Pursue your dreams and enjoy the unfamiliar
As you’ve seen before on a previous post about the High Roller, I love getting lost in Las Vegas and enjoying the good times. And that usually means spending some money.
I recently visited Las Vegas and as much as gambling and eating everything was fun (Fat Tuesdays and Buffets for everyone), we were on a budget and wanted to have a fun, relaxing Vegas trip.
So I have gathered my top five list of fun free things to do in Las Vegas!
Food. That’s all we want to hear right? Well at least at a fair you think immediately of food. And that is exactly what I did for this fair.
Now I’ve been a San Diego Del Mar Fair girl all my life, so it’s my first time to experience this Midwestern type of fair.
The 76th annual fair went for a week long, a fairly short period of time in my opinion, but I realized I was there almost the entire week.
I was literally at the fair almost every single day since work had me going to the fair all week and then on my days off I wanted to eat and hang out with Alex and so we did.
While there is no comparison to the Del Mar Fair considering Del Mar is much larger and longer, but the Sioux Empire Fair was a lot of fun and had some yummy fried foods. Which, I think, is pretty much all you need at a fair.
Why don’t I just get right to it?
Oh, Amsterdam. People have all sorts of crazy stories from Amsterdam.
Now I won’t sugarcoat anything. Amsterdam was a crazy trip.
It was also a one night trip and we weren’t truly able to experience everything that Amsterdam had to offer us. So we have every intention to go back to this wonderful canal city.
All the stories you have heard about Amsterdam is pretty true. There are “coffee shops” in every corner and there is a red light district with girls dancing around in the window and are quite a liberal city compared to the American conservatives.
And for those that don’t know, “Coffee Shops” are different from Cafe shops in the sense of you won’t really get coffee, but weed instead. So yes, marijuana is legal in Amsterdam and people buy and smoke it freely in Amsterdam. Granted you must stay within the confinement of the Coffee shop to enjoy your Mary Jane, but for all those wanting to legally smoke a joint, you are more than welcome to sit in a coffee shop and enjoy a puff of MaryJ to your pleasing.
Now that that’s out of the bag, on the other sense Amsterdam is truly a beautiful city. We experienced some rain while we were here so there were tons of umbrellas and gray skies. Also the city center, as soon as you got off Amsterdam Centraal is quite busy with construction. But I could still see the all the beauty that Amsterdam has to offer locals and tourist alike.
It can get crowded and bicycles are everywhere so be careful of where you walk and when you walk. They are vicious bicyclers out there. And they are almost as scary as those driving in Europe.
We didn’t really have a lot of time to spend in the city since our hotel was about 45 minutes away from the city town center and we were still recovering from our Paris trip and getting prepared for our next week in Italy. But from what we saw, Amsterdam is beautiful.
Welcome to my Destinations Page! Click on each photo with the destination and it will take you to all my post with that destination! Enjoy my travelers!
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It’s been quite awhile since I have posted, but I am back and ready to show you the world through my eyes.
In light of what has happened in Paris recently (Je suis Charlie), I want to bring you back to my European trip and back to Paris at the Luxembourg Gardens.
I don’t know why, but whenever the Christmas season comes along I always want to watch Harry Potter. And as you may have seen in my first European post, I’m kind of a Harry Potter geek. My 4th grade teacher read us the first chapter of the Harry Potter and the Sorcerer’s Stone book and I was immediately hooked.
I’ve gone to midnight book releases, read one of those thick books in a day, re-read every book at least 3 times. I’ve gone to midnight showings of the movie and I even wrote my first ever Fan Fiction novel (the only novel I’ve ever written beginning to end) of a love story with Harry Potter characters on to a website called Quizzilla when I was in middle school (and since then I’ve loved writing fiction stories in my spare time and hope to one day publish a fiction book).
So yes, I am a big Harry Potter Geek. Capital H-P-G.
Since England is the main location of Harry Potter, I of course fell in love with London. All I ever wanted to be was a witch on my way to Hogwarts in London.
Well I got to live out my fantasy, even if it was for a brief moment.
Considering it’s the last day of Fall and tomorrow is the first day of Winter, I decided to list why Fall is such an amazing season to enjoy.
The best way for me to tell you about my first European experience is by starting from the beginning.
We touched ground at Gatwick Airport (LGW) around 13:00. And after the 10 hour red eye from Los Angeles International Airport (LAX) on Norwegian Airlines, I was ready to get off the plane and right into the UK. I had never been more excited to get off a plane in my entire life.
