Lack of food-related constraint - AnnaTheApple

March 23, 2015March 23, 2015

Running and cake

I know this is so damn clichéd and boring to start with but I don’t care – how amazing is the weather right now?? I’m not sure what it’s like elsewhere in the UK (or world in general I suppose) but in the South Coast of England it is SPRING. The weekend’s weather was beautiful. This is my favourite time of year – such hope of things to come and better days.

My weekend started with a fabulous parkrun at Netley Abbey. It was Netley’s third parkrun birthday so it was all very festive and fun with a Hawaiian fancy dress theme.

I was devastated when I couldn’t find my grass skirt – I love a good fancy dress run! I loved how everyone really got into the theme (though I failed miserably).

And it was lovely weather – a little chilly but beautifully sunny.

We were on the same course but a slight variation. Well, I say slight but really this meant instead of having to deal with six hills (two hills three times) we only had to deal with three hills (one hill three times). I decided to see what had to give on a less hilly course.

I wore my new Jabra Sport Rox ear buds on this run and though I do find them a bit fiddly to fit in my ear snugly (it takes a bit of patience, of which I’m not known for!) when they’re in they are IN. It is great to run without having a wire dangling about you and getting caught on your arms. The sound quality is amazing as well (they’re made with Dolby). I’ll do a thorough review of them soon.

Photo credit to Kookie51

I can’t believe how good I felt on this run. Yes it was tough in terms of keeping the legs and breathing going but I felt like I was gliding. I also only looked at my watch three times (once per bleep of the mile) – this is MASSIVE for me. Normally I watch my watch like a hawk. I clung on to a running club friend, Mark, who had overtaken me at the start and I vowed to keep in my sights.

Photo credit to Kookie51

On the last lap I managed to overtake him and speed off but I’d judged it badly and had kicked too soon as he pipped me at the finish when I had nothing left. I might have shouted some abuse at him as he sped past (all good natured of course) but he played it well so kudos to him!

I managed to get first lady (though a lot of people were saving their legs for the Eastleigh 10k the next day) and a time of 21:05 which is the fastest parkrun time since October 2013 according to the parkrun website. Jeeze somewhat depressing but also great to know I’m getting back on track. It’ll be interesting to see how I perform on a flatter parkrun.

After parkrun and usual housework duties, I headed off to my parents to spend some quality time with them. We had a lovely walk down the beach with their three dogs and my Alfie (madness, absolute madness walking four dogs) and enjoyed the fantastic weather.

Lee-On-Solent beach

We enjoyed a nice Indian take-away that evening and I even suffered through The Voice (*sighs*) though I did have my Runner’s World Magazine and my iPad!! I’m not sure I would have survived otherwise.

The next morning I got up and set off on my 12 mile run. I ran along the beach path which was wonderfully quiet with just the odd dog walker and fellow runner. My run just felt fantastic. My legs felt good and my pace felt easy. I’m getting highly confused with how I should be running these runs at the moment – terrified I’m dicing with potential injuries.

Average pace 7.52min/mile with a total time of 1:37:42. I attempted to slow down but when I looked at my watch later on the pace had crept up again. I’m just going with it. I won’t be able to sustain this pace for the longer runs so I might as well enjoy it now. I know this might sound ridiculously stupid but honestly that run felt brilliant and today I don’t feel ruined or exhausted. But I know my main issue is not keeping these runs slower.

After this I got home, stretched and foam rolled and had breakfast. A bit later on I went out with my mum and enjoyed a lovely walk, again down the beach. I feel so bad for my mum at the moment as she had such a painful back. She’s been seeing a physio and he’s had to refer her for an MRI as he thinks she has a bulging disc. She has such bad nerve pain all down her back, hip and leg. She finds sitting down for too long excruciating and has to take strong painkillers. It’s awful to see someone you love in so much pain, and you can’t do anything to help. As she said walking helps a bit, we walked down the beach and then cheered ourselves up with a lovely afternoon tea. Oh it’s been too long!!

