HARRISBURG/HERSHEY
I'd say Sarah and I have been doing well lately as far as traveling goes. We haven't gone anywhere 'spectacular' as you might say, like to Mykonos or Italy or even to the Napa Valley (though those are all on our "to visit" list). We've budgeted well and been able to take lots of small trips, getaways, or plain ole adventures which are the best in my opinion. Sure, a trip to sip white wine while indulging in a slice of homemade pizza on a terrace in Italy is the dream, but there's so much planning and let's face it, money, that goes into those types of trips. Being only 21 (or a "broke college student") guides us to budget our trips mainly along the east coast, but these trips we've been taking are now my favorite memories.
I've known Sarah for over five years, and as crazy as it seems we have never been able to spend New Year's Ever together. Sometimes you just have to decide that what you want is most important and create plans to make it happen! The trip itself was a bit planned out… a couple of months back Sarah and I were talking about how much we would to spend NYE together and love to go on a mini road trip. This then led to us googling 'cutest towns to spend NYE' in, then booking an hotel in Harrisburg, planning which restaurants we wanted to eat at, and scouting out the best places to take pictures! We love to generally plan out our trips, but we try not to make plans or reservations that we absolutely have to stick to, as this can be dangerous!
My adventure started around 4am on December 30th, as I had an 8am flight, and my house is over 2 hours from the Charlotte airport. Luckily, I'm a person that is highly organized, so I had everything packed and ready to go.. All I had to do was roll out of bed, and then my adrenaline kicked in because seeing Sarah is my favorite thing in the world. Checking in was a breeze, and I flipped through my book, The Devil Wears Prada to pass the time as I do get a little nervous when flying. By the way, the book (which okay I admit I didn't get to finish but I blame classes starting) is so good!
My flight landed around 9:45, as we didn't get off the runway in Charlotte until 8:40 because of all the air traffic. To my pleasant surprise, it snowed on our drive to her house right as we exited the airport parking garage. I put in to have Maryland scallops because they're the absolute best, so Sarah and I stopped off at Fisherman's Inn which is right over the Bay Bridge and indulged in a platter full of scallops, shrimp, crab, salad, and spaghetti squash. Needless to say, it was delicious! That night, we opted to forgo paying $15 to ride through and see Christmas lights, which we heard through the grapevine were a huge disgrace to the town of Lewes. Instead, we walked through Winterfest, which took all of five minutes as it was absolutely freezing and windy outside, and then we rode around Lewes and saw lights of our choosing. It was a cozy, Christmas night indeed.
On NYE day, Sarah and I woke up what we like to call early (around 8am), showered, and got ready to take our mini road trip to Harrisburg. The drive was relaxing, as our GPS took us through some back roads, featuring cows and all sorts of beautiful, hillside and meadow scenery, and nothing less than a cart and horse run across the highway in front of a line of moving cars in Amish country! Once we got there, I grabbed half a sandwich as a late lunch, and if you know me well you'll know I couldn't not get a smoothie from a place called Juices and Java.
We checked into our beautiful Hampton Inn hotel, which had excellent service, comfortable and clean rooms, and a tasty breakfast. Our evening consisted of relaxing in the hotel room until we got all dolled up to have a fancy NYE dinner and champagne. So... come to find out, the restaurant we made reservations at only served a NYE prix fix menu.. basically we had picked out what we wanted to order beforehand, but were disappointed when we discovered we couldn't order any of it. This led to me lying to the waiter and saying I was allergic to seafood, which led to us getting one of the entrees we wanted off the menu. Oops.
After dinner, we brought in the New Year by watching Ryan Seacrest's NYE Special and we watched the ball drop from Times Square in NYC. Overall, it turned out to be a perfect night.
New Year's Day consisted of Sarah and I taking a planned trip to Hershey, PA, where we toured the chocolate factory, which smelt like pure chocolate the entire time. Hershey is a cute town, but has little to offer apart from the factory. So, we rode back to Harrisburg, where we took loads of pictures on Sarah's Canon camera in front of the state house and down cute streets near historic buildings. That night, I accidentally booked a dinner reservation to a place that was closed... This led to us frantically searching for a place to eat dinner, which led to me discovering the most perfect hidden gem in Harrisburg - Susquehanna Seasonal Harvest. The waiter was absolutely phenomenal and assisted our every need. He let us sample wine before we ordered a glass, and was so attentive to making sure we were completely happy. Sarah opted for a spaghetti squash bowl, while I had a spicy tofu bowl. We felt so classy sharing a glass of Rose, as how can you not feel superior sipping a glass of rose colored liquid. For dessert, we shared some very, very rich zucchini bread and peanut butter and chocolate mousse. It was the best dinner and service we have ever had.
January 2nd: Sarah and I packed our things and left Harrisburg all too soon. The majority of the day was spent driving back, as most of the roads are single lane, and traffic was sorta hectic. That night at Sarah's house was perfect, as we laughed our a** off playing charades. If you haven't played charades in a while, plan a night to play it, and I promise you won't end the night without at least a few laughs.
The following day, we took about an hour drive to the infamous Juice Shack in Ocean City, MD, where we got an acai bowl and a smoothie. This place has the best fresh fruits, packed with antioxidants, so if you're ever in OC, stop by. They're always open! Afterwards, we spent our afternoon at Zen Spa, where we got massages in the same room. I had never had a massage before, so my massage was quite painful, as the masseuse had a load of kinks to work out of my back and neck. The end result was a well treated body with amazing oils and looser muscles, thankfully. The spa was so lovely, as they provided all types of samples ranging from coffee in the Keurig to lotion.
The 4th of January provided us with plentiful sunshine, which led to Sarah and I taking pictures near the docks in Lewes, and sitting down by the beach. It was an absolute gorgeous day, and the night was perfect too, as we had seafood with her parents for dinner, then proceeded to eat an entire pan of Pillsbury cookies for dessert, and maybe some pretzels at 1am. That night led to some deeper thinking, which is for an entirely different post, but for a hint, it involved dancing around the idea of another degree after we graduate college.
The 5th was the saddest day, because that's the day I had my departing flight. Fortunately, it was a 7:30pm flight, which meant we had most of the day to enjoy together. We had lunch at Nectar in Lewes, then only had an hour or two before we had to leave for airport, as it's 2 hours from Sarah's house. It wasn't the optimal lunch to say the least, as my acai bowl was crummy and my coffee contained unknown particles of what appeared to be someone else's leftovers. Thankfully, my flight was delayed 40 minutes because of the snow, so Sarah and I enjoyed our last dinner together at the BWI airport, where we had salmon, grilled veggies, and chips and guac. The airport dinner was actually really, really good!
My apologies for this post being so incredibly long! We spent almost an entire week together, and I had a lot to talk about. Every trip with her is amazing, but this trip is my favorite so far because we have grown so close and got to spend an entire week together at once. Everything on this trip was so lovely. There's nothing I would change about it. It meant the world to me as still does.
