Growing up, one of my favorite kinds of special family days was heading into New York City to see a Broadway show, then having dinner at an Italian restaurant afterwards. My grandma was a big Broadway lover, and she turned her girls and grandkids into show fans as well. In fact, her car constantly had Broadway show tunes blaring on repeat, & a few of her favorite soundtracks were Chicago and Annie. I hadn't seen a Broadway show in about a decade when my parents gave my hubby and I tickets to see Wicked over Christmas. The four of us drove the hour from my Jersey hometown into the city for a fun-filled day - a very wintery one at that. I think the temperature was 11 degrees, and it was face-numbing cold! First up, we wanted to visit the 9/11 Memorial since my hubby and I ... [Read More]
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A Dreamy Wine Country Day in Ronda, Spain
"The sun, with... planets revolving around it... can still ripen a bunch of grapes as if it had nothing else in the universe to do." - Galileo One of my favorite days on my recent vacation to Spain was when I went on a trip to the country's southern wine country area of Ronda with Tannin Trail. I absolutely love visiting wine country whenever we can, wherever we are, so it was a no-brainer part of our vacation to venture out of the city to Ronda. Tasting different wines, discovering more about the winemaking process, and learning about wines of the world is so much fun, and I've never met a wine region whose beauty I'm not enamored with. On the morning of our wine tour, Tannin Trail's co-owner Kelly picked us up right on time at our hotel. It was convenient to have ... [Read More]
Spain Food Sherpas’ Tapas Cooking Class + Spinach Porrilla Pasta
Happy 2018 friends! I hope that you all had a wonderful holiday season. Between traveling to Florida for my father-in-law's wedding, then flying up to the northeast for Christmas with family, then heading home to the west coast for New Year's, I had an awesome, whirlwind Christmastime. More on that later, but today we are rewinding a bit to recap another part of my recent trip to Spain: learning about the local gastronomy in the southern city of Malaga via a cooking class with Spain Food Sherpas. For awhile, I had participating in an international cooking class on my bucket list, so the day that I took a tapas cooking class with Spain Food Sherpas was a special one. I was extra excited because I adore tapas, and I woke up that morning looking forward to learning more about Spanish food ... [Read More]
The Ultimate Malaga History & Food Experience {Spain Travel Review}
Hi friends! Today I'm back with my second recap from my vacation last month. After getting a taste of Stockholm, my husband and I flew to Malaga, Spain, where we'd stay for a week and get to experience Southern Spanish culture. My first full day of vacation in Malaga, I wanted to explore the city and get a lay of the land. We started the day by taking the train in from where we were staying a bit south in Mijas Costas, then we sat down at a cafe outside for some tea and croissants. As we sat, sipped, and noshed, we did a lot of people watching. My first lesson of the culture in Malaga came from seeing the older man at the table next to us pour olive oil on his toast with a very heavy hand. People here love their olive oil (and of course their strong coffee too - this is Europe after ... [Read More]
Exploring Stockholm for a Day
“The world is a book, and those who don’t travel only read a page.” A couple days ago I got home from a long vacation in Europe with my husband, and I have so much to share with you! This vacation was the kind of travel that’s tiring and adventurous - a trip that as usual, made my pangs of wanderlust stronger, particularly as I sat in my thoughts during a long 11-hour flight from London to LA. We covered 4 cities in 3 new countries on this trip, the first of which was Stockholm. A stop in Sweden was an add-on to our plans to see Spain. Once I started looking at flights and saw that there was a long layover available in Stockholm, I was intrigued. It wasn’t even a much cheaper flight option, but I had never been to any of the Nordic countries and have wanted to see Stockholm, so ... [Read More]
Hike to Eagle Rock via the PCT + 8th Anniversary Camping Weekend
A couple of weeks ago, my hubby and I celebrated our 8th anniversary. I feel like so much has happened & we've grown up so much in these years, yet the years sure seem to fly by being married to your best friend! To commemorate the occasion, we went camping for the weekend in the Julian area - a SoCal inland town a couple of hours away that's known for its apple pies. It serves as a countryside escape for San Diego city dwellers, and we usually visit once or twice a year. Our initial plan was to go apple picking, but unfortunately all of the orchards had already closed for the season or were in their last weekend. Plan B was to go wine tasting instead. We visited Volcan Mountain Winery first, which had decent red blends and a muscat that we left with a bottle of. After ... [Read More]