Hello, Miami!

This week it's back to reality. Two weeks ago was Spring Break and last week was a short week for me since I went down to South Florida for Miami Fashion Week! 

We were gone Wednesday to Sunday, making pit stops in O-town along the way. 

After we arrived in Miami we did a little sight seeing around South Beach!

It is absolutely gorgeous!

These night shots didn't turn out too great considering they were taken through the car window as we were going across the bridge back to downtown Miami, but I thought they still turned out pretty cool. 

And then the fun began.....

With fellow AATCC members from FSU we volunteered to help out with MFW. None of us really knew what to expect going into it, but it was a great experience!

We volunteered Friday and Saturday doing various tasks to set up the venue for each showcase. We were guided under the direction of the Catwalk Pros, a production company that specializes in the details of putting on a fashion show. We were fortunate enough to get the chance to work with awesome people in the fashion industry. We were able to get a behind the scenes look at what goes into a fashion show. 

All in all, it was an awesome experience, and we got these super cute shirts so it was all completely worth it!

We volunteered Friday afternoon and we got tickets to attend the show later that evening. After a quick run through the mall to pick up some new clothes and heels we headed back to the venue to watch the show!

We got to see collections from four designers from four different countries in one showcase. MFW is international, therefore each collection had its own unique personality. The collections we saw walk the runway were: Dolcevita Cashmere from Italy, Dusko Orascanin from Bosnia, Heidi Estrada from Bolivia and Claudia Anicy Manuguian from Chile. 

It is impossible for me and Amanda to be serious for more than 10 minutes. Sorry not sorry!

The show was fantastic and afterwards we got to walk around to the pop-up boutiques. 

The lovely Amanda posing on the "Step-and-Repeat!"

Also, I did not get to see the Rosa Clara Bridal Couture collection from Barcelona on Saturday night, but I  am obsessed with their dresses which you can see some photos of here. They are stunning!

Hope everyone is doing fantastic!

Love,

LST

(Oh yeah, and y'all should click that button up there that says "Join this Site" so you can follow me! -And by "me" I really mean my blog, because if you were following me that would just be creepy. hehe)

Tallahassee Bound!

Spring semester is about to begin again, which means all of the students are headed back to Tallahassee, including myself. I was expecting some traffic, but I was less than happy when I realized traffic was stopped for good right around Gainesville.  I called my mom and she told me there had been an accident and there were loose livestock! Sounds crazy, but if you don't believe me look here ---> http://www.wuft.org/news/2013/01/05/loose-livestock-cause-closure-of-i-75/.  Eventually, I got turned around, pulled up my GPS and headed through some back roads that eventually got me to Tally. Along the way I passed through several small farm towns. I was in love! They were all so cute. Here are some pics I snapped along the way!

I was embracing my inner country girl on this drive, and I was disappointed
I didn't have my cowgirl boots with me! :(

Gorgeous Farms up ahead and in my rear view!

Finally made it to the FL capital!

It took 5 hours to back to school, typically takes 3.5 hours, so I was pretty excited when I arrived in 'Nole Nation!

Love,

 LST

Homeward Bound! January 3rd

Our 17 day trip to the golden state had come to an end. Here is a pic of me and my brother on the airplane ride back.

Love,

LST

Hello, Los Angeles!

Only in L.A. would you see a billboard for canine plastic surgery. Thankfully, if you actually go to www.puppylift.com it takes you to a funny comedy central video! This was the first thing we saw as we got to Hollywood and we weren't completely surprised!







All over Hollywood Blvd are people dressed as any character imaginable. Most of them just do this for tips or donations and some can actually make pretty good money. I thought it was pretty creepy, because you can't see any of their faces and some of their costumes are pretty rough looking. But, these guys to the right were pretty cool!

We took a TMZ Hollywood tour and it was great! But we didn't get to see any celebs :(

The Grove-Shopping Center!

                                   

The Grove is the a very nice outdoor shopping mall located in Los Angeles. It is a celebrity hot spot, especially the Farmers Market located there. There are many high end retail stores located at The Grove, as well as some more reasonable ones like Forever 21. 

---------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

Beverly Hills

 

 At the intersection of Rodeo Dr. and Wilshire Blvd. lies the famous Hotel Wilshire. This was the fliming site of the movie, Pretty Woman and television series, Entourage. People who have stayed here include, Robert Pattinson, Elton John, Farrah Fawcett and Barrack Obama.








Fred Segal is a very high end shopping mini mall in Beverly Hills. As you can see the building is covered in ivy, as are many buildings in L.A. and they are just beautiful! This is a hot shopping venue for celebrities.

When we got hungry after sight seeing we were determined to find a pizzeria close by! My dad looked them up on his phone and we followed the GPS there. It took us to Pizzeria Mozza. After we found the discrete side door, we quickly realized this was a popular place, even at 5:15! The host informed us that tables were booked until 10:30, but we could wait 30 minutes for seats at the bar. So, about an hour later the host told us he had an empty table and it was all ours, but we only had it until 7:45. We happily took the table and ate the delicious pizza and desserts. The next day on the TMZ tour we pulled up there and the tour guide informed us that this was popular place for celebs and tables had to be reserved 2 weeks ahead of time! We died of laughter, because we had no idea what a cool place we were in.

