Travel Diaries: Week in LA in LA, Life, Travel, Travel Diaries on 12/12/18Sup peeps! I’m coming atchya with another LA travel diaries, sharing the deets on where we stayed, where we ate, and what we did over our Thanksgiving week in Los Angeles. My parents and I flew out bright and early from Chicago and immediately went to pick up my sister from her new house in Orange (she’s currently a senior at Chapman University). After a quick tour of her place, we all headed down to the San Diego area. We stayed at a resort called Rancho Valencia in Rancho Santa Fe, one that we actually stayed in several years ago over my sister’s spring break. Fun fact, that recap blog post was maybe my second ever! You can read more about the resort in the post if you so desire. Our time in San Diego was very low-key and chill; we left the grounds once to make it to Holy Matcha and the neighboring pink ombré wall (the avo toast is unreal and it’s super cute in there, but definitely not my favorite matcha if we’re being honest). Rancho Valencia has tennis courts, a spin and pilates studio, tons of workout classes of which we went to and loved years ago. My family, however, unfortunately neglected to make it to one. I know we were fairly sedentary, but now I swear to god I can’t remember how we filled all that time hahah. My sister and I practically lived in this little private backyard area our villa had; there was an outdoor fireplace, hot tub, couch, etc, so we pretty much hung out there the majority of the time and had sister time. It would get super chilly in the evening, so every night we would bundle up in our cozy robes, take out a blanket, and watch a bad Netflix Christmas movie by the fire. The Tuesday of Thanksgiving week, we drove up to Santa Monica and checked into the infamous Shutters Santa Monica, which is right on the beach, palm trees everywhere; every room had it’s own little balcony and we could see the ocean from ours! We also got the most incredible sunsets being right on the water (keep scrolling to see!). I absolutely adore Santa Monica (as I’m sure most do); one day we rode bikes and went over to Venice Beach, we walked along the beach, explored the neighborhood… Basically just made the most of the beautiful weather and sunshine. I’m telling ya, I could get used to these California winters… Wore this gorgeous sequin dress by Alexis for Thanksgiving dinner… My mom said we couldn’t use any of the photos of me and my sister for the Christmas card because we looked like hookers. OKAY. Dogtown Coffee Santa Monica Super cute spot to grab some locally roasted coffee, breakfast burritos, or an acai or poke bowl. Great coffee, great menu options for breakfast, lunch, or a snack, and really pretty outside street views! If you’ve been to LA, you’ll know that every neighborhood is approximately 376539 hours away from each other with the horrendous traffic, so we really had to plan our time wisely. On on of our afternoons, my sister booked us lunch at Jon and Vinny’s in West Hollywood (I think it’s in WeHo at least, don’t @ me), which apparently is a VERY BIG DEAL. And from a food and overall aesthetic perspective… it was. That you can @ me on. Jon and Vinny’s Hype is so so real with this place. Aesthetics on point, I loved the modern feel and light-wash wood everywhere, the service we had was a great, and the food was BOMB. If you ever go, the must order menu items are the spicy fusilli pasta (loaded up with vodka sauce, basil, and parm) and the LA Woman pizza (local burrata, red sauce, basil, olive oil, sea salt)… Everything was so simple but so flavorful and fresh. UGH. I stan Jon and Vinny’s spicy fusilli y’all. We ordered another order it was so good. Oh, and sister and I obviously split a bottle of rosé— just living our best lives. Catch LA Another very hyped restaurant that was most definitely worth the hype. I think this was my favorite dinner of the trip actually. It has the dreamiest floral entranceway, an Instagrammer’s dream, and a fantastic menu. We ordered some sushi (Hellfire roll with spicy tuna, pear, and balsamic was a huge hit), some pasta, some octopus, so kind of a little all over the place. The best thing we ate was by far the mushroom spaghetti… And this is coming from a non-mushroom lover. It was rich, and creamy, and cheesy, and just damn good. We ordered another one after we finished haha. I also loved their drinks! The Ivy I think I’ve made it to the Ivy for either brunch or dinner every time I’ve been in LA. Definitely a fave spot! They hand you a glass of champagne when you arrive, make one of my favorite mojitos, and their seafood risotto is life changing. Oh, and it’s just the cutest and most colorful places I’ve ever been to— it looks like a little house from the outside and the inside feels like you’re in the french countryside or something. And eating outside at night by the heat lamps is such a mood. Bonus food: I LOVE me some Lemonade. The truffle mac and cheese… the curry cauliflower… The little kale and parmesan salad… I die. I love that everything is healthy, fresh, fast, and you can get a light snack or a full proper meal depending on what you’re in the mood for. We need something like this in Chicago! We ended the week with a tour of Paramount Studios and then my parents dropped me and sister off back at her place in Orange! I stayed through the week so I could celebrate her birthday, go as her date to her sorority crush formal and just extend my time while I was out there. So so worth it, but I did have to get up at 5 am every morning for my calls because of the time difference… And one of the days I got a 24 hour flu and I felt very, very sorry for myself. Throwing up when you’re not hungover is a travesty. No thank you. Fortunately I recovered and the next day we made it to Disney!!!!!!!! One of the best places, even when the lines are insane and you only get to go on a few rides. We had dinner at one of the outdoor restaurants in California Adventure, got some sangria to walk around the park with, and got hot chocolates for dessert! The food alone is enough of a reason to come to Disney, I’ll tell ya. I’ve been back home in Chicago for over a week now and can probably count on one hand home many times I’ve left the house… It is cold and dark and I can’t tell you how much I am missing the sunshine! Realistically won’t make it back until Coachella in April, but if all goes as planned, there will be plenty of California in my future 😉 Thanks for reading friends!