{happy friday} pic & pin

The States had their three day weekend and now it's our turn for an extended break in honor of a king's birthday (right there with you, UK! Well, kinda). We're leaving the concrete jungle behind and heading north to Penang where tons of yummy food and beach time await.  I'm beyond excited to be by the ocean again since my last dip in the water was nearly one year ago in Sicily (pictured above)...you can obviously see why it satisfied for so long! I only wish that I had bought the Turkish towels I was coveting from Handmade Interiors in London - such beauties and they're perfect for stuffing into a small bag for a quick trip. I think I'll have to give these ones from Bath Style a closer look.

Have a wonderful weekend everyone. To those in the UK - Happy Jubilee! Enjoy a Pimm's Cup, or two, for me ;)

This week's three rad links...

• See my snap of beautiful Regent Street in London on Style Passport's special Jubilee homepage. I also shared my fondest London memories and favorite spots on their blog. Thanks for having me SP!

• Emerson Fry can do no wrong. I'm dying for this new dress...aaaannndd everything else they've got.

• "Our goal is to provide sustainable income and employment for these women..." - loved this  interview with Kate Spade's CEO and CFO on their work with Women for Women via Supply Change 

And I can't end the week without thanking Apartment Therapy for featuring my Re-Style Your Wireless Internet Router DIY - it spurred insane amounts of re-posts and traffic to the blog. Welcome new readers!

(image left:  Mediterranean swim dock by Ana Maria Muñoz, right: Pin via Design Crush)

a year's worth of wanderlust

It's almost Easter and that means one thing: four day weekend! We're taking advantage of the time and jaunting off to Florence and Chianti to get to know my little obsession, Italia, a little better. I've been studying Italian using Rosetta Stone but since I've been a bit inconsistent with it, I'm just barely at the point where I can ask "where's the bathroom?", "how much?" and all of those other simple phrases that will hopefully be enough to get us by! During the past year's travels we've gotten by with our english, broken french, and my fluent Spanish. Joe speaks a little bit of Spanish but he learned it with the Castellano accent that turns every "s" into a "th" sound...it drove me crazy for a while but I've warmed up to it. I had to.

We've definitely accomplished what we moved here to do: travel. There are still so many places on our list but I'm beyond thankful to have been able to check off the ones below and leave with beautiful memories.

Here are some of my favorite moments, places, and thoughts from our European adventures...

shopping at my first European flea market (in Paris) and seeing a different type of vintage and market scene

stumbling across the Louvre at night and having the square all to ourselves

walking along Pont Des Arts in Paris with my mom, oohing and awing at the romantic gestures and inscriptions of the love locks. we even witnessed a couple throwing their key into Le Siene followed with a passionate embrace and kiss. must go back there with Joe!

cheering on team Atletico with Joe's college buddies in Madrid. we sat in a section called "Vomitorio"..."vomit" is spelled "vomito" in Spanish so it felt a little icky at first. the funny thing was that not even the locals could explain the name.

finally understanding Joe's love for simple Spanish meals. I could eat like this every day now.

searching for the vista point for the Toledo bridge but instead happening upon our own little corner. we somehow managed to avoid the crowds and feel as if the entire town was ours that day.

walking up to the awesomeness of the ancient aqueduct in Segovia (no mortar!) and then geeking out over the decorative walls and doors all over the place

witnessing a modern marvel being built, aka La Sagrada Familia, in Barcelona

and being even more impressed/amazed by what's inside

watching my mom enjoy "the best paella of my life!" while I cooled down with a chilled beer

watching the sunrise and looking for seashells on the beach with my mom in Barcelona. 

our first week-long European holiday in Sicily. we stayed in the countryside, Ragusa...it was heaven as you can tell

but we did take a dip in the Mediterranean! this was a total locals' spot that we came across while looking for a place to eat lunch in Syracuse. i'll never forget the views from the water looking back at the city.

having coffee in front of Check Point Charlie in Berlin and learning about Joe's uncle who was stationed there during the Cold War. finding the perfect German pub/restaurant, Sophien 11, with my friend Caitlin. the bar tender fell in love with her and gave her free beer mugs as souvenirs.

 

seeing Christmas come to life in Brugge, Belgium. i felt like i was in the original Disneyland the entire time. what a beautifully preserved medieval place.

giving into a guided canal tour in Brugge and going under stone bridges from the 14th century. i mean seriously? 

finding moments to look around and capture the details in Marrakech amidst the craziness of the Medina

visiting a Berber market in the Atlas Mountains. this was the parking lot...it was pretty muddy but i loved it. 

sipping on sweet mint tea and drooling over too many rugs in Marrakech. i wanted so badly to go through the piles myself and pick which ones I wanted to see. unfortunately that's not how it works. it's a full on presentation and very ceremonial but i was happy to oblige. we left very happy with our new magic carpet in tow. 

