TWIMO Travels: Savannah, Beautiful and Delicious....

I recently took a trip to my love, Savannah, GA for my bestie and faithful TWIMO follower Alison's Hen Night (aka Bachelorette Party in British). Now this was my type of party. Spa, eating, and to bed by ten. This trip also made me remember how much I loved living in Savannah and to try and hold onto these memories I made Alison, even though it was her party I made her go to all my favorite memory lane eateries (I'm an only child, people. I have trouble sharing.) So here is an edible trip down the best (introspective and developmental) three years of my life that I spent in what I think is one of the most beautiful cities in America.

Delicious, huge, fresh salad at Screaming Mimi's  

The cheapest lunch in the SAV. $2.50 slice with onion and pineapple. C'est magnifique!

Back in the Day Bakery. Voted Best Cupcakes in America by Ellen. True Story. 

Red Velvet Cupcake. One thing I love about the South. 

Chicken and waffle sliders at Rocks on the River

Fried Chicken, Waffles, Boursin cheese, Arugula, and pepper jelly.

My other man, Leopold. As in Leopold's Ice cream. Coffee chocolate chip. Sorry Ben... and Jerry. 

Hoop Skirts and a bubbly beverage

The Glee episode I missed this week because I was sitting in the last row of a plane where I swear every passenger had to go to the bathroom (GROSS) flying back to the ATL from Houston, is not working, so I thought why not blog. I have a lot to blog about so hopefully over the next few days I will get you caught up on my ohhh sooo important and exciting life.

First up, Angie, my college roommate for 3 years, came to visit. She's in med school in Chicago and was in town for a residency interview at Emory (GOOD LUCK!!). Since I'm Angela's FAV person on earth she decided to come for a few extra days, so I could show her the ropes of Atlanta and how we Southern Belles mind our P's and Q's.

Ang and I at the World of Coke

Being the delightful, wonderful friend that I am, I drug my ass out of bed at 5:45 am to pick up my dear friend... and then I made her buy me breakfast at the Majestic Diner (an Atlanta Establishment). The food was typical diner food, although I got 2 eggs, yogurt, granola, and a waffle. I think I was really up set about waking up so I ordered everything on the menu. Later in the day we donned our hoop skirts and went to Margaret Mitchell's (the author of Gone with the Wind) house. I've never actually read the book, but I've seen the move several times, so it was a pretty interesting site. I have to say my favorite thing was the video they showed on the making of the movie. When watching it you forget that it was filmed in 1939... Anyway they showed how most of the backdrops and scene were actually painted onto glass and then combined with the live action film. It's like pre-historic Photoshop. I was wowed.

Another ATL site I insisted we go see was the World of Coke. I had been there when I was little, and remembered it being AWESOME, so naturally I drug my dear friend to the carbonated wonderland. Despite the overwhelming bombardment of marketing and branding (and let's face it, Coca-Cola is pretty much genius at this) it was really interesting to see how the brand evolved and made itself one of the most recognized brands in the world. Oh, and we both got some good burps in at the world showcase of sodas. It's like the Epcot of soda machines. AMAZING. After our stomachs settled from chugging the worldly sodas we took a spin around Centennial Olympic Park. Verdict: Not that exciting.

Sculpture to some guy at Olympic Park. I'm using it as a stage.

Giant red tree at obviously... the world of coke.

Lastly I enlisted Ang in helping me give my dear dog, Clair a hair trim. She hasn't had a haircut since August (most likely because I spent her beauty budget on shoes), so she was having some trouble seeing. Well needless to say Ang and I are crossing Dog Groomer off our potential career lists. Clair looks awful, but at least we got a good laugh.

So, everyone cross your fingers for Angie getting a job at Emory, because I'm a mean tour guide and showed Ang how the world is her oyster ATL style. I'm taking reservations for tours for next year FYI.

TWIMO Goes South

Wait! What? Georgia isn't the South you ask? Well, it is, but I recently as in I'm still there had the chance to go even father South to Vero Beach, Florida to visit the lovely TWIMOer and good friend of mine, Alison. So here is a rundown of my absolutely wonderful trip visiting absolutely wonderful people.

