Ari H

Utah...it never gets old

11:30 AM

First time we've all been together in 3 years



What's winter without snow? Thanks, Utah.

Any time I get to spend with our nephews is precious time



We made snow angels in snow that was up to his waist :)

She's the prettiest

Sibling dinner. Brett is always too busy for us. :(

Favourites

Bachelor party in a suite at the Jazz game

We did some research before our Utah trip for some new, great places to eat. Happy we made it to Sweet Lake - Biscuits and Limeade

Eggs Benedict is my go-to on any breakfast menu. This one with local eggs, fresh made biscuits and red quinoa hash browns gets two thumbs up from me. HOWEVER, the winner of the menu is definitely the pancakes! They are called Conspiracy Cakes. They grind the flour fresh every day and you can absolutely taste the difference. That's probably the conspiracy...

Before heading back to London, we took some family pictures in the snowy canyon



I love my people

husband

Porto

11:20 PM


We went into this part of our trip with zero recommendations from friends so I was pretty worried it would just wander aimlessly and be a mistake to add to our itinerary since there was still so much to see in Lisbon...happy to say I was wrong! It ended up being our favourite city.

We fell in love the city immediately. It was all dressed up for Christmas and even though it was the coldest part of Portugal (which was still 30F degrees warmer than London so no love lost) 

If you follow my personal account on Instagram, you might remember THIS from when we tried to get a random person to take our picture in front of the Roman Colosseum.
Short story: FAIL. And guess what? Same thing happened when we tried to get a specific picture on this cute bench swing.
I know BENCH SWING! It could have been great...but I love this guy.
Cute French couple for this win! I have zero confidence in the random people but I won't give up because I never get to be in our travel pictures.

Christmas selfie!

Cais da Ribeira

A UNESCO World Heritage Site from the coolest/scariest bridge

Across the top of Ponte Dom Luis I, there is little to zero barrier between the pedestrian path and the train. On the lower level, a narrow pedestrian path means two people can't comfortably pass in opposing directions. So you're always just THIS close to being hit by a car or train haha



Roberta Square :)

Palacio da Bolsa



TILES!

Doors!









They are all just so charming and photographable.





I seriously love all the tile facades

Inside the Porto Cathedral

We love to find a building or place to get up high and see the city we are visiting from above. The Clergios Tower was a pretty good view!

It's pink on the inside!

View from the Tower

Sao Bento, one of the prettiest train stations I've ever seen

The blue tile work is gorgeous

See??

We tracked down a recommendation along the Cais da Riberia for one of the many, many recipes for the dried cod that the Portuguese love so much.

One of the weirdest things I can't get over about the traditional Portuguese food is this: while there are over 350 dishes in which they prepare cod, they never have FRESH cod! Probably have never tried fresh cod ever. It's always salt dried cod. WHAAA? (Refer to my Lisbon post to see the photo of the dried cod)

This is the cod post-multiple water soaks to remove the majority of the salt, roasted with potatoes and crumbled cornbread with a generous amount of olive oil.
Very tasty but a different texture to the fish which needs no additional salt or flavouring.

We were in London for such a short time in December that Taylor had to get a little groomed in order to go back to work.

My favourite guy all cleaned up and handsome. Gosh, I love him.

adventure

Barcelona - the crazy beginning

9:58 AM

Let me tell you a little story. I check airline fares weekly. In Europe there are a few low-fare airlines (like RyanAir and EasyJet) through which European travel becomes beautifully cheap. Of course, you give up selecting your seat, free in-flight drinks and any semblance of leg room but hey, Germany, Italy and everywhere else is less than $100 away.
So my birthday was coming up and I decided to bring some specific flights to Taylor's attention. 
Milan! Copenhagen! Let's just pick a place and go!
"Ok, I guess we can," he said.
So this happy girl went about her normal life thinking a quick trip to Milan would be her birthday gift.

Fast forward two weeks...

We were in the Stansted airport worrying about the security line and when the gate for our flight would open when Taylor actually handed me our boarding passes.
I noticed STD>BCN but didn't have time to process what BCN could stand for. After getting through security, I scanned the departure board for the flight to Milan...but it didn't match the flight number on my boarding pass.
But it did match the flight and gate to BARCELONA....

"Are we going to BARCELONA?!?"

Moral of the story: Taylor is GOOD at surprises. A little too good...

Our hotel was in the center of the city, just a block from Plaza Catalunya.

Plaza Catalunya at 9:00am. A little to early for anyone to be out and about apparently.
The plaza filled up a couple hours later.

Palm trees and some Spanish balconies

I love the colours!



La Sagrada Familia from our hotel rooftop.

It was gorgeous weather, chilly but not nearly as cold as London. Look at all the blue!!!
This is just a teaser. All about our trip, favourite bits and all the pictures coming soon.

Suffice it to say while I'm working on the next post...we WILL be going back to Barcelona. Cracked into the top 3 trips we've made.

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