We made it!

Don't have time for a long post right now, but just wanted to let you know we made it!

Our first day and night were a lot of fun! So fun in fact, that we slept until 5pm local time!

Last night we kicked off the celebration of the 9th of October (a local tradition) with a midnight fireworks competition between an Italian and a Valencian. Then we went out and partied until 5am.

During the day Phil and I wondered around the city while Charles and Alli had to film something for her class.

Here are some pictures. I'll add captions later and explain more about our first day in the next post!




It's 5:45pm and I've got to get out of bed:)

Travel Gear

Phil and I needed new travel gear so I turned to ebags.com.
There are ups and downs to shopping online. I like it because there's a wide variety of products and most of the time there are reviews from people who've previously bought the item. On the down side, you never know what things will look like in person.

The suitcases I purchased are a little bit bigger than I thought they'd be, but overall I'm happy with them.

Mine:

Diane Von Furstenberg-29" Expandable Rolling Suitcase $103.99

Phils:

American Tourister-iLite 29" Rolling Expandable Upright $71.99


I'm a little unhappy with the backpack I got. It looks silly on me. Don't get me wrong its a great back pack, it's just HUGE. I have no doubt that I can fill it, though ;) I got it because it has tons of little pockets for easy storage, enough room for my laptop and a change of clothes and a detachable day pack. It would be a great backpack for someone who is backpacking through Europe. It's also very comfortable.


High Sierra Transport Travel backpack $87.99

I think Phil's is a much more reasonable size

I don't know the brand name for this one because he bought it at REI.

I also got this cross body day bag to carry around. I don't want to have to worry about things getting stolen out of my backpack while I'm walking around, so I think this is the perfect bag.

eBags Piazza Day Bag $36.79

Why am I including all this information?
Well, because when I travel I like to do research before hand. I was never able to find a website that told me everything about traveling that I wanted to know. I want to create a travel website for people like me. I am by no means an expert on traveling, but hopefully we can learn together and become better, more informed, travelers!
**Will edit this section later when I figure out what "people like me" means.**

Now I'm almost done with the last load of laundry. Phil is at the studio filming some stuff for a sketch show and will be home much later tonight. Got lots of packing to do!!

Thanks for reading and I promise to keep up!
Leave a comment and let me know about your favorite international vacation.

Going to Valencia!

City of the Arts and Sciences in Valencia, Spain
We're going to Valencia, Spain tomorrow!

Why Valencia? Why not Barcelona or Madrid?
Our friend Charles and his fiance Alli are there. Alli is there studying abroad and Charles is visiting her for a month. What better excuse to take a vacation, right? :)

No hablo español
Phil has never been out of the country-well except to Canada, but that doesn't really count. I've been to England, Ireland and Wales but never to a place where the main language isn't English.

**Side note- I am terrible with foreign languages. In high school I took French 1 three times before finally passing it with a C.

I bought a Spanish phrase book so I can at least "point" to what I'm trying to say. Even though each word is written out phonetically, I'd probably still make a fool out of myself if I tried to say anything in Spanish. Except hola and gracias. I am very confident saying those words ;)

Luckily Alli is majoring in foreign language and is basically fluent in Spanish.

Ze plan
Our flight from LAX to JFK leaves at the ungodly hour of 6:00 am. Then from JFK we have an 8 hour flight that arrives in Valencia at 7:30am. If we can make ourselves sleep on that flight we should be good to go for our first day in Spain!

Playing catch up...

Well the whole "road trip blog" didn't work out so well, did it? Let me get you up to speed.

When we got to LA we didn't want to leave. All of our YouTube friends were here and we were just having a blast. After LA we went to San Fran, Portland, Seattle and Vancouver. Instead of continuing our journey around the country we headed back to LA. After spending two months living at our friends house in Venice, we decided that our only decision was to move here.

Now we live in a loft a block away from Venice beach. You can see the beach from our roof. We're loving life out here and I can't imagine living in ATL again.

It was not our intention to move out here when the road trip began. However, I couldn't be happier with our decision. Living out here for two months before moving turned out to be a great thing. We were able to see if living here was what we really wanted.