Saturday afternoon I arrived in West Palm Beach. Now I've been to Florida before (Orlando, Tallahassee, etc.) but I've not really ventured into South Florida. So as I stepped off of the plane I quickly realized I'd forgotten to wear my stiletto heels and bring my Louis Vuitton bag. Darn! I also realized Florida is much warmer than say Northern Georgia. My lovely friends Ann and Alison then picked me up and we jetted into West Palm Beach where we had a lovely meal at a French bakery (it was really French too, as in the many of the staff spoke French and they had a French radio station playing.). I got a roast beef sandwich with goat cheese on crusty, warm French bread. YUM. Then we drove to Palm Beach (the really rich area) and checked out the giant VACATION home estates of the rich (and probably some famous). Now the interesting thing about Palm Beach that Alison pointed out is that residents are not allowed to build walls more than 4' or so high to protect their mansions from the prying eyes of the plebeian likes of oh... Me. So to keep my gwaking looks out they build instead giant walls of neatly manicured shrubs.

Giant manicured shrubs to keep me from looking at fancy houses. Boo.

After my tour of the West Palm Beach neighborhoods we ventured to the Breakers Hotel (you know, the famous one) where we proceeded to look for the back entrance to the hotel because we decided we did not look fancy enough. Once finding said entrance (we were slowed down by the immaculate croquet course near the entrance with perfect, carpet like green grass that we had to a) admire b) take our shoes off and see if it felt as great as it looked. Verdict: Not so much.

Fake Carpet Grass at the Breakers

We prefer middle class grass). So finally we make it inside the beautiful turn of the century hotel modeled after an Italian palazzo and made our way to the Seafood Bar (the bar has fish swimming in it) and enjoyed a highly overpriced cocktail while looking out over the crashing waves of the Atlantic.

The view of the ocean from the Breakers Promenade

After I snapped out of my dreams of wearing 1920s attire and sashaying about the Breakers with my Vanderbilt boyfriend we headed back to Vero Beach to see The Social Network, the film about Facebook that everyone is raving about. Verdict: What's all the commotion?

As we headed to bed Saturday night my hostesses with the most-esses gave me some options for the following day's activities a) Miami b) Disney World c) See the wonders of Vero Beach.

Sunday morning we wake up bright and early and I revealed my pick for the day's activity. Duh... Disney World. So we pack up the car and head to Disney World where we have decided to spend the day at my favorite park: Epcot. For those of you unfamiliar with the Disney empire, Epcot is kinda like the nerd's park. All of the rides and exhibits are there to teach you something whether it is how they test cars for market via Test Track a high speed car ride or take you around the world in the World Showcase, a mini world's fair if you would.

My home land: Germany at the Epcot World Showcase

Now I LOVE the world showcase, as I love travelling, so we spent most of the day walking around it and sampling the delightful morsels they were selling for the 15th annual Epcot Food and Wine Festival. Here's a run down of my menu: Crab Cake with Slaw (America), Sausage in a Pretzel Roll (Germany), Riesling (Germany), Purple Haze Beer (they had 15 beers you could sample to celebrate their 15th year), and to top it all off a chocolate lava cake with bailey's Irish cream ganache. Can we say YUM.

I was trying to get a date at the Norwegian pavilion by showing them how good I looked in a Viking helmet and how much I love moose.

After this very exhausting yet extremely wonderful foray back to my childhood visits to Disney we headed back to Vero Beach.

Today my hostesses have to work, because obviously Florida does not care about Columbus and his mistaken landing in America, I have been having a great time hanging out with my dog Clair's frienemy Bear.

Bear the Chihuahua and hostess with the most-ess

We took a walk on the beach, bought some local orange juice and had a delightful lunch staring out at the ocean. What a perfect little holiday to take my mind off my unemployment woes...

Get up and shake the glitter off, that's what you get for waking up in Vegas

Hello lovely TWIMOers. Sorry I've been MIA. I've been off being very un-Sarah like. Not in a bad way, but I just got back from a semi spontaneous trip to Las Vegas. Get ready to be enlightened by Sarah's good girl guide to Sin City.

How it all began: So, a month or so ago when I was home in Ohio I went out with my high school friends and my friend M asked if I was interested in going to Vegas, because he and a friend were going to celebrate being done with the bar exam and because they had never been. At first I just shrugged the offer off, but being a) boring b) bored c) needing to cross Nevada off my visit all 50 states in my lifetime list, I started to entertain the idea of spontaneously going to Vegas with M and his friends as a time for self growth in being more "wild." So, to my bewilderment I had to ask my mom if I could go, as my unemployed self obviously doesn't have any $$. This turned out to be much easier than anticipated as she was like, "Sure, you should go. You're kind of boring." Thanks mom...

So Wednesday night I boarded a plane for my roughly 48 hours in Vegas. Upon arrival (12am EST, so I was damn tired. I go to bed at like 10 people) I was met by the boys, M and H, M's law school roommate and we started our debaucherous two days (ok it wasn't that bad). First we checked into our hotel, the Flamingo. I recommend this place if you're going for a cheap time. It def. isn't luxe, but for $45 a night it will save you money that can be spent on ohh... buffets. Also Donny and Marie perform there and there is just something so tantalizing about being so close to the singing, Mormon, sibling duo.

