Greetings from the West Coast!

The view from my room!

Hi there! Hope you all are having a great week! I'm safe and sound at my destination and I thought I'd share my journey with you all. I had a great flight to the west coast, which included a two-hour layover in the awesome state of Texas. I love Texas so much and even just being in the airport makes me so happy! Since I'd been sitting on the plane for 3+ hours, I knew that I wanted to spend my layover walking around the airport. I deplore sitting at the gate for more than 30 minutes before a flight...it makes no sense to me to go and sit and then stand and board the plane and then sit on the plane. That's way too much sitting for me (and super bad for your circulation, hips, and heart!)! Since I had an entire airport to explore in two hours, I did just that! I found 5+ Starbucks in one terminal of the airport. Everything is grander in Texas! Since I had enjoyed some coffee before my first flight took off, I was most definitely in need of zero caffeine. But, I typically have this tradition of getting frozen yogurt during any layover that I happen to have. So, here's the deal. I'm super weird about only eating apples, carrots, and the occasional luna bars during flights, especially super long flights, and my stomach can barely handle anything else when I fly. It all started back on a flight from Newark to Denmark and then to Lithuania. My stomach was freaking out the entire flight and I literally did not eat for a day. When we stopped in Denmark, everyone on our trip (my cousins and I were traveling with a group of 26 people) went to a bakery in the airport to get danish. To make a long story short, I couldn't even bear to look at any piece of danish. I was so sick to my stomach! A few days later, on our puddle-jumper propeller flight from Lithuania to Poland, the same feeling happened to me! I ended up sitting next to a 23 year-old multi-lingual law student from Belgium and he ate my enormous ham and cheese sandwich on a crusty baguette that the stewardess had served all of the passengers. My seat mate and my cousins cheerfully munched away on their sandwiches and I sat in my seat, practically paralyzed by this indescribable feeling in my stomach. I happily handed over my sandwich to the kind Belgium student and he eagerly accepted my offer, stating that he had "an iron stomach." I sat there in awe...how could everyone around me stomach these sandwiches? What was the matter with me? Well, I quickly remembered the British Airways flight from Paris to Philadelphia (with a layover in London's Heathrow Airport) that involved being fed every fifteen minutes. NO LIE! First, it was a salad. Then it was some nasty pasta with a potato (I am not kidding!), then the crew realized that although it's lunch time in England, it's breakfast time in the East, so it's time for some croissants and fruit and yogurt. Now, it's time for lunch, but since we've already eaten lunch (and breakfast!), it must be tea time. Then it was time for some shortbread! Nasty mcnasterson let me tell you. I couldn't even look at the food on my tray table, and eventually, my dad let me get up and walk around the plane with him. He then started asking me "Why do you think you feel so sick? What would make you feel better?" and my response was "I have no idea why I feel so sick to my stomach. Maybe it was something that I ate? I don't know what would make me feel better. I'm sure I'll feel fine once we land." And of course, my nine year-old self knew that I would feel better when I was on solid ground, and that was precisely the case. When the same feeling occurred seven years later on those flights to Denmark, Lithuania and Poland, I knew that I would feel better once we were on the ground.

Lucky for me, I no longer feel queasy during flights (fingers crossed that my stomach continues to tolerate flying!) and I'm able to stomach apples and carrots and the occasional luna bar. With all of this said, I was starving by the time I landed in Texas, and I didn't want to eat anything dense or heavy because I didn't want to upset my sensitive stomach! Alas, frozen yogurt was the only thing that would fit the bill. After walking around and scoping out all of my options in several terminals (there was Häagen-Dazs, Freshens, Red Mango and Smoothie King to name a few) I finally decided to go with Red Mango. I had never had this frozen yogurt before and it was absolutely delicious! I sampled the original (way too tart!) and the vanilla bean (perfect!). I ordered the vanilla bean with blackberries and it was the perfect traveling treat! It was slightly sweet and very frosty, which is exactly how I like my frozen yogurt. I can't stand when frozen yogurt is too creamy, because then I just feel like I'm eating custard, when I really just want frozen yogurt! So, the entire point of that story was that you should try Red Mango vanilla bean ASAP. It's so good!

Use Yelp to help you find the nearest Red Mango...it's so good!

I arrived at my destination and settled into my hotel room overlooking the beautiful pool and ocean. I was starving (it was 12am east coast time!) and I had been traveling all day, so I ordered room service. I've NEVER done that before and it felt so indulgent, but I was starving and I either had to go to bed immediately or I could have dinner and then have a few hours to enjoy my evening. I clearly chose the latter. And oh my goodness. It was one of the best meals I've ever eaten! It was a mango avocado salad with a chili vinaigrette and grilled salmon. They served me an enormous portion of grilled salmon and I barely ate half of the filet. It was SO good, though! I have to remember the combinations of those flavors...they were incredible!

Oh room service, you were so tasty...

This morning, I woke up and headed to my meeting, ate some trail mix, and then headed to the gym and I just had dinner and now I'm blogging. It's been super fun to be away for a day and I can't believe I head back east tomorrow. I will have spent two days traveling and one day at a conference! It seems a little crazy, but I was up for the craziness!

My afternoon snack...

I hope you're all having a wonderful week and tomorrow's Friday! Woohoo! I'm hoping to wake up early and head to the swimming pool for a dip and maybe even to the beach to put my feet in the Pacific Ocean! I'm so excited! Not too much on the agenda for this weekend other than a half marathon training run (more on that later!) and spending time with my family. Maybe I'll celebrate the beginning of December by baking some Christmas cookies? Who knows? But you can be sure that whatever I bake, if I do end up baking, will most definitely end up on this blog. Be excited. Be very excited! :-)

The pool and the pacific ocean in the background! 

Happy Friday, friends! 

xoxo