california gurls

santa monica pier

we’re back from our whirlwind tour of the city of angels. we managed to experience about a week’s worth of activities in just a quick 3 days. having never been to LA (or california for that matter), the most welcome element of the trip was the weather reprieve. it was consistently 70 and sunny. a nice break from snowy, 20 degree bucks county, pa.

hollywood walk of fame

besides reveling in the sunshine, we walked the hollywood walk of fame and took pictures of the hand prints outside grauman’s chinese theater. enjoyed a golf-cart tour of fox studios where amy (our LA hostess) works. and made sure to see the hollywood sign, then proceeded to drive up the hillside to see the houses (and the view). amazing. with santa monica as our home base, we were able to walk to both venice beach (and muscle beach) and also the santa monica pier. a lovely walk, but my feet were killing me because of the new flip-flops i was sporting. (for some reason, even though i knew the projected weather forecast, i still packed as if i wouldn’t see the sunshine…)

sunset!!!

saturday afternoon we attended a “jersey shore” party and enjoyed hours and hours of foot-soaking goodness as we dipped our toes in the hot tub. our last full day found us hiking up a hill (or was it a mountain?) to enjoy breathtaking vistas of snow-capped mountains, downtown LA, the coastline and catalina island. gorgeous. afterwards, us girls enjoyed an abbreviated afternoon at universal studios, while craig stayed back to watch the jets v. pats game. after a handful of rides at universal, we jumped back into the car to make it to the santa monica beach by sunset. i had never seen a west coast sunset before. o. m. g. stunning.

in between the “must-sees”, we talked (ate), laughed (ate some more) and caught-up on what’s going on with everyone.

sunset over the pier

here are some of the lesser known attractions that really made our trip. (as usual, many are food-related):

1. urth caffe. a fabulous little bistro in santa monica that looks like it was plucked off the mediterranean coast. if you ever find yourself at urth, here’s what to order. small cappuccino, americano style, strong. Honestly the best cappuccino (and foam) of my life. and the bread pudding. original with caramelized bananas. delish!


cappuccinos at urth caffe

2. alibi room. awesome little bar with great food. amy took us there for korean tacos. don’t ask, just go. what to order: korean tacos (you can pick from short ribs, pork or chicken) i got the chicken, but I hear the short ribs are amazing too. and the sweet-chili chicken quesadilla. so so so good. yum.

3. topanga state park. fun, relatively easy hike through the santa monica mountains. the hike up to the lookout takes about a ½ hour, so it’s very manageable : ) and the vistas are totally worth the exertion, don’t worry. 

view from summit at topanga state park

4. diddy riese. totally cool ice cream sandwich place. yes, you read right…ice cream sandwich. you pick your two cookies and your ice cream, and they create a custom ice cream treat. and they only cost $1.50 each!!! i don’t know how they do it, but if you’re in the area, GO! what did i get? cookies ‘n cream ice cream sandwiched between one oatmeal raisin cookie and one white chocolate chip cookie. the cookies were soft, chewy and warm, and the ice cream was cool and creamy. utter perfection.  (oh, and if you check out their website, you can design your fave concoction.  but unfortunately they do not ship...)

awesome trip with awesome friends.

craig & me at sunset

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i'm leaving on a jet plane...

craig and i are flying to california tomorrow evening for 4 days of pure fun. we’re heading out to the golden state with college friends…to visit another college friend who’s living in LA. undoubtedly, we’ll have an awesome time. you see, we did “beach vaca ’08” with this rowdy bunch (of a cappella singers from my college singing group), and let’s just say there’s a group of middle-aged beach goers who may or may not still believe we’re a bowling team from allentown, texas.


welcome to LA

ok, so back to cali. having never been to the land of milk and honey (let’s see how many cali nicknames i can come up with…), i don’t really know what to expect…especially from LA. as with all truly great trips, i’m a lot more focused on who i’m going to see than what we’ll actually be doing. but, as a responsible and organized traveler, i decided to take a peek at what lies on the west coast that we just might want to check out while we’re there. (suggestions welcome.)