After going through the long line of passport control, we had finally entered Europe! I was bouncing up and down with joy, I mean that literally too.
After a small mishap with trying to take out money from the ATM (remember your cash withdrawal allowance and the current exchange rate) we were on our way to get into town and drop our stuff off at our hotel before exploring London.
We walked to the train stations and immediately were overwhelmed. It was busy, loud and everything suddenly seemed fast paced and without any phone data or Wi-Fi, we had no idea where we were going. After gawking at timetables and truly not knowing what to do, we ended up in the line to hopefully get the right tubes and trains tickets to our hotel.
The guy that serviced us was very kind and gave us all the info we needed and set us off into our train. We had luckily screenshot our directions to our hotel while we had some Wi-Fi and we were then on our way.
Considering I’m a San Diego girl where public transportation is scarce and we drive everywhere. Taking all the trains and tubes was an experience within itself. I’ve been to New York and through the subway systems there, but for some reason having to change trains to express trains to DLRS to the underground was overwhelming.
But we finally made it the underground London Bridge. And I couldn’t have been happier.
After what felt like an eternity on the packed undergrounds and trains, we made it the Premier Inn Hotel in Docklands and were able to settle in to our rather cozy hotel.
It was our first night in London and we had a travel day pass, so we decided to get into town. We went back into the tubes and made our way to London Bridge and decided to wing it.
There was no real agenda for our first night in Europe, but I wanted to get Fish N’ Chips and see a little sights and then get back to our hotel and in bed to try and beat jet lag.
The London Bridge exit was perfect for our first night. I immediately went crazy with seeing the famous red telephone booths and just had to get inside.
Hello my travelers! I am back in California and terribly missing Europe. I have left some of my heart in Europe and it hurts. But a way to fill the void (I know that was extremely cheesy) is by the next few weeks I will be posting glorious amounts of posts with stories, videos, and photos of my first European trip.
I had been dreaming of going to Europe my entire life and I am so happy to have experienced 2 whole weeks of it with my boyfriend by my side and of course all my family and friends in Europe. So with that being said, the best way for me to write about my first European experience (believe me, this is not my last) is best if I split everything up into little posts throughout the next few weeks.
So keep checking out my blog every week. I’ll for sure be posting my Europe content every Tuesday and Thursday. Come check out how I experienced this beautiful continent.
As for now, here are some photos from every city I visited. I can’t wait to relive the experiences I had with all of you.
Cheers!
With Europe being such a big dream of mine, it took a long time for Alex and I to finalize our itinerary, but everything is finally official and we have all our accommodations and transportation all set up and ready to go!
Since we’re only going to be there for a 2 weeks, we decided to hit up most of the major tourist destinations and get our whole tourist-y European let loose. That way we have more reason to get up and explore Europe in another year together.
Here are our main stops in Europe:
Stop #1: London, England – Since our plane arrives in Gatwick, it only made sense to start in London. Our first night will be spent there where we will try to adjust to time and probably get some Fish N’ Chips.
Stop #2: Paris, France – We’ll be hitting all major spots: the Eiffel Tower, Luxembourg Gardens, The Louvre,etc… We will also enjoy the city of lights and enjoy the French cuisine.
Stop #3: Amsterdam, The Netherlands – We’ll only be here for a night before our flight to Italy. But we’re going to make the day and the night count completely.
Stop #4: Milan, Italy – The bulk of our stay is in Milan for we are staying with family.
Stop #5: Nice, France – My best friend and fellow Krazy Kappa line sister is studying abroad near Nice and we will make a Nice pit stop in the south of France.
Stop #6: Pisa, Italy – A few hour day trip to the leaning tower before Tuscany.
Stop #7: Florence Italy – From Pisa we go to Tuscany and see the Piazzale Michaelangelo and enjoy the city of Florence at night.
Stop #8: Venice, Italy – Straight from Florence we jump on a train to Venice. We’re going to only go for a night during our week stay in Milan, but riding a Gondola is definitely on our radar.
Last Stop: London, England – Our first night in London is just going to be a time to adjust to Europe time and adjust to foreign land. The last weekend we are in Europe we will spend in London and that’s when we’ll be doing our sight-seeing and Halloween partying.
Do you have any advice, tips or cool places to eat or see for this girl and her boyfriend traveling to Europe for their first time? Comment below, send me an e-mail at lostwithyvonne@gmail.com, or tweet me @lostwithyvonne.
Cheers!
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