LA

I know, I know, I've let this blog go for way too long. And now I'm going to be posting catch-up pictures that are months old. If you still follow me, it's probably because you're a true friend so you won't mind my belated updates. Here's a little story about our first ever trip down to LA last month.

Living in cloudy San Francisco, I imagine LA to be a place with perfect weather and sunny skies all year round. And usually, it is. But when we were there, it rained at some point on each one of the three days, and people there were going crazy. 

We got red and blue velvet pancakes at Larchmont Bungalow, saw some stars on Hollywood Boulevard, found a street that should be even more famous (named after my dad!), visited a cute farmers' market, trekked (mostly drove) to the Hollywood sign, and won matching prize rings on the Santa Monica boardwalk. It was a great weekend, and we saw a lot, but we spent a TON of time in the car. We were really glad to get to go home to San Francisco where we rarely have to deal with traffic or directions, and where people don't wear heels and dress to the nines everywhere you go. 

More to come on other travels. xo

A weekend in Maui

About two weeks ago, and about the last time I posted, Jonny and I were heading off to Hawaii for a long weekend. We stayed a few days in Maui for what was one of the most relaxing getaways I've ever been on, complete with morning coffee by the pool, stacks of books, daily ocean swimming, beachy cocktails, long dinners, and lots of sunshine. I want to give this vacation to everyone I know - we came back feeling so rested and refreshed! 

Heading to Hawaii!

We're taking off for Maui tomorrow morning for a few days in Hawaii. I've been craving sunshine, getting through stacks of books, hanging with Jonny doing absolutely nothing, and leaving my computer at home. See you next week! 

Santa Barbara

Exactly one month ago, we went down to Santa Barbara to celebrate year one of marriage. Jonny planned the whole trip, and we stayed in a super cute b&b and ate great food, walked on the beach, shopped around town, and enjoyed what we kept calling "real California." I'd highly recommend it if you're looking for a cute and relaxing getaway.

Jash!

Just got back from our dear friends Josh and Ashley's wedding in Cabo, and I wanted to share a few mini polaroids from the trip. It was an incredible weekend - we hung out by the pool, drank lots of beachy drinks, and got to connect with Ash and Josh's friends from all over. The actual wedding and all of the parties surrounding it were super fun too, and we tore up the dance floor (as you can see from about 40% of the pictures I took!)

 We got to witness Josh and Ash officially get married at city hall this spring, and it was awesome to get to celebrate with them again with all of their family and friends in Mexico. Love you guys dearly! 

Indo Indo Indo Indonesia

This may be a record for me - posting pictures within a few days of getting back from a trip. Without further ado, here's how I spent the last ten days in Indonesia. 

::JAKARTA::

We didn't spend a lot of time outside in Jakarta - we were mostly in an office. I did take a few pictures of our outings, though. 

This is Monas, the national monument in Jakarta. The sky looks bluer here than it actually was. The picture below is a little more telling.

My travel buddy, Ben! 

 The malls in Jakarta were out of control. Like nothing I'd ever seen, even in Vegas. I wish I'd taken more pictures to show you how crazy this mall was. I mean, it was 11 stories! And it had everything you could ever imagine in it. (Except for my personal fave, Anthropologie!)

Ben ordered a hamburger one day, and the meat patty was about the same thickness as the slice of cheese, but the real kicker was that there was mayonnaise all over it! That - that looks like icing on the bun - is mayo. 

::BALI::

Bali was beautiful (outside of crowded and touristy Denpasar). We were there for three days, and a big chunk of our time was spent visiting a partner in west Bali. 

 We passed by tons and tons of rice fields on our way out to west Bali, all of which were b-e-a-utiful.

 More of the rice. (We also ate A-L-O-T of rice!)

 We visited a few different borrowers who raised pigs. One woman we met had something like 30 pigs! They were smelly, and the big ones were a little scary, but they were also super cute.

 This guy was waaay bigger in real life than this picture lets on. He was the mac daddy of the pigs - the father of the piglet above and father of most of the other 30 some pigs.

We also tried cacao, the plant that chocolate comes from. It was totally different from what I expected - I don't know what I thought chocolate came from, but not this. It was great though.

