TRAVEL: 1 week in London, UK!

Hi everyone! This is a super late post from my trip to London, UK with my friend Ann back in April 2019. Two of my coresidents are going to London soon – and now my sister too! – so I thought it would be the perfect time to write this post and also reminisce a bit about a week filled with great memories. Also, my apologies in advance. This is a super long post because there’s so much to do in London!

To start off, London is expensive lol. The pound is 1.8x the Canadian Dollar so things add up but I guess it’s just something you need to be prepared for. The weather is pretty rainy in London so that’s why you will see us in rain jackets, umbrellas and rain boots (aka wellies as they say). There’s so much to do in London and the surrounding area but we were really happy with how we split our time while we were there.

London Pass: If you’ve been looking into visiting London you’ve probably heard of the London Pass. We got the 6-day and we thought it was definitely worth it. If you have lots of sightseeing plans then it will save you money. We also did some things that were included on the Pass that we otherwise wouldn’t have thought of doing and we really liked.

Day 1 (Saturday) – This first day was only a travel day. We took an overnight flight and got to London around 9am the next morning. A fun fact is that people in England only call high school “school” so when I told the guy sitting next to me that I just finished “school” he was like uhhh aren’t you a little old to be just finishing high school? lolz

Day 2 (Sunday) – First day exploring London! We first took the Underground to our hostel. We stayed at St. Christopher’s Inn for the whole week which was the cheapest option and very tolerable. Guys, the Underground aka the TUBE is literally the most tubular thing I have ever seen in my life. If you go/have been to London you’ll know exactly what I mean. The whole thing is so tubular!!

Our first stop after we changed and washed our faces (lol) was the London Eye – one of the only attractions not on the London Pass. I surprised Ann with the champagne experience for bday celebration #1 of many.

After the London Eye we decided to use the Hop-on Hop-Off Bus to get our bearings around town. You get one day of HOHO bus included with the London Pass! We got off around Wellington Arch and walked the rest of the way to Trafalgar Square, home of the lion statues.

Then we walked to Piccadilly Circus and you bet we had a photoshoot with the red phone booths.

We had Indian food for dinner at Hankie’s. Apparently Indian food is a thing in the UK and you have to have it at least once!

We didn’t do anything this night because we were exhausted from travelling.

Day 2 (Monday) – We started off today with a traditional full English breakfast. We went to Terry’s Cafe and it was super cute and they had a veggie sausage option, yum!

The Changing of the Guards at Buckingham Palace happens every Monday-Wednesday-Friday (I think, but you should check online because sometimes it changes) so we decided to do this today. Man, it is ever crowded. It starts at 11:00am and we got there around 10:15am and it was already very busy. Be careful for pickpockets!

After the ceremony we went to The Royal Mews (included on London Pass) to see all the fancy carriages.

Then we went back to Buckingham Palace to take some photos while it was less crowded.

We took a walk through St. James’ Park (I saw black swans IRL for the first time here) and had a quick lunch at St. James’ Cafe before walking to Westminster Abbey (included on London Pass). It was very cool to find all the famous people buried here!

Then we checked out the Churchill War Rooms (also on London Pass) which is a really interesting secret underground war bunker. This is something that we probably wouldn’t have done if we didn’t have the London Pass but ended up really liking!

We stopped at Big Ben on the way home but lol… it’s all covered up right now. I think it’s supposed to be like this for a couple of more years. Instead of taking the tube back to our hostel, we took a river ferry! It was included in our London Pass.

After dinner, we spent the night at our hostel bar meeting some people and getting recommendations for fun bars/night clubs later in the week.

Day 3 (Tuesday) – Today was the best day ever because we went to the Warner Brother’s Studio Harry Potter Tour! 10/10 would recommend this – it was such a cool experience, even if you aren’t the biggest fan of Harry Potter. Usually people book tickets months in advance but we only found out a week before our trip so we kept checking back at the site every day and there was a cancellation spot that opened up so we got it! This just worked for my friend too so keep checking! To get there we took the train from London Euston to Watford Junction as recommended by the website. You can take the tube to London Euston then buy a train ticket there. Then there’s a shuttle from Watford Junction to the WB studio which costs 3 pounds (cash only!). Ok anyways I’m gonna leave some photos here but seriously you have to do this!!

