Upcoming Trip to Newport, Rhode Island

Hello everyone! I am planning a trip to Newport, Rhode Island with one of my friends (the birthday girl mentioned in this post). We already booked our hotel and we are staying for 3 days and 2 nights. We will be doing the mansion tour, the Cliff Walk,  some shopping downtown, glassblowing, and checking out some of the beaches. If anyone has any recommendations of where to go and what to see that I haven’t mentioned, let me know. And if you are interested in going someday and really want to know more about an activity or building/restaurant in Newport, let me know and I will try to take pictures and write about that experience for you. 🙂

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Taken a couple of years ago on the 10 mile ocean drive in Newport

Pray For Belgium

Please pray for Belgium on this very hard day. I know it’s not easy to lose a loved one, a friend, a sibling, or a relative, but know that the person will always be with you and that the love they have for you is indefinite. Extending the love with open arms from the Newtown/Sandy Hook community ♥

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Winter Blues on the Second Day of Spring

So it’s March 21st and it snowed! The past few weeks have been a wonderful 55 degrees, and then this happened. I took this picture on my way to work this morning in disbelief, but I guess that should be typical as the weather is usually crazy in Connecticut during March but as the saying says, March comes in like a lion and goes out like a lamb. What’s the weather like in your area?

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7-Day Nature Photo Challenge: Day 3

I was nominated by the lovely Project Relish, who has some amazing photographs of their travels, and is also a fellow food lover. If you are interested in seeing and learning about travel experiences that are off the beaten path, check out their site! 🙂

I took this photo a few years ago in Hastings-on-Hudson in New York when I was visiting my grandma. I went on a walking trail and I saw this gorgeous wooden archway leading up to a house in the woods. It sort of looks enchanting, like it could transport you to another world (maybe Narnia??)

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I nominate Zoel Hernandez, he has great blogs about traveling, everyday life and his food recipes are exquisite. Make sure to check out his post about Oreo cupcakes and salted caramel brownies because those are some of my favorite desserts (plus you can never go wrong with Oreos!)

RULES: Post one nature photo and nominate someone else per day for 7 days 🙂

7-Day Nature Photo Challenge: Day 2

I was nominated by the lovely Project Relish, who has some amazing photographs of their travels, and is also a fellow food lover. If you are interested in seeing and learning about travel experiences that are off the beaten path, check out their site! 🙂

I took this photo from the balcony of my hotel room at Grotto Bay Beach Hotel in Bermuda. The sunsets in Bermuda were so incredible and unlike any sunset I have seen before. I think it makes it extra special with the water right there and the light bouncing off it.

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I nominate Vinneve, they have great posts and amazing pictures from all over the world. They are also an amazing writer so please check out their site 🙂

RULES: Post one nature photo and nominate someone else per day for 7 days

50 Fun Facts About Me

I thought this would be a great way for everyone to get to know me better 🙂

  1. I have a relationship with food
  2. I have a dog, who is a Bichon Frise named Frisky
  3. I recently graduated college
  4. I am turning 23 this year
  5. I am working full time in the health field
  6. I am half Irish and half Peruvian (a lot of people also tell me I look Asian??)
  7. My favorite colors are blue, pink, and white
  8. My favorite food of all time has to be pizza (I especially love the pizza restaurant from my hometown)
  9. I love flying in airplanes, and the biggest rush is when you are starting to take off from the ground
  10. I do not have a fear of heights
  11. I live in the suburbs of Connecticut
  12. I’m scared of spiders and snakes
  13. I want to eventually live abroad for a year
  14. I’m currently trying to get an Irish Citizenship so I am free to live and work in Europe without the hassle of a visa
  15. I am an only child (but my parents treat my dog like he is my “brother”)
  16. I’ve known my best friend since 4th grade
  17. I basically want to travel to every country in the world
  18. My Bachelor’s degree is in Psychology and Health
  19. I eventually want to get my Master’s in Public Health
  20. I want to continue my studies at college in Europe (US college tuition is too expensive!)
  21. I dress very preppy, and most of the people in Connecticut do as well
  22. I have always dreamed about spontaneously buying a plane ticket and flying anywhere in the world
  23. I have had a job every year since 8th grade (camp counselor-8th grade)
  24. I played on my high school’s tennis team (started as 3rd doubles and made it to first singles and Captain by senior year)
  25. My dream wedding would be a small ceremony in Tuscany or in Hawaii
  26. My height is 5’4″
  27. The most I have ever won from a lottery ticket was $5
  28. The last time I had soda was 5 years ago
  29. My favorite number is 6
  30. I don’t smoke
  31. I don’t drink (except for sangria, strawberry daiquiris, melon sours, and Mike’s Hard Lemonade)
  32. I speak English, took 5 years of Spanish classes, and I am now learning Italian
  33. Growing up, I wanted to work in fashion or be a Marine Biologist
  34. I don’t have any tattoos, but I have been thinking about getting a white ink tattoo of something travel related
  35. I don’t like horror movies (even some kid’s animation/cartoons/muppets creep me out)
  36. I never get really emotional, but the only 2 things in past few years that made me cry was the movie Marley and Me and that Extra Gum commercial of the story of Sarah and Juan (just listening to the song still makes me cry)
  37. I am a natural brunette with natural red highlights
  38. I have brown eyes
  39. I love to laugh
  40. Sometimes when I’m laughing really hard at something, my eyes start watering up
  41. I’ve only peed myself once, in 3rd grade, because the teacher said we couldn’t go to the bathroom since we were taking a math test, and I had to wear lost and found overalls from the nurse’s office for the rest of the day
  42. Also another embarrassing story, I was wearing white pants in 3rd grade and accidentally spilled red juice on my pants… 3rd grade was not a great year for me
  43. I really want to see the Aurora Borealis
  44. I am not a morning person
  45. I love running, and once in gym class in high school I forgot my sneakers and my gym teacher let me run in my Uggs, and I ended up getting a 7:42 for the mile, and then again in college I was running for charity and forgot my sneakers, and ran with my flip flops on
  46. I love anything that involves traveling, my parents had a hard time deciding where to go for a trip in the Caribbean, so I created a 52 page powerpoint talking about all the places we could visit and their accomodations, and activities to do in that country, and we decided upon Barbados
  47. I grew up Catholic and I don’t go as often as I should, but I also really love to learn about different religions
  48. I love the fall time, especially where I live there are a ton of apple picking farms and apple cider doughnuts are a big thing here in Connecticut
  49. Even though I am very girly at times, I do enjoy letting loose and watching football and action/spy movies
  50. I can be shy at times but once you get to know me I am very friendly and I love to give people compliments to help brighten their day 🙂

