August 2017 – Outbound Blonde

August 31, 2017August 31, 2017

24 (Instagram Worthy) hours in Palm Springs

I usually spend the 4th of July at Lake Tahoe, but since we were unable to wrangle our full group, I did the next best thing. One of my best friends from college – and one of the people who pushed me to take the leap and start writing this blog – Nicole lives in San Diego so I looked up flights and invited myself down. We’ve talked about going to Palm Springs a million times so I was able to coerce her into adding a quick overnight trip there to our itinerary.

Thanks to my frequent flyer status on my favorite airline, Virgin America, I decided to book the flight with points and with my status got upgraded to main cabin select! Virgin America is my ride or die airline since they go everywhere I nee to go within the US and their planes are by far the best. All it took was a quick 1:15 flight and I was stepping off the plane, into Nicole’s car, and we were off for Palm Springs!

We spent the next 24 hours stopping by ALL the Instagram hotspots and taking pictures while pretending to be former Bachelor contestants. Heyo Flat Tummy Tea – sponsor me! (JK. Well, kind of…)

For a dinosaur lover like me, a stop at the Cabazon Dinosaurs was a must. From posing with an brontosaurus to climbing inside the mouth of a T-Rex, this was a stop that any 5 year old would love. Nicole practically had to drag me out of there as we were melting under the desert sun.

Treating the T-Rex like a jungle gym and if you look closely you’ll see me clinging to the Brontosaurus and not wanting to leave.

Wearing our bestie shirts that will make another appearance and I can’t take Nicole anywhere haha

Playing arounding in the gift shop. Surprisingly, I was not technically too big for that ride, but I got weird looks from the kids.

One last dinosaur photobomb

Our next stop was to the luxurious Ritz Carlton Rancho Mirage that was just 10-15 minutes outside of downtown Palm Springs and set up into a hill, with incredible views.

The views right when we checked into our room and again as the sun was setting. So stunning!

Since our room wasn’t ready yet, Nicole and I switched into our bathing suits and popped down to the pool. We made a wrong turn and couldn’t find the adults pool (shocker, right?), but the general one was still and they quickly got us set up with towels, lounge chairs, an umbrella, and of course, a glass of champage.

Every few minutes our server would come by and offer us fresh ice water and ask if we need anything. Even when we were standing in the pool and splashing some water up onto the edge so that we could rest our arms, our server quickly came over and brought a towel as a cool place to rest, fresh ice water, and even offer to take a picture saying “this would be such a cute instagram!”

For dinner, I’d highly recommend The Tropicale. The food was absolutely delicious. I had the Tom Yum Soup and the Chilled Iceberg and Lump Crap Wedge Salad. Our waitress warned us about the large portion sizes and I should have listened because my salad had probably about a baseball sized portion of crab on it! That said, we had a fridge in our hotel room so I took my salad leftovers back and snacked on them in the car the next day on our way back to San Diego. Now that I think of it, I sound like “Scallop Fingers” from this week’s episode of Bachelor in Paradise, so judge me if you want… In any case, we sat on the open air back patio, but the interior was absolutely beautiful so I wish I’d had a few minutes to take some pictures!

Outside the restaurant

The view from the restaurant’s back patio where we sat to eat

The next morning after filling up on the Ritz’s impressive brunch spread we explored the property a bit more and then took a drive around Palm Springs.

Caught scoping out the fire pit

The view out to the fire pit and over Palm Springs

My beautiful travel companion on the steps leading up into the hotel from the pool

Pretending to be instagram models at all the pretty houses:

Best Instagram Wives

After driving back from our amateur photo sessions, I saw something weird out of the corner of my eye and made Nicole turn off the main street. Lo and behold we found Robolights! Apparently this is a big attraction in the winter with Christmas lights, but it’s still crazy to see on a random day. Not so sure that I’d want this in my neighborhood because you know, nightmares (look at the crazy tank…), but a driveby is worthwhile.

The one thing we sadly were not able to do on our girls getaway was to have a drink at the Parker Palm Springs’ Lemonade stands. As a heads up – they only allow hotel patrons at the pool even if just for a drink. That said, the interior, including the small mirrored bar, was absolutely so of course we unabashedly took lots of pictures.