After we took the bus/train back to London, we went to Covent Garden which is an area with more expensive and boutique shops. We had some pies for dinner (another on the UK checklist) and then went to the very instagrammable Milk Train for dessert.

Last but not least, we took in the city views at night at The Shard observation deck (included on London Pass). Very pretty!

This night we did karaoke at our hostel haha. It was American karaoke where you sing only one song on stage whole night as opposed to Asian karaoke, which I like better.

Day 4 (Wednesday) – Another day trip day! We couldn’t really go to London without seeing Stonehenge, one of the wonders of the world. Is it the best thing you can do in London… no… but I still think it’s worth it to visit once in your life. We decided not to do a travel company tour but instead just went by ourselves. The nearest city is Salisbury which is a super cute, medieval-esque town, which is fun to explore as well. We took the train from London Waterloo to Salisbury (about an hour, bought these tickets online beforehand) then walked into the town.

The Stonehenge Tour Bus does a loop between Salisbury, Stonehenge, and Old Salum and you can buy tickets online or when you get on the bus (for some reason I think I remember this is cash only too but not sure). We spent about 2 hours at Stonehenge.

Then spent around 1 hour at Old Salum and had a cute little picnic on the grounds and felt very medieval and cool lol.

Finally we came back to Salisbury and walked around the streets and explored. It’s a small town so the stores all close around 5:30-6pm. Lastly we had wine and cheese at Maul’s Wine and Cheese Bar before catching our train back home.

Wednesday nights start to get fun in London and this night we went around Picadilly Circus. It starts to get busy pretty late but this place called the Picadilly Institute was pretty fun and had good music!

Day 5 (Thursday) – Today we had a very royal and fancy day. We started off at the Tower of London where the Crown Jewels are! (Included in London Pass).

Then we did the Tower Bridge Experience (included in London Pass) where we walked over the tall part of the bridge – scary!

The only fancy restaurant we wanted to go to in London was Marcus (one Michelin star, used to be two but got downgraded recently haha) and they have a reasonable lunch tasting menu for 55 pounds. The food was really good! Their specialty is a slow cooked egg and their bathroom was very fancy (sign of a fancy restaurant). We celebrated Ann’s birthday for a second time.

After this we went to check out St. Paul’s Cathedral and then walked over Millenium Bridge to Shakespeare’s Globe (replica, not the original) where we did a guided tour (included in London Pass, you can only do tours, can’t explore on your own) – very cool!

For the night we took the bus and explored Shoreditch. It’s a very hip and cool neighbourhood. We had Shoreditch Fish and Chips for dinner (another UK checklist item!) and we both loved the aesthetic of this bar called Tonight Josephine.

Day 6 (Friday) – Ok wait today was also a very fancy day haha I guess London is a very fancy place! We started off the day by going to the Sky Garden. There are times where you can go in for free but honestly the lines are super long and it’s crowded so I wouldn’t really recommend going unless you have extra time to kill. The view is blocked by a large blue-tinted glass pane.

We then took the tube to Notting Hill, a cute neighbourhood known for it’s beautiful pastel housefronts.

Aside from having a photoshoot in front of the houses, we had delicious rose and lavender lattes at Farm Girl and walked along the Portobello Street Market where we saw lots of antiques and vintage shops.

In the afternoon we had our third and final birthday celebration at Afternoon Tea (another UK must-do!) at Kensington Palace. We really liked the tea here but they have afternoon teas everywhere in London and they all looked really nice.

We then explored Kensington Palace (included in London Pass), and we found this exhibit rooms with tiaras and the security guard told us that if we stand in a certain position then the reflection of the tiaras looks like were wearing them lmao. So enjoy these photos.

We walked through the Kensington Gardens but unfortunately couldn’t stay long because it was raining, so we ducked for cover inside Harrod’s which is a huugeee OG department store you have to check out.

We started Friday night at Blame Gloria which was a tiny bar/club that was playing amazing music (aka, they played One Direction songs and Year 3000 – I was ded) and had a great dance vibe – definitely recommend!

Day 7 (Saturday) – Last day 😦 Today our plan was to visit Windsor Castle (included in London Pass – where Harry and Meghan got married) so we took the train there, only to see that the line was soooooo long! I guess it was our fault for going on a Saturday lol. After doing some reading online, the best time to go is actually on a weekday and in the afternoon (since most people go in the morning and leave by noon). Soooo we didn’t do Windsor Castle. But we did take a walk around the area and check out cute some shops in the area as well.