The Tea Room in Lee

We umm’ed and arr’ed between the Victoria sponge and red velvet and in the end decided to go for the Victoria sponge. My mum went for a scone and slice of cake as she didn’t fancy the sandwiches but I went for the whole hog, so to speak.

And it was fabulous. The scones are so huge and tasty, they really are the best part I think (slathered in jam and cream). I had delicious chicken sandwiches as well.

Very scrumptious indeed.

So all in all: good running, good cake and lovely time with my family.

How was your weekend?

Have you ever had back pain?

Do you enjoy fancy dress’? Running or otherwise!

March 2, 2015

Sometimes weekends need to be like this…

This weekend was one of those weekends that just ticked all the right boxes. It was so good. I went to Bristol, saw my friends, ate tons of rubbish, did a bit of running and just enjoyed it all. In a very cheesy sentence: let’s start from the top!

I worked from home on Friday and had our meal planned out for that evening. It was going to be one of the Hello Fresh meals and I was looking forward to it. But as the evening drew in I felt myself wanting something a bit ‘naughty’ and Ben’s gym plans fell through…so I might have made the very quiet suggestion that we could just get another Indian take-away as the weekend before’s was so rubbish. Ben heartily agreed. We chose a better Indian restaurant this time and it was PERFECT. And satisfied my primal need for meat…

I had chicken tikka and half a chicken tandorri with lots of onion salad and some poppadoms. It doesn’t look wholly appealing in the photo I grant you, but honestly it hit the spot. Though my tummy did not appreciate such an onslaught of onions.

On a different note, I’m very excited and very grateful to say that I’ve been selected to help promote a campaign that the Running Bug are launching. They’ve teamed up with the stylish fitness brand Helly Hansen to host their first ever ‘Running Bug fashion week’ and have sent me a selection of gear to try out and to spread the message that working out doesn’t have to mean not looking good. Yes it might sound a bit superficial but I’m a big believer that work out gear doesn’t have to be purely functional. Like with everyday clothes, I want to look good doing what I enjoy. I also like to wear crazy bright colours and different prints that I probably couldn’t get away with in normal life!

You wouldn’t believe how long this photo took to take as Alfie kept walking into it bless him

So when the kit arrived on Friday I might have jumped around the living room a little bit and annoyed Ben with all my excessive excitement and trying everything on IMMEDIATELY. And this will sound stupid but I was actually pleased it was raining on Saturday morning as it meant I could try out the jacket and capris combo for my run. I switched my long run from Sunday to Saturday as I was away in Bristol for Saturday night so I ran to parkrun (5 miles) and then did parkrun (3 miles) to make it to eight miles. Perfect.

The weather was appalling. I was absolutely soaked by the time I arrived at parkrun. I only had less than 10 minutes to wait until it began but it was enough to make me a bit nippy! As soon as parkrun began my brain tried to take over and get into parkrun mentality but I held myself back and tried to run slower.

Muddy, slippy and wet but good fun

Though to be fair, by the time the second lap (my 7th mile) came about I was getting tired and would have crashed if I’d have attempted to have gone faster anyway! My average pace for the entire ‘long’ run was 7.56mins/mile which is too fast for a long run (I say this every week I know) but I’m putting this down to parkrun not helping!

Ben was time-keeping and got very soggy and cold indeed and had to warn all the finishers of the muddy ground as it was a slip-and-slide battlefield!

We helped clear down and then dashed to the car quickly. I was so cold by this point! Ben had brought my jacket from home in the car but it was still freezing. I took the longest, hottest shower when I got home which I’m sure ordinarily would have given my third degree burns.

