Hi friends,
Well it’s that time of year again — the one where everyone takes a couple minutes to take stock of how the past 12 months have gone? This year has been a particularly important one for myself and Chris. It was our first year of married life. It was a year spent celebrating our marriage around the world with family and friends. It was a year that we made some pretty big decisions about our future (not yet shared here!), and one that had a lot of amazing traveling in it …
As I sit here working on a passion project of mine — which, to be fair, I’ve been working on for the better part of a year now — I realized that I’ve up until this time passed up a perfectly lovely opportunity to give thanks to all the inspirational animals I’ve come across in my travels. These animals have been so much fun to meet and learn about, and I’m so grateful to them for being a part of the learning process that is traveling.
So without further ado, please meet some of my favorite animals I’ve met on my journeys:
^^ This is Shawn the Koala from the Koala Park Zoo in Sydney.
He’s the animal that started my whole project idea.
^^ Can’t you tell he’s just whispering amazing ideas in my direction!
^^ This is a replica of a Kookaburra bird in the
Museum of Natural History. They’re known for their good-natured,
hysterical laugh, which can sound a lot like a human’s.
^^ This is a red panda — let’s call her Jia. This photo is from the
Philadelphia Zoo, which is sort of cheating because my real
inspiration came from the red pandas at the Central Park Zoo.
This was a better photo, though.
^^ These are pigeons. And while yes, these pigeons are in London,
let’s be honest — the real inspirational pigeons live right here in
good ole’ NYC.
^^If we’re being even more honest, my true obsession with pigeons began
when I was a toddler and my parents lost me in the Piazza San Marco
in Venice because I was chasing them. That’s why I took this
dorky photo when we were back there in 2012.
What inspires you when you travel?
Bis bald, friends!
Hi friends!
Oh. My. Goodness. What a whirlwind! So Chris and I just said farewell to his parents who, luckily, we’ll be seeing again for our wedding celebration in Australia in just five months. This apartment always feels so sad and lonely when they leave.
While they were here we took a trip to London, Chris ran the marathon and we headed upstate for a little Magnanini Winery wedding celebration with my mom’s side of the family.
It was a fast and furious two weeks, to say the least!
And that’s why I’m a tad late on my London posting. Of course it’s nowhere near faded from memory yet, but I do like to get my thoughts down on the blog as soon as possible, so I don’t leave any details out.
So about that, it was late last Thursday when we left for our little journey ….
Continue reading “London 2013 and Chris’s 5th World Marathon Complete!”
Hi friends!
So we’re back from our little jaunt in England. I’ll have to post later after I’ve downloaded my photos and had a chance to collect my thoughts, but overall the trip was fantastic. We saw Les Miserables at the Queen’s theater (my first time!), caught up with some of Chris’s friends from both London and Australia and had a go-round on the London Eye.
We also rented bikes with the Barclays Cycle Hire for a trip around the city on Monday and very nearly missed our flight back home because we couldn’t find a place to return them. (More on that later!)
Bis bald friends! I’ll be back soon!
Hi friends,
So let’s pretend that we’re back to last Sunday, as my sister and I were boarding our Icelandair plane for London. It’s the day that our whole Euro-adventure began…
With our layover in Iceland, we started a little worried that a certain volcano might erupt and ruin the whole wonderous time that we had planned (and paid for). Lucky for us (and everyone around us…trust me), that didn’t happen. We spent three days in London, a few hours in Paris, and three days in Rome, with a couple hours in Florence stuffed in there as well. In order to give this trip the full importance that I feel it deserves (because believe me, it deserves importance), I’m going to break the blog entries into three shifts—London, Paris and Rome. So let’s get started across the pond….