Ahh, time to head to the airport and go back to real life. Hope you enjoyed our London chronicles! Chip chip cheerio! But actually we were told no one says that and it’s kind of offensive, lol sorry.

Lizzy

TRAVEL: 1 week in Mexico City

My sister and I went to Mexico City (CDMX, Ciudad de Mexico) for one week in March 2019! It was an amazing week in beautiful warm weather (but not too hot). We would highly highly recommend traveling to Mexico City because there is so much to do and so much to eat, all at a relatively cheap price! We had a ton of activities to fill a week, but you can also go for a 4 day weekend, or go for even longer.

First, I’m leaving some overall travel tips for CDMX, but feel free to scroll and skip to the day-to-day schedules!

Housing: we stayed at an AirBnB in the Historic Center for the whole week. The Historic Center is known to be more poor and perhaps more dangerous but we had friends stay there before us who said they did not feel unsafe at all, so we went for it because the prices are cheaper. We thought it was a great central location and also felt safe the whole time. If we were to go back, we would probably experience staying in Condesa too, which is a more affluent area.

Transport: Uber is very alive and very cheap in CDMX. A 30 minute ride is usually around $10 CAD, although this will surge around evening rush hour times. We only took a few Ubers (to and from airport, when the Metro was inconvenient, when it was flash raining) but otherwise we took public transit and we actually loved it. The Metro system is pretty good and costs 5 pesos aka 30 Canadian cents, so like, how can you not? We found that during the day there was a women’s only section which was blessed. It can get pretty sardine-like (+++ packed) but when it’s only female it actually feels quite comfortable haha.

Money: We mostly used cash everywhere because took public transit and ate on the street most of the time. We only used our credit cards for one super expensive meal (lol…). We brought 2500 pesos each and ended up taking out 400 pesos each additionally. When we went, 1 CAD was approximately 15 pesos.

DAY 1: This wasn’t really a day because we flew all day! We had a connecting flight to save on moneys so we got to CDMX at 10pm. We had a quick bite of tamalitos to eat at a cool restaurant beside our AirBnB then went to sleep!

DAY 2: We took this day to explore the Historic Center around where we lived. We walked up the street to the Palacio des Bellas Artes and the adjacent beautiful garden. CDMX is full of these beautiful, bountiful trees with purple flowers.

We ate some delicious street food throughout our walking, including these Dorilocos which are very common everywhere in CDMX. The name is pretty self explanatory: a bag of Doritos with lots of crazy toppings.

Then we walked further to La Lagunilla market. This super cool outdoor antique and trinket market is only open on Sundays. If only I lived there, I would’ve bought so many cool decor items.

Last stop for the day was the architecturally amazing Bibliotheca Vasconcelos. We roamed the stacks, pretended we could read Spanish, then took little naps hehe.

On the walk back to our AirBnB we grabbed more street food and also went to an actual sit-down restaurant for shrimp tacos. Tbh they weren’t even very good and more expensive – low-key/street spots are the way to go! The guac was great though.

We had a early night since we had an early start planned for the next day.

DAY 3: Teotihuacan pyramids! We went on a Monday which is a good day to go because all museums in the city are closed but this site is open. I also read don’t go to Teotihuacan on Sundays because it’s free for Mexico citizens and therefore pretty packed. A lot of people take tours to Teotihuacan but I would really recommend going on your own. It’s much cheaper and you can take your time and do whatever you want. You can also go really early to beat the crowds and take better photos, so win-win!

We Ubered to the Autobuses del Norte bus station around 6am, then took a 6:30 bus to Teotihuacan. The bus trip is around 1 hour long and costs 105 pesos round trip. We got to the site at 7:30am and bought our entry tickets for 75 pesos. The site technically opens at 9am, but I read online earlier that people have gone at 8am and they were able to get in. We pushed our luck for 7:30am and it was completely fine! It was great being able to get pictures and see the site with very little people. We were even early enough that the sunrise hot air balloons were still in the sky.

We spent the whole morning walking around the site – it’s very big! Then we had lunch at La Gruta, which is a restaurant in a cave! It’s pricier because of the location but it was an awesome experience and a nice cool, shaded break.