Then I had to dash off to Bristol to see my uni friends (we stayed at Kate and Jamie’s house – our fellow Orlando holiday buddies). We chatted and caught up which is always lovely and then headed off for some food at the Winter Stream Farm. It’s funny because normally at a restaurant I’ll peruse the menu and try and choose something that I really fancy and something not astronomically priced or nutritionally ridiculous. But it was like I slotted back into Orlando mindset and just went straight for a big plate of BBQ ribs, fried chicken and roast potato wedges. I didn’t even see what salads they had on the menu! Who am I??

I only left a single potato and was completely satisfied by that meal. Sometimes you just need a big plate of the good stuff.

There was also an OBSCENE cake selection.

We all decided to get a slice to take away (and for our other halves too – mainly so you then have two different slices to try…). I went for a HUGE slice of carrot cake and got Ben a HUGE slice of toffee waffle cheesecake. I had to keep pinching myself that this wasn’t a dream 😉 It was brilliant as they literally called it a “cakeaway”.

Honestly they are MASSIVE. The sheer weight of them was pretty impressive. I was desperate to gobble them up but stowed them away to take them back to Southampton.

We headed back home and did a lot more chatting and chilling (as girls do) and then decided to do the only thing that makes sense when we get together at someone’s house. Make the World’s Best Brownie of course. This has featured on the blog before…I wouldn’t like to think how many times in reality we’ve made this recipe and devoured it. A lot I suspect.

Sensibly we decided this was dinner. Basically this brownie fulfils every sweet toothed cake-addicted person’s dream. You make a brownie and you eat it literally five minutes from the oven with a spoon. None of this cutting it into pieces and putting it onto a plate to have over several days. Immediate gratification (and subsequent feeling sickness).

It’s the only way to do it properly 😉 The recipe is on my previous post about this brownie (HERE) – and the trick is to leave it slightly underdone so in the middle it’s gooey and the chocolate is all melty. LITERALLY HEAVEN.

But yes, we did feel sick. And I regret nothing. Well, the next morning I might have slightly regretted the sheer amount of rubbish food I’d been eating over the past 24 hours. I planned to do a quick three mile run around where Kate lived (far more socially acceptable to run three miles than eight miles when you’re staying with friends! But yes, they know what I’m like and they do think I’m bonkers).

What concerned me was an onslaught of rain hammering on my window an hour before I was going to get up. I was ready to throw the towel in for the run but then it quickly cleared up and became quite a pleasant and dry morning. Three miles done and dusted before anyone had showered or gotten up! It went OK though it felt like a slog (thank you brownie).

After breakfast we went our separate ways. It only takes an hour and a half for me to get home from Bristol so I was back in no time. I showed Ben the cakes and his eyes just lit up. Dinner was sorted.

I can’t say I felt particularly well after consuming that entire carrot cake slice for dinner (literally for dinner) but I had no regrets. It tasted AMAZING. Ben couldn’t quite finish his beasty cheesecake as it was “overwhelmingly creamy” (I personally don’t see the problem?). Afterwards I laid on the couch in a sugar coma…I was a euphoric gluttonous wreck. Time for a week of healthy nutritious food I think!

What did you get up to this weekend?

Have you bought any new workout gear lately? I can’t seem to stop…

Do you have days when you just think “sod it” and eat what you fancy, whatever the consequences?

February 25, 2015February 25, 2015

All the good stuff – food on holiday

Firstly apologies for truly dragging out my holiday recap posts. I still have another one to come focusing on the running and fitness side of the holiday – and my US parkrun recap!)

But OK let’s be real here, this is the good post, right? Holiday recaps are all well and good but I know for me personally I want to see what people ate. A huge part of the holiday is to enjoy the food, try new things and just eat stuff you wouldn’t eat at home normally. (To catch up, HERE’s my Orlando recap and HERE’s my Dallas recap). Apologies this is a long post!

Breakfast

If I’m honest, breakfast didn’t rock my world. If you’ve been reading this blog for a while then firstly thank you!, and secondly you’ll know I eat porridge for breakfast every single day and have done for the past 10 years. I still love it!

