Walking Around Paris Diaries – Visiting Tuileries Garden, Eiffel Tower, and Champs Elysees

So we left off at the Louvre and let me start this post with my #1 tip I learned about traveling in Europe:

Travel Tip: Walk to as many places as humanely possible when it’s not raining because you never know when it will rain (or stop) and when you’ll have the chance to see some thing or place in person again.

Walking Around Paris

It’s so hard when you’re going to a new city to get an idea of just how far away things are from each other so I hope these maps are handy. In Paris, Molly and I hit some of the biggest sites all on day one and by foot! Here’s a map of the places we went:

Related Post: Paris Guide and Recommendations – What To Do in Paris and Where to Eat in Paris

Continue reading “Walking Around Paris Diaries – Visiting Tuileries Garden, Eiffel Tower, and Champs Elysees”

My First Day Visiting Paris and Visiting The Louvre Museum

Bonjour friends! When I last blogged about my European adventure I was in Barcelona, Spain and today we are heading to Paris and The Louvre via this blog post! This post is all about traveling from Barcelona to Paris, the hotel we stayed at in Paris, eating at Cafe PINSON, and visiting the Louvre Museum and how we missed Rihanna.

Related Post: My Paris City Guide and Recommendations – Where to Eat, What to Do, and What to See

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Sephora VIB Sale What to Buy and What to Skip 2015

It’s almost here! Sephora’s biggest sale of the year (20% off all purchases) is the Sephora VIB sale and this year’s taking place Friday November 13-16, 2015 both online and in stores. Be sure to check out last year’s Sephora VIB Sale 2014 post with lot’s of reviews and recommendations of products that are still available. As a refresher in order to be VIB you must spend $500 in a calendar year. The good news is that if you spend more than that then it rolls over towards the next year. To find out your status you can log on to Sephora.com and click “(Your name)’s Account” in the top right corner. If it says “VIB Beauty Insider” you’re in! You can use VIB20 online during the sale and get 20% off your entire purchase. If you don’t have VIB you can ask one of your beauty obsessed friends to add a few things to their basket for you. If you don’t have VIB or even a Sephora account you’re not getting the discount, BUT they always offer the BEST gifts with purchase. This year you can pick 1 of 4, it includes 8 samples and a free clutch, and you only have to make a $25 purchase which is like half of 1 thing at Sephora. You can use the code “partypicks” to get in on that fine deal.

Let’s start off with updated reviews of last year’s purchases because liking a product an entire year later is a real testament to whether a product is truly worthy or not.

Sephora VIB Purchases 2014

 

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Jessie James Decker Ombre Blonde Highlights at Home

This one I thought long and hard about before taking the plunge and highlighting my hair at home, but per usual Jessie James Decker came THRU!

Since I’m already blonde I used the Revlon Frost & Glow Highlighting Kit that I bought at Target and it looks like this: Continue reading “Jessie James Decker Ombre Blonde Highlights at Home”

Park Guell in Barcelona Spain

Today I wanted to talk about another one of my favorite things I saw and did in Barcelona- Park Güell!

Park Guell in Barcelona, Spain

We took the bus up to Park Guell then we walked up a very big hill to the entrance. Park Guell, like Casa Batllo, La Pedrada, and La Sagardra Familia, is another work by the famous architect Antoni Gaudi. It was supposed to be a housing development with high quality modern homes, art, and a sense of community. It didn’t quite take off, though, so today it’s a park with the Gaudi House Museum on the grounds as well. So when you get to the park you can buy tickets at this part of it to the monumental zone, or if you keep walking you can enter the park itself for free at a different location which is what we did. Continue reading “Park Guell in Barcelona Spain”

How to Spend One Day in Barcelona Spain

On this trip I stayed outside of Barcelona in the lovely little beach town of Sitges, Spain while my friend Molly went to her neuroscience conference. Once her conference was over we headed to Barcelona for a full day of exploring. Here’s a quick list of recommendations for Barcelona:

What to See in Barcelona:

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Day 3 in Spain – Wandering Around the Beautiful Beach Town of Sitges

Today’s post is a little travel diary of a day where I walked around all of Sitges, Spain exploring. I found a Spanish cemetery, walked along the beach, saw some beautiful old architecture, saw Casa Bacardi Sitges, did a little shopping, and walked down the Passeig Maritim which is the boardwalk.

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La Sagadra Familia in Barcelona

Welcome back for another post about my European adventures. On our second day we went to Basilica de La Sagadra Familia which was one of my favorite parts of the trip and you’ll see why when you look at the pictures below! You can check out my journey from Barcelona to Sitges and what I did on day one in Sitges in the previous posts. So day 2 I was pretty jet lagged and slept about half the day. When I finally did pull myself out of bed I wandered around town for a little bit on my own while Molly was at her conference and then I came back to the hotel and had a fancy lunch by myself at the Iris Restaurant in the Estela Hotel.

Lunch at Iris Restaurant at Estela Hotel in Sitges Spain

I also started reading my book Rising Strong by Brené Brown who I LOVE. I highly recommend checking out any of her books she is fabulous. This was flat bread with tomato spread and extra virgin olive oil with marinated tuna tataki with soy, honey, aromatics and crispy sesame. YUM. The best part about this trip was that everything I ate was fantastic and if you know me you know that is VERY important to me.

Doors of the Iris Restaurant looking into the lobby of the Estela Hotel in Sitges, Spain

I love the eyes on the doors of the restaurant. This is looking into the lobby of the hotel. That night Molly and I hopped on the bus with the people in her conference and headed into Barcelona for an excursion to La Sagadra Familia.

molly-me-bus-barca

I’m wearing one of my favorite lippies here Revlon Colorstay Moisture Stain in India Intrigue. Continue reading “La Sagadra Familia in Barcelona”

Trip to Sitges Spain – Day One

I just got back from my first ever trip to Europe and it was absolutely incredible. People kept telling me “you’re going to have the best time ever!”, but I didn’t want my expectations to be too high and then get disappointed. Luckily it was fantastic. So let’s back up and talk about how this trip came to be. My friend Molly and I met back in 4th grade and she is still one of the friends I have the most in common with to this day. We’re both from Florida, but now living in California (she lives in Northern Cali). She’s a super smart PhD and even though I like science quite a bit, the stuff she studies is way over my head. She called me and told me she was going to be presenting at a conference (FMR1 Premutation- told you it was some smarty pants stuff) in Barcelona and asked if I wanted to tag along. At first I was a little torn so I called my dad to see what he thought. I thought he would say “you can’t afford that” but instead he said “you should DEFINITELY go, even your little brother has been to Europe” so then I knew I HAD to go. Molly and I decided we would also visit Paris and would consider the trip a celebration of our 20 years(!) of friendship. I already did a little pre-post about how I got there and what hotel I stayed at in Sitges and my flying essentials so be sure to check those out too!

When I arrived at the hotel the pouring rain was finally starting to let up. I met up with Molly and both of us were so excited we began exploring immediately. We walked down toward the marina and around the city.

 

Gorgeous old church in Sitges, Spain 30 minutes outside of Barcelona

There was an awesome huge old church in the town and the sea wall had a great little “splash zone.” Continue reading “Trip to Sitges Spain – Day One”

Traveling from the Barcelona Airport to Sitges Spain

I just got back from my first time traveling to Europe and I wanted to share some information I found and learned along the way so hopefully I can help anyone else who has mini freak out about travel details before a trip like I do. Let’s begin with my first worry, money: Continue reading “Traveling from the Barcelona Airport to Sitges Spain”