melrose adventures.

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Hi friends!

Wow, after literally an eternity I’m back on the blog! Where have I been you ask? Four months later..although I have been active on my Instagram, I haven’t brought myself to sit down and write a post although I have an accumulating pile of pictures and adventures to put words to. The thought to write a post has crossed my mind so many times these last few months, but that thought quickly was replaced with the busy-ness of not only the holiday season, but of starting a new job and wanting to place more of my focus on that. Also, for a while I have felt more and more defeated by that darn Instagram algorithm, but I’ve decided that this started as my creative outlet and will continue to document all the adventures that I go on.

PHEW. Now that we’ve gotten past that explanation… I am finally going to share my birthday LA day, which was everything that this blogger foodie girl could ask for.

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We started the day off at Bottega Louie, which I had dreamt of trying their macarons FOREVER, but had never made the trek to downtown LA to get to.

Lemme just tell you, their beautiful gold dusted macarons were every bit as good as they were pretty! Pictured above is their birthday cake macaron, which is the perfect bite-sized slice of cake IMHO.

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After filling ourselves with crepes and truffle fries with the best aioli sauce ever, we made the trek through the streets of DTLA to Little Damage.

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Did someone say “healthy ice cream?” Well, this is charcoal-activated so it’s pretty much #HEALTH. Also, I like my ice cream blacker than my eyeliner…..

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They have bright blue ice-cream which tastes like birthday cake, and the charcoal activated flavors include cinnamon and coffee. You can also swirl the two together, and TA-DA…prettiest black ice cream on the block.

Enough of downtown LA, it was time to head over to Melrose Ave and find some pretty blogger walls to take pictures in front of.

Which we did, on basically every block of that gorgeous street…aka a plethora of glorious street parking!

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Aw yay, friends. Look how gorg they all are ❤ This rainbow wall was knit and so colorful.

*Insert Famous Walls ft Lena Below*

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We also stumbled upon the cutest Revolve pop-up..as soon as I saw it I knew there was a cute rooftop and rushed in to the top where there was a PINK CHRISTMAS TREE and PHOTOBOOTH. Best. Find. Everrrrrrrr.

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And of course… no birthday would be complete without some Alfred Tea Room and Carrera Cafe…

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Now let the accumulation of cute dessert places begin for the next LA trip!

Xoxo,

-Lena

abbot kinney

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Hi loves!

Fall is here (although it’s still SUPER HOT HERE aka 90s in SoCal) and the holiday season will be here before we know it. The last quarter of the year always goes by as fast as a blink!

I finally got the chance to explore Abbot Kinney, which is every artsy coffee lover’s DREAM! Even though LA is only an hour away I tend to rarely go and avoid it as much as possible. So after wanting to visit this place for over a year I finally made it to spend more time exploring it.

Dessert and coffee crawls are what I would totally recommend doing here! For dessert, you have options like the Portland renowned Salt & Straw, Blue Star Donuts, pastries from Mr. Holmes sold inside of Intelligentsia to name a few.

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If you’re going to Salt & Straw on a warm day, expect a wait! We waited 30+ minutes as the line wrapped around the building. My tastebuds were SOO satisfied though. I am obsessed with their Stumptown coffee flavor as well as the Toffee Crunch.

For coffee, there is the Tom’s Roastery, Blue Bottle, and Intelligentsia all within steps of each other. Caffeine high say whaaaaaa?!

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The Tom’s Roastery was SO STINKIN’ cute. This was one of the main reasons I wanted to visit. It also serves as their flagship store, and they have all of the new items that you can’t even buy online available for purchase and to try on! I may have fell in love with one or two pairs of shoes as I sipped my spicy mocha.

From cute boutiques to good food, I also loved all the artwork on walls all around the street. Obviously I couldn’t leave without getting my wings shot.

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#NotReallyHeartBrokenTho…. 🙂

Continuously exploring, till the next time…

Xoxo,

-Lena