As for the road trip, neither of us were disappointed that we didn't finish it. I do feel bad for letting all of Phil's fans on the east coast down, but we'll make it up to them eventually:)

Just making a quick post from our hotel in Monroe, LA. The drive here was surprisingly decent. What was supposed to be 7 hours turned into about 8 and a half. That's because we had to stop @ a Mazda dealership to get Phil's new tires checked and we stopped at Best Buy and Target in Anniston, Alamama. I wanted to get some type of trivia game, but all they had was the "Are you Smarter Than a Fifth Grader" board game. Instead we got "Mad Gabs" so we can practice in the car and FINALLY beat Shay and Colette.

It seemed like it took forever to get across Mississippi. Our GPS told us that we'd arrive at our destination around 8:30. What we didn't realize is that it meant 8:30 Central Time. So, as you can imagine, it was a major buzz kill when the car clock said 8:30 and we realized that we still had an hour left.

We finally got to the Holiday Inn express around 8:45 central time. I always research hotels before I book one because we had a terrible experience at a Seattle hotel last summer. Anyway, this hotel is actually very nice for a 2.5 star hotel. It's a Holiday Inn express in West Monroe. Right off the highway next to a Hooters (woo hoo party!).

These days you rarely find a hotel with free wireless internet. On average, we usually pay about $15 per computer. And if it is free, it's extremely slow. But the free wireless internet here was almost as fast as at home. Very nice:)

Overall day 1 went smooth!

Now it's 9:48 local time and we're about to head to Dallas! I just checked the weather and it supposed to be stormy in Dallas today, and rainy tomorrow:( So when we get to Dallas the first thing on our agenda is trying to find a back up location for the meet-up tomorrow.

I've been taking some footage on my camera but not enough to make a video. I'll make sure to take some more footage today! Here's Phil's vlog from yesterday

Packing (clothes and toiletries)

They always say to bring only half of what you think you'll need..and..well..this is half of what I think I'll need. It actually doesn't look as bad in the picture..but it's a ! I don't think I'll wear all of it ( I tend to pick favorites) but I don't know what I won't wear..yet. I think if there are some obvious outfits I won't wear, I'll ship the clothes home to free up more space in the car.

2 dresses
8 fitted tees
2 dress shirts
1 short sleeved polo
3 quarter length button up shirts
1 tube top
1 halter top
3 pairs of sweats/athletic pants
2 pairs of soffees
1 pair of khaki shorts
2 denim skirts
1 pair of white shorts
1 pair of navy blue shorts
2 pairs of jeans
1 pair of white pants
2 light weight zip up jackets
1 rain jaket
1 half length denim jacket (to wear over dresses)
1 pair of capris
2 bathing suits
9 tshirts
4 cami's
6 pairs of underwear *we will be doing laundry on the road ;)
6 pairs of socks
1 strapless bra
2 regular bra's
1 pair of Sperry's boat shoes
2 pairs of sneakers
2 belts
I need to get some flip flops so before we leave tomorrow, I'm going to be the first one in line at the Old Navy $1 flip flop sale!

Since we're traveling in the RX8, there's very little room in the trunk. So we've decided to not bring our suitcases (which wouldn't even fit if we tried) and we're going to use the trunk as a sort of closet/dresser instead. We're either going to use trunk dividers or plastic storage containers.

We each have an overnight bag that has all of our essentials (like toiletries) that we'll bring into the hotel room every night. We'll decide what we want to wear the next day, take it out of the trunk and put it into our overnight bag. This way we won't have to worry about repacking and lugging around big suitcases into hotels that we're probably only going to spend a night or two in.
<-what my overnight bag looks like

Men have it so much easier than women. We have to worry about matching shoes with our outfits, adding accessories, and making sure we have the right underwear and bra for the outfit. Men can just match a simple tshirt with some jeans or cargo shorts and look great. Hell they can even wear a tshirt with a bathing suit and flip flops and look great!

Busy busy busy!

Lots to do today! It's two days till we hit the road and I still need to go shopping (as with any girl, I hate all my clothes), get my bangs trimmed, have a Dr.'s appointment at 11:45 to renew my Adderall prescription, clean my house because my mom and step dad are coming to town tomorrow night, OH CRAP and I just remembered Phil's car needs new tires. Dang it. I don't know if we have enough time to do that. Plus it costs sooo much. Hm. Maybe we'll do it at some place along the way.

Okay well I'm going to be late for my doctor's appointment. Will update later!
PS- Thanks to everyone who emailed me with Venue ideas! You guys rock!