Thanks for joining me!

         Welcome to my first blog! My name is Santiago Dvivero and the purpose of making this blog is to share my experiences of finding new cultures that I’m not used to all. I was born in Colombia land of the coffee. However I was raised in California since the age 5. That’s where my culture gets interesting because I have Colombian influences and that’s where most of my roots come from but at the same time I find my self identifying more with the American culture. Being Colombian really consist of amazing food, dancing, and finding any type of excuse to party no matter what time of the day it is. It’s crazy though how much I feel music and rhythm in my blood like no matter what kind of music it is I’ll just start dancing to it. Family is a major part of my culture no matter what happens or what we do, we are always together.

Now let me tell you guys about myself. I’m a little shy at first but once you get to know me I’m super outgoing and talkative. Most of my friends consider my funny but I have a dark humor and it’s definitely not for everyone. With that being said I offend a lot of people with the things I say but I somehow find amusing. There’s something about watching the reaction of people getting offended and then I feel like in a way they open up to me more and aren’t so stuck up in a way. I love soccer, it’s my passion, it’s everything to me. Every time I’m playing I feel like I’m free and worry free. I have been in a soccer team since I was 5 and I played up to senior year of high school. However, I got a really bad injury that prevented me from playing and now I make it up by coaching a youth soccer team. But I mean common let’s be honest teaching 7 year old kids how to play has to be one of the most frustrating things but not as bad as the moment when one of the parents starts screaming at you because you screamed at their child. Your kid is throwing a tantrum because he doesn’t want to run anymore like you gotta be kidding me.

Anyways when I was in middle school I used to play the clarinet.. yup the clarinet. I enjoyed it though the reason I choose the clarinet was because of Squidward from Spongebob. However that didn’t end up going well because one day while I was in band practice one of my friends dared my to shoot the instructor with a bb-gun. Let’s just that didn’t end up going well. Now you may ask why would be caring a bb-gun at school. Well it was because my friends and I used to shoot each after school as well as shoot the cars driving by in our neighborhood. That’s what my childhood really consisted of just doing bad things for fun. Thinking back at it, it was dangerous and bad but I would have it any other way. Growing up in the streets of Los Ángeles was scary and I would see things that I wish I could erase from my memory but that’s what makes me who I am.

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Stepping Into the Inside World of Paris

On March 3rd I decided to eat something new out here in Jacksonville. Now I’ve tried a little bit of everything through out the years because I always like trying new things out. However I realized that European pallet isn’t as diverse as I thought it was. I started to look up French restaurants here in Jacksonville. Upon my research I came across a complete hidden gem. The place is called Le Petit Paris Cafe its on San Jose Blvd by Mandarin. Oh man If only I’d stuck with learning to speak French in middle school, who knows where I’d be. Maybe I’d be an artist, a chef, a food critic..one things for sure, I’d be fluent in speaking the language of love. Once you visit Le Petit, rejoice in knowing you didn’t have to travel far to have an authentic French artisan experience.

*Fluff

Here’s what really caught my attention, the cronut! I went out to SF a few months ago and experienced one of my best foodgasms when I had some cronuts out there. Naturally, I wanted to see where this place was, if this could hit my spot the way Happy Donuts (review coming soon) did, I’d be willing to tattoo the name of the shop on my lower back! Anywho, this particular visit I didn’t grab the cronut, instead I kept it fairly basic.

*Interior

The shop is quite spacious and contemporary. Unfortunately I have yet to visit Paris but the idea is to feel you’ve walked off the streets of Paris into this shop. When you walk in, you’re immediately drawn to the pastries, by smell. That’s how they get you, they have everything smelling all good and you end up forgetting what day it is, who you are and why you exist.

If you happen to come with a larger party, there’s a long table that’ll suit your needs. There’s some round tables, as well as intimate booths. Imagine wanting to have eye contact, hand holding (I doubt it, there’s croissants and quiches to be eaten) and maybe even play footsies, you’re set. The music selection is romantic and it gets you all warm and bubbly, you know, in the feels. If you’re into outdoor dining, aucun problème. Don’t forget to look at the pictures and photos on the wall.

*Food

I ordered the Peanut Butter & Jelly melt, as well as a Breakfast sandwich. I LOVE PB&J, so much so, I have made my own PB&J smoothies – liquid crack confirmed! There was an evenly distributed amount of both PB&J, it got a bit messy but no complaints from me. To be honest, I was disappointed, I was disappointed because I hadn’t thought to have PB&J on a croissant. 

