too cold and empty and that you’re trying to fix it (and do they think they can help?).

5. Go for a drive or a walk and listen to jazz. Jazz music is the perfect background music for any activity. And it’s the best music to listen to to make any slow day a little bit classier. Try out the Miles Davis and Django Reindhart and Stephane Grappelli Pandora stations and go for a drive or walk. Get into that Woody Allen film mood, stare at pedestrians crossing the street and admire other pensive thinkers. Trust us; you’ll find a ton around Berkeley.

6. Cry. We all need a good cry every once in a while. Do it for no reason. Who cares? Cry into your Snuggie. Make your roommates think you’re an emotionally unstable psycho (if you haven’t made them think so already with all of the other things we’ve suggested).

7. Laugh at yourself for doing all of these things. Seriously. At the end of one of these mopey, introspective days, a good laugh is all you need to finish it off. This will help you move on to the next day, which will hopefully be a little more pleasant than the last. Hopefully your roommates enjoy the laugh with you and haven’t put you out on the street by then.

Image source: CarbonNYC under Creative Commons

Contact Gabrielle Nguyen at gnguyen@dailycal.org.

The post How to spend a somber day (or how to embrace the funk) appeared first on The Daily Californian.

If you’ve never listened to Lana Del Rey’s music, you should know that she references the wonderful and warm — or horrible and sweaty, depending on where you are — season of summer. Lana’s sultry, playful lyrics suitably describe various aspects in our lives and make those aspects sound a lot cooler than they actually are. In fact, when we listen to her, we feel a lot cooler than we actually are. Anyway, we’ve got a couple of appropriate Lana Del Rey lyrics that most of us can relate our summer experiences to.

“I got that summertime, summertime sadness” (“Summertime Sadness”). Duh, we were going to use this one. How could we pass this one up? Come on, you wouldn’t be able to either. Well, whether we like it or not, summertime is coming to a close. It seems like just yesterday that we were released from that prison called dead week, and here we are again, entering another prison — also known as Phase II. The sun is still hot outside, whether you’re in Berkeley or elsewhere, but those anticipating thoughts of getting back into the swing of things loom over us despite the ever-lingering heat.

“I fall asleep in an American flag” (“Cola”). WE C U getting #turntup. If your summer has been filled with eventful nights, wild get-togethers or perhaps a crazy Independence Day, falling asleep in an American flag may or may not have been one of your noteworthy moments this summer. We mean, who hasn’t done this — are we right? Totally joking. We’re not even sure if this is necessarily a “thing,” but if you have done it, then good for you! There’s no better time to celebrate good ol’ ‘Merica than during the summer.

“Every time I close my eyes, it’s like a dark paradise” (“Dark Paradise”). If you go to Cal and survived dead week, the first thought you had after that last final exam was, “I CAN’T WAIT TO PTFO.” Sleep is a precious gift, and after you’ve survived your first two semesters at Cal, you appreciate it even more. “Paradise” is an understatement when it comes to sleep, especially after having to endure late night study sessions at Main Stacks, having to wait up until the floor study room is empty so that you can use the chalkboard or drinking so much Peet’s throughout the day that you and your study buddies end up staying up and staring at pictures of Dave Franco on Google until 5 a.m. (you get the point). Thankfully, summer is there to save the day and allow you to sleep until two in the afternoon on some days. That is, until you productive guys start work and summer school, of course.

“Teachers said we’d never make it out alive” (“This Is What Makes Us Girls”). As you’re taking your last final, this is what you expect your professors are thinking — are we right, or are we right? Well, you showed them, didn’t you?! (We’re totally joking. The professors at Cal are helpful, encouraging and way hipper than we are). Either way, summer is the time to celebrate our getting out of there alive. Even Lana knows that.

“I know your wife, and she wouldn’t mind…” (“Cola”). JOKING. WE’RE JOKING. Calm down.

