urban living
A Light in the Attic
Late one night I got an urgent text from Charla. “Someone’s iPad was missing!” “Was it stolen?” “We are checking her Find my iPhone app to find it!” Sigh. She was going to be late that night, then. One of the guests of the wedding…read more
Mercat de Sant Josep de La Boqueria, Barcelona
The Mercat de Sant Josep de la Boqueria lies in the heart of Barcelona, next to the Rambla, a major pedestrian street that is central to the city’s identity. “La Boqueria” is a traditional marketplace. It existed before supermarkets, before Trader Joes, before car-focused suburbs….read more
Introducing: “Travel Where You Live”
“We travel to faraway places because we expect holidays, recovery, adventure and new experiences. But is that always necessary?” Sometime after I graduated college and entered the real world, I learned that my sister once woke up from a bad dream where she saw me slaving…read more
Urban Living | Downtown Long Beach
One the greatest pleasures I discovered as a foreign exchange student living in Europe was living in an urban space: multiple floors of housing above retail stores, markets, restaurants, cafes, all connected by a transportation network of roads, rails, sidewalks, and bike paths. It happened…read more
Simmzy’s Pub | Belmont Shore
Just a few days away from the longest day of the year and the start of summer, we celebrated the end of school by walking to Long Beach’s epic Second Street, the relentlessly beating heart of Long Beach’s Belmont Shore. A few years ago I…read more
Three Days around San Francisco
The bride and groom posed for photos, full of jubilation, surrounded by friends and family, and laughing while the photographer clicked away. They managed one more photo when the boat they were on pushed into choppy water and a huge – huge – wave splashed…read more
Day One around San Francisco: Sausalito
This is the second post in the series “Three Days around San Francisco“. We were technically traveling to San Francisco for work, so we rented a car from San Francisco International Airport and drove to our first location in Sausalito. My many years living in…read more
Day Three around San Francisco | The View from Coit Tower & North Beach
This is the final post in the series “Three Days Around San Francisco”. Before I was in the fourth grade, my parents packed the car with me and my two sisters, and left Southern California for a road trip to San Francisco. Between the usual…read more
Day 3 in Europe | Nice, France
The Promenade des Anglais is a long, elegant avenue running along the edge of Nice, France that touches the waters of the Mediterranean. It has several lanes of traffic, a palm-lined median, tall buildings on the city-side and a wide sidewalk on the sea-side. The…read more
Inspired by what to eat at a French farmers market
The American writer Ernest Hemingway in 1950 wrote to a friend, “If you are lucky enough to have lived in Paris as a young man, then wherever you go for the rest of your life, it stays with you, for Paris is a moveable feast.”…read more