Also breakfast in America typically is a long way away from what I’d consider ‘normal’. Pancakes, waffles, French toast, crepes…they’re all pudding in my eyes. Sweet things so early don’t float my boat so I tend to stick with eggs.

In Orlando I ate a lot of omelettes, turkey bacon, English muffins and fruit. I’m a huge fan of turkey bacon – which in my eyes was far superior to the thin crispy regular bacon.

Breakfast in Dallas was similar but I also went back to porridge (oatmeal).

Don’t get me wrong though, sometimes we’d get a plate of pancakes for Ben and me to share so I could have a bit rather than a whole portion. Of special mention, the Corner Bakery Cafe in Dallas had gorgeous apple pancakes (left picture) and Yolk (middle picture) had a superb ‘ironman’ omelette full of veggie goodness which I added turkey bacon to.

For Ben, however, breakfast was his favourite meal. He was ALL over the sweet stuff, crepes being his favourite. The Original Pancake House in Dallas were amazing. They contacted me via Twitter and tempted us in with a free Dutch oven pancake (bottom right picture). Easily won over! It was MASSIVE and very very sweet (Ben loved it).

Lunch

Lunch is always a tricky one on holiday. Especially when you’re hopping from rollercoaster to rollercoaster. In Orlando it was usually something snacky, like an INCREDIBLE bacon pretzel from Busch Gardens.

Though one day I obviously had to visit the Whole Food’s salad bar because it is EPIC.

I can’t even tell you what’s in there. Everything pretty much

In Dallas again it was a light lunch (apart from the day we had cupcakes for lunch).

The salad of the right was enormous (that plate is more of a serving plate): feta, chicken, nuts and cranberries

We tried out the Which Wich sandwich/salad shop which was really good. You took a paper bag and it had a long list of possible sandwich or salad ingredients and you just ticked which you wanted, gave it to the cashier, paid and then got your sandwich (or salad) back in the bag (or in a container for the salad).

Dinner

Dinner was by far my favourite meal. Jamie did great research because dinner was always amazing and never the same. We had Mexican, Greek, BBQ, Japanese, Italian and seafood. I mean seriously good meals.

For the Italian, we went to a very small restaurant called Giovanni’s which was about 20 minutes out from the International Drive area of Orlando. Not being a huge pizza or pasta fan I had a gyro meat and feta salad with pitta bread (this was me taking one for the team).

It was very tasty. However the piece de resistance were Ben’s garlic knots.

At first I was like “nope, not my thing at all”. But then I tried one. Honest to god, they were out of this world, party in your mouth, life-changingly good. I’m looking at the photo now and my mouth is watering. They literally oozed with garlicky goodness. I know that sounds gross and I am not a grease fan at all but they literally melted. Kate even said that this would be her last meal on death row (hypothetically speaking). For $4 that is pretty damn good.

One of the best restaurants we went to was a Japanese restaurant called Benihana. You sat around a large grill (hot plate?) and the chef cooked your meal in front of you. It was almost like a show. The chef chopped veg so quickly, he danced eggs on his knife, threw stuff into his chef’s hat…it was brilliant.

And it tasted amazing as well. I had salmon with a mango chutney served with chicken fried rice and it was gorgeous.

Definitely one to earmark!

*Next meals vegans/veggies probably won’t enjoy – scroll down to the other red text*

A meal that required a very light lunch was a trip to Texas de Brazil – an all-you-can-eat Brazil/Texas restaurant. It is heavily meat-based as the waiters bring round skewers of different meats and carve it onto your plate…this happens non-stop.

At first I piled my plate high with different bits and bobs from the salad bar (of which was HUGE) and then I started trying the meat and realised I needed to save my stomach for the that and not the vegetables. Filet mignon (and wrapped in bacon version), ribs, lamb chops, parmesan-crusted pork loin, pretty much every cut of steak, chicken, sausages…just amazing. I.N.C.R.E.D.I.B.L.E (but fairly expensive – totally worth it though).