Breakfast Sandwich w/Smoked Salmon and Brie – man, c’mon! I’ll start with the fluffy eggs, then again I could begin with the smoked salmon (this fish was not caught in vain, it served its purpose and was not over cooked) or maybe the Brie. I did my best to savor the flavors I encountered but to no avail it was inhaled. Also on the plate was a handful of arugula with some sort of dressing … I thoroughly enjoyed this. I could’ve had a larger serving.

*Overall

The only thing “little” about this place, is the space they’ve been provided in the shopping plaza. They should be the main attraction. To Alex, whom I had the pleasure of meeting, thank you for bringing a piece of your home, a piece of your work, a piece of you, to this city.

Stepping Into the Horrifying Outdoors

Ok lets just say I’m not the most outgoing person when it comes to being outdoors. I admit even though it hurts for me to say this I’m a pussy, I’m scared of all the bugs, and animals that are out there. With that being said I did I had to experience something knew and write about it in this blog post and man do I regret. After the experience I had I don’t think I’ll ever go to the forest again.

I knew about this path in the forest that connected my Sisters backyard to my brothers house that my family has always talked about. So I convinced my brother to come with me and the dogs to walk through the forest to get to my sisters house.

About 5 miles we a weird crying noise. We look around every where to see if we can spot it but nothing. Out of no where my dog starts barking at some bush and we spot a baby bunny crying. Yes a bunny crying I’ve never heard of that before until this day. We grab the bunny and we notice that its leg was bleeding. Lucky my brother had some bandages in his backpack and we wrap the bunny’s leg with it.

I start to google information about found wild baby bunnies and I come across the fact that if you find a wild baby bunny it means that there has to be a nest somewhere near by full of other baby bunnies. We start looking around and sure enough after a while we find another bunny. Although this time this one is dead. We started thinking to ourselves man there’s something going on here.

Next thing we know we hear a rattle! We spot a huge rattle snake near the dead bunny and I jumped like never before. My heart was racing I thought this snake was literally about to bite us. In the next hour we found ourselves searching up videos on “How to kill a rattle snake”. We came to the conclusion that we should just stab with a sharp big stick. My brother and I started stabbing it with all of our strength. There was blood gushing out everywhere and I shouldn’t get into any more details but we ended up killing it. I would have to say this one of the most terrifying moments of my life.

Stepping Into a Historic Tradition

So yesterday was very interesting but pleasing! Me and my girlfriend were at home trying to decide what to do for the day. I knew I wanted to experience something new so I decided to look up near by “Festivals for today” on google. To my surprise it was Saint Patrick’s Day and there was going to be a festival in downtown riverside. You might be surprised that we didn’t know that it was saint Patrick’s day but it’s not part of our culture nor did we ever contribute to it. We ended up deciding to get up and get ready to attend the festival.

When we first arrived it was shocking to see how many people attend the festival! But it was also cool because we saw people dressed up whether it was only with a green shirt or in a complete costume. Funny thing is I completely forgot to wear green and I so happened to be the only one in a red sweater.

After finding parking we walked into the festival and there were so many food trucks and little pop up shops. They also had games and live music! The music was very pleasing as it was songs everyone knew or loved.
While me and my girlfriend walked around to figure out which food truck looked best to eat at we noticed people holding cups with green beer. We decided to try it after purchasing two cups for 7 dollars each, we both agreed that the beer was actually very cheep tasting, like a bud light, but it looked very cool because it was colored green.

After finally choosing a New York styles pizza food truck we ate and sat and enjoyed the positive energy in the air. Once we got bored of sitting we decided to play some of the games they had, some very familiar like Jenga and connect four and one not so familiar called Cornhole. When “playing” this game we just ended up tossing each bag one at a time to either side just to see if we can make it in a hole. Ofcourse we didn’t know what we were doing or how to play the game.

This other couple must have felt like we might need a bit help with the game because they decided to come over and show us how to play it properly and it was actually very fun!

I also learned how to play Cornhole properly by these nice strangers. They taught me and my brother how to keep score and all the rules. Although I do not personally celebrate Saint Patrick’s day, I felt extremely comfortable and welcomed with all the positive energy in the air.