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Arizona Architecture: Taliesin West
Every great architect is – necessarily – a great poet. He must be a great original interpreter of his time, his day, his age.” Frank Lloyd Wright There are a lot of attractions in Phoenix, Arizona that vie for your time and attention—meandering through the Desert Botanic Gardens, shopping in Old Town Scottsdale, hiking around Camelback Mountain. If you’re taking a trip to Arizona, allow me to add something to your can’t-miss-list: a tour of American architect Frank Lloyd Wright’s winter home, Taliesin West. Much like the Grand Canyon, Frank Lloyd Wright really needs no introduction. Even to readers who aren’t interested in architecture or design, the name will ring familiar,…
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Grand Canyon: South Rim
What makes you come alive? What satisfies you at the same time that it urges you to do more, feel more, be more? If you’ve been following my blog for a while, you probably know that I am driven by a lust for adventure, always chasing after those sterling, shining moments of beauty that you hold in your heart for the rest of your life. There’s nothing quite as soul-expanding as a trip to the Grand Canyon. The place itself needs no real introduction, but I’ll set the scene: Our Trip to the Grand Canyon Matt and I wake up to a scorcher of a Sunday in Carefree, Arizona, just…
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Sedona, Arizona
Sedona crackles with magic. You feel it as you cross into Red Rock territory, as you watch the sun paint masterpieces onto the ruddy sandstone formations. At full sun, the rocks glow brilliant orange; in the shadows of a sunset, they take on softer pink and purple hues.
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The Cliffs of Moher
Inconceivable! The Princess Bride On our final full day of our multi-country adventures through Spain and Ireland, we decided to soak up one more day on Ireland’s west coast rather than catching an early flight back to Dublin. It was an unusual Saturday morning in Ireland—the sun was already beating down on the coastal town, and the temperatures were climbing into the 80s. We headed into the city to do some exploring and ended up at the Galway Saturday Market, a street market and trading post that sits in the shadow of St. Nicholas’ Church. Matt, who had visited Galway before with our good friend Caitlan, remembered the market as the…
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Galway, Connemara, and Cong: Ireland’s West Coast
We arrived in Galway around midnight, after a whirlwind trip to Spain and a three-hour bus ride from Dublin. The sound of our suitcases rattling against the cobblestone streets sounded like gunshots in the quiet neighborhood where the bus station was, but as we passed into the main square towards our hotel, the noise from the bars began to drown out our little caravan. We checked into our hotel, right off Eyre Square, and collapsed in bed almost instantly. Before I closed my eyes, I told Matt how funny it was that this morning, we’d been lounging on a beach in Barcelona, and now we were sleeping next to a…
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Gaudí’s Barcelona
Our second day in Barcelona was for one thing and one thing only: Catalan Modernist architect, Antoni Gaudí. I cannot overstate the importance of this artist to the Catalan culture. We started our self-guided architecture tour with perhaps his most famous achievement: La Sagrada Familia. The soaring, exuberant basilica is a UNESCO World Heritage Site that’s (famously) one hundred forty years in the making (which is longer than it took to build the Pyramids!) Construction on La Sagrada Familia began in 1882, and isn’t expected to be completed until 2026, which is the centenary of Gaudí’s death. A site of controversy, Catholicism, architecture, and art, the basilica is probably one of the most-visited…
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Barcelona, Spain
Barcelona is full of color. It is the capital city of the Catalonia region of Spain, the second most populous city in Spain, and the home of Antoni Gaudí, whose name, architecture, ceramics, religion, and craftsmanship define the city.
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Queenstown to Christchurch, New Zealand
We woke up on our last day in New Zealand with mixed feelings. The day before us stretched out like rays of sunshine greeting our faces, long and promising. As we grabbed a quick breakfast at a local Ranfurly cafe and packed the car, we kept asking each other, “will you miss it?” Yes. We will miss it. The feeling of stepping back in time to another world when we took our first walk down to the beach of Cathedral Cove. The feeling of my mind going blank and emotions bubbling to the surface as I saw the glowworms light up the Waitomo cave. The feeling of warming our tired…
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South Island, New Zealand
On our first morning in the South Island, we woke up bright and early in order to catch a cab to Picton to retrieve our rental car from the ferry terminal. To make a long story short, the cab ride lasted about 30 minutes and cost us $105NZD. Our cab driver also took us to the wrong rental car location, so we had to walk quite a bit with our luggage to find the correct pick-up spot; when we finally did, we grabbed the keys to another Toyota Corolla and zoomed out of town as quickly as possible. Picton is a small fishing village on the northern tip of the…
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Weta Cave, Wellington, New Zealand
On the day after Christmas, we woke up to the discovery that it was Boxing Day, a term that we Americans only partially recognized as a British holiday of some sort. Our hotel clerk quickly informed us that Boxing Day was a public holiday in New Zealand, where the stores run huge sales and people get out and shop. Wellington, which had been a ghost town the day before, was now a madhouse of people. For those familiar with the Lord of the Rings movie trilogy, you will recognize Wellington as the hub of production for the cast and crew in the late 1990s and early 2000s. Wellington is home to the…