Obviously there was Pig Fest as well which literally rocked my world.

Ribs, beef brisket, pulled pork…heaven

And of course I had my usual turkey leg (this time from Universal not Disney) and it was amazing. All that Nando’s time has been good training.

It was a lot less greasy than Disney’s and it was more smoked, which was just so good.

***OK for vegans/veggies to return!***

Other great meals were a delicious Greek feta salad, crab, a Mexican tortilla bowl salad, an incredibly HUGE salad from CowFish (great restaurant giving options of both sushi and burgers, yes I know I had a salad but I walked past a lady having one and it was massive and I was sold there and then – I couldn’t even finish it!).

Top L-R: Crab from Joe’s Crab Shack, feta salad from Greek tavern, chicken salad from Cowfish, Chicken tortilla salad

Well, I can’t deny I am a salad muncher and love American salads as they’re always huge with lots of toppings. But it wasn’t always healthy food…

Froyo became an almost daily thing. Kate and Jamie fully got involved as well, originally not knowing much about it.

We developed ways to get the best from those self-services – chosen sauce at the bottom, few sprinkles of ‘toppings’, then layer of froyo, then more sauce and more toppings, final layer of froyo and then more sauce and toppings. We nailed it.

We also went to Cold Stone Creamery a few times (introduced to us by Kate and Jamie), which was just incredible. Weirdly I had the best apple of my life there…

Ben had some seriously good ice cream as well (they literally roll out the ice cream on a cold stone and mix in incredible things like an entire piece of brownie and stupid amounts of sauce and toppings). But I saw the rows of candy apples and I was sold. My apple was dipped in toffee, then icing and then rolled over a crushed Heath bar. ROCKED my world in a big way. They even sliced it for me. I had no problems finishing it.

Other tasty treats included a WEDGE of red velvet cake and churros at the cinema (Ben and me shared both these things and promptly fell into a sugar coma), frozen custard, a huge slice of cheesecake Ben and I shared one evening and the best ice cream of my life (top line).

The ice cream was from a parlour called Sh-Booms & The Oldies. I had caramel pecan and peanut butter bomb. Just enough PB for me but it truly was the best thing ever. Better than Ben and Jerry’s! The place was very small but very cool (it looked like it was in the 1950s with the decor) and the manager was the nicest man in the world – really jokey and chatty and let us try so many flavours.

And finally, in Dallas one day we decided to have some cupcakes for lunch from a place called Trailer Cakes and they were FABULOUS.

We had three mini cupcakes each

We definitely pigged out ate a lot more in Orlando than Dallas and this was mainly because we were with friends and these things happen. At the end of our time in Orlando we both felt bloated and a bit sick and tired of food so Dallas was a bit lighter on the big meals. I probably overdid the ribs in Orlando (having had them three times) so didn’t quite feel the urge to have them again 😉

Apologies for such a long post!

What’s your favourite meal on holiday?

What are your favourite holiday treats?

Are you a meat lover or a carb lover on holiday? For me it’s all about meat as I find things like brisket, ribs and pulled pork a nightmare to cook.

February 11, 2015February 11, 2015

Orlando Holiday Recap

So here’s the first part of my holiday review. I’m going to recap Orlando and Dallas separately as they were so different and also do a post on food (because it was amazing).

For the Orlando part of our holiday we were spending it with one of my university friends, Kate, and her husband, Jamie. Ben and I get on really well with them but we’ve never been on holiday with them before (I have with Kate but not Jamie as well). There was apprehension I think between both parties beforehand as to how it would go but honestly there were no issues. Jamie is very much like me (hello all the foods) and Kate is like Ben (food is fuel). But we all love roller coasters and have quite crazy senses of humour. We really gelled well and there wasn’t anytime I felt either party had to compromise for the other. In fact sometimes it was Ben and Kate compromising for Jamie and my food choices, or vice versa!

