Kelocity.com

A runner with an appetite for adventure!

Easter at the Beaches April 26, 2011

Filed under: California,Family,Travel — Kelocity @ 6:41 am
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We woke up Easter morning and discovered the EASTER BUNNY CAME!!!!!!
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Maybe he was impressed by our mad baking skills? Either way, he left lots of goodies for us! We were SUPER excited! PEEPS!
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The four of us had reservations for brunch at the Madonna Inn.
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It’s famous, but not for the reasons you’d expect in a renowned restaurant/inn. You’ll just have to trust me. The entrance to the restaurant looked like this:
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And our table for brunch looked like this… actually the whole restaurant looked like this… Pink Pink Pink.
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But the food was pretty good.
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Drinking Pineapple Juice from a goblet is just plain fun if you ask me!
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After breakfast, we drove up to Cambria and did a little antique store window shopping.
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It reminded me of New England, everything was so cute!
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We found s store that had all homemade rocking chairs. We spent a fair amount of time testing them out.
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When I was little, my parents used to take us to flea markets and antique stores ALLLLL the time. I kept getting deajavous.
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Wait, That’s not an antique!
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And neither is THAT! That’s the year I met Irving and graduated high school! Whaaa? Now I feel old. haha
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The highlight of the day was finding a box of old postcards from the early 1900s. Janie and I spent almost an hour reading through them. Did you know the price of a postcard was only 1 cent from 1900 til 1945? Some of the cards were really funny and interesting. I’d love to buy a whole box of these and track down the relatives of the people and see who they are. That would make for a great documentary, don’t you think? Some of them didn’t even have addresses, they just said “Mary Smith, Philadelphia” and I guess the postman just knew where they were! My, how times have changed!
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We drove back down the coast to Morro Bay.
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Check out this pimped out golfcart!
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We had a snack (croutons and cheese from Pea Soup Andersens!)
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Morro Bay is famous for this huge rock in the bay.
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Also on the drive, we saw one of the California Missions in San Luis Obisbo. There are 21 total in the state. It was right near Cal Poly University. I love college towns. Everyone was outside drinking coffee and reading.

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When we made it back to Avila, we had dinner at Fat Cat Diner. This was our view while we dined!
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I drove back to LA solo on Sunday night, and Irving stayed an extra day to play some golf. Yesterday, he took the train home and I picked him up at the station.

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What a great weekend. It felt like week long vacation, so relaxing and fun. Thanks Jake and Janie! See you soon!

 

An Easter Getaway April 25, 2011

Filed under: California,Family,Travel — Kelocity @ 8:53 pm
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This weekend, Irving and I headed up to the California Central Coast for a little Easter Getaway. We stayed in Avila Beach, which is about three hours north of Los Angeles. Along the way, we stopped at Pea Soup Andersen’s! I’ve been wanting to stop there for ages!!
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It’s a California Road Trip destination and they’re known for…. Pea Soup!
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It was far too early in the morning to enjoy any soup, but we had fun looking around the gift shop and buying some canned soup for later. I’m sure it’s not quite as good, but we couldn’t resist. This is what we’ll look like when we cook the soup! BAHAHA!
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We “conveniently” saw the LuggageBase.com store along the route (turns out Irving mapped it ahead of time and was planning on stopping all along!) This is the website where we buy all of our luggage and travel gear from. Great prices, fast shipping and good people. It’s always nice to put a face to an online retailer. It’s just a family owned company who started a business that just happens to be on the web. We forget sometimes that online companies can be mom and pop shops sometimes. It was really nice to visit. We bought a few things while we were in there too.
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When we finally pulled in to Avila Beach, we went for a walk to explore.
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The beach was really pretty and not too crowded. I never put my toes in the water, but it looked really nice.
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The boardwalk area was really beautiful. It’s all relatively new, and commercially untouched. So refreshing coming from LA.
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There are three main piers and we walked to the end of each of them. We didn’t have much of an agenda on Saturday, so it was nice to just walk, chat and relax.

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From the end, we got a good glimpse of our hotel for the night too. So pretty up on the cliffs.
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Wait for it…. Ready….

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It just felt right….
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Under the pier is a second level, and you could see starfish clinging to the posts! So weird!
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My date for the weekend life!
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Our walk continued along the bay.

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We saw a sign for “BJ’s Restaurant” and I’m like “YAY! PAZOOKI!” But alas, that was not the case. at all.
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But we did find Sea Lions hanging out under that pier! You could get really close to them too!
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Later that night, we met up with Jake and Janie (Irving’s aunt and uncle, whom we haven’t seen in a year!!) It was so nice spending some time with them again! While we caught up and chatted, we baked some Easter Treats in the hotel.
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PS. How scary does the dough boy look?!
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Before…
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After!
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We enjoyed the cookies while looking at the ocean from our room.
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After our snack, we headed out for some more coastal exploring. First stop was Pismo Beach.
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There was a pretty wedding going on too! We stopped to listen to the vows. Creepers!
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Look! A mom, dad and baby goose! See the baby in the middle?
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We followed them for a while, it was adorable!
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After sight seeing a little more, we pulled into the Oak Pit BBQ for dinner. We read rave reviews on yelp and were very excited to try it! The owner took our picture for us too! Thanks Sammy!

