Happy Anniversary Babe

Seven years ago today Mu and I got married on a wonderful, hot day in Portland, Maine.  Wow, the time has past quickly, and oh so enjoyably.  These last couple of years have been just a microcosm of the life we have built together.  Let's keep it going babe.

Muriel was a vision 5/26/2007 and remains a vision today.   Looking back seven years, I knew it was fortuitous then but did not fully contemplate how lucky I was to have such a perfect partner to explore this bountiful world.

A Day in the Life: Exploring Chicago

Things have been very busy in the Korol household, with the cross country move, starting the new job and getting settled in DC. All have been great and energizing.

Before it got too far in the rear view mirror, I wanted to get a post up on Chicago, a city that I had not been to in several years and one that showed very well in our brief stop over on the drive east. We pulled into the city around 9 pm and stayed with a great friend from grad school.

Ranjan went to Duke Law with Mu and has lived in the city since graduation. His place, on the 29th floor, looks out over the azul Lake Michigan and Lincoln Park with the north suburbs stretching into the distance. We hung out at a cool spot that night near Ranjan’s place with Jen, his fiancé, also a Duke Law grad and a great friend. It is always fun when two friends get married, definitely the case of the whole being more than the sum of the parts and this union will be another example of that corollary.

That night, we were very happy to go to sleep with the city twinkling below. Thought it would be fun to share what we got up the next day, in our one full day in the city.

Running in Lincoln Park and along Lake Michigan

I woke up energized and excited for the day and leveraged that high energy state to go for a nice run in Lincoln Park and then back along the shoreline of the Lake. The temps were just a bit on the chilly side, as it looked warmer outside than it proved to be upon stepping out of the building. But no matter, I would warm up on the run and that proved to be the case. The run took me north through the park, past a couple museums and then circled back. The lake was perfectly calm, a rarity in my experience and it gave off an almost tropical color on this spring day. At times it felt a bit more Miami than Chicago.

Relaxing on the 29th floor

After the run it was nice to take a bit of time and hang out at Ranjan’s place looking out over the route I had just covered on foot. Being that high up gives such a different perspective and we had a nice breakfast and some needed time on the net to take care of a few things.

Bike share

Then it was time to start exploring. Our mode of transport for the day was the bike share system, Divvy. This system has a network of stations all over the city and works the same as other popular systems in New York and Washington, to name just a few. You check a bike out, ride to wherever and then park it in a station at your destination. The first 30 or 60 minutes of each ride are free after paying a registration fee. It is so much better than taking a bus or metro, riding a bike in a city is a great way to get a sense of space and character.

Butterflies!

Our destination was the Nature Museum (http://www.naturemuseum.org/), located in Lincoln Park and a place I fondly recalled from a visit over a decade ago. The coolest part of the museum is the butterfly haven, which has thousands of butterflies from around the world. You enter it through these reverse pressure doors and then a greenhouse. It takes a couple of seconds to realize that movement surrounds you in this hyper dynamic space as the butterflies flirt about. If you stand still, they will dive bomb you and get super close. Others will just chill on one of the numerous plants in the space and slowly flap their wings, allowing one to see the contrast between their colors. I could have stayed in the space for hours but we had things to do so 30-40 minutes had to suffice.

The Bean

Then we headed out, retracing our path through the park south towards Millennium Park. We docked the bikes and walked to the Bean, a highly polished mirrored sculpture in the park. This is a stunning piece of art and had hundreds of people around it on one of the first summery days of the year after a very long winter. The reflections off the Bean are so cool and we played around with taking pictures.

Deep Dish Pizza

Now our appetites had been properly built up and there was one solution – deep-dish pizza. This solution is pretty dominant, as I challenge anyone to eat some deep dish and not get full. Not possible. We went to place a couple of blocks from the Bean called Pizano’s (http://www.pizanoschicago.com/). The pizza was great and very filling, and we got to sit outside in the nice weather and have a lingering late lunch.

Suit Buying

Now we started walking north into the heart of the city, and happened by the Macy’s there, which is located in the original Marshall Fields store. Such cool features throughout the building, with the spectacular vaulted ceiling that recalls some of the art we saw in Europe and South America. This was a great stop for me because in my new job I am wearing suits everyday. A big switch from the teleworking wardrobe I rocked at my past job, but one that I am enjoying thus far. However, I was in need of some new suits and was able to pick up a couple. They have been serving me very well thus far and I wore one today.

