I Heart NY

New York City is one of my favorite cities in the world. I went for a quick weekend last October to celebrate my friend Margaux's 21st birthday, but a weekend in NYC is just a tease! I'd like to go back again sometime soon. I'm a strange person who finds cities (the larger, the better) to be incredibly calming, and I'm in need of some big city calming in my life! I've been in a small town with no trips for too long (no, Salt Lake does not count as a big city)!

Oh hey, look at us, not looking like tourists at all...

Also, I really want some cupcakes. And no one does cupcakes like New York.

Memorial Day Adventures

This year, I had absolutely no plans for Memorial Day. I took a last-minute dogsitting job for Friday and Saturday since it appeared that my long weekend was going to consist of little more than an extra day of sleeping in. However, I ended up with a much more exciting weekend than I'd planned on!

On Friday night, I ended up going bowling with a big group of people. I only knew a few of them, but we all had a great time drinking and eating and bowling! However, I regret to inform you all that I still remain a miserable bowler.

On Saturday, my roommate Debbie and I headed to the Provo River to go kayaking! It's a pretty tame river, so there were very few rapids to mention, but we had a good time and got some sun. The water was freezing, but the weather was quite warm, so it was a nice combination!

After rafting, we decided to go to Provo (the city) because we were so close (the kayak ride ended about 10 minutes outside of Provo). Now, I was a little nervous about this because there's just something about Provo that freaks me out. It's a beautiful place, but the 90% (or something around that) Mormon population makes for an almost Twilight Zone-like 1950's environment everywhere. It even freaks out Debbie and she's Mormon! But I had heard about an amazing cupcake place there, so I was willing to step outside of my comfort zone for some amazing cupcakes!

And my goodness, were they amazing! It was well worth the trip! I stockpiled a few to take back to Park City with me.

Fun fact: I am holding hot chocolate, not coffee as I usually would with cupcakes. They don't sell coffee at this cupcake place because it's basically on BYU's campus and Mormons can't drink coffee! They make a mean salted caramel hot chocolate, though!

They had an ingenious take on the classic red velvet cupcake that perfectly resolved my issue with that flavor. To me, most places have a red velvet cupcake that is essentially a weak chocolate one with red food coloring. They lack any real, strong flavor. But - The Cocoa Bean Cupcake Cafe serves their red velvets with chocolate cream cheese frosting! Problem solved!

Fun fact: Those are the same kind of sprinkles they use at Sprinkles, my favorite cupcake place.

Anyways, post-cupcakes, we made our way back to Park City via Salt Lake (had to make a quick stop at City Creek for some shopping!) and I returned to my regularly scheduled weekend dogsitting.

On Monday, I headed down to Salt Lake to meet up with Korey and Ashley for an adventure up to Idaho! We left bright and early in order to make it to Twin Falls, Idaho, by lunchtime. After hours of driving through little more than desert and ranch land, we ended up at Shoshone Falls. It appears out of nowhere!

We hiked around a bit before deciding to head into town for lunch. Unfortunately, there wasn't much to choose from in Twin Falls, so we ended up at Sonic. Being deprived Utahns, we had to, of course, make a stop at the grocery store for some...important items.

Yay for avoiding state-run monopolies on alcohol!

Needless to say, I'm set on wine for awhile.

On our way back to Salt Lake, we took a detour through ranches and desert to Spiral Jetty, an art installation on the north end of Great Salt Lake. It is super remote, although we did go by a rocket fuel manufacturer on our way. Their campus looked straight out of the Cold War and had some rocket models set up for random travelers like ourselves who wandered by.

Finally, we made it out to the lake. We couldn't have asked for a better day to go! The wind wasn't bad, so the water was very still and allowed for some awesome reflections. There weren't many people around, so Korey and I (both of us like to dabble in photography) were able to snap a few dramatic shots. We each took turns climbing out as far as we could get on the rocks. Here's a few of the unedited photos...

Probably my favorite shot of the day

If you ever find yourself randomly in northern Utah, it's definitely worth the detour to check out Spiral Jetty. Make sure you check the water levels first, though, because it isn't always visible!