The fabulous Flamingo

Me and Donny. Swoon.

Gambling: The first night we went to Bellagio to class it up and decided to do a little gambling. BTW the fountains ala Ocean's 11 outside of the Bellagio are really beautiful. In the casino we decided to play blackjack with a sassy old dealer who helped me out because he thought I looked "crazy" like Drew Barrymore (umm... thanks), regardless I won $20 on my first try. That's about where my gambling wins stopped, I left in the hole, but not too much. I can definitely see where people get addicted to it and it is pretty much like throwing money in the trash (M and I lost $20 each in approx. 30 seconds at one table). So as far as gambling goes H and I did not do so well, M on the other hand had the gambling gods lookin' down on him. On Friday when we were just checking out some of the hotels and stopped in at New York, New York (much cooler on the outside than the inside btw) and M decided to put $5 down on roulette. He put his chip on a black 13 and sure enough the damn little ball landed on the black 13 and M was suddenly $175 richer. Other tips for gambling. If you're ahead, walk away and always remember the house has the advantage (words of wisdom from the Good book, Lonely Planet Las Vegas). Also a thought to ponder. There is a whole industry that designs slot machines from a Maltese (as in the dog) Fortune Machine to a Leonardo DaVinci themed machine. This blew my mind. It was a neat experience nonetheless, although I think I'm done with it for oohhhh the rest of my life.

Thrills: Vegas, as we quickly learned, is very expensive. If you want to do anything it's going to cost you. Attractions range from $20-40, shows into the $100s, and clubs from $20-50 just for cover. So needless to say we didn't do a lot of any of this. M and I did go to Madame Tussuad's wax museum which was really fun. I say spend the $18 if you've never been. Check out the pics we got. I got to meet my fav. weatherman Al Roker(I told him all about TWIMO, so he's ready for our upcoming appearance on Today), my D-list girl Kathy Griffin, my single lady preacher Beyonce, and some fine fine gents(I mean come on Hugh Hefner! Hottie).

It's Al Roker!!! Let me on the Today show.

My boy Hugh. Thanks for the good times. JK. He's much too old.

Food and Drink: Besides gambling I'd say that the other points of Vegas are to eat and drink. There are TONS of celebrity chefs' restaurants (thank you Top Chef for making me in the know on my culinary who's who and being a suave name dropper. "Oh there's Joel Robuchon's restaurant" (add condescending tone). I really enjoyed seeing the interiors of the restaurants, since they are pretty much an interior design-gasm (I recommend the MGM's lower level for some restaurant eye candy). In terms of actual eating, Vegas is guess what... REALLY EXPENSIVE! Besides dropping money on the breakfast buffet at our hotel (it was like center court brunch for you WashUers) and $10 on some really bad chicken fingers we didn't do a lot of eating besides our special event going to Mesa Grill (Bobby Flay's restaurant). H really wanted to try it, so we got dolled up and stuffed ourselves silly with some fine southwestern cuisine. I have to say interiors wise, not that exciting. It was a weird mix of western and primary colors and a flame motif that in my opinion was a little cheesy. The food however was pretty good. If you're a foodie I recommend finding out when Vegas restaurant week is (apparently in early Sept.). All of the fancy schmancy restaurants have a set menu you can order off of so you can try an appetizer, entree, and dessert for around $50, which is a good deal considering most entrees run $30-40. If you're watching your gambling budget I recommend not getting drinks as they run your bill up quite a bit. I got a roasted corn soup, blue corn encrusted halibut, and coconut layer cake. It was all pretty good, although if you're not a spice lover there isn't a lot on the menu that doesn't include some type of chile or pepper. All in all pretty good, although the boys didn't fare well as one was intoxicated and the other really full and feeling ill from it. So, Sarah the responsible one took them back to the hotel and got them ready for our night out, which brought us to Lavo, a lounge/club in the Venetian. The lounge where were hung out, because it was free to enter, had a really great atmosphere and the drinks were tres yummy, although tres spendy as well.

Me and the boys at Mesa Grill. Food Coma to ensue.