After lunch we walked back through the site to get to the buses and the entire site is much more packed later on in the day.

After getting back to the city, we bought some fresh fruit from Mercado San Juan (right beside our AirBnB) then relaxed a bit at home before going out to fill our stomachs. We had amazing vegan tacos at a street truck called Por Siempre Vegana (10/10 would recommend!!) and then finished off the experience at El Moro, a chain but perfect churreria.

DAY 4: We started our day off with some fresh fruit that we bought the day before. I always think I know/have eaten alot of fruit until I travel to new places and see things I’ve never seen before haha. Here we had mamey (papaya/persimmon/sweet potato mix), chikoo (honey/pear mix), Mexican cream guava, and grenadilla.

Then we took the Metro to Condesa and had a second breakfast at Tacos Hola (great veggie options as well as lots of meat).

We walked through the beautiful green spaces of Parc Mexico and Parc Espana and got a quick workout on the outdoor machines too – very fun!

Then we walked to the Condesa Tanguis outdoor market (only open on Tuesdays). It’s the best for fresh fruit and veggies. I loved walking around and seeing the abundance of fresh produce.

We spent the rest of the day at Chapultepec Park. It’s a huge park near Condesa and has tons of museums, sculptures, green space, and a lake. Very Central Park vibes. First we bought tickets to go up Chapultepec Hill. Atop the hill is the Chapultepec Castle and Mexico’s National History Museum. They don’t let any food or water in the castle/museum unfortunately so we had to finish our park snacks before going in. The castle was beautiful and the museum was interesting (even though we couldn’t read anything because there was no English blurbs). And there were great views of the city!

Afterwards we decided to go rowboating on the lake. At first it was struggles but then we were pros. Also, these super cute and stylish bright orange life jackets were mandatory.

When we got hungry we walked to Vikos, another vegan tacqueria (yum!) for a few tacos before tackling the Museo Nacional de Antropologia. Another museum with no English blurbs but still very cool! We spent 2.5 hours here but you can definitely spend more. Lots of Mexican culture and history.

When we finished at the museum mother nature was giving us a flash storm so we were planning on walking to dinner but ended up taking the bus instead. We’re pretty sure you can only pay for the bus via a reloadable tap card. We didn’t have one so we just paid the driver the fee in change (6 pesos) and he definitely kept the money for himself haha. We had dinner at La Casa de Tono which is a chain restaurant but with pretty good food and cheap prices. Their specialty is the pozole (mexican soup) and we got some sopas too.

DAY 5: In the morning we walked to the Zocalo (city square) which was very close to where we lived. The Zocalo is a very European-like square with many surrounding government buildings. The Mexico City Metropolitan Cathedral is at the top of the square, and you can go in if you’re wearing appropriate attire (we couldn’t lol so we just looked from the door).

The Templo Mayor ancient ruin museum is right around the corner. You can see the ruins from the street so at first we were skeptical to pay the museum fee to walk through the ruins. But it turns out there’s a whole large indoor museum as well so in the end, it’s definitely worth it to pay and be able to walk through the ruins and explore the museum. There was English blurbs so we learned alot!

Afterwards we walked to La Ciudadela which is a very popular artisan craft market. We stopped by Marisqueria El K-Guamo‘s street stand on the way, which had the BEST octopus tostadas. I’m still thinking about it.

La Ciudadela is very fun to walk around. So many pretty colours and crafts. It’s also a great place for souvenirs. We didn’t buy anything though, except for some earrings that I wore to dinner (as you will see shortly).

Ok so our next stop was the most expensive thing we did but we love food experiences so it was so worth it for us. Somehow we were able to get last minute cancellation spots to the Omekase Taco Bar at Pujol. Pujol is one of the fanciest restaurants in CDMX and if there were Michelin Stars in CDMX, this place would definitely have one. The whole meal included 9 courses at the taco bar, 3 alcoholic drinks (which we consumed <5% of), and dessert on the outdoor terrace. It was such a fun experience and everything tasted so good. It’s too much to explain but I’ll just leave these photos here and make one special mention to the mole which gets older and older everyday and was 1831 days old when we ate it!!