“Summertime is nice and hot … and my life is sweet like vanilla is” (“Without You”). This one is pretty literal. Summertime is nice and hot. Thank you, Lana, for reminding us. Just remember that summer will be over before you know it, so you need to take advantage of that sweet, sweet summertime and … vanilla … life(?). Make sure to take advantage of your time with your friends and family back at home, if that’s where you are. If you’re in Berkeley, make sure to enjoy that magnificent Berkeley sun and those chill Berkeley summer days on Memorial Glade before you go from taking three units a week to 19. Cherish those beautiful summer romances that young people are supposed to have and look back on when they’re 40 and realize, “Wait, whoa, did I really do all of those drugs back then?” Lana would approve.

Which Lana Del Rey lyrics accurately describe your summer? Let us know in the comments!

Image source: blur95 under Creative Commons.

Contact Gabrielle Nguyen at gnguyen@dailycal.org.

The post Summertime accurately depicted through Lana Del Rey lyrics appeared first on The Daily Californian.

It’s summertime, and that means more time to get those tennis shoes on, that butt twerkin’, those arms … flailing? I mean, we don’t know what you like to do, but we do know that summer is the time to exercise. Whether you’re at Cal or elsewhere, getting yourself pumped up to exercise can be a difficult process. So what’s more helpful for said activities than a couple of awesome pump-up songs? Well we can’t think of anything else, so here are a couple of tunes to help get you in the zone.

1) Fountains of Wayne, “Stacy’s Mom (Singularity x Robotic Pirate Monkey Remix)”

2) Riton feat. Sage the Gemini, “Gas Pedal”

3) James Young, “Dark Star (Kiely Rich Remix)”

4) Jeff Zheng, “Dimensions”

5) Hardwell, “Spaceman (Carnage Festival Trap Remix)”

6) Kanye West, “New Slaves (DJ Snake Remix)”

7) Smallpools, “Dreaming (The Chainsmokers Remix)”

8) Karmin, “Acapella”

Have any music suggestions that help you get PUMPED? Let us know in the comments!

Image source: will ockenden under Creative Commons

Contact Gabrielle Nguyen at gnguyen@dailycal.org.

The post Playlist of the week: time to SWEAT appeared first on The Daily Californian.

For those of you Cal students who are avid TV-watching fans – we know you’re out there – you may be familiar with Mindy Kaling. Kaling, if you do not already know, is a television show producer, creator and writer. She started out writing for and starring in NBC’s recently completed hit show “The Office” as Kelly Kapoor, and last year, she birthed her own beautiful creation on Fox called “The Mindy Project,” where she plays Mindy Lahiri, a character gently modeled after herself.

Kaling has been compared to writer-actresses like Tina Fey and Lena Dunham — true powerhouses on the small screen. And if you do not know anything about Kaling or have not seen any of her work, one thing you need to remember about Kaling is that she is the epitome of dope. We’re not here to kiss her ass or make you fall in love with her, but we highly suggest that you do. Here are a few reasons why:

1. She reminds us that it’s OK to be awkward as shit. Sometimes around campus, you might find yourself tripping on the uneven Berkeley sidewalks and laughing at yourself out loud as people around you stare at you uncomfortably. Well, if you think that’s bad, think again. Kaling began her major acting career starring as talkative, clingy, squeaky Kelly Kapoor on “The Office,” and now, on “The Mindy Project,” she plays Dr. Mindy Lahiri, a successful, independent, strong-minded female OB/GYN. And despite her powerful qualities on (and off) the show, her character traits never fail to make you feel uncomfortable … in a good way. In the “Frat Party” episode of “The Mindy Project” this season, Mindy hires a college intern, whom she insists should take her to a frat party. When she sees her intern dancing on a stripper pole at the party, Mindy rushes to the pole to drag her intern off of the stage, actively attempts to take down the pole by herself and ends up looking like she’s dancing on it herself while her fraternity male counterparts yell obscenities at her. Kaling’s mastery of physical and situational comedy makes her work mortifying to watch in the most entertaining way possible.

2. She’s a prime example of G!RL$ R0Ck! Kaling started out as the only female writer on “The Office” writing staff and helped to turn the show into one of the most successful and entertaining television shows of our generation. Now, she’s created her own show on Fox that has become an instant success. In a piece with Vulture, Jenna Fischer, who played Pam on “The Office,” said that Kaling told her, “If you can get (the writers) to yell at you, then you know that they’re treating you like an equal and not like a girl,” which inspired Fischer to push hard for an idea she had for Pam in the show to the writers. Kaling also joked about herself being the only female writer for a while, saying, “Well, all the guys want to have sex with me all the time. Every day I come to work, it’s nonstop sexual harassment.”

