Memorial Day Weekend Road Trip: Newport Beach, Orange County

Happy Memorial Day and Bank Holiday Monday everyone! This long weekend means a full 4 days off for me here in Los Angeles, and yesterday also marked the exact one month mark to how long I have left living in Southern California. At this exact moment next month I’ll probably be somewhere above the Atlantic on my way back to London; it is a pretty crazy thought! To mark this weekend I left the City of Los Angeles for the first time in 9 months to take a road trip down the coast with my friend Nicole to check out Newport Beach, Orange County. 

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We started our trip with Sunday morning at Haute Cakes Caffe, somewhere that had received glowing recommendations for the both of us from friends and readers. I’m going to put a full review up soon, but I’m pretty sure the below shot from my Instagram feed highlights how much I enjoyed my meal. Thank you to everyone who sent us in that direction! (We were stuffed for the rest of the day!)

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Only people who take food in restaurants understand other people who take photos of food in restaurants  One of the things I love about hanging out with Nicole, is the fact that we both pathologically and unapologetically photograph and Instagram everything in sight.

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There will be more on this delicious Coconut Cloud cupcake in a later post, but for now I want to note that every single cupcake in the world aught to have its own mini cake stand.

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The only way to deal with SoCal traffic is to take selfies and crank up the days road trip soundtrack: ‘Wake Up Call’ by Maroon 5, ’22’ by Taylor Swift and ‘Blurred Lines’ by Robin Thicke, T.I and Pharrell

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Moi, in search of the beach via Nicole’s amazing Instagam feed. I’m always in awe of her iPhone photos, she is really worth a follow. Also, isn’t this the most typical SoCal scene?

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Full outfit post to follow when I post some of the photos Nicole took of me yesterday, but here you can see I’m wearing this amazing (but easily creased) dress which was a gift from the wonderful team at Splendid, Alexander McQueen sunglasses via Sunglasses Shop and a mixture of J.Crew and Kate Spade enamel bangles.  

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On the way back to the car to head to Fashion Island so Nicole could get a pre-date blow out at Dry Bar (such an incredible place with wonderful service and champagne. If you live in San Fran, SoCal, New York, Texas, Arizona or Washington D.C. I’d really recommend you head over there for a blow out before a special occasion!) I bumped into two of the most discerning bar partrons I’ve ever met sitting in the window of one of the waterfront watering holes. Certainly much better dressed than their London pigeon counterparts. 

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