Hotels/Casinos: In trying to keep our debt down we spent a lot of time wandering through different hotels. Now essentially they all offer the same things. Hotel, restaurants, shops, casino with a different theme to match. My personal favorites were Cesar's Palace and the Venetian, although I thought MGM Grand had the most to do (and Starbucks, every 4ft.). Vegas is about going big or going home, so the scale of the design of these hotel/casinos is massive (M and my conversation while walking through a lot of them consisted of "wow, it's just soo big." Now repeat). The budgets to decorate them with are equally as massive. Knowing what materials cost they spare no expense. I enjoyed seeing the hotels that were knock-offs of places I'd been so I could compare the accuracy. Another fun thing for the design minded is checking out the casino carpets. They're all custom for each themed casino and some of them are REALLY Wild. I also taught M and H, I'm sure much to their chagrin, about wayfinding since all of the carpets have paths designed into them. The thing that annoyed me the most about the design of the hotels is that the user is totally being manipulated and knowing that made me really angry, because a) you have to go through the casino to get anywhere and b)the signage and wayfinding gets a lot less and more confusing in the casinos so you can't find your way out. Interior design at work people. It is quite powerful.

The lobby at Cesar's Palace. Can we say bling. PS that woman thought it was funny to run into my photo. I agree. It's funny.

I think that's about it for my guide to Las Vegas, the land of high rollers, opulent interiors, good eats, and scantily clad women. I mean I can't tell you everything....as what happens in Vegas stays in Vegas. My lips are sealed.

Tour de la Stomache du New Orleans

Sorry I've been MIA. I've been starting my new life in Atlanta (more on that later) and didn't have high speed internet until today which makes blogging difficult. First I'd like to share my trip to New Orleans for Caroline's wedding. After spending a week there I have determined that all you do there is eat and drink. So here is a tour of my week in NOLA.

1st Stop: Po Boys at Johnny's PoBoys. This sandwich was seriously the size of my head and some guy laughed at me because of the look on my face when they brought it to me. "You gonna eat all that honey?" Ummm... yes.

2nd Stop: Meltdown Popsicles. Gourmet Popsicles. Enough said on a HOT New Orleans Day. I sampled Salty Caramel and on my second trip Blueberry Lime. I'm pretty sure you can't go wrong with any of the flavors though.

3rd Stop: Cafe Beignet for obvi Beignets and Cafe au Lait. I actually never made it to Cafe du Monde (to eat that is), but my guidebook argues that this place's are just as good with a little less powered sugar. Let's just say they taste like funnel cake and that fried dough in the morning didn't really do it for me on a 100 degree day.

4th Stop: Green Godess for lunch with Courtney. This place has a hippy vibe with a gourmet menu. We had a wedge salad with shrimp and some pretty rockin' sweet potatoe biscuits with orange honey butter and pepper jelly. (Image courtesy of Courtney)

5th Stop: DESSERT at Sucre. This cute little shop is in the Garden District and makes a sweet tooth's heart melt. I had the salty caramel cupcake (which was GIANT). Courtney had the gelato and said it was delish.

And the 6th and final stop on the Tour de la stomache is Brennan's. The ultimate brunch place. Caroline's aunt treated us to brunch at this luxe place. The breakfast was THREE courses. First we had mimosas with fresh orange juice, then strawberries in cream, then Eggs Hussarde which was basically eggs benedict except with a special sauce and on a toast like thing instead of an English muffin (we are in a French city), and lastly Bananas Fosters made in honor of the bride. Oh and did I mention the voodoo bathroom attendent. Told me to buy the bride and groom a broom and have them pull out one straw a day and when all the straw is pulled they will have lived a good life together. I thought to myself I better get them a BIG broom.

Yum. And I only gained 1.8 lbs.

N'Awlins Y'all

I'm heading to New Orleans tomorrow for Caroline's wedding. Horray! I'm pretty excited about this event because a) weddings of friends are always exciting and b) I get to be reunited with a bunch of my super lovely graduate school friends. My bags are packed including my Lonely Planet guidebook (best brand out there), sunscreen (SPF 75), and 12 pairs of shoes. More to come on my adventures in the "other" Southern city.

Journey to Ohio

Heading to Ohio for the holidays, which means a 13 hour drive ahead of me. To get through this super long drive I've turned to books on tape (well CD). I was apprehensive to try them at first, mainly because my first experience with one was AWFUL! It was in high school when I had to read the House of Mirth. I could not get through it, so I got the book on tape, because I thought listening about whiny 19th century women would be easier. Not so. It was so annoying. The voices, the rewinding the tapes, the story, everything. For my drive to Ohio over the summer I decided to give it another go and bought Water for Elephants on CD. First the entertainment in the car is great, although I hate how they only have one reader meaning that when the reader is a male, the females have male falsetto voices. I hate it. Water for Elephants is very good by the way. I think it would make a great movie. I imagine Jake Gyllenhal as the lead male which makes the drive WAY better. Also, went to Ruby Tuesday in West Virginia and got a straw with my wine. Entertaining end to a boring day in the car.