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Lots of wildlife sightings this weekend!
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Stay tuned for Day 2 later! It’s a picture heavy weekend, so I’m splitting it up.

What’s the strangest wild animal you ever saw on vacation? We saw Bears on the side of the road in Russia!

 

Sailing to the Swedes September 12, 2009

Filed under: Sweden,Travel — Kelocity @ 11:18 am
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After Estonia, we had another free day in Helsinki that we spent shopping and sightseeing. Then we boarded our overnight ferry to Stockholm, Sweden. We stood outside on the deck as our boat drifted away from Finland.
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All of Contiki was at the bottom of the boat, but that was ok with us. The party goes wherever Contiki is anyways.
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We spent the time having dinner, exploring and playing lots of Uno. (Traveler Tip: Bring Uno! Everyone knows how to play and it makes it easy to start conversations and groups together. We’ve taken it on every trip!)
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We arrived in Stokholm in the morning and were surprised to learn that the Contiki bus was with us the whole time! If you look close, you can see the bus driving out of the boat!
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YAY! We love our bus!
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Even though Sweden is in the EU, they are still using their own currency, the Kronor. It is a little confusing when you go to multiple countries, but the tour manager always tells you in advance what you need and when. We use an international ATM card, and withdraw money from ATMs when we arrive. In our experience, that is the cheapest way to do it.
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Our first stop was the Stokholm CIty Hall, which is located right on a beautiful river.
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It might seem a little boring to visit a city hall, but this place has international significance.
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It is the host venue for the Nobel Banquet (for all of the Nobel Prize winners).
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Picture this great room looking like this with almost 1,500 guests!

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After a tour of all the great rooms, we had some free time to explore Stokholm.
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Europe sure does love it’s ‘Changing of the Guard’ ceremonies. Sweden was no different. It was quite crowded, but we were able to see the processional.
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That afternoon, we visited the Vasa Museum. Inside is an old Swedish Warship built in 1628! It sank less than a mile into it’s maiden voyage.  Surprisingly, it renamed largely intact and they were able to put it together again in the 1960s.
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Also inside the museum were artifacts found onboard and the remains of 15 people who were onboard.

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We ended the day going to a Stokholm favorite: The Absolut Icebar!
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Who doesn’t want to go to a bar made out of ice?! Everything from the shotglasses to the bar itself is made out of ice. They give you space suits to put on because it’s really really cold in there!
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The next morning, our tour was over and it was time to head back to the States. It was an amazing trip, once of the best we’ve ever taken. We came home with a couple of bottles of Russian Champagne (which they call Shampanskoye!) It was so good!

 

Helsinki: Scandinavian Glory September 10, 2009

Filed under: Finland,Travel — Kelocity @ 10:36 pm
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Being in Helsinki was a much different experience than being in Russia. The mentalities of the countries are stark contrasts.
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Everywhere we travel, there’s at least one building completely covered in scaffolding somewhere. We always joke about it actually. I mean, it’s great they’re restoring these old landmarks, but I want to see it as it should be!
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We’re pretty big soccer fans (and so were all our Aussie tourmates), so when we found out that the Women’s Euro Finals were being held at the Olympic Stadium, we jumped at the chance!

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Plus, I’m a sucker for Olympic Stadiums, I’d love to visit all of them before I die!IMG_0440

On our second day in Finland, we decided to board a ferry to visit the country of Estonia. It’s just a hop, skip and a jump away!
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Tallin Estonia

Filed under: Estonia,Europe,Travel — Kelocity @ 8:50 am
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We took an early morning ferry from Helsinki to Tallin, Estonia. This was an optional excursion, but it was TOTALLY worth it.
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Not only did it check another country off my list, but it was such a great city. Estonia has gone through so much in it’s history. Russia and Europe fought over it for years. It’s finally independent, and they’re definitely making up for lost time. It had one of the most modern infrastructures we’ve ever seen. If I remember correctly, they even had free city-wide wifi.
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There was a group of us who chose to go, but for the most part, we split off and did our own thing. We stumbled upon this cool building and paid a few euros to climb to the top.
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Turns out, there wasn’t anything up there but a long hallway. haha. Still fun though.
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Later, we found a tour company called Tallin Free Tour. It’s a free walking tour led by students, but they graciously accept tips. The tour was fantastic and our guide was very enthusiastic.
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At the end of the day, we headed to St. Olaf’s church to climb to the top.
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HAHA, random picture, but what is this face I’m making?

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I highly recommend Tallin, there is so much history to see there. It’s a walled city, and much of it is still intact. It’s a great example of old meets new. Watch out world, Estonia is on the map!