Better Together: Coffee & Cardamom
As the weather gets cooler I start planning all the ways to stay cozy and warm at home. One of my favorite ways to enjoy cold mornings is slowly lingering over coffee, preferably wrapped in a warm blanket. To get us excited about the dark, freezing mornings in Finland, we started dedicating Saturday mornings to making something special for breakfast (usually pancakes) and huddling around our tiny kitchen table with coffee.
I read somewhere that experiences create lasting happiness, while the joy that comes with material things quickly fades. Part of the joy that comes from experiences, even long after they are over, comes from the fact that we tend to look back on our experiences with rose-colored glasses. We remember them better than they were in the moment. When I first read about that I didn’t like the idea of it. I wanted to remember my experiences how they were, not as a idealized version of them.
Spain Road trip | Granada, Jaén, and Seville
After our short stay in the caves of Guadix, we spent a couple days in Granada. It was really neat to see all the Arabic influences around the city, which made it so different than any other Spanish city we’d seen. Of course we spend a big chunk of our time walking around the enormous Alhambra, and it was incredible. I can see why people wouldn't want to leave that place.
Spain Road trip | Altea, Mojacar, and Guadix
Our last week in Spain we rented a car and spent a week driving from Valencia to Seville. Our plan was to not have a plan. Or at least a very loose one. We left on Tuesday and had to get to Seville by the next Tuesday, and that was about it. After being carless for the greater part of two years we were really looking forward to the freedom that a car would allow us. We could go anywhere we wanted, whenever we wanted, all without buying tickets! We didn’t even have to pack our suitcases so meticulously because, hey, just throw it in the trunk! The joy.
I’m sitting here in an apartment in Paris, staring out the window, thinking back on last month when we were in Spain. Wasn’t it just yesterday that we found out that we’d be in Paris for most of July, and then decided on a whim to spend five weeks in Spain? What an unexpected and exciting surprise that was. Now we’re on the last stretch of our trip with only 8 days left. Although we love Paris, we’re also really looking forward to being back in Texas (minus the heat) and settling down for a while.