3. Her body is a wonderland. Kaling is not as thin as a slice of American cheese, and we like it. We like it a lot. Kaling, who knows she is not the same girl you see on TV every day, uses her “dissimilarities” to her advantage. On “The Mindy Project,” she embraces her background, her physical image and everything that isn’t typical-TV-actress-archetype about her, making her show 10 times better than it already is. On the finale of this season of “The Mindy Project,” during a practice cyber-sex Skype session with her current boyfriend, played by Anders Holm from “Workaholics,” Mindy opens her shirt and says to him, “Yeah baby, you like your boobs between an A and B?” He responds to her in the most sensual way possible, “Indecisive boobs are, like, my thing now.” Clearly, Kaling is not afraid to embrace her unconventional body shape (well, by societal standards), and we thoroughly enjoy that. Brilliant.

4. She’s annoying … in a cute way? Something about Mindy Kaling that we can’t quite seem to grasp is the fact that the characters she plays and the roles she creates for herself are extremely — if we are being blunt — annoying. But at the same time, we cannot figure out why we don’t hate them. In fact, the characters she plays are annoying to the point that we somehow end up loving them. Watch this clip from “The Office,” and you’ll understand.

If you haven’t watched “The Office” or “The Mindy Project,” we suggest checking those out ASAP (Rocky). New guest stars will be coming in next season of “The Mindy Project” on Fox (and it’s rumored that James Franco will be one of them).

What do you think of Mindy Kaling? Let us know in the comments!

Image source: AmsterdamFTV under Creative Commons

Contact Gabrielle Nguyen at gnguyen@dailycal.org.

The post 4 reasons Mindy Kaling is the epitome of dope appeared first on The Daily Californian.

These days, unless you’re one of those people who is on an adventure in some magical place (We hate you. Just kidding. Sort of.), you’ve hit those summertime blues. It’s about halfway through your summer, and you’ve hit a wall. Lately, it seems like every silver lining has a cloud, and work, summer school at Cal or just sitting around at home are harshing your groove. Whether you’re at home or at Cal, you may be starting to feel some of these summer dispirits. So we’ve got a couple of tips to help you liven up:

1. A very wise person once said, “COFFEEEEEEEEEEEEE.” If you’re in Berkeley, head to Caffé Strada, Café Milano or a Berkeley original, Peet’s Coffee and Tea, and get yourself some delicious form of caffeine, like Strada’s Iced House Coffee or Milano’s Mocha Bianca. These delicious drinks will get your blood pumping, push you to study harder or help you get some work done in a relaxing Berkeley environment. It may even get those creative blocks out of the way and get those inspired brain juices flowin’.

 2. Werk, werk, werk out. This doesn’t have to involve heading to the gym to spend hours on an infinite running torture machine otherwise known as a treadmill. Get outside, go hiking on one of Berkeley’s fabulous hiking trails, take a class at the RSF! These will get you and your endorphins running, and you’ll probably feel like a much better person after completing your exercise. There’s something about twerkin’ out (literally, if you like to get a lil’ cray) that one should always remember — you usually will never regret doing it.

3. Write something like a cool, hip, (probably good-looking) Daily Clog blogger would. Whether you’re a “good” writer or a “bad” writer, if you’re a Cal student, we’re pretty sure you’ve got at least one writing bone in that body. And if you’re feeling blah, writing can be a great reliever of stress or creative outlet and can also make you feel like a cool, artsy hipster to remind you that you go to UC Berkeley. Those writing bones may not be manifest, but give it a try. You’ll never know until you do. (Protip: The Campus Store on Euclid Avenue sells nifty Moleskine journals, the brand approved by every artsy writer ever.)