Artwork in the lobby

My gracefulness caught in action

Paparazzi for hire

All in all the service at the Ritz Carlton Rancho Mirage was amazing. I found the deal via my Amex Platinum Card – one that I highly recommend for people who travel a lot because the perks and points you accrue are amazing. Now, you can get the card made of metal which feels pretty baller. We were able to get a room, $100 onsite restaurant credit, free breakfast (valued at over $30/person), late checkout, and an upgraded view room for just $220. While it was pretty scorching in Palm Springs, it was a nice warm up in comparison to the June Gloom that was continuing in San Francisco. Even though it was a holiday weekend, it paid off big time to visit in the “off season.” From the fresh ice water at every turn to the bath salts they offered for our in room jacuzzi. I would absolutely return (maybe) even paying full price.

Plus one final pic because we’re corny and of course bought matching Show Me Your Mumu tanks 🙂

24 hours in Palm Springs ✓!

Nicole

August 24, 2017

Final Thoughts – Norway

So, what were our final thoughts on Norway? First and foremost, GO! This country of beautiful sights and kind people should absolutely be on your bucket list. Maybe start moving it closer to the top now that Bachelor nation has helped increase the visibility of Norway for us here in the states. 😉

Things we loved:

TROMSØ!
- If we went back, I would allocate a couple more days in Tromsø, especially in more moderately temperature months. There is so much to see including whales, birds, and other wildlife that we couldn’t fit into our schedule
Radisson Blu Hotels
- These are not the same as Radisson hotels in the states
- Our rooms were beautiful, comfortable, and that breakfast spread (prayer hands)
Norwegian Air:
- While considered a “low-cost” airline, this still puts many US domestic airlines to shame. The flight prices within Norway were reasonable and included great seatback entertainment options as well as food that I could eat even with my lactose and gluten intolerances
Food menus that listed all allergens in dishes according to a code on the menus – this was at most restaurants and made eating so much easier for me to navigate my lactose and gluten intolerances
Friendly Norwegians! Basically everyone we encountered spoke English and they were such kind people. It’s definitely a place you can easily navigate without knowing the language and people are happy to help you and answer questions.

This trip was especially meaningful to me as Kristin and I finally were able to match our schedules so I had the chance to travel with my best friend. Most of my travels are solo so it was great to have someone to share this all with.

What we wish we had seen:

More Fjords!
Bergen
Lofoten
Train rides – Winter was tough to arrange this to fit seeing the actual countryside in daylight hours while not losing an entire day. I wish we had time for a short rides as the views are supposed to be amazing year round.
Kakslauttanen Arctic Resort – This is one of the hotels where you can sleep in a glass igloo to look out at the night sky. Unfortunately, in our one week trip it was too far away!

This post has been super delayed saying as how I’m recapping December in August, but let’s just ignore that factor. I’ve since taken a few more trips with lots more stories and pictures to come!

August 20, 2017August 22, 2017

Holmenkollen Ski Jump & I’m bad with art

After waking up a little later in the morning, but without any post-NYE hangovers (yay!), we made our way to my second favorite experience in Oslo – Holmenkollen Ski Jump. This one took us about 30 minutes via tram to get to, but in my opinion was completely worth it. Some of our pictures below may look slightly familiar if you’ve watched the latest season of the Bachelorette, because Rachel brought the guys here! It’s funny to look back at the hotel we saw and talked about how beautiful it was and then of course it was used in a reality tv show. Unfortunately I have to reign in my champagne taste to fit my sparkling wine (dry please!) budget from time to time so we skipped out on staying there.

Be prepared to trek up a fairly long hill once you get off the tram since the elevator to the very top starts halfway-ish up the hill. There is a small initial lookout space, but if you’ve come all this way you should go to the top. We walked around the Skimuseet which was incredible to learn the history of the ski jump, 1952 Olympics and the Norwegian royal family’s participation. There was also an area to see a film of the Northern Lights in case you miss them in real life.

If you’re up for it, they have an interactive exhibit where you can get into a pod-like machine that plays video and audio and moves around simulating the experience of the downhill ski jump. Kristin sat this one out, but the other people in the pod had a good laugh at me squealing when it would suddenly lurch forward or drop down.

I think I neglected to mention so far that they are very big on their trolls in Norway. Obviously we had to take pictures with them.