 ::BENGKULU::

Bengkulu is a smallish town on the island of Sumatra where my little bro, Peter, is living for the semester. Being there was actually my favorite part of the trip, just because I got to see Peter's life and hang out with his friends.

 The beach in Bengkulu was beautiful. It reminded me of St. Teresa (where my grandmother has a house in Florida) because it was so untouched. 

 Peter took me on his little motorbike to the beach the first afternoon I was there, and we got to watch the sun set. 

We came back to the beach the next day, because Petey and his Indonesian friend Eeman were both getting baptized in the ocean.

 It was so amazing to get to be there to see Peter get baptized and to celebrate with him. 

 Getting ready to head to the airport.

 This was a typical sight on the way to the airport - Peter stopped and looking at the map. I think I mentioned that we got to the airport at 10:30 for a 10:45 flight, but amazingly, I made it! 

Here's one final picture of the countryside that I snapped from the back of the bike on the way to the airport. Indonesia was a beautiful place, and the people were amazing. I'm glad I got to go, and I'd love to go back!

Airport Taxi

I'm not quite back yet (in Hong Kong - my last stop before San Francisco!), but I just had to share this one picture of how I got to the Bengkulu airport this morning. Yep - Peter taxied me there on his bike, with my suitcase in my lap. It was a crazy ride, which included a road that slowly turned into a dirt path and then just a field, and we ended up arriving at the airport 15 minutes before my flight was scheduled to depart. I made it though, amazingly. 

I'll have lots of other pictures and stories to share soon - can't wait to be home! 

Firenze e Siena

Finally, some more Italy! I was holding off on posting pictures of Florence and Siena until my sister sent me her pictures. To give her credit, she actually sent pictures when she returned from her world tour two weeks ago and I've just been slow about going through them. But here they are!

We met up with my sister in Florence, and we stayed in a hotel that I do not recommend. It was the Sheraton and we stayed for free with points, but points or no points, it's never fun to stay outside of the city you came to see. So just remember, if you're going to Florence, cross the Sheraton "Firenze" off your list of possible places to stay. 

We climbed up the Duomo (all 463 steps!), and we all agreed that that was our favorite part of the trip. 

We also went to the Boboli Gardens, which I remember from last time in Florence with Natalie as being one of my favorite places. 

I remembered this face from last time I was in the Boboli gardens, and I just think it's super cool. I was disappointed to find out this time that it's not that old - I think it's from the 80's or 90's (that's 20th century 80's or 90's!)

We spent a few days in Florence, then we went on to Siena. We were staying at a place called Siena House, so without doing my homework, I just assumed it would be in Siena. When we got to Siena by bus and then looked up our place, it turns out it was 40 kilometers outside of Siena! After spending a lot of time looking at maps, Jonny figured out we could take a train to the little town nearby our b&b, so we did that, thinking we could get a cab once we got there. Oh no, no no. This town was waaay too small to have a taxi service, and everyone laughed at us when we asked. We ended up getting a ride from two kind men at the train station, and during that five minute ride, I kept imagining the worst about these men. I was sure we were kidnapped, but they pulled us up right to the door and we saw the following view:

As it turns out, Italy has really strict regulations on how many people can stay in a room, so Laura Grace ended up staying across the street in this cool rustic farm. (She would say more rustic, less cool - there was a frog and a lizard in her room!)

Remember when I posted about Outstanding in the Field? Well, the place where Laura Grace was staying was having a festival and a dinner, and we got to attend a super authentic Italian version of one of these outdoor dinner parties.

Everyone around us spoke Italian, but we managed to get by with a few words and a lot of gesturing and facial expressions. 

The farm also had haybails, which Laura Grace explored. 

We did end up spending one day in Siena, where we thought we were going to be all along. It was a really charming little town - kind of a smaller version of Florence. 

So there you have it! That's the full Italy recap. Next will be our blessing and thanksgiving service for marriage, aka wedding round two in the UK! 

Skipping to Venice

 

I'm counting on getting some of my sister's pictures to share from Florence and Tuscany, so I'm skipping through our trip to Venice. For our last stop on our trip, we stayed at the lovely Gritti Palace Hotel right on the Grand Canal. Like all of the rest of Italy, it was h-o-t, but it was also really beautiful. It seems like most people have a strong opinion about Venice: they either love it or hate it. I'm completely charmed by Venice, and even though I doubt I'd want to spend more than a few days there, we really enjoyed our time.