1. the infamous HOLLYWOOD sign
2. rodeo drive
3. venice beach (lots of tan, shiny people)
4. hollywood boulevard
5. santa monica promenade

picture credit {here}

but everybody knows about those…so here are a few others that seem a bit more locals-only. they’re always the best because they give you a real sense of the place : ) so, perhaps we’ll also hit-up…

6. the huntington library botanical gardens
7. luna park for awesome s’mores (and cocktails)
8. the mural conservancy for a tour of the city’s murals
9. joan’s on third’s gourmet market 

picture credit {here}

sounds fun, right? i’m so excited! oh, and we’ve already been invited to a hopping shin-dig. saturday night, we’re all dressing up and heading out to a jersey shore themed party that’s being hosted by another kid we all went to college with who also happens to have relocated to LA since graduating. small world. funny how we’re going all the way to LA to attend a “jersey shore” party when we live just 10 minutes from nj..

blog swap - tu parleras français

today’s post is courtesy of katherina, world-traveler extraordinaire, from 100 miles highway.  as members of 20 something bloggers, we’re both participating in our first-ever blog swap.  very exciting!  so, we were tasked with writing posts about what we want to do in 2011 that we’ve been putting off for too long.  (i’m sure many of you can relate…)  so without further ado, enjoy katherina’s guest post.  c’est magnifique!  ...and when you’re  done, check out my guest post {here}.

picture credit {here}

2011 is less than two weeks away and I’m starting to feel the usual pressure of the common “new year, new life” therapy. Every year, I start with a big list of resolutions which I firmly believe in, but then, life gets in the way of my plans, and some of my resolutions fade away while others are conveniently transferred into the next year. This, again, leaves me with a fairly long list of resolutions that have been transferred from one year to another because they’re still changes I want or need to make, sometime (soon, I promise!).

Anyway, probably the most important of those promises I’ve been making myself in the last couple of years (yeah, I know, years!!) is to learn French. And by that, I don’t mean managing to tell the butcher if I want poulet (chicken) or bœuf (beef), but to be able to follow a conversation among a group of native French-speakers. The reason for this is simple: I’m living in la Suisse Romande (the French-speaking part of Switzerland), since a year and 4 months and am still struggling to pronounce correctly the name of my street. Ridiculous. I know. However, speaking Spanish, English and German you pretty much manage to survive anywhere needed in this country – which, up to now, has led me to postpone the French classes again and again.

What makes 2011 different? Well, first there are all those shiny French cuisine cooking books that I've been piling up in my kitchen and would love to try (but are written in French). Then, living just a 10 minutes drive from Lavaux, a wine-growing region recognized as a World heritage site by Unesco (and being the wine-lover that I am), it feels incomplete not to know how to explain the taste and smell of the wine you are actually drinking (and not knowing how to tell the waiter that it tastes like cork!). Having to ask my work colleague or friend to call my landlord or to come along with me when I go to the doctor makes me feel so dependent! It’s really getting time to know my body parts without any additional help.
I’ve finally got the point: as difficult as it might be to admit, to feel part of the country and its culture, I need to excel French - This one is going to be tough, but at least now the motivation is there!

I hope you all have a nice holiday and a happy new year, and thanks so much Cailen for allowing me to invade your blog :)

if you enjoyed her post (which i'm sure you did), be sure to check out her lovely blog {here}, where you can also enjoy the guest post i wrote for our blog swap : ).

gorgeous islands (which one to choose...)

craig sent me a link to the "world's most romantic islands".  omg they are gorgeous!  we still don't know where exactly we want to honeymoon, but we do know that we want a combo of culture/fun and super relaxation.  our thought was to split our time...5-7 days in one place then another 5-7 days somewhere else.  could be fun, right?!  that way, we could get the best of both worlds.  maybe touring california wine country for a week then heading south to a mexican beach for margaritas and coronas. 

bocas del toro, panama

so, grab a pina colada and let your mind wander to far off lands...

santorini, greece



laucala island, fiji



rangali island, the maldives



st. lucia, caribbean

ooh la la...so lovely...
any suggestions/recommendations for awesome honeymoon destinations?







for the complete article (and more pictures) click {here}

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