Sunset on top of the world at the Hancock Tower

Lastly, we headed to the Hancock Tower, a 96 floor skyscraper that is the second tallest in the city. It has a bar and restaurant on its top two floors and we made our way up there right as the sun was dipping towards the western horizon out across Illinois. Or maybe you can see all the way to Iowa from 96 floors. Over some drinks, we watched as the sun set, darkness descended and the city lights popped. I loved seeing grid of the major road arteries radiate out from the dense downtown to the suburbs in all directions.

We then headed back to Ranjan’s place and hung out watching sports and talking. A great day of exploring and enjoying one of America’s best cities on the books.

 

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Best of photos from our travels

People have been really enjoying the timelapse I posted a few days ago of our travels one day at a time.  I am so glad, as it is probably the best and most condensed snapshot of our adventures that we have created.

In a similar vein, I made another timelapse over the last couple of days.  This one is a collection of many beloved and favorite photos we took throughout the last 640 days.  It goes in chronological order and has pictures from 5 continents and something close to 38 countries and about 15 states.  I think it came together pretty well and hope you agree.

One note on the music I used for this video.  The song is a cover of a Talking Heads song performed by the Ryan Montbleau Band (http://ryanmontbleau.com/).  These guys played, and killed it, our wedding reception back in May 2007.  They are an amazing band and made our wedding especially special.  This song, (this must be the place - naive melody) was their encore for our reception and is reprised here with much love.  Man do I love hearing them generally and this song specifically.

Enjoy!

Living our dream: one day at a time

This post is a favorite to write, since it shares something that has taken literally years to create.  Let me get right to it - below is a time-lapse video that Mu and I made through our travels.  Every day we were abroad, we took a number to count the days, from 1 on up.  We came in just short of a full year and you can watch the video here -One day at a time: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GVS34RRv_kI

This idea came from my beloved cousin, Deborah Moore, who saw our pictures from the John Muir trail back in August of 2012.  During those 11 days of hiking, I had Muriel hold up her hands counting each day because the landscape is so similar (and spectacular) on the trail.  Muriel effectively marked each different day so that looking back at the photos we could tell where exactly they came from.  Debs took this simple idea and proposed doing it for our international stints. 

Instantly, we loved the suggestion and decided to try and pull it off.  Keeping the days as we traveled was tricky but also very fun.  Mu became quite the expert at crafting numbers out of sticks and rocks, such as # 77 overtop Lake Malawi and countless others.   I loved the challenge of finding a number in a city we were exploring, such as # 26 in Athens.  Our favorite numbers were the ones that included people we met along the road, either old friends/family or new ones. - #143 with my parents in Madagascar is a great example.   The wonder we feel about our travels over the last 2 years has been exponentially increased and strengthened for sharing it with so many loved ones.

It was not always easy, sometimes we would forget and have to make it up.  A few images got lost when our iPad crashed prior to me backing up the pictures on it .  Sometimes we had to take the picture from inside the overland truck or on an airplane.  Not all days of sustained travel can be on a mountain or safari and those images now remind me of the work that travel can be and the many, many hours we spent inside buses, trucks, taxis, planes and cars.   

Then, the making of the time-lapse was its own kind of adventure - one via a keyboard and laptop.  It was not always easy for me to figure out all the successive steps, but working on something that I felt so passionate about made figuring out solutions so much easier.  Working across 5 programs and platforms in the process got me more acquainted with how to leverage the power of a Mac. 

Lastly, I want to touch on an unexpected benefit of making this project.   Life generally and travel specifically can easily run together.  Days get lost in your mind and they don’t really come back.  This endeavor meant that each day we took a moment to think about what day we were on, to compose the shot and take the picture.  These actions and the continuity they created the day before and the day to come had a powerful impact on how we processed and savored the adventure.

We know well how special these last 2 years have been, and this video will forever recall this bountiful time in our lives.  When I showed a draft of this video to a buddy last week, he noted that each time you watch it different images make an impression.   Once he pointed that out, I completely agreed.   One time through I felt drawn to a pic from Chiang Mai and then next one from Indo.   I love the variance.   

Another welcome impact from the making this movie together is increased awareness.  I can look at each image for a millisecond and know instantly where it comes from, what we were doing when we took it and a bunch of other personal metadata.   I have never had such awareness and recall for another trip or period in my life and part of that surely flows from our project.   This mindfulness and abundance of memories are characteristics I hope to bring to our next phase in life.   Just as denser networks tend to perform better, I posit that denser memories correlate to peak experiences.  Memories are the glue that hold together our lives and the more memories the stronger the bond.