We met up at the airport and all agreed Jamie’s Oliver’s (Jamie’s Italian) restaurant would be perfect for breakfast.

We all had the mammoth full breakfast and it was deeeeelicious and oh so filling. I also made sure to buy myself some food from Prêt a Manger as well as I detest the microwave plane food so I was sorted.

We arrived in Orlando probably about 10-11pm British time but by the time we got out and got our cars it was very late. We grabbed some food from a brilliant little spot Jamie knew of (side note: Kate and Jamie are like the experts of Orlando having been there quite a few times and Jamie, like me, always does his research on good restaurants so we were set!) and then we crashed at the hotel.

Our hotel was a Universal hotel called Cabana Beach Bay Resort and it was huge. There were four different buildings, a Starbucks, a bowling alley, arcade, two large pool areas (regular pools, lazy river, water slide and hot tub), a diner, bars, gift shop, an amazing gym and regular shuttle buses to City Walk where Universal Studios and Islands of Adventure are located.

The first day started rather dismally it must be said. It was chilly and raining. We met up to go to IHOP for breakfast which was great but we realised that with the weather being pants it probably wasn’t a good idea to go to the parks. This made us all a bit grumpy.

In the end though Ben and I decided to be really exciting and go to the gym while Kate and Jamie went shopping. Judge away but we didn’t fancy shopping and had planned to go to the gym Sunday morning so just switched it up so we could sleep in the next day. It made sense to us!

Work out selfie – could we be having anymore fun??

I’ll post more on the fitness side of the holidays another day as we did do a lot of running and gym stuff on holiday. It might sound odd but to me it’s part of who I am and to not do it would be weird. Plus I hate coming back from holiday feeling unfit and struggling to get back into the swing of things.

Anyway while we were at the gym the sun came out! Jamie and Kate arrived back and we got ourselves showered and ready to FINALLY hit the parks.

That’s Jamie photo-bombing behind us – we didn’t even realise!

We went to Universal Studios and it was brilliant. The whole new Harry Potter area (Diagon Alley) was brilliant. It looked so realistic and the new ride was pretty good. The Harry Potter restaurants were hilarious with the American’s take on British food (jacket potato with broccoli and cheese anyone?).

MIB ride – Kate taught me the tricks of the trade to high score

We went on quite a few different rides and enjoyed ourselves immensely. The best part about our hotel is the location as we could dip into either of the Universal parks so easily (within 15 minutes) so we never felt we had to stay and do everything all at once. We went back to the parks quite a few times over the course of our eight days there.

Sunday we decided to do Sea World. Before the holiday I didn’t want to go. I’ve seen Black Fish and I’m not a fan of watching animals that should be in the wild amuse humans for the sake of making money. It’s not right. That said, we decided to go because Kate and Jamie said the park was great with the rides and our tickets were a combo anyway so the money was going there regardless of whether we actually went or not. Feeble excuse I know. In my defence though I didn’t watch the shows with the others. It’s not something I enjoy so I left them to it while I went on a few rides and wandered around the park (the shows were only 30 minutes). It’s very strange walking round a theme park on your own!

The rides were brilliant. There was one called Manta and it was basically like Air at Alton Towers but on steroids. So much fun! Because it was so close, like Universal Studios, we were able to pop back in to do the rides again another day.

Monday we went to Busch Gardens. This park is quite far away as it’s located in Tampa, which is about an hour and a half away. We decided to drive separately (most of the time we drove together) so if one couple fancied leaving early they could.

Busch Gardens is a fantastic park for adrenaline junkies. It’s literally all just big roller coasters, no messing around. And we loved it! It was very quiet and we went straight to the new ride, Falcon’s Fury, and got on it twice in quick succession.

I honestly haven’t been that scared on a ride for a long time. It takes you up so high. As we got near the top the bravado I had when I was safely on the ground had disappeared and I said to Ben I wanted to get off. Not much he could do there! The seats then tilt you so you look straight down. If the restraints failed you’re dead, 100%. Then it drops you and you fall straight down. It was AMAZING.