We spent our first morning at breakfast in San Marco's at Caffe Florian. It was one of those super touristy spots, but it also has history - I may need to do some fact-checking, but I think it's been around for over 100 years! 

Caffe Florian also has a full band playing lively music starting early in the morning and going late into the night. We had a sneaky steep fee added to our bill as a "Music tax," but it was well worth it.

Jonny led us on an all day walking tour of Venice, and I loved it. We had a loose course we were following with a few stops we knew we wanted to make along the way, but it was super relaxed and we ended up stumbling on a lot of cool galleries, shops, and my favorite, gelato places.

We laughed a lot at the gondola riders we saw, because everyone riding gondolas looked bored and miserable. I didn't take a picture of them, but I should have! 

One day for lunch, we shared a seafood platter, and it was all great except for this little guy. Jonny named him Percy the prawn, and he was left behind on the plate after everything else delicious was eaten up.

 We didn't ride a gondola (the miserable people and the 200 euro price tag deterred us!) but we did take a taxi to the airport. It was by far the best ride to the airport I've ever had. 

 And there's our last view of Venice in Jonny's sunglasses. 

Roma

 This was the BEST pizza we ate all trip. We were in Naples for about an hour before taking a train to Rome, and we rushed to find this pizza place that the Lonely Planet raved about. It was truly rave-worthy. We got there, were seated immediately when the doors open, had our order taken one minute later, and our pizzas came out two minutes later. And they were so so good.

We hit the ground running once we checked into our hotel, and our first stop was the Trevi fountain. I remember really liking this last time I was in Rome, but Jonny remembers not being that impressed with it. We both loved it this time around!

 After we took this picture, we realized that we weren't throwing our coins in in the proper way. From what I'm told, to make a wish in the Trevi fountain, you should take the coin in your right hand and throw it over your left shoulder. Once we realized that, though, we'd already gone to the trouble of having someone take our first picture, so we didn't want to have to wrangle another tourist to take a second one.

From the Trevi fountain, we made our way to the Pantheon. This was the hottest day in Italy so far, and our bodies are used to San Francisco weather so we were struggling to take the heat.

 We continued our walk to the Colosseum. Both of us had been inside separately before, so we just marveled at the outside of the structure without going in. 

 One of my friends from work who grew up in Rome gave us great restaurant recommendations. At Da Felice, they make "cacio e pepe" pasta and mix it right in front of you. It was so so good.

 On our next day, we went to the Vatican. We knew they required you to have your knees covered, so Jonny wore pants even though it was boiling hot, and I wore a long dress. Little did I know, you also have to have your shoulders covered to enter St. Peter's basilica. I almost got turned away, but a brilliant businesswoman was standing right by where I was getting turned away selling scarves that I would never have bought otherwise, and she saved me.

 I was totally enthralled by the ceiling in St. Peter's basilica. 

Rocking my hideous touristy scarf. It was hilarious to see so many women with these scarves tied around their shoulders and knees in St. Peter's.  

These guards outside St. Peter's reminded me of Willy Wonka or Dr. Seuss. 

 I loved the letter boxes at the Vatican post office.

 At the Vatican museums, rocking our audio guides, which were actually great. We loved being able to go at our own pace and learn about as much or as little in a particular room as we wanted to.

 Jonny's favorite part was this gallery of maps. It was a whole hallway full of huge paintings of maps from hundreds of years ago.

I snuck this picture of the ceiling of the Sistine Chapel (don't tell!). I think because they don't allow pictures, I had no idea what to expect and it was much more angular and busy than I had expected. 

After hours in the museum, it was nice to get back in the sunlight, and we spent a few hours just wandering the city.

 Me with gelato in Rome at night = happiness.

 We visited the catacombs, and we had to sneak pictures here too. The catacombs we visited, San Callisto, felt almost like we were visiting a big winery in Napa when we got there. They were super touristy, and they took large groups to tour the grounds. Luckily, we broke away from our large group and found a much smaller group to walk around with. 

 I don't think Jonny would have fit if he had to be buried in the catacombs. 

Our final picture in our luxurious hotel. Goodbye Rome, on to Florence!