On our way home, we stopped at a Cracker Barrel in Ogden for a fantastic, hearty dinner. It was the perfect way to end a long day and cap off a great weekend!

My Recent Life in Photos

New bedroom with a new duvet cover!

My first piece of IKEA furniture ever.

Another IKEA item that also caused me to throw out my back.

Sporting 2006 Olympic-wear to work

Mountain life

Wandering Park City's Main Street...what ski resort are you trying to find?

New World Trade Center building in NYC

Bright Uggs!

Still the best vanilla cupcake I've ever had!

Cupcakes for Margaux's 21st!

Taking notes in colored Sharpies makes life a little brighter.

Repping the U.S. Ski Team

Absentee ballot!

Nice day in Salt Lake City

More delicious NYC cupcakes!

Gotta work out since I enjoyed all those cupcakes!

Mountain morning

Hot air balloons by the office

My first Utah rainbow

AWOLNATION with Korey and Ashley

Delicious, overpriced cookies.

Truth.

On the Road

Over the last couple of weeks, it seems like travel has come up a LOT.  So, I thought I'd share a few of my favorite travel experiences...

French Stereotype Night at Le Tour Eiffel

Studying abroad in Paris was a phenomenal experience over all, but obviously there were lots of little events that stood out while I was there.  "French Stereotype Night" was one of the first of many of our outings to the Eiffel Tower. On this particular night, we befriended a pair of Moroccans and practiced our French with them (they had initially tried to charge us to use their wine opener to open our bottles of wine), posed with berets and the French flag (see above) and had lots of wine and cheese. It was a great bonding experience for our little group of Americans!

European Public Transportation/The Munich Incident

Subways are awesome. Yes, I know New York City has an awesome subway system, too.  But the awesome thing with the London and Paris transportation (not just subways, but train networks, as well) systems is that you can get within walking distance of anywhere you need to go without ever having to use a car. Okay, maybe not absolutely everywhere...but you can get pretty damn close.

Oddly enough, my first time in Europe, I had a pretty bad experience with the Munich U-Bahn (subway).  When rushing to grab the train before it left with my school group, I happened to be running the fastest...and was the only one to make it onto the train before the doors closed. Since I was not running this tour and it was our first night in town, I had no idea where we were going or how to get around the city, nor did I speak a word of German (except for sheiße, which probably wouldn't have gotten me far). Ultimately, I did end up finding my group (which included my grandma...she was pretty relieved when I got back) after experiencing some more colorful areas of Munich. I definitely learned some very important things about traveling: always know your hotel's name, and always know where you're going!

My love of European public transportation is kind of ridiculous...I even made a little video of my study abroad experiences with the Paris Metro.  If you're clever, you might be able to find it on YouTube somewhere.

Trunk Bay, St. John, USVI

Most. Beautiful. Beach. Ever.  After returning from a few trips to Europe, I got a little bit of a big head...why would anyone vacation somewhere so close to home (I lived in Florida for a few years, so the Caribbean seemed WAY too close to be considered a vacation)?  Still, my parents wanted to visit the US Virgin Islands because my mom had lived there for awhile when she was fresh out of college. So, we went...and I fell in love, quickly deflating my little travel ego I had developed. Soft, super white sand...crystal clear water that seemed even cleaner than most pools...a coral reef just a short swim away... It really is the perfect beach destination.

Magnolia Bakery, New York City

If you know me, then you probably know of my love for cupcakes. It rivals my love for European public transportation, although I have yet to make any videos about cupcakes.  The vanilla-vanilla cupcake at Magnolia is still the best cupcake I have ever had in my life. I'm sincerely hoping that the recent news of Magnolia starting a franchise results in two things: 1. delicious Magnolia cupcakes close to me and 2. loyalty to the original, so amazing recipe. Seriously, guys...go eat these cupcakes.  They're so good that I made Josh wake up at 6am with me on Easter Sunday (our last day in NYC) so that we could trek across town (the subway stations nearby were closed) and buy a dozen to take home. 

More travel memories to come...