After the meal we walked over an hour through the neighbourhood to arrive at Licoreria Limantour, a highly appraised bar. They have very fancy drinks designed after areas in CDMX, so it was a fun tasting experience. Overall, very gustatory evening.

DAY 6: We spent the day exploring Coyoacan, a very hip and cultural area of CDMX. Once we got off the Metro we stopped at a green space called Viveros de Coyoacan. It’s a big park that you can run/walk and exercise in. There was a flower/plant market beside it too so we spent some time exploring that.

Then we walked to the famous Casa Azul aka the Frida Kahlo Museum. We bought our tickets online before hand and were given a specific time to show up at the museum. But we still had to line up for a bit. This museum is alot more expensive than other CDMX museums (~ 16 CAD) and it’s much smaller too but it was well worth it! It was one of the best curated museums that I’ve ever been to. Frida’s story is so interesting and the museum showcased her life very well. There was also a temporary exhibit of her clothing/fashion when we went.

The Mercado Coyoacan is very close to the museum so we walked there and had more tostadas for lunch.

We also got a new fruit: zapote negro (black sapote), so we bought one and ate it in Jardin Centenario with the cool coyote fountain (coyoacan means place of coyotes). It tasted like a mix between persimmon and avocado!

We roamed around another market (surprise, surprise) Mercado Artesanal Mexicano then walked to relax in Jardin Japones which is an awesome Japanese inspired park.

For dinner I had a delicious squash blossom burrito on the street, then we went to Taqueria Orinoco and I watched Tina eat really good meat burritos. We had so many recommendations to come to this place and apparently the meat is 100. They also had a dessert taco which I most definitely ate.

DAY 7: We started off our last full day in CDMX at the UNAM University Campus. We took the Metro there and I really wanted to go to Espacio Escultorico to see cool sculptures but unfortunately it was closed! We couldn’t figure out why because they are usually open M-F 8:30-4 but then someone told us that International Women’s Day is a stat holiday in Mexico which is pretty cool. So instead, we walked about the Cultural Centre of the University and walked in some museums and libraries.

Then we Ubered to Xochimilco which is known as the Venice of Mexico. I read online to go to Embarcadero Nuevo Nativitas and NOT any other port because they can be super aggressive at the other ones. The trajineras are super colourful and fun. We bought a 1 hour boat ride down the canals. The price is per boat per hour so the more people you have the better deal. The advertised price is 500 pesos/boat/hour but luckily we were with a friend that speaks Spanish so we were able to get ours for 300 pesos only. Once you’re on the canals you can buy lots of food, drinks, and mariachi performances.

After the trajineras we walked to the Mercado de Xochimilco for more food, then went to try pulque at Pulqueria Temple of Diana. This was such a fun experience. Pulque is a fermented alcoholic drink made from agave sap and they blend it with many flavours to make a milkshake-like drink.

We took the Metro home to relax for an hour or so before heading out to the Lucha Libre. We heard this was a must-see while in CDMX. We bought our tickets at the ticket booth for 190 pesos each. The wrestling is very fake and theatrical but was fun nonetheless and can get very rowdy and loud.

And the last stop on our trip – we had to go back and get more churros of course (no pic because I was too busy eating).

DAY 8: We had to leave for the airport bright and early in the morning. Bye bye CDMX!

Thanks for reading! And thanks Tina for spending a week with me!! Love you poo.

Lizzy

 

 

 

TRAVEL: 1 week in Texas (Y’ALL)

Justin and I went to Texas in early January to write our USMLE Step 2 Clinical Skills exams. We stayed for a whole week and made a fun vacation out of it…

Day 1: Houston we have landed! We picked up our rental car at the airport and drove to our first order to business WHATABURGER, a Texan fast food staple. We were NOT disappointed. They don’t have a veggie burger but they will sub hashbrowns for the meat patty in any of their burgers (and charge you only the junior price) so I had a delicious carb overload. Also, their spicy ketchup is delicious!

While waiting for our AirBnB check-in time, we went to the cutest coffee shop called Slow Poke. It was decked out with turtle, snail, and sloth decor – how adorable!! (Coffee was good too)

Once checked into the AirBnB, we spent the rest of the day settling in, getting groceries, and studying for the exam (boo).