 4. Treat yourself. This is probably the opposite of tip number two, but food is a gift, and we all need to learn to embrace it. If you’re a consistently healthy eater, this might be considered a “cheat day” in which you indulge in the sweet (or savory) flavors of YES-ness and allow your taste buds to have the foodgasms they deserve. Take your taste buds for a test run at CREAM, Homeroom, Toss (in Downtown Berkeley) or one of the many restaurants in Berkeley that is a guaranteed pleaser. Allowing said taste buds to enjoy this full-body experience will be more than satisfying — we promise. (Wink wink, click click.)

Image source: Tanozzo under Creative Commons

Contact Gabrielle Nguyen at gnguyen@dailycal.org.

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If you do not already know, “So You Think You Can Dance” is a summer program on Fox in which contestants from all around the United States — and, in some cases, from all around the world — audition and compete for the title of “America’s favorite dancer.” Once the auditions are over, about 160 contestants are sent to Las Vegas for the “callback” round, and after those eliminations are processed, the top 20 are sent to Los Angeles to perform on the main “So You Think You Can Dance” stage. We know for sure that many of you Cal students are avid TV watchers, especially during the summer, and for you dance fans and aficionados, SYTYCD has been your go-to summer show since the first season! If you haven’t caught on to some of the very valuable lessons you can learn from the show, we’ve got a couple of things we learned to help you out like:

When in doubt, be Cat Deeley. Cat Deeley is the host of “So You Think You Can Dance.” You could say she is the Beyonce of all television hosts. She’s pleasant, charming and always “dressed to impress.” She’s always the happiest person on the show (probably because she’s not in fear of having her dreams crushed during an elimination round and because she gets paid $60,000 per episode), but her confidence and seemingly eternal perkiness are admirable. So if you’re ever down in the dumps, remember — be Cat Deeley.

Actively avoid being “that dude.” In the most recent “Vegas Callbacks” episode of SYTYCD, in which approximately 160 dancers compete to be in the top 20 dancers, drama ensued when a female contestant called out her assigned dance partner, Jade Zuberi (who is now part of the top 20) for “holding her back a bit” and requested another partner, whom she tried working with instead of with Jade. After doing this, jazz and contemporary choreographer Sonya Tayeh proceeded to scold the young dancer for not listening to the choreographer’s initial instructions to “fall in love with your partner” and for essentially being “that guy” in front of the judges, the crew and all of the dancer’s fellow contestants. And if we’re being honest, after that little incident, it looked like the show was actively trying to portray the dancer as “that dude” who calls out her partner. Lesson learned? Don’t be THAT DUDE!

Good music makes everything seem cooler. If you’re ever looking for some good music and don’t know where to go besides the “Playlist of the Week” section of the Daily Clog or the “Tunesday” articles from the arts and entertainment section of the Daily Cal, SYTYCD is always a good place to go. A variety of music genres are included in the show’s dance playlist considering all the different types of dances performed. Songs range from artsy sounds like Bjork’s “Enjoy” all the way to dance remixes like “Let’s Have a Kiki (Guwremix)” by Fanny Pak & District 78. Various choreographers on the show, including Christopher Scott and Sonya Tayeh, like to use interesting music to their advantage by including certain songs from genres that usually would not go with their music styles — Christopher Scott is a hip-hop choreographer, and Tayeh is a jazz and contemporary choreographer — to give their performances a little twist. And it usually works. What have we learned from this? Anytime you’re bored or need to add a little twist to your life, put on some good music. We can guarantee you’ll feel at least 10 times cooler than you did before.

Image source:  Vivanista1 under Creative Commons

Contact Gabrielle Nguyen at gnguyen@dailycal.org.

The post 3 things to learn from ‘So You Think You Can Dance’ appeared first on The Daily Californian.

Gabrielle Nguyen/Staff

As my trip to Grand Cayman, the largest island of the Cayman Islands, came to a close, I realized that what I took away from the trip most was, well, a lot of extra pounds, if we’re being honest. The food can be a little pricey at times, but if you’re a seafood lover, you will thoroughly enjoy the foodie life in the Cayman Islands.

