I hate flying and I’ve been feeling sun-deprived after a harsh winter in the Northeastern United States, so why am I spending spring break in Reykjavik, Iceland? There are two groups to thank: the Iceland Writers Retreat led by the indefatigable Eliza Reid, and HBO’s Game of Thrones (that’s right, I’m a big fan of…
Category: Travel
Seeking Enlightenment in the Berkshires
To me, and perhaps to other New Yorkers, the Berkshires look like the Catskills; those same soft blue ripples of rock rising and falling to the north. Yet the Berkshires have a very different narrative than the Catskills. Today, the Catskills feature some of the Rust Belt deterioration that dominates so much of upstate New…
Out and About
Celebrate the Lunar New Year in the Berkshires? Sure, why not. Actually, the scheduling happened by accident, but I’m visiting Kripalu this Friday for a Buddhist meditation and yoga retreat for bucolic escape and the chance to embrace something I’ve been wanting to learn for a while. Kripalu is a three-hour drive away, and wasn’t…
Doors
Taos, New Mexico, made me rethink how I look at doors, which hadn’t really been on my mind much at all until I walked around Taos and realized almost everyone had a brightly-painted, beautifully-adorned door. No doubt this added to the welcoming vibe throughout Taos. I wondered if our own doors back on the East…
Chasing Chihuly
Experiencing Chihuly in a museum in downtown Montreal and experiencing Chihuly in the Phoenix desert surrounded by agave and cacti are equally amazing and completely different even though some of the works of art overlap. Now through mid-May the Desert Botanical Garden in Phoenix is showing a selection of artist Dale Chihuly’s pieces that are…