U.S. West Coast Road Trip

Well, hello there! Do you still know who I am? No? Well, it has been over two months! Once again, university has taken over my life for the past few weeks, but my exams are over and I am back. Well, I am leaving again this Saturday, but that shouldn't affect this blog. Hopefully. I have one post scheduled and that's quite the achievement for me, so be proud.

Anyway, today I want to talk about what I'll be doing the next three weeks, because I'm going on HOLIDAYS. I'm going on a road trip in the U.S. with two of my friends! Now that we have finally managed to book all our hotels etc., I am relaxed enough to actually talk about the trip. We have a pretty packed program and there will be lots and lots of driving, but I can't wait to see all of the things!

So we are flying out to Las Vegas on July 16 where we will stay for two nights. I'm not sure what to expect in Las Vegas, and I'm pretty sure it won't be my favorite place in the world, but it felt like we just had to include it in our trip.

We are then going to visit a number of national parks in the area, namely Zion National Park, Bryce Canyon, Arches National Park, Monument Valley, Antelope Canyon and Grand Canyon. This is where we'll do most of the driving, as we only planned to stay at these places for one night each (except Grand Canyon with two nights). I am super excited to see these places, as the landscapes will be entirely different from what I'm used to here in Switzerland. The only problem: the heat. I don't think mid-July is the best time to travel into the desert, but oh well.

From Grand Canyon, we will drive down to Palm Springs and then San Diego, where we will again be staying for (only) two nights. Next up is Los Angeles (of course!) for two nights and then we'll make our way up to San Francisco, where we will be staying for three nights. This is probably the part of our adventure that I'm most excited about. These are cities that I've seen in movies and read about and I can't wait to see them in real life. I really hope my expectations aren't too high!

Overall, I think we probably have a little too much planned, but we just wanted to get to see as much as possible. Because of this, we of course have to make the absolute best of our time in all of these places. That's super difficult in my opinion because the more I research a city for example, the more things I discover that I feel like I absolutely need to see, and we definitely don't have time for everything.

This is where you might be able to help me: Have you ever been to any of these places? If so, what's something we absolutely have to see or do? Any suggestions or tips will be much appreciated, since we are leaving on Saturday and don't really know anything about anything. We're a very organized bunch as you can see. I am super excited (if a little nervous) though, so I'm sure that makes up for all the lack of planning. Somehow.

Paris in Pictures

Hello there. As you may know, I went to Paris for a few days at the beginning of April and I'm finally here to show you some proof. I went with a few friends from work and we had a really great time even if the weather wasn't always the best.

We arrived on Thursday night and only had time to find our apartment before falling into bed. Unfortunately the weather was still quite rainy on Friday, so we made the best of it and spent the entire day shopping (six girls in Paris together, you can't really blame us). Then we had a lovely and delicious dinner at Miss Ko.

On Saturday, we did the first bit of sightseeing. The weather was still pretty bad but we went to see the Eiffel Tower (for the first time) and Sacré Coeur anyway. Then we made our way to the Galeries Lafayette for some more (window) shopping. That night's restaurant of choice was Buddha Bar for some more deliciousness. Unfortunately it was too dark to take pictures of the food though, so you'll just have to believe me that it was amazing.

 

On Sunday we actually got to see some of the Parisian sun, so of course it was the day we took the most pictures and did the most sightseeing. We started off at and in the Louvre and then walked along the Seine to Notre Dame. Then we went to see the Eiffel Tower (again), this time up close. In the evening, after another tasty dinner at Brasserie Bofinger, we went to see the Eiffel tower again because we also wanted to take some pictures of it in the night with all the pretty lights (totally worth it!).

Then on Monday, after lots of fun, shopping and good food, we made our way back to Switzerland. 

Overall, my first time in Paris was amazing and I fell in love with this beautiful city that I've heard so much about in books. I totally get it now, Anna and Lulu.

I went to Barcelona!

Hello there. As promised, I'm going to show you some pictures of my trip to Barcelona today. Sam and I spent a really great few days in the beautiful city and did a lot of sightseeing, shopping and ice cream eating. I've never been to Barcelona before and was overwhelmed by the amazingness. Barcelona has so many different sides, and I loved all that we have seen.

We arrived on Wednesday morning and first checked into our hotel. Already, it was quite warm and the sun was shining, so overall a really good start. Our hotel was located in a small street off the Ramblas and that was the perfect spot to start all our sightseeing. Since we had to get up quite early for our flight on Wednesday, we were rather tired and exhausted, so we only planned on walking around a little bit and exploring what was nearest to our hotel that day. We ended up walking all the way up to both famous Gaudi houses and then also walked to see the Sagrada Familia from the outside. All of this was super impressive and the architechture in the whole city incredibly beautiful. In the evening, we walked in the other direction and went over the Rambla de Mar bridge to take some pictures in the beautiful evening light. We then went for dinner in a nice and small restaurant in Barceloneta.