The rest of the day we ran round the park like little kids going from one ride to the next. It was awesome. Kate and Jamie fancied looking around the animal enclosures (of which there were loads: giraffes, cheetahs, hippos, etc.) while we decided to make our way back and get some froyo and then chill in the hot tub.

We also had a fun day of playing crazy golf and bowling which was just such good fun. The golf was brilliant; lots of banter and fighting talk. The good thing was that we could pay for two sessions discounted so we came back one evening for another round. I was appalling at bowling but it was still a good laugh (though I lost by stupid amounts every time).

The bowling was at the hotel and the crazy golf was on City Walk

One of the best evenings was seeing the ice hockey. At first I was like “pfft, I’m not that interested but it’ll be an experience”. But WOW it is intense.

The Amway Center

And there was a fight! Like a proper gloves-down-helmets-off-fists-out FIGHT. While Kate and I were shocked and morally outraged the boys were loving it! OK I know this is a regular thing for ice hockey but to us naive and gentle ‘soccer’ watching Brits (“oh no there’s a ball, I will fall down now”) it was shocking.

Obviously I tried to catch it on my phone

For me one of the best days by far was the last Saturday in Orlando. It started with Ben and me getting up stupidly early to drive to Clermont (30 minutes away) for the Orlando parkrun (insert stupidly excited dance here). I’ll talk more about this on another post but it was brilliant!

We then found breakfast in a rather dodgy IHOP afterwards (this is what happens when Ben and Anna venture off from their Orlando Experts and fend for themselves). After showering and meeting up with Kate and Jamie we then headed off to Pig Fest. What is Pig Fest I hear you ask? I apologise in advance now to any vegans or vegetarians, this will not be your thing at all.Pig Fest is basically a huge gathering of people who compete in BBQ cooking. BBQ’ing in the States is not as we Brits know it (sausages and burgers) but proper smoking ovens serving things like ribs, brisket, chicken wings and pulled pork. Literally heaven. Look how excited Jamie and me are?? This was an afternoon for Kate and Ben to take one for the team.

Jamie and me with our Pig Bucks

You bought ‘Pig Bucks’ at the entrance (1 dollar = 1 Pig Buck) and then use those bucks to buy from different vendors to eat to your heart’s content. There were also non-selling vendors who were just competing as well. I would say it was 95% American. It wasn’t really a tourist hot spot in the sense that the parks are. And this made it so much more fun!

It felt very ‘real’ America, you know? The food was awesome…Jamie and I were like children in a sweets shop. Oh the ribs!! Ben isn’t a huge BBQ fan but he fully enjoyed the deep fried sweet treats. But more on that in another post…

We also spent an evening in Downtown Disney and saw the new Hunger Games film. This is something Ben and I would never have thought to have done and when Jamie and Kate suggested it it sounded like a good way to chill out.

The film was pretty dull though…I fell asleep twice! But you have to see it to see the final one *grumble grumble*. I did enjoy the experience though (and naps in such comfy chairs are awesome).

Basically Orlando was a whirlwind of roller coasters, theme parks, all the food and just good fun. It was lovely to spend the time with Jamie and Kate and we just all got on so well and had a laugh together. I would say we definitely missed them in Dallas!

Just chilling with Decepticon (like I know who that is…)

Ben would kill me if I didn’t mention one final awesome thing about Orlando…the cars:

Both couples got Mustang convertibles…*sighs*. Having the roof down was cool but it did mess my hair up (I know, such a girl comment).

Have you been to Orlando before?

Do you enjoy roller coasters?

Do you ever watch live sports on holiday? We’ve never done so before but Ben is now addicted. We only saw a very minor league team but he wants to see the big guns now (NHL? Is that right??)

December 15, 2014

So excited

The weekend has just flow by. I can’t believe how close to Christmas we are now! And how close to Ben and my next holiday – wooo wooo!