Day 2: Space Center Day! The Space Center was a 40 minute drive away from where we were staying so of course along the way we stopped at Whataburger for breakfast (spoiler alert, we went to Whataburger alot). We tried the famous honey butter chicken biscuit! I thought the sandwich sans fried chicken was delicious so I can only imagine how delicious it would be with the crispy savoury fried chicken.

We got to the Johnson Space Center just after opening and took the Tram Tour first. It was really cool to see how big the campus is and how many different people and parts are involved in NASA. We got to visit the Mission Control Center and Rocket Park. I think the Tram Tour was the best part of the Space Center.

The rest of the Space Center was interesting to see although quite catered to educating/entertaining a younger population.

We squeezed in some more studying before dinner then rewarded ourselves with Crawfish & Noodles! This was the meal I was most excited for and it held up to its expectations. We got a giant bowl of fresh crawfish in cajun butter, salt & pepper fried blue crab, and thai fried rice. Everything tasted amazing and it was so fun to eat with your hands! I spent the rest of the trip wishing we could eat here again. 11/10 best meal we had (in my opinion), and tbh I’m still craving it.

Finally we ended the day with more studying before our exam day.

Day 3: We spent the entire morning and afternoon writing the exam –  nothing exciting there… I thought the exam centre was very well organized and it went by quicker than I thought. We were done before 4pm. We made a quick dinner at our AirBnB, then went to a Rockets game (vs. Nuggets)! It was lucky that there was a game the only night we were free. We got to watch James Harden live in action and finally see the home team win for once! Haha kidding kidding, we love the Raptors.

Day 4: Bye bye Houston, off to San Antonio. Of course, we stopped by Whataburger again for breakfast hehe. Honey butter chicken biscuit and cheddar jalapeno egg biscuit.

We got to San Antonio in 3 hours. We went to the Alamo historic site first and learned more about Texan history.

We walked around downtown (which gave us strong Clifton Hill vibes with Ripley’s and wax museums) and along the Riverwalk where we had lunch. I loved the Riverwalk, and all the restaurants and stores along it!

We settled in and relaxed in our cute AirBnB then headed out to Bliss for dinner. We had oysters, grilled octopus, and a whole grilled fish – yum!

After dinner we went back to the Riverwalk downtown to walk it at night and enjoy some ice cream for dessert 🙂

Day 5: We had breakfast and coffee in San Antonio before driving off to our last stop of the trip: Austin!

Along the way to Austin, we stopped by a small town called Gruene which was recommended to me by the customs officer at the airport back in Toronto haha. He was right – it was super cute with lots of antique shops.

Once we got to Austin we went to Terry Black’s BBQ so Justin could try their beef rib. Look at how gigantic it is! The BBQ was pretty good and the line was not long at all. For me, the mac and cheese was probably the best I ever had – so cheesy and creamy!

We went to see the graffiti at Castle Hill because I had heard such good things about it but unfortunately it was all fenced up. The city is planning on demolishing it soon which is such a shame because there is so much creative expression there.

After checking-in to our AirBnB, we went to “hike” up Mount Bonnell. I say “hike” because when I was reading about it online it was described as a 30min hike but in reality it was a 2 minute stair walk lol. It was a great view and we stayed for the sunset!

For dinner we tried out Uchiko, which is a high-end creative Japanese restaurant. The meal was on the pricey side but we like to explore creative cuisine while travelling. Our favourite dish of the night is one pictured last. It’s a bowl of king crab and uni topped with savoury, creamy celery root foam.

Day 6: Ok so we did it. We jumped on the Franklin BBQ bandwagon. We debated whether we should try it or not but in the end we ended up waiting in line for 3 hours to try “the best BBQ in Texas” (maybe the world?? haha idk). Franklin BBQ opens at 11am and usually sells out around 2-3pm! We arrived at 8am and there were already 7 people in line ahead of us. Franklin BBQ provides lawn chairs for the first 20 or so people so we sat in line and watched Antman and the Wasp lol. Overall, waiting in line was an enjoyable experience and passed by pretty quickly. By the time the restaurant opened, there was probably 50 people in line behind us! We ended up ordering a bit of everything they had: beef brisket, pork ribs, pulled pork, turkey breast and sausage, as well as coleslaw, potato salad, baked beans, and pecan tart. Justin said the meat was definitely worth the wait and oh my goodness the pecan tart… I should’ve bought ten.