An Idiot’s Guide to Hiking the Inca Trail

This is a great, in-depth guide to hiking the Inca trail if anyone was interested in going. I’m hoping if everything works out, that I can visit Machu Picchu during January of next year!

Posted by: backpackerlee

The Incas built a highly advanced network of nearly 40,000km of trails to connect the distant corners of their vast empire that stretched from Quito in Ecuador down to Santiago in Chile. Cusco was …

Source: An Idiot’s Guide to Hiking the Inca Trail

Exploring Massachusetts: Martha’s Vineyard

A couple of years ago I traveled to Martha’s Vineyard for a long weekend with my family. We have gone to Martha’s Vineyard about 4 or 5 times now, and we have yet to visit Nantucket. These are just a collection of photos that I found from this trip that is a look into the classic New England Coastal lifestyle.

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The places I visited in Martha’s Vineyard was the down-island towns of Vineyard Haven, Oak Bluffs, and Edgartown.

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A great place to go for some ice cream is Mad Martha’s ice cream shop, where they have the best flavors, and the ice cream is a very creamy consistency, similar to an ice cream shop from home where they use cows milk from the cows that roam their land. This is also a great place to people watch, as a lot of locals and preppy summer tourists like this place.

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Their is a very big artist community in Martha’s Vineyard, as you can find sculptures, and art galleries all around the island.

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We then stopped for lunch at the Black Dog Tavern, and if you have never been to Martha’s Vineyard, their mascot pretty much is the Black Dog, as their are many stores and restaurants named after it there.

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This is the view from our table at the Black Dog Tavern.

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I then explored around town on the moped, stopping at a couple of stores along the way.

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I had to include this shirt because all my friends know that I loveeee ketchup and I pretty much put it on anything I eat.

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Next, we stopped at Murdick’s Fudge, and we saw a live demonstration of someone making and cutting up the fudge.

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We finally reached Edgarstown, which is a less touristy town but has just as much charm and stores to visit as Vineyard Haven and Oak Bluffs.

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At the end of the day I ended up going to 3 beaches, one in Edgarstown, one in Oak Bluffs, and one back at our hotel. I also saw someone using a water jetpack for the first time (and this is back when the water jetpack first came out) and there was a crowd on the beach watching him perform tricks.

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“To travel is to live” – Hans Christian Andersen

 

 

 

Birthday Celebration in Westport, CT

I recently celebrated my best friend’s birthday at a restaurant called Terrain Garden Café in Westport, CT. We had brunch there which was delicious and the restaurant itself was stunning, with a lot of beautiful foliage around the store and it had an industrial/bohemian vibe.

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My friend and I decided to order some scrambled eggs and fries, and my other 2 friends ordered a quiche and an eggs benedict. Also a really cute feature they had at this restaurant was they served everyone bread in a flower pot and also some apple butter.

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After brunch I managed to sneak away from the table and ask our server if they could send a birthday cake to our table to celebrate my friend’s birthday. When the brownie sundae came out we all started laughing because it took my friend about 3 tries to blow out the candle.

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We then spent the rest of the day getting our nails done and going shopping in Westport (which is very expensive unfortunately) but we ended up shopping in a couple of stores such as Brandy Melville, Lulu Lemon, Urban Outfitters, and I bought a pink baseball hat and a tumbler cup from Vineyard Vines, so overall the day turned out to be a much needed girly day with all my friends 🙂

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“Not always sunny, but in a sunny state of mind” – Lilly Pulitzer

7-Day Nature Photo Challenge: Day 1

I was nominated by the lovely Project Relish, who has some amazing photographs of their travels, and is also a fellow food lover. If you are interested in seeing and learning about travel experiences that are off the beaten path, check out their site! 🙂

I took this photo in Horseshoe Bay Beach in Bermuda, and this is one of my favorite photos I took there. I think it really shows off the beautiful turquoise color of the water, as well as the pink sand that this beach is famous for.

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I nominate Writing from my 14th Country who is an amazing follower of my blog and has lived in many different countries and is now currently living in Italy. If you are interested in learning about everyday life in Italy go check out their site 🙂

RULES: Post one nature photo and nominate someone else per day for 7 days