The next day, we went on our first sightseeing bus tour of the trip around the northern part of the city. We drove by the Sagrada Familia, Park Güell and then further west until Camp Nou. I really enjoy bus tours like this as it gives you a nice overview of the city and I go on one in almost every city I visit. We got off the bus to go shopping and dedicated the rest of the day to finding some nice clothes for me (and also some for Sam). 

On Friday, we took another smaller sightseeing bus tour and got off at the MNAC to spend some time with a beautiful view over the city. We took about a million pictures and only left once it started raining. After a very hot day it rained only briefly and we returned to the hotel exhausted and happy.  We walked around the smaller streets next to the Ramblas for a bit in the evening and went for dinner in a restaurant near our hotel.

On Saturday, our last day in the city, we decided to do everything we hadn't had time or energy for before. We started off with going to the market off las Ramblas. We then went to Park Güell and took some pictures of the amazing view over the city. Then we took the metro back to Sagrada Familia, this time we even went inside and it was so worth it. Then we took a walk down to the Arc de Triomf and then further down through a nice park until we turned right to get back to the Columbus Monument at the beginning of the Ramblas. Very exhausted we arrived back at the hotel and then, after a short nap, went to dinner in a nice restaurant on the Ramblas.

Overall, I really enjoyed our stay in Barcelona and loved exploring this beautiful city. If you've never been there, I highly recommend going. For a long time, I hadn't been very interested in visiting Barcelona but then this year so many people recommended going there, so Sam and I decided to go and I'm so glad we did. It was so worth it and exceeded all my expectations. I definitely want to go back one day, it was truly amazing.

Thank you for reading!

My Trip to Norway

Hello there. As you may know, I got back from my holidays in Norway last Sunday. I finally manged to sort through all of the pictures and find a few that I want to show you, so here I am. 

My dad, his girlfriend, my sister and I spent a great week in Norway, driving around the south of the country. We stayed in Sogndal, Bergen, Stavanger, Arendal and Kjøvangen and saw a lot of the beautiful landscape Norway has to offer. Overall, I fell in love with Norway. It's a beautiful country, very green with lots of trees and forests and also so much water. If not a fjord, there's lakes everywhere and I think nothing could ever be better than living next to the water.

When we arrived at Oslo airport Saturday morning, we rented a car and drove for about 5 hours to our first stop, Sogndal. Sogndal is a lovely small town and our hotel there was absolutely beautiful. The view from our room was breathtaking as we could see directly onto the fjord in front of the hotel.

The next day it was already time to leave Sogndal and drive to Bergen, one of the biggest cities in Norway. The drive there was amazing as we drove through the countryside. That evening we went for dinner in beautiful Bergen but as we would spend the next day in the city too, we didn't do too much sightseeing anymore.

On our day in Bergen, we walked around the town a bit and then went up the Ulriken mountain where we got an amazing view of the whole city. Unfortunately it started raining soon and we had to hide inside for a few hours before we could continue with exploring the city. Bergen is such a beautiful city but with more than 300 rainy days a year, I can't imagine actually living there. Even though we didn't happen to visit the city on one of the rare sunny days, I didn't let that keep me from taking some pictures.

On Tuesday, we left Bergen and headed for Stavanger. The drive there was very different from what we've seen so far. We drove along the coast and there were houses scattered everywhere but hardly a town anywhere. I love the typical Norwegian style of buildings and we could see so many of these on our way to Stavanger. Another nice aspect of our journey was going from one small island to the next along the coast that are either connected by a bridge or a tunnel or by a ferry. Stavanger itself is so pretty too. It was probably my favorite town we've visited. The old town was so cute and I couldn't stop taking picture of every small house in this amazing style.

On Wednesday, we already left Stavanger behind again and drove to Arendal. We stopped in a few very small towns on the way there; I don't think I will ever get used to how beautiful these are. Arendal itself is another pretty but rather small town at the coast. As you can see, the weather was finally back to warm and sunny again.

On Thursday, we then headed to our last destination of our trip: Kjøvangen. On our way there, we stopped at a few places and took some beautiful pictures at the coast before arriving in Kjøvangen. This small village is about an hour from Oslo and we stayed with relatives of my dad's girlfriend in a beautiful holiday house with seaview. As the weather was back to sunny and very warm here, we also went swimming and just had a very relaxing few days there. On Friday and Saturday, we drove to Oslo to do some sightseeing in the capital before flying back home on Sunday.

Overall, I had an amazing trip and I fell in love with Norway. If you have never been there, it's definitely worth a visit and I'm sure I'll go back someday.