Mr. Chows is a popular L.A. restaurant and they were almost ready for New Years Eve.

 DASH-the boutique on Melrose Ave. owned by the Kardashian sisters! It looked adorable from the outside...LOL.

The famous Beverly Hills Hotel!

Rodeo Drive!

A street view of Rodeo Drive. Of course it was decorated very nicely for the holidays.

Every store had amazing window displays including this one above in Ralph Lauren! Those are very important aspects to retail, especially when most of your customers are just window shopping-so pricey!

Bagdley Mischka was one of the stores Julia Roberts' character walked into while shopping in the movie Pretty Woman.

The Dior facade was gorgeous, but very hard to photograph due to it being 90% reflective! UGH! 

While driving down Rodeo Drive one evening we caught this metallic painted Mercedes-Benz as it pulled up right in front of Chanel!I mean, is this a perfect depiction of Rodeo Drive or what?? LOL

All in all, I must say that I was very surprised at the amount of tourists here. Granted, there were a lot of VERY high end vehicles (Mercedes, Bugatti, Rolls-Royce and Audis), but most of the people were not dressed in head to toe designer brands, as I had expected. Another surprising thing I discovered was that most of the tourists are of Asian descent. I often found myself to be the only blonde in as far as I could see!  On Rodeo Drive there were a ton of stores including, Prada, Michael Kors, Louis Vuitton, Valentino, Ralph Lauren, Juicy Couture, David Yurman and BCBG Maxazria! I think my favorite was Chanel, I loved their window displays and the adorable $17,000 dress I found inside. Needless to say, I had to leave it behind. :(

Tomorrow we will be going to the Rose Parade in Pasadena! Hopefully I can get some decent pictures of the beautiful floats:)

Love, 

LST

Beautiful Sights of California

This year I am fortunate enough to get to spend the winter holidays out in the beautiful golden state, California! Even if you had told me 6 months ago I would be here right now, I wouldn't have believed you. I have always dreamed of coming to see if it really is all that it is cracked up to be on television and movies. A good portion of my idea of California came from the MTV reality show "The Hills." Like many of you other girls out there, I had always hoped to have a life as awesome as the characters on the show. I idolize Lauren Conrad, one of the main characters on the show, she had all of the boys, cute clothes, and an awesome job at Teen Vogue! Now she even has her own clothing line, which is just ridiculously awesome for a 26 year old. But anyhow, it truly has been great visiting out here and I would absolutely love to live here after I graduate from college.

Now here are some of the awesome things I have done while in Southern California! :)

For the majority of the trip I am staying south of San Diego, in Chula Vista. It is a pretty nice town, although it is only 2 exits away from the Mexico border, so you have to be careful. Before I got here I was expecting to see a lot of stereotypical blonde surfer boys, but surprisingly, Caucasians are definitely the minority in So. Cal.. With that being said, the citizens here are probably some of the nicest people I have ever met!

Near by is the U.S.Olympic Training Center, located in Chula Vista. They offer free tours on Saturdays, that last about 1 hour long. Volunteers show you around the premise, where many athletes live and train year round. It was an interesting tour, but if I was staying any further north of San Diego I wouldn't go out of my way to see it. Shown below is one of the BMX race tracks they have set up.

One must see attraction in So. Cal. is the San Diego Zoo! I am the youngest in my family and we all had a great time, so zoos aren't just for kids. They had more animals than I could have imagined and really cool ones at that. I recommend taking the tour of the park before you get started off on your own. Below is a Red Panda that we saw, of course they have regular panda bears too, but this one was just absolutely adorable, and unique! 

Next, we hit up Sea World San Diego! If you have never been to a Sea World Park you have to go! And if you are willing to fork out a little extra dough for a great buffet lunch and up close view of Shamu, then you should definitely look into Dining with Shamu. Here is a pic I snapped of Shamu during the One Ocean show. (I got a new camera for Christmas, so I was pretty stoked when I got this awesome shot.) It truly is incredible that a 4 ton lb animal can jump out of the water so high!

For beautiful sight seeing locations you MUST go to La Jolla and Sunset Cliffs Park. La Jolla was stunning! We visited spur of the moment one day and were blown away when we got there. One of the first things we noticed were these loud noises which turned out to be coming from seals that were all over the beach. We thought we could only see seals at SeaWorld, but we got a great view of wild ones all over La Jolla. 

And if you are looking to get an especially great view of the sunset, then you should go to Sunset Cliffs Park. Also, in San Diego, these cliffs over looking the ocean are a magnificent place capture some great pics. We didn't see any wildlife here , but it is still an awesome place. If you are feeling brave you can walk down the rocky/cliff/mountainous terrain to get a better view. Me and my brother did, but my mom almost had a heart attack. During the summer you can jump off of the cliffs there and go kayaking/scuba diving into the caves below. Here are some pics I caught from there! :)

OHHH-AHHHH. (Due to the clouds, we didn't get to see the sun set completely, but it was still amazing)

Yep, that's me and my brother out there, trying not to slip!

A good view of the ocean, cliffs, and residential area surrounding it-and me!

And one more, just cause I couldn't help myself. ;)

That's all I've got for now, but I will update in a few days after I explore Los Angeles! 

Love, 

      LST

P.S. I hope you all are enjoying your winter holidays as well! It's important that we don't forget to make these moments with our loved ones count.