Of all of the restaurants I was able to enjoy (I’m fortunate enough to come from a food-loving family), I enjoyed a restaurant called Agua the most. The restaurant has a wide selection of dishes on its menu, which you can check out here. During my experience at Agua, I inhaled a special grilled snapper with a truffle lobster bisque sauce and a shrimp kebab on the side. For dessert, I highly recommend the homemade gelato. I had a major foodgasm when I tasted that first bite of the homemade hazelnut gelato, and then I had 10 more foodgasms when I ate the rest of the three entire scoops in the bowl.

Homemade hazelnut gelato at Agua

And if you like to not only eat seafood but also play with sea animals (seems like sort of a screwed up combination, doesn’t it?), there are a number of activities in Grand Cayman that I don’t think anyone should miss out on. First, aside from a couple of wonderful dolphin sanctuaries, there are also various snorkeling and scuba diving tours. But my favorite sea animal interaction was swimming in Stingray City. No, it’s not an actual city. It’s a sandbar in the middle of the ocean where stingrays gather around and are surprisingly very friendly. I was scared shitless before I stepped off of that large double-decker boat, thinking, “Wow, those stingrays must hate me now. They don’t want this big-ass boat in their city…” But surprisingly, I was wrong. The stingrays in the sandbar are very friendly and are very receptive to human interaction (especially since we feed them fresh cuttlefish). I was able to kiss, cuddle with and even receive free back massages from the dozens and dozens of stingrays swimming around my feet. They reminded me of my friends’ cats rubbing against my leg as I walked by them — but just a little more … wet. Seriously, it was probably one of the most fascinating experiences of my life. Highly recommended.

Wormwood plant at the Queen’s Botanical Garden on the east side of Grand Cayman

Roadside fruit stand on east side of Grand Cayman

As stimulating as that experience was, one of my favorite parts of my eight-day trip was the day my family and I went on an island tour. I was fortunate enough to travel around the entire island, learn its history and even get some fresh fruit along the way. Our first stop was the Queen’s Botanical Garden. There were many interesting plants and fruit-growing flowers, some of which were medicinal. I looked at some of the ones that Dr. Presti taught me about in “Drugs in the Brain” here at Cal two semesters ago. Afterward, we checked out The Blow Hole, which is a large geyser on the east side of the island that shoots out water as the waves came in. I took some pretty cool Instagram-worthy pictures, if you know what I’m saying. (Mostly ones of me pretending I was in a tsunami.) After that, we headed over to the best roadside fruit stand I had ever been to. I’ve been to a couple in Hawaii, Costa Rica and a couple others in the Caribbean, but of all of those, this one was the best by far. An adorable, energetic Filipino woman fed us fresh starfruits, soursops, sweetsops, watermelons, mangos, papayas and strawberries … I mean, this place was fruit heaven. She even put a bunch of those in a blender really quick for us and made us the most delicious smoothies my family and I have ever tasted. (Tip: Ask them to add peanuts — it gives the smoothie a surprising salty crunch to it). Roadside fruit stands with locally grown fruit in Grand Cayman are a MUST. After the fruit stand, we headed to Pedro St. James Castle. Pedro St. James Castle is not an actual castle, but is a large house. It was the first stonewall house built in Grand Cayman back in 1780. The fact that the house was only three years younger than the Declaration of Independence was fascinating to me, and the man who gave us a tour of the “castle” — he called himself Mr. Carl — was an ancestor of the original house’s builder, William Eden. For you history and anthropology connoisseurs, many of the original artifacts from 1780 are still in the house — even the old rocking chair that William Eden sat in.

William Eden, original builder of Pedro St. James Castle’s, rocking chair from 1780

My eight days in Grand Cayman were eventful and draining (mostly because of those extra-strength UV rays) but definitely worth it. If you skip everything else on this list, what I recommend doing most is visiting Stingray City. It’s always fun and interesting to interact with animals in their natural environments, and it was especially compelling to see how friendly these animals with seminegative connotations are — I mean, the word “sting” is in their name. Seriously, I cannot get over how enthralling it was to cuddle and kiss something that is supposed to “sting” me … I don’t need a significant other. I just need a stingray … right?

Image sources: Gabrielle Nguyen, Staff

Contact Gabrielle Nguyen at gnguyen@dailycal.org

Correction(s):
A previous version of this article misspelled William Eden’s name.

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