beaching it. (and behind - i know.)

sorry for the lengthy update time. i'm actually a few posts behind but luckily have booked in nothing this weekend which means hopefully between saturday and sunday i can finally catch up.

a few weekends ago - wait - nearly a MONTH ago i took off to the coast of southern england as it was going to be a scorcher in the city (about 85-90ish degrees) which yes, i know, compared to the sweltering summers of the central valley might be considered a nice break, but when you in the middle of a humid cement covered city and not surrounded by delta breezes, it's a vastly different story.

after much research (which needed to be done because the only visit i did to a beach while studying abroad was brighton beach which is covered in rocks) i finally came across an area about two hours outside of central london by train called bournemouth which was apparently lush with golden sands. after some further research i came across a b&b which was half way between bournemouth and another coastal area known as poole. i was sold based on the fact the b&b was listed as five stars and mentioned being a short three minute walk from the beach.

let me tell you - i was not disappointed. after an easy, albeit crowded, train ride over i caught a ten minute cab ride to the hotel. i was greeted the friendly owners who told me my room wasn't ready but they could store my bag so i could head down to the ocean. that's one of the things i love about traveling here - all the hotels are so small and owned by actual people - not companies - most of the time. after my as promised three minute walk to the beach i arrived to perfect weather and golden sands just like i wanted.

i spent the remainder of the day beaching and napping and generally enjoying being able to wear a bikini while living in the uk - something i didn't think i would ever be able to do.

i headed back to the hotel a few hours later to change and explore the boardwalk which connected the actual town of bournemouth to where i was staying. got some cool shots along the way before grabbing dinner and heading back to my room to catch the usa soccer game.

this last one is taken on the little cliff you walk over to get down to the beach from my hotel. there really aren't many sunsets to catch here in the uk so i take what i can get with these.

the next day was more of the same in terms of beaching and sunning. the weather was amazing the whole time i was there so definitely had to take advantage of it as soft sand and sunny days don't come around all that often here.

the beach cliffs are pretty cool here. caught a good one of the blue skies against the white cliffs.

all in all it was great weekend and i would go back in heart beat. you can take the girl out of california, but you can't take the love of the beach out of the girl.

full album here:

Bournemouth and Poole

kew gardens.

a few weekends ago i decided to explore in london which lead me on a smallish journey to a place called kew gardens. it's at the end of the district line - the green one if you are looking at a tube map - and is basically just a botanical garden. with the weather starting to get nice for spring/summer though i figure might as well spend as much time outside as possible before it becomes impossible to do so.

you get off the tube and you are in a tiny little suburb of london. there is literally one pub, one bookstore, a small cafe, and a small grocery store right near the station. you walk down a tree lined street with amazing houses and end up at the entrance to the gardens.

the place is huge - i was probably there for about 5 hours including lunch and don't think i saw everything. it's a great place to take some food and just sit and relax for the afternoon, except for the fact that it's right in heathrow's flight path so there are a lot of planes going over head.

a few of my favorite shots from the day -

the poor peacock was being chased by children who had clearly never seen a peacock. i think it was turning to me for help.

there is a cool tree top walkway they built that let's you walk around and see the gardens from above.

there were multiple green houses with different "themes". these were taken at the water lilly house.

taken inside another one of the greenhouses. you can climb up the stairs and walk around the top of them, but boy was it hot in there. heat certainly does rise.