“the day so empty yet ready and willing to be filled with last minute adventures”

Spending the majority of the second half of summer staying put in the city really has its perks. Trying all the restaurants I didn’t have time to try before. Glasses of wine in the park. Spending an evening up on the rooftop and taking in the sunset. More walks … everywhere. Getting into mangas all of a sudden and being very happy about this new addition to my life. A few weeks not filled with packing and travel and itineraries has come to feel like the most free thing. And you don’t even realize the feeling until you are already set in the motion of just living your life in the city. And New York City is a pretty great one to call home. We really do forget how lucky we are to live in this city this is as batshit as it is stunningly poetic.

I like the pace of how summer at home allows me to gradually coming alive into my energy in the morning. No rushing. Time seems endless and the day so empty yet ready and willing to be filled with last minute adventures. Like sleeping in on a Friday, and suddenly deciding to take the day off and go to the MET … two Fridays in a row. That’s a summer feeling. It’s bringing a blanket and a book all the way uptown to Central Park and just people watching and staying still, enjoying the buzz from a quiet little spot, going unnoticed and unbothered and just absolutely at peace with just being. It’s watching tourists flag down taxis. It’s grabbing a $1 water bottle off the street to cool off from the sweltering heat. It’s eating ice cream on a stoop in Fort Greene. It’s finding the treat in all the little everyday things that normally get overlooked. Not everyone gets the chance experience their city in this sort of way.

30 blocks in the summer feels like climbing a mountain but I love how my feet and legs feel worn from it. I feel grounded and connected to this city this way. I always think, in the summer, we dream of Europe and all the other place in the world that show up on our social media, but with a different perspective, a vacation can be made right here at home. Just an escapist sort of mindset just starts with looking around and slowing down and just taking in the feeling.

Don’t get me wrong, I love having a new destination to plan out, and I am in fact planning to get out of the city at the beginning of fall. Gabi and I are still deciding on where exactly we want to go, but for right now, being here in NYC is simply wonderful.

“we listened to the rain and the insects and the frogs and the birds and the ocean”

Photos shot on film from my three days in paradise at The St. Regis Bahia, Puerto Rico. This trip ended up being a very last minute girl’s trip with my sister, our cousin Miggy and our longtime friend Deb. What I remember the most from this trip is the amount of laughs we all shared. We endlessly tickled each others feathers until our stomachs hurt, and it was absolutely the best feeling ever. Three days away from work and priorities. My shoulders are no longer burnt from that strong Caribbean sun, but I still have the tan to remember it all by.

The property at The St. Regis Bahia is really quite special. I’ve been to San Juan twice before. The first time was many years ago with Puerto Rico tourism, which really allowed me to hit up some of the really important cultural aspects of the island like the history of Old San Juan, the start of reggae-ton, and the biodiversity of El Yunque rainforest. Here at Bahia, we were in between San Juan and El Yunque, and this little paradise was a quiet, calm escape; a very different part of Puerto Rico. The grounds were full of green and the air was heavy with moisture. All of it reminding you at every moment of all that is living all around us there. The days and nights were full of nature sounds, and we came to look forward to the daily 5pm tropical rainfall, which came down with such force and such gracefulness, and at such a time perfect to recharge before dinner in our spacious and elegant ocean-view suites.

We didn’t get to explore outside of the property, but it is so large that we felt like we had a full adventure nonetheless. We really made the most of our three days there. We biked, hit some balls around on the tennis court, went to visit the animal shelter and play with some strays ready for new homes, we swam, we danced, we pampered ourselves at the spa, we ate with full appetites, we listened to the rain and the insects and the frogs and the birds and the ocean, we slept deeply. We allowed our minds to lighten up a bit. This trip’s purpose was to just think about all the things we have to do in the city and tell ourselves “we’ll get to that later.”

Thank you The St. Regis Bahia for inviting us to come have the full experience. And thank you to the amazing staff who welcomed us with friendly faces and conversation. We loved being there and hope to be back again one day!

“Rio is a city full of contrasts all mixed up together into one really amazing, exciting city”

Rio de Janeiro, Brazil. June 2023.

It feels bittersweet looking at these photos from our trip to Rio just over a month ago. This was my 7th time in Brazil, and only my second time in Rio, but this city is already one of my favorite places to visit in the world. It’s chaotically beautiful. It’s as romantic as the stereotype when it wants to be. It’s loud and energetic and in your face, sometimes a bit too much that you need to be on your toes more than you thought you’d be, but then the contrasts of the calm, the ocean, the mountains, the endless green sweeps you away. The way the sense of a city intertwines with mother nature is really incomparable here. It’s exactly how the music that was created from here sounds …. a unique blend you can only really feel in Rio.

The most surreal was being in Rio de Janeiro during the day that Astrud Gilberto passed. She was the voice of The Girl From Ipanema, one of my favorite songs ever. Her voice was what put that song on the international map, and attentions turned to magical Bossa nova. I’ve been listening to all of Astrud’s songs on repeat ever since. Her voice is airy, light, effortless, and breathy. She made the lyrics, when sung in English, sound like the most other worldly of feelings.

Rio de Janeiro is a very interesting place, with a history that one cannot ignore. I’ve always believed that when you get the chance to travel to a foreign place, it’s so important and so respectful to make sure to learn its history and roots to understand more the complexity of the place in modern times. Every time we told people we were going to Rio, or mentioned that we just traveled from there, one of the first comments we would received was about how dangerous they heard the city to be. I will always highlight the most beautiful parts of Rio, but it is true, Brazil is a country with a longtime history of violence and a huge class inequality that is a huge precursor for this history. Every trip to Brazil includes doing research on the safety precautions one should take in the area, which neighborhoods to avoid, what not to wear or carry on you to avoid theft. Number one rule is that you don’t walk around at night. The danger and level of security in Brazil is something very well known and always considered. It was something that kept us a bit on our toes when we explored the city, especially with my family in the city for the first time. This can lead us to a whole other conversation to get into on class, race and social structure that one can have about any country that still faces the leftover realities of colonization. This is true for much of Latin America. But aside this reality, no person can deny the beauty of this country and the richness of the culture that to me, observing as an outsider, completely captivates me. The history of immigration to Brazil lent to the country’s diversity that makes this melting pop of a country so interesting. European descent, Asian descent, African descent, native descent. Together they are all Brazilian. That feeling is strong here. It stands out all around. I had a completely different perspective of Rio, and Brazil in general, before getting to know it. And I am still continuing to learn. Rio is a city full of contrasts all mixed up together into one really amazing, exciting city that only sparks my curiosity more and more with time. I have completely fallen in love with this mountainous jungle city by the sea. This world is far from perfect, yet there is so much to learn if we really look around, and I just love to share these parts that I take home with me from every trip.