When despair grows in me
and I wake in the night at the least sound
in fear of what my life and my children's lives may be,
I go and lie down where the wood drake
rests in his beauty on the water, and the great heron feeds.
I come into the peace of wild things
who do not tax their lives with forethought
of grief. I come into the presence of still water.
And I feel above me the day-blind stars
waiting for their light. For a time
I rest in the grace of the world, and am free.
— Wendell Berry, The Peace of Wild Things
Today was our big hiking day on Maui and one of the days I was most excited for on Maui. Haleakalā National Park is named for the dormant volcano that last erupted between 1480 and 1600 and rises 10,023 feet above sea level. Haleakalā means “house of the sun” in Hawaiian, and this name is derived from the legend that says the demigod Maui imprisoned the sun here in order to lengthen the day to provide people more time to dry cloth and grow food.
Read MoreAs of writing this post, the Maui wildfires are still ongoing after starting around the beginning of August 2023. We stayed near Lahaina, which is where the deadliest fire burned an estimated 2,170 acres and completely destroyed the historic town. About 2,200 buildings were fully or partially burned, about 86% of which are residential, and the death toll is at 115, though 850 people are still listed as missing. Part of the reason for the severity of this fire is underinvestment in local infrastructure (this wildfire had been predicted many time) and instead a focus on tourism that is damaging Hawai’i in myriad ways, from housing costs to clean water access. If you do intend on visiting Hawai’i, make sure you do so with an investment in the local economy and culture in mind, as well as consideration for the health of the local residents (COVID being brought by tourists to areas without sufficient hospital infrastructure is a huge issue).
Read MoreThe last time Ryan and I went to Hawai’i, it was for our honeymoon in 2021, and we visited the Big Island and Kauai (read about that trip here). This spring, when we found out we were expecting our baby girl, the first big plans that we wanted to make were for our babymoon, and we figured what better place to go to celebrate our growing family than where we celebrated our marriage. Flights were cheapest to the Big Island (by several hundred dollars) and since it was our favorite island, we opted to return there for a few of the days on our trip. The other part of our time, we wanted to explore a new island, and we decided on Maui.
Read MoreThere were several Christmas markets centrally located in Brussels: La Bourse de Bruxelles Market, Place de Brouckère, and Marché aux Poissons Market. We visited these markets, ate some raclette, and despite me being fluent (or at least being fluent at one time) in French, I made Ryan order everything because ~ anxiety ~. This did hilariously result in Ryan convincing some stall-owners he did actually speak French (I would tell him what to say), but when they asked a follow-up question, he’d look so confused that they’d figure out he was American. We also spent awhile watching the chaos of ice-skating, enthralled by the two guys who were evidently in competition to show off their skills and kept almost making a lot of newbies wipe out (and actually did cause a few falls).
Read MoreWe heard about the Hortus Botanicus from our Festival of Lights tour guide, and it didn’t take much convincing for me to add this to the itinerary. The Hortus Botanicus is one of the oldest botanical gardens in the world, established in 1638 by the Amsterdam city council (the Oxford Botanic Garden is one of the few older ones; check out my last visit to it in 2017). Like many European botanic gardens, its collections were initially amassed through imperial pursuits—in this case, largely by the Dutch East India Company. Much of its initial collection served either a medicinal or commercial purpose.
Read MoreOn day three of our trip, we trekked to Amsterdam Centraal to catch an early train to The Hague, a city most famous for hosting the UN’s International Court of Justice and the International Criminal Court. The city’s name often graced manila envelopes when I worked a summer at an attorney’s office, but I’d not really considered going there until it came up on a list of the best Christmas markets in the Netherlands.
Read MoreOur first stop on day two, which was our museum-heavy day, was the Rijksmuseum. The Rijksmuseum is the national museum of the Netherlands and is dedicated to Dutch arts and history. It’s the largest art museum in the country, making it a must-visit if you’re coming to Amsterdam. Look out for work by the Dutch masters Jacob van Ruisdael, Frans Hals, Johannes Vermeer, Jan Steen, and Rembrandt. I was also intrigued by one of the paintings I noticed in their collection, pictured below, which is the only known portrait of a Black man in early European painting.
Read MoreFor Ryan’s 30th birthday, I offered to plan a surprise trip for him. He had some general options to choose from (beach, hiking, city, cold/hot climate), but the rest would be revealed only when we were in the airport on our way there. As a huge Christmas fan, something that Ryan has always talked about has been going to the European Christmas markets, and since his birthday is mid-December, this felt like the perfect opportunity for this trip. He ended up blindly choosing from one of my Christmas market itineraries (among the choices he didn’t pick were Munich & Salzburg, Vienna & Budapest, Vienna & Prague, and Switzerland & Strasbourg). Right after passing my first qualifying exam for my PhD, we were off to experience the Christmas season in two new (to us) European destinations: Amsterdam and Brussels!
Read MoreOn our final day in Terceira, we took a roadtrip to the northern part of the island to check out the natural lava rock pools of Biscoitos. This area of the island is famous for its wine, and the drive took us through lush green pastures and vineyards. The lava pools are along the coast and filled by the ocean but protected from the waves. They’ve built platforms where you can sunbathe (or eat yet another grocery store atum sandwich), and some of the pools have concrete steps or ramps built down into them. The shallower pools/the ones further away from the ocean tended to be warmer, and we enjoyed swimming with some interesting looking fish while being sheltered from the waves. I would recommend having some kind of swim shoes (my trusty Chacos did just fine), since lava rock is deceptively sharp.
Read MoreOn day four, we caught a flight from Ponta Delgada over to another island, Terceira, or the lilac island. It’s one of the largest islands of the Azores, and it’s home to the oldest city of the archipelago, Angra do Heroísmo.
Read MoreOn day three, we took a roadtrip to Furnas, which is the thermal hotspot of the Azores. The town itself is nestled in a dormant volcanic crater that last erupted in 1630. The residual volcanic activity is still present in the form of steaming fumaroles, thermal pools, and natural mineral springs.
Read MoreAfter our overnight flight to PDL, we decided our first stop would be to see some nature before checking into the B&B. The Jardim Botânico António Borges was founded in 1861 by a wealthy citizen of Ponta Delgada, and it is now a free public park. There are tree species from across the globe, caves, and a viewpoint that you can access at the top of a restored cistern. This introduction to the island did remind me of Hawai’i, as that was the only other place I’ve ever seen Moreton Bay fig trees like the one pictured above.
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