Ben Folds Concert

Tomorrow is my birthday and we celebrated by going to see Ben Folds in concert. He played at Florida Atlantic University last night and the show was AWESOME! He played most of the songs from his recent albun, Way to Normal, along with many of the songs that made him famous like Rockin' the Suburbs and Landed.

It was too much fun. We ate at Chops Lobster Bar before the show. The food was fantastic. I ate the best salmon that I have ever had in my life. It was so tender that it felt like chewing on air in my mouth.

We stayed at the Boca Resort .
PLEASE check out the website because the decor of this hotel is so beautiful. I could not figure out how to copy the photos because they are in a slide show so please see the website of this Mizner gem. It turns out that Ben Folds was staying at the hotel as well!

Weekend Getaway

Instead of taking a big vacation during Spring Break, we spent a long weekend in Miami and Palm Beach. We stayed the first two nights at the Fontainebleau in Miami Beach. Check out their website at Fontainebleau.com . This hotel recently underwent a massive BILLION dollar renovation. It is currently Miami's hotspot. I spied Russell Simmons hanging by the pool. Despite all of this, we will not be staying at this hotel again. Too big, too glitzy, too much show, and not enough service.

While in Miami, we ate at Maison d'Azur at the historic Astor Hotel. It was wonderful!!! Next time we go to Miami, I definitely want to stay at this hotel. It was small, quaint, and stylish. The French cuisine was mouth watering. Excellent.



We shopped at Bal Harbour shops...tres chic! We saw several women shopping with their fancy little dogs in tow. It was funny seeing a miniature Pinscher sitting on a sofa in the shoe salon at Neiman Marcus. What happens when the dog needs to go poo poo? Who is in charge of this? Does the owner bag it or just leave it for someone else?


Koi fish are beautiful but they kind of gross me out at the same time.


A very lucky turtle...


On the way home, we stopped in Palm Beach for the day and spent the night at The Colony on Worth Avenue. It is also a historic hotel with European flavor - small, quaint, beautiful.



This pool was waaaaay more relaxing than the mega-pool at Fontainebleau!

We ate dinner at Cafe Boulud at the Brazilian Court Hotel (another favorite hotel). Gorgeous!

Lesson learned - less is often more. Good day!

Do the Charleston!

After Christmas we took a trip to Savannah, Georgia, and Charleston, South Carolina, and had a great time in both cities. I was not prepared for the beauty, the friendliness, or the hundreds of beautiful homes. Every street is lined with historic, beautiful homes. It is gorgeous!


We stayed at the Charleston Place Hotel on Meeting Street which is right in the historic area and shopping district. It is an Orient Express hotel so it was quite nice. There were many upscale shops in the hotel including Gucci, Louis Vuitton, and St. John. We were very lucky to get rooms here as this was a last minute kind of trip.

Charleston has great shopping. There are numerous fine art galleries in this area and some very nice men's clothiers. The cool part is that all of the shops and galleries are in beautiful, old buildings. I enjoyed seeing them more than actually shopping.


The homes are breathtaking. As in Savannah, I ran through the historic neighborhoods on my morning runs. It's funny how in this setting, I didn't feel tired or thirsty on my runs (as usual), I was distracted by all the beauty around me!










I peeked in gardens along the way, soaking in ideas and inspiration for my own garden at home.

Again, we ate at many wonderful restaurants including Cypress,

82 Queen,

and my favorite, Gaulart and Maliclet - Fast and French on Broad Street. Why was this my favorite? I'll tell you why...It was recommended by a local who said that she eats here at least once a week. That was a good sign. When we got there we discovered that it was a very small place - TINY. It was packed with people, mostly sitting at "community" tables or bars. We waited about half an hour and used the time people watching. The owner finally summoned us to be seated. We followed him through the maze of packed people to the very back of the restaurant. I mean VERY BACK. It was more like a storage area. This just added to the anticipation of the delicious food to come. We were not disappointed. I had a slab of smoked salmon with a smear of goat cheese and a bowl of bean soup. It melted in my mouth. It was sooooo goooood and quite an adventure.

This is what the place looks like empty. I pulled this photo from their website.

As usual, as soon as I was able, I searched on-line for Charleston real estate (fantasy time). I found my Charleston dream house. It is located on King Street and was built in 1852. It is currently listed at $7,650,000. Worth every penny...

I love vine covered walls. Look at the greenhouse on the right.

A few interior shots...

And for my favorite part, the kitchen...

I could make a lot of shrimp and grits in this kitchen!

Mmm, mmm, good!

Random Thursday Post

This post will probably not make any sense - just catching up on a few things...


First of all, while in Savannah, Georgia, last week I discovered the neatest store called The Paris Market (check out their website at http://www.theparismarket.com/). I think I suffered from heart palpitations while in this store because I was so overwhelmed with all of the beautiful things. I could not think straight and ended up buying only books (my weakness)!


Of course, the first thing I did upon arriving in Savannah was pick up a real estate magazine just to fuel my fantasy life. The next two homes are in the historic district and are for sale. The first one is a fixer-upper and the second is already fixed.

I passed this beautiful doorway on my way to dinner one night. I love the fruit display above the doors. I forgot to include photos of Forsyth Park in my last post. This is where we began our morning run. We ran from here through the squares, down to River Street, along the river, back through the neighborhoods, around the park, and back to our hotel. This gave me an up close (and slow motion) view of many of the beautiful homes.

Savannah supposedly has more ghosts than any other American town. We took the evening ghost tour. It was very interesting.

We actually got to go inside the Sorrel Weed House as part of the ghost tour. It was featured on Ghost Hunters. This is a daytime photo so it is not as spooky in this shot. Believe me, at 10:30pm it was spooky. I screamed so loud at one point that I set the whole group off screaming. I could not get out of there fast enough.

We ate at The Olde Pink House one night. It was wonderful...

We ate at Elizabeth's on 37th another night. It was wonderful, too! Marc Jacobs was also dining there the night we were there.

Now, on to another subject...the next few photos (via PointClickHome) feature an interesting mix of old and new.

The Regency Shop (http://www.theregencyshop.com/) asked me to comment on their store. I checked it out and found beautiful reproduction pieces to mix with older antiques to get that perfect balance of old and new. Check these out...

Both this Eames style chair and this Mies Van der Rohe style lounger would work in almost any interior.

Because these are interpretations of the original designer lines, they are much less expensive! The Eames style chair is listed at $895.00 and the lounger at $2,195.00. It's worth a look for anyone looking for high style without the super high price.

Oh - One more thing about Savannah (I promise I will move on to Charleston in my next post)...I love the book and subsequent movie, Midnight in the Garden of Good and Evil by John Berendt and I was hoping to see The Lady Chablis (those of you who have seen the movie know who I am talking about) while in Savannah, but did not get to see her perform as she is not performing there at this time.

Oh well, another reason to go back. Bye, y'all!