The final part of visiting the Holmenkollen Ski Jump is going up to the very top! We waited in a long line to go up since the viewing area itself isn’t very large. It took probably 20-30 minutes since the lift can only fit I think 15 people so it was about 2-3 minutes between each batch of people getting to go up.

It’s probably important to mention here that both Kristin and I are afraid of heights. The elevator you take to the up was pretty terrifying and I’m pretty sure everyone else in the lift with us was laughing at the sheer terror on my face as we went up a hill in a GLASS elevator. It was cruel.

Being that it was December, the winds were INSANE. We got out of the lift and climbed one last set of stairs that brought us to the lookout. I understand why the walls were so high. If they were any lower surely one of us would have been swept away.

You can see down the famous ski jump and to the left of it the small area with snow where you could still actually ski.

Definitely plan for this to take half a day. We thought it would be a quick in and out experience but after getting there, walking up the hill, going through the museum, and riding the elevator up took about 3 hours alone.

Our final stop took us to Frogner Park. I imagine in the summer that this park is packed with people doing all sorts of activities as well as relaxing. Apparently there is even an outdoor public pool! Even in winter it was beautiful and a nice way to walk around and get some fresh air. My favorite part of Frogner Park was the Vigeland Sculpture Park that includes over 200 different sculptures made by Gustav Vigeland. If you recall I previously mentioned that the intrigue and interest in most art is kind of lost on me. That said, these sculptures were worth a look even if I didn’t take them seriously. Sorry Gustav, but some of these I just don’t get.

Exhibit A – the sculpture of a man kicking babies!

Hanging with my friends:

The way I prefer to hold cats:

With a limited schedule, this was the last but we got to see in Norway as we flew back to the states the following day. I’m sure there are a million things we didn’t see, but I’m happy we got a little taste of what Norway has to offer. I’ll give our final thoughts on Norway in my next post!

Nicole

August 16, 2017August 16, 2017

Finally Seeing Sunlight (and Sunsets) in Oslo

We wrapped up our Norwegian trip by making our way back to our starting point – Oslo – for our final days. As we our flight approached Oslo we saw our first bits of actual sunlight with the sun setting and I’m not sure I’ve ever been so excited to see the sun.

In Oslo we switched up our lodging a bit and tried out a funky boutique hotel called the Comfort Hotel Grand Central. As you may have guessed from the name, it was attached the the Oslo train station. This proved to be especially helpful to take the shuttle back to the airport at the end of our trip. The style was definitely more targeted to young travelers and seemed almost like a cross between a hostel and hotel. Again, they killed it with breakfast which proved to be my favorite meal every day of our trip. We lucked out and got a handicap accessible room and while walking through the halls could see how much more space we had than the other rooms – score!

Oslo was definitely the biggest city we visited, with plenty of activities to occupy you for 2-3 days. Being the largest city we visited, they also has a really great above ground tram/bus system (Ruter) that’s super easy to navigate and gets you to pretty much everywhere you want to go. You can walk most places in short amounts of time, but it’s also nice to grab a ride when it’s cold and also to the places further away like the the Holmenkollen Ski Jump (we’ll get to that later.

After filling up at breakfast we left the hotel to see Oslo in the light of day. About 2 minutes after walking outside, I realized that I had overdressed by about 10 degrees so we had to go back in and take layers off. It was nice to have the opposite problem from the staggering cold we faced in Tromsø.

The major goal of the day was to take a boat tour out through the fjords so as we made our way down to the waterfront (known as Aker Brygge Wharf) we checked out the downtown area.

Some other architectural sights that are appealing to folks (but where we didn’t take any pictures) include: the Opera House and Oslo City Hall. On the positive side we did get some great murals!

We then stopped at the Akershus Castle and Fortress or Akershus Festning in Norwegian. Depending on the time of day that you go, you can walk through by yourself and get to see the horses outside (which I believe were actually a part of the Norwegian Ministry of Defence)! You can do a self-guided tour and the views from the fortress over Aker Brygge is a full panorama view out through the Fjords.

The guards would crack a smile, but I guess our… ahem my… antics did not impress him

We were a little nervous about getting to go out on the fjords after the weather had been so cold and dark in Tromsø, but being around 1050 miles south made for great conditions. The tour we took lasted about 2.5 hours, riding out into the fjord where we could see the different places people lived including the little houses along the water that the people used for swimming. Luckily they provided us with blankets and we brought hand warmers, because it got real cold.