We've left every place very happy, it's hard not to. I can't wait to see what we come across in Italia this weekend and where our magic carpet takes us next!

almost forgotabout donnafugata

We had some gorgeous sunny days in London recently and the bright sunsets reminded me of our afternoon visit to the Donnafugata Castle in Sicily. Needless to say, the place was beautiful so I'll let you click here and here for details and let the photos do the talking.

By the way, photography wasn't allowed inside the castle so ssshhhhhhh.... ;)

happy friday + sicily round up!

Happy Friday, Everyone!

I couldn't be more excited for the weekend. Getting back in to a normal post-vacation routine is hard! My mind is still on lounging by the pool and seeing pretty new sights everyday like we did in Sicily.

Sicily was incredible. There is so much diversity on the island for things to see and do. We didn't do any research on it beforehand since we chose our hotel based on the fact that it looked to be in the middle of nowhere. We wanted to have a week of doing nothing but being lazy and not straying too far. Well...that didn't exactly happen.

It started with the two hour drive to our hotel in Ragusa from the airport in Catania. We were starving so we stopped in Syracuse for lunch and ended up coming across the most amazing swimming platform ever. We still hadn't eaten lunch and we were anxious to get to the hotel so I made a mental note of the swimming spot and moved on. The deviations from Operation Do Nothing had officially begun.

When we finally arrived at the hotel, Relais Parco Cavalonga, it was like a dream. The sun was setting and there were beautiful olive trees and stone walls surrounding the property. It was perfect. We spent the next day doing what we had set out to do and relaxed, read, swam, ate, and napped. The deviation started when we looked at the pamphlets provided by the hotel for nearby destinations and attractions. We had vaguely heard of Agrigento where there are ancient temple ruins and the receptionist recommended Scala dei Turchi in the same area. Seeing that it was only 160KM away we thought we could go up there the next morning and be back at the hotel just after lunch. Man, were we wrong! The distance sounded quick enough but what we didn't realize was that a) the road was one single lane throughout b) it was shared with the world's slowest trucks and c) it went through four main port towns with one having worse traffic than LA at rush hour. Long story short, we saw some incredible stuff at the temples and the beach but poor Joe drove for nearly six hours when we had only expected a max of three round-trip.

Feeling beat from walking in the heat and driving so much, we agreed to only seek out to local spots from the hotel if we were going to leave it at all. Turns out that there was more to the sleepy countryside than met the eye. Our hotel receptionist told us about a nearby castle open to the public, Castello Donnafugata (more on this later), and Ragusa Ibla, an old town built on limestone hills and its narrow canyons. Driving into Ragusa Ibla at night was something I will never forget. The road was extremely curvy so out of nowhere we suddenly saw a wall of lit up homes popping out of the pitch-black mountain that went deep into the canyon floor (one of those "WHOA!" moments for sure). From the outside it looked like all there was were homes built into the mountainside but when we went into the town we found a buzzing nightlife scene where locals and tourists were one in the same dining on outdoor patios and eating gelato on the street. It was such a beautiful evening.

Two days and a suntan later, it was time to leave Sicily for a final weekend in Madrid. Remembering the swimming platform we saw in Syracuse on the first day, I convinced Joe to make a stop there before getting to the airport. There was just no way that I wasn't going to enjoy that gem of a spot, even if for a brief moment. We got there with only half an hour to swim around but it was totally worth it. It was purely local, the water was perfectly cool, and it was free to access. Joe, after driving more than he really wanted to, admitted that he was glad we stopped there too.

That was pretty much the way our week in Sicily went: we did more driving and active stuff than we had expected but were simultaneously happy and thankful for every little thing we experienced. However, our next R&R vacation may literally have to be on a deserted island with no sight-seeing temptations. I'm totally okay with that though.

holiday, we

Hello, hello!

Wow, what an incredible whirlwind. We've return from our first full European holiday that took us to three cities in Spain and various parts of Sicily, Italy. From the bright blue waters of Syracuse to the Spanish countryside, there is truly a ton of beauty and intrigue out there. I am forever grateful to the following for making our jaunts possible: high speed trains, cheap airfares, my two little feet, and last but not least, my amazing boyfriend who is a master at driving stick.

The photos above are just a snippet of the different adventures we had in Spain (Madrid, Segovia, Toledo) and Sicily (Syracuse, Ragusa, Agrigento). There is much to share so I will post location details with lots more photos throughout the next week or two. If I can't stay on vacation forever then I can at least give myself the luxury of reflecting on it for a while. I hope you don't mind.

for photo captions, hover over each image with your mouse or click to view it in flickr.