I am trying to drink in as much as I can in our short stay here, because before we know it, we’ll be outta here, no doubt planning a return ‘dream’ trip back.

Day 3 had us lying in for a little bit and eventually leaving the hotel just after lunch to make the trek across town to Santa Monica for a late lunch at Planet Raw.

This is only our second raw restaurant we have visited and so far MY favourite!

To start with I had

with the most amazingly crunchy sweet granola topping. This was more like a dessert, so Pat chose to save it for last.

Then we shared:

SPRING ROLLS avocado, kelp noodles, cabbage, and Thai herbs, in a coconut wrapper with a no-peanut sauce

and one of the daily specials – felafel wrap with a goregous crunchy little sandwich thingy on the side.

Manus insisted on paying the bill

I thought I saw Chef Juliano sitting by the kitchen working away but I wasn’t sure. I wish, I’d had the guts to say hello and tell him how MUCH we enjoyed the meal – super tasty and well seasoned!

Then it was time to head off to 3rd street promenade

And to catch up with this lovely lady

Erin from Living and Loving in LA which was cut short because Manus was a little under the weather but was fun to meet the little lady in the flesh after a couple of years of emailing back and forth!

Hidy ho everyone. How has your weekend been? Mine has been gorgeous. I haven’t really been up to too much except chilling out in my hotel room, watching movies and going for walks. But I think I need to up the ante now as I might be resting on my weight loss laurels. But this morning I did wake up with a blocked nose and feeling a bit lethargic, and it seems back home in Saudi everyone seems to be dropping like flies, including the other flight attendants. So I’ll be pumping my body up with plenty of goodness, more than ever right now and getting plenty of rest.

Thanks for all your lovely comments, and yes you are right, I do seem to be travelling loads lately, but I guess that is part and parcel of the life of a flight attendant. Usually I do get to stay in my own bed a lot more often than I have of late but if I didn’t enjoy the travel then I would definitely be in the wrong occupation right? Hehe. It does get tough at times though, living out of a suitcase and does require plenty of organisation (of which I have none – I am still hoping that one day it will just come to me).

Yesterday I was able to change rooms from my small box like room with no natural lighting to same size room but with a balcony and sea views. Although it is winter here, as all the local keep reminding me, it is still cloudless blue skys and the extent of my winter clothing even with the sliding door open is my light hoodie. It is nice to fall asleep to the sound of the small waves lapping the sand.

Anyway when I finally got to change rooms, I decided to celebrate with a green smoothie made with my Tribest Personal Travel Blender .

I gave up on bringing the Vita Mix as it is only really good for regions with 110V and most places in the world are 220V. Plus I am only away for 2 weeks and this blender is pretty darn good for single servings. Unless you get over zealous like me and make TOO much and spray green goo all over your new hotel room!! No piccies haha!

Anyway this green smoothie looked like this right before I put my spirulina powder in:

Then me enjoying it out of wine glass no less on my balcony (ahem in winter…what the! Doesn’t feel like winter to me)

I headed out for a short stroll along the corniche and to watch the sun go down. It was really nice. This was the view when I got back to my room. Ahhh.

This morning I woke up starving but with a blocked nose nonetheless but didn’t really feel like another smoothie, so I headed downstairs for a buffet breakie.

I started off with a Green Tea & Mint (in hindsight I would have put some fresh mint in it as well!)

And my new latest obsession:

Ful Medames : slow cooked brown fava beans, topped with lemon juice, olive oil, tomatoes, parsley and raw onions.

Doesn’t it just look divine? And aren’t my photography skills improving??? Must be my new PINK camera

Usually eaten with arabic bread but today I lashed out and had another favourite:

ZAATAR!!!

Doesn’t usually look like this as it is usually made with thicker bread but I wasn’t complaining. One of my favourite bloggers HippieMom wrote about Zaatar last month here. This was awesome with my 2 bowls – yes that’s right 2 of Ful (or Foul) pronounced Fool. Love this stuff. It is usually more mashed up than this in Saudi but this kind really warmed my soul.

No real crazy plans for today, except to get some work done in my room, hopefully muster the motivation to do a jog on the hotel treadmill, take it easy so I don’t get any more sniffles, THEN I have registered to participate in an Online Raw Holiday Class being held today (or tonight my time) with Elaina Love. I have never done one of these before, but apparently it is being held at Beets Cafe in Austin, Texas but for those of us that cannot be there, we get to participate through a chat room and watch the class in real time. So exciting. I am going to learn how to make:

All Raw & Vegan!!!! I’ll let you know how it goes

Finally something I came across through Dhurmil Purohit’s We Like It Raw site was this video of Alicia Silverstone talking about her new vegan cookbook, The Kind Diet. Everything she talks about seriously, it is as if the words were coming right outmy mouth. Go sista! Christmas stocking stuffer idea!!!