The timing was perfect as we were dropped off back at the dock right as the sun was setting. When you haven’t even seen the sun in days any sunset is going to be beautiful. This sunset however was one of the most beautiful I’ve ever seen. It’s like it’s the gift to Norway at the end of the day. In my head there’s someone out there who pulls the strings saying “here, have something pretty to look at after this absolutely frigid day you’ve made it through.” It may have been due to the time of year we took the tour, but we were able to easily walk up, purchase tickets, then return about 15 minutes before takeoff to get in line, board, and steal the best seats.

Summer houses on Lidøya Island and Oscarshall Summer Palace where you can take a boat to the castle, but it’s unfortunately only open in the summer.

We pulled back into the dock as the sun just began to set. Warning: Massive number of sunset pictures to follow.

I wish I could say that I edited these pictures but the skies are actually this insane! Some of these pictures were even taken over a few minutes, like 5, and the scenery looked completely different! Here is Akeshus from the marina during the sunset.

I wish I could say I’m amazing at editing photos… but these are true to the term #nofilter.

Caught sneaking to the end of the dock to take more photos.

The Aker Brygge wharf proved to have great options to pop in for food and to warm up before heading back to the hotel.

Unfortunately, the fog started to roll in really heavily so instead of sitting in the cold fog and hoping to see fireworks, we made a gametime decision to watch the fireworks from our hotel room while enjoying some champagne in our pajamas. Before we could head back though, I made Kristin stop so I could get a big fluff of cotton candy. What you don’t see is that within 5 minutes the fog/humidity had shrunk this to about ⅓ of the size and with my sticky fingers I was officially on the “look but don’t touch” policy while stopping into a few last stores.

The tame NYE was much appreciated after a long week of travel – sometimes just opening a bottle of bubbles and laying in your PJs with friends is the best celebration. 🙂

Next to come: Holmenkollen Ski Museum & Jump and how I don’t understand art.

Nicole

August 11, 2017August 20, 2017

Next Stop, Trondheim

The following morning we enjoyed our last bit of “light” before doing another little walk around the town.

When there’s only two of you, there are rarely pictures of… the two of you

Adorable Christmas heart lights lining the main street Storgata

Tromsø Cathedral

A final goodbye to the bear in our hotel lobby

Next on our itinerary was Trondheim so we zipped over to the airport. The local airport shuttle (Flybussen.no) stopped right at our hotel so 15 minutes and 63NOK (approx $7.50) later we were back at the airport. After a short flight we were able to check out our new city. The differences in temperature were insane! While in Tromsø, it was often in the 30s with minimal light and snow, but in Trondheim we were treated to warmer temps in the mid 40s, a nearly full day, albeit a late sunrise, of grey skies with a bit of fog, and intermittent rain. I still think it was easier to wake in the morning when it wasn’t pitch black til 11am!

Yet again, our stay at the Radisson Blu knocked it out of the park with a huge breakfast spread with lots of gluten free options not to mention the fac that it sat right on the water with huge windows to see out (once the sun had risen…). We spent our time in Trondheim over the next two days seeing all the “must see” sights including:

Trondheim Harbor and the colorful wooden houses along the River Nidelv

Crossing over into the East side of the river where there were lots of adorable houses and shops. Unfortunately, with our trip landing right around Christmas, many of them were closed for the holiday.

Archbishop’s Palace and Crown Jewels & Nidaros Cathedral. You should definitely plan to see these on the same day and buy the joint ticket. Inside of both are beautiful, but do not allow pictures. I’ve watched way too many horror movies and definitely got chills walking up to these old buildings in the gloomy weather. Once inside however, they were incredibly beautiful. Per usual, I especially loved seeing the crown jewels and telling Kristin which ones I would or would not wear.

The best travel partners are ones you can zone out for a couple hours reading your own books when you need some downtime or relaxation during the day/night so we often found ourselves warming up in coffee shops or bars to do just that. Amongst the frequent stops to sit inside by a fire with a latte (or glass of wine) and our kindles we found the most delicious gluten and dairy free pizza for me.

Off to our final destination (thankfully unlike the movie), Oslo!

Nicole