Gretch Runs

Hi everyone! Back in March (and the beginning of April), Dan and I went on an amazing trip to Norway. We decided to go because it was always our dream to see the Northern Lights, and this winter the sun was at its solar maximum  - which meant it was the perfect time to go. We built an entire itinerary around seeing the lights and it ended up being a great trip! We spent the first week in Tromso, then flew down to Bergen. From there we took the train to Voss, then a fjord cruise to Flam. The final train of our trip took us to our last Norwegian stop in Oslo. Today I'll be talking all about Tromso - where we stayed, our tours, and all the food we ate! Hotel For our first hotel, we ended up staying at Clarion Hotel The Edge . The location was perfect- we were right in town and had easy walking access to all of our tour meeting spots, restaurants, and the bus route. We also had a great view of the fjord! One of my favorite parts of this hotel was the included breakfast- there were so m...

Hello! Does this thing even work anymore? It's been a very long time since my last post, and that's mostly because my last few months have been very busy. Between a lot of travel, keeping up a busy social calendar, exercising, and working crazy hours, I kind of let everything else go by the wayside. But- I'm excited to be back and hopefully will post more regularly in 2025! In the meantime, here are a few highlights from the end of 2024 as well as a few favorites from the year. - I got to see Earth Wind and Fire in concert with Chicago! They're one of my favorite bands so I was really excited to see them. This was also my first concert at Coastal Credit Union, which is a really cool outdoor concert space in Raleigh. I also saw Gerald Albright at the Raleigh Improv and that was a really fun experience. - I did another sprint triathlon and placed in my age group for the first time. I did the same race last year and took about 10 minutes off my total time which I'm rea...

I'm back today to share some of my favorites from my recent trip to Argentina! It was my first time in South America (and first time in the southern hemisphere) and it completely blew me away. Usually when I'm recapping trips I'll have separate posts for each city, but we went to so many places that I would never finish it up (ahem..still working on my posts from Slovenia almost a year ago...) so instead- I'll share my favorites from each city in one post. Buenos Aires Restaurant : Our very last meal of the entire trip was at Sacro, which is an entirely vegan restaurant in Palermo. It was more of a fine dining type of place, but the prices were very reasonable and everything was incredible. Dan and I got a few small plates to share and everything was so delicious! Activity : Tango show. This was high on my list of things to do in Argentina since the Argentine Tango is one of my favorite dance styles, and luckily we got to go our very first night in the country. We ended...

I realized today that I need to wrap up my posts about my trip to Europe, because we just booked our flights for our next trip! This is to a part of the world we’ve never been to before, and a new hemisphere! Any guesses where we’re going? But back to our last trip. So far I shared about going to the sea , the mountains , and the lake , but now we’re journeying up to Austria!  We went there for a good reason- the Red Bull Ring is right outside of Slovenia in the town of Spielberg, Austria. For those of you who don’t know, Dan and I are both big Formula One fans (he’s been one for a while and I got into it after watching Drive to Survive).  He found out that there are opportunities for regular people to drive cars on the same track that the race uses, so we had to do it! I got to be a passenger princess and it was such a cool experience- we got over 150 MPH and it was insane how fast it felt, but still way slower than the actual drivers. We also got a tour of the track and got ...

I'm finally back to continue recapping our amazing Europe trip today! It's been nice to break it up so much because it feels like I'm reliving the trip every time I get to talk about it. We left off in part 2 in Bovec with some incredible excursions and mountain views, and are heading to Lake Bled. If you've ever seen an image of Slovenia (or if you Google it right now), this is the place that you'll see. This lake sits right by the border of Austria and is a quick bus ride from the capital city of Ljubliana, so it's a very popular day trip. We decided to stay here for a few days though, and I'm really glad that we did! We stayed at the Penzion Berc, which had a great location and was the most charming place we stayed in during this entire trip. This is a family-owned B&B, which started out as a farm and developed into the amazing place that it is today. We had the best hospitality here, along with a delicious breakfast every morning! The location was g...

Welcome to part two of my trip recap post! We just left Izola and said goodbye to the sea, but were heading towards some of the most beautiful water and mountains I've ever seen in my life in Bovec, Slovenia. This is part of the Julian Alps, and Dan described this area as the "adventure capital of Slovenia". I can definitely confirm that! We stayed at Hotel Sanje ob Soci, which was probably my favorite place we stayed during the trip. The building is a beautiful A frame with incredible views of the mountains, and also had a sauna in the basement! It was right down the street from the tiny and cute downtown area and all of the workers were amazing.  Plus, the breakfast was incredible. One day we were the only ones who ordered breakfast and we had a feast set out for us right in front of a roaring fireplace. Our first full day was one of the highlights of the entire trip. We started in the morning by heading down the road to Nature's Way to meet up with our guide for ca...