Weekend Getaways: Manhattan Beach

Weekend Getaways: Manhattan Beach!

Two birthdays to celebrate this weekend, so we headed up to Manhattan Beach. We left straight after work and headed up to Los Angeles. It was a very relaxing weekend. Relaxed by the pool, homemade mimosas, a wonderful dinner and the Observatory.

TheView:


The Dinner:
2 people had recommended C&O Cucina located in Marina Del Rey. Very crowded with locals. It was small inside but they also had a huge patio area. We didn't get there until around 9pm. There were tons of people waiting. We thought the wait would be over an hour. However, they move super quickly and we only had to wait about 10-15 minutes. We sat on the patio which was awesome. They serve you free garlic knots that are to die for. Our server warned us they were like crack and very addicting. They were. The food came out very quickly. They also passed out copies of lyrics to That's Amore. When the song comes on, the servers sing along (so do the guests) and clink glasses with the restaurant go-ers. Very fun atmosphere. I definitely recommend it!


http://www.cocucina.com/


Griffith Park Observatory:
We drove up there at night and enjoyed the night views of Los Angeles. We missed the last Planetarium show of the night so we ended up coming back the next day to see the show. I've never been during the day and the building is just so beautiful. Glad we came back!







View of the Hollywood sign from the Observatory.



All in all, it was a nice relaxing weekend. I didn't spend a lot of cash either. I took out money and did not put anything on my card. I even came in under budget. Came home with $10! Woo hoo!

Happy Monday Travel Peeps!!

Weekends Ahead

As my good "friend" Kelly Clarkson would say..... "I'm Ready Now!" http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=sMMkIqfmW2s

Ready for what?? For my 2 upcoming weekend trips of course! This weekend I'll be celebrating 2 of my good friends' birthdays in Manhattan Beach and next weekend is my Labor Day DC trip! I'm so excited.

Currently I'm concentrating on Manhattan Beach as it's coming up this weekend. I have picked out a dinner place which I cannot disclose at this time for the off chance that my roommate (who is one of the birthday girls!) may read this post. I also have a nice bottle of champagne which I received as a 30th birthday present to me from said roommate. Roommate had a free 2 night stay for the Manhattan Beach Marriott Hotel which she won from a work raffle. My ex-roommate's ex boyfriend also works there and he is going to take care of our parking charges and possibly get us an upgrade. Which we totally did not ask for but are sooooo excited about!! I will let you know what we end up doing on our little weekend trip.

Then...next week I will concentrate on the DC trip coming up next Friday! We will be making a Target trip sometime next week for the last minute necessities. We also decided that a great way to save money will be to bring breakfast bars/snacks so we won't have to go out to breakfasts. This will save us 3 meals! Once we are there, I will pick up some sort of fruit from a market. Fruit is something I crave while on vacation. Maybe it's all the walking or maybe it's the lack of fruit in the meals eaten on vacation. All I know is I always want APPLES!!! haha. Oh and of course WATER! Always have to make sure you buy water before you head back to your hotel for the night. The worst thing is when you end up having to drink the bottle of water the hotel has provided and then seeing the $5 charge on your bill! Fail Whale!!

Ok kids.... enough of this random post. I just wanted to let you know that fun things are coming. In fact....I think I shall make a DC playlist for my Zune. I'll let you know how that goes. All of these pre-planning rituals make the wait a little more bearable. :-)

A bientôt Travel Peeps!!
translation: See you soon!

Travel Girl gets her last minute travel necessities from:
TARGET
www.target.com