We checked out the Austin Public Library then went to Zilker Park. We walked along the river and tried electric scooters. We kept seeing these everywhere around the city and wanted to try them for ourselves. They were super fun and went pretty fast too!

Lastly, we explored the shops along South Congress Ave (SoCo) before having a homemade dinner and early night.

Day 7: Our last full day in Texas! Today we decided to go on a Taco Tour. We found a bunch of popular taco trucks/restaurants and tried a total of 9 places throughout the day. It was a fun way to explore the city and almost all the tacos were delicious. I say almost all because the very last place we went had some bad meat tacos which gave Justin food poisoning and I will spare the rest of the details. It tainted the day but I was untouched (yay for being vegetarian) and will still share the details of our Taco Tour in another blog post (but here are a few pics in the meantime)!

In between eating tacos, we spent the day mural hunting and exploring University of Texas campus! Check out Justin ready to learn haha.

Day 8: Time to head back home after a great week vacation exploring Texas!

Thanks for reading!

Lizzy

 

TRAVEL: Athens and Santorini, Greece

Not my usual type of post, but I figured this would be an easy way to share my trip with my friends. Enjoy!

Day 1: We finally arrived in Athens after a long overnight flight. First order of business – food! We just stopped by pretty much the first restaurant we found on the way to our AirBnB.

After a quick much needed nap, we did the Acropolis museum (I heard it was good to go to this before enter the actual site), Hadrian’s Arch, Temple of Zeus, and Panathenaic Stadium in the afternoon.

We explored Plaka and the area around the Acropolis and ended up at Dia Tafta for a delicious seafood dinner. We had smoked eggplant salad for the first time on the trip and became obsessed.

Day 2: We started the day off at the Acropolis, hoping to beat the rush of tourists but there were still TONS.

We saw the changing of the guards at Syntagma Square. They had very funny shoes and a very funny gait.

We had lunch at Monastiraki Square and had our first of MANY Greek salads. We got two complimentary pieces of Samali for dessert which is a syrupy Greek semolina cake.

We then explored the Ancient Agora and Temple of Hephaestus.

Dinner was at Strofi with a nice view of the Acropolis at night. We had another eggplant salad and discovered the amazing phyllo-wrapped feta cheese.

Day 3: We started our 2-day Delphi-Meteora tour. On this first day, we explored Delphi then stopped by a nearby city for lunch.

More driving led us to Thermopylae where the famous battle of Thermopylae reenacted in the movie 300 occurred. Then to our final stop of the night, Kalambaka.

Day 4: We drove up and visited the monasteries of Meteora and they were absolutely breathtaking.

We returned to Athens just in time to catch our flight to Santorini. We caught the first glimpse of the island at night, and had a quick cheap pita dinner at our awesome AirBnB.

Day 5: Our AirBnB host was seriously the best and had our fridge stocked with groceries, so we made our own breakfast in our “backyard” and Maya, the cute host family’s dog, joined us to eat.

We bussed to Akrotiri to explore the archeological site and stopped by Red Beach for photos.

For lunch we had another Greek salad (surprise, surprise), tomato feta balls, shrimp saganaki, and the best grilled octopus we’ve ever tasted. For the complimentary dessert, we casually received 4 shots worth of liquor that tasted like tequila but stronger.

Then we did the 2.5h hike along the caldera from Fira to Oia. The sun was so hot but the views were worth it.

Once we got to Oia, we had to take more photos of course. And yes, we brought a nice change of clothes.

We had dinner at Oia Vineyart with some wine tasting, a cheese board, and an amazing smoked fish board.

Day 6: Another delicious breakfast with Maya at our AirBnB.

Then bussed to Oia to take a dip in Amoudi Bay.

We had the best oceanside lunch featuring sea bass ceviche, tuna tartare, sea urchin salad, and of course smoked eggplant salad.

That night we did a sunset catamaran cruise around the island.

Day 7: We spent our last morning in Santorini at Perissa Black Sand Beach.

We flew back to Athens for the last night of our trip, which we celebrated by going to Spondi for dinner – a TWO Michelin Star restaurant. It was insane and my pictures unfortunately don’t do it justice, but just look at that cheese cart.

 

Day 8: Grabbed a quick breakfast then returned to Canada and reality.

Hope you enjoyed our vacation recap. Thanks for reading!

Lizzy