At the end of January we’re off to Florida to go and do some theme park craziness (though missing out Disney World as it didn’t rock our world at all the last time we went) for 8 days, and then travelling to Dallas for 6 days. The first part of the holiday we’re going with a couple friend of ours, Kate and Jamie, and they are literally obsessed with theme parks and Florida. They’re going for two weeks which was just too hardcore for us, which is why we’re then going to Dallas.

So this weekend gone we went up to Bristol to stay over at Kate and Jamie’s house on Saturday to get down to the Holiday Master Plan, i.e. where we want to go, what we want to do and more importantly what kind of restaurants and food we like and want to go to. Jamie is a HUGE food enthusiast and loves all the American-style food and, well, food in general. Jamie is like the male version of me basically. Food is important to us!

They cooked an amazing feast of food. Honestly it was incredible.

There were tortilla chips with dips, oven-roasted hot and plain chicken wings, corn on the cobs, home-made burgers, crispy bacon, ranch dressed slaw and regular salad and my personal favourite RIBS.

Ribs are one of my favourite meals in the entire world. I adore them. It was such a good spread, but it didn’t end there.

Pudding!

Home-made brownie, hot fudge sauce and Hagen Daaz vanilla ice cream. Oh my life. All in a special Mickey Mouse bowl (sink?). The photo above really doesn’t do it justice but as you can see there was a HEFTY amount of ice cream there – a slab I would say.

We all stumbled to the finish line in states of absolute fullness and severe feelings of sick. We literally sat there in silence (I’d like to say a satisfied silence, but it was more a silence of necessity as movement in general was painful at that point). I regret nothing though 😉

What was really fun was we took Alfie with us and he got to meet their pug, Doug. They seemed to get on well – though Alfie refused to allow Doug to sniff his bottom. Not sure what that means in Dog Code. But Doug didn’t mind Alfie having a sniff. I like to think that this is Alfie asserting his Alfa male status 😉 Or just being grumpy!

We had such a fun evening, ending in a random Harry Potter quiz to get us ready for the mayhem ahead. We’re all huge fans of Harry Potter, roller coasters and general silliness that it will just be like being a kid again I think. And we’re staying in the same hotel which is a walk or a short bus ride from Universal Studios so it’s perfect. And we’ve got tickets to an ice hockey game!! It should be mental 😀

The next morning we all went for a walk with Alfie and Doug to their nearby park and had a nice long walk – the conversation never veering far from the impending holiday. We are all SO excited.

We got back and Jamie did a fabulous pancake breakfast for Ben and Kate. I brought my porridge (what did you expect?). My friends know what I’m like (apple obsessed, porridge lover…) so they didn’t mind. Ben was in chocolate chip, cream and syrup heaven though.

He stacked up his three pancakes (first batch) with white and milk chocolate chips in between each layer, coated with golden syrup and then finished with cream. He loved it. I’m actually not a massive pancake fan (or crepes for that matter) so America in that respect is a little disappointing at breakfast for me. I’d much prefer just my regular porridge as the idea of lots of sweet stuff in the morning doesn’t do it for me. When we last went to Florida we had a villa so I could satisfy my porridge need by making it myself but this time we’re in a hotel. It might be time for me to branch out. Watch this space…

And then we were on our merry way back home. It was such good fun and I now have a list of restaurants that I’m subsequently going to peruse through. Does anyone else do that? Find restaurants beforehand and then look through their menus? It gets me really excited about what’s to come!

And so we drove back home, Alfie on my lap. He hates travelling in the car but when he got to look out of the window he was more impressed.

What do you eat for breakfast on holiday? Do you branch out and have something different? Any recommendations for a pancake un-enthusiast?

What’s the most exciting part about going on holiday for you? For me a big part if trying new foods. But going with friends now is going to add a brilliant new element – and we’re all similar to each other in different ways so it makes things very easy.

Do you enjoy roller coasters?