Tag: travel photography

Categories
oceania places to go

Hobbiton, NZ part 2 – ’10

maybe it’s because of our yearly watching of lord of the rings, or maybe it’s because the hobbit part 2 just came out, or maybe it’s because of our little hobbit (because she eats so many meals a day, get it!!!) but i just felt in the mood to share more of our hobbiton visit!

we shared the first part here about how we accidentally got a private tour in the rain 🙂

as i said in the previous blog post, they usually have the holes stripped down like this but they were already dressing the set for filming the hobbit!!! yay for us!!

our tour guide that we couldn’t understand 🙂

so much detail!

unfortunately bag end was off limits that day, that’s up the hill there.

the party tree, which is sick or something…another story we couldn’t quite make out with the rain and the accent 🙂

they even paint smoke on the chimneys to make the houses look lived in!

where gandalf rode into hobbiton through…jared is totally geeking out right now

we were finally allowed into a few, and now we’re totally in the market!

hope you enjoyed, that’s the most nerdy we got while in kiwi-land, but come on, you have to admit, those are some good stories!!

 

Categories
places to go stateside

Boston, MA – ’12

the first and last stop of our new england trip

we actually had planned on only going to boston because we just had about a week to travel, but when us californians realized how much we could drive in a short amount of time, we decided to do all the new england states! so we started in boston, had the first evening there, then at the end, spent the last day/night there.

so the first day we were there was the coldest day of our trip. this is what we packed for having gone in spring, but we were surprisingly hot the rest of the trip. so at least we got to pull out the jackets and beanies one day!

boston tea party 🙂

mocktography

oh hey, there we are!

i loved that they use these historical buildings for modern businesses rather than tearing them down

more mocktography and some chowder! [which jared wouldn’t touch with a 10-foot pole]

so on the way back through town, it was pretty warm! we did some of the freedom walk and pretty much walked through the whole city. what a fun city!! we got directions from this girl and her bostonian accent was just amazing. we kept asking her more details so we could just keep listening to her talk 🙂

loved this old guy!


yum! dunkin!!

hope you enjoyed! no crazy stories this trip, just a bunch of fun photos 🙂

Categories
europe places to go

Winneweer, Holland – ’09

holland…or the netherlands…discovering my roots! i’m half dutch and still have some relatives over here so we went to visit 🙂

here are some excerpts from my travel journal:

one phrase to sum up this leg of our journey – lost in translation

we took the train from berlin to gronigen where we accidently got off a stop too early. we called tante dicky [my great aunt] but i guess she only gave me her home phone number so we started fast walking to the next station 2km away. when we got there, we found her and oom henk a little worried. i guess they had called us over the p.a… embarrassing! We drove to winneweer from there, settled into our room which was their finished attic and rested. in the afternoon they took us on a drive. we went to the harbor and saw a couple ‘tall boats’ that were coming from around the world for a festival. we also drove through EVERY village along the way to check out their churches and surrounding buildings. the next day, we saw the farm where my opa met my oma [grandpa and grandma], where my opa went to school and where he went to church. we also got to meet my second cousin and got to (were forced to) sit in his big rig (it’s kind of a big deal so we just went along for the ride, ha!) we also took a bike ride around the beautiful little town and saw a graveyard where some of the family is buried. tante dicky makes homemade liquor and so we enjoyed that while trying to figure out why there are two names for the country. they must have explained it 3 times and we still can’t figure it out. that, along with some other explanations, were definitely lost in translation. but that’s the beauty of traveling and adventuring. you can’t always figure out what’s going on, but you enjoy the ride!


btw, the picture below is straight, but the buildings and roads are so old that they are sinking!

my aunt and uncle’s house, isn’t it beautiful!! i LOVE LOVE their backyard but have to keep reminding myself that this was in the middle of summer so i’m sure i wouldn’t love it in the middle of winter 🙂

 

Categories
places to go stateside

Glastonbury, CT – ’12

on the connecticut leg of our new england adventure we decided to stay at a place called butternut farm. i found the place online ahead of time and it sounded quaint and fun. turned out it was slightly creepy and were weren’t 100% sure we were going to ever leave once we got there. it did grow on us though and the owner is a very sweet man, don.

as much as i love animals, i’ve never really had much luck with geese, they always attack me…

so when we first arrived, we met the owner and a few other house guests who were leaving. they were in the sitting room and offered us wine right off the bat. so we put our bags away and hung out with them. then they left and we were the only ones staying there that night. we wandered around the house a bit, and yikes…lots of stuffed animals and more pelts than are generally acceptable for one house.

he had these two cats which were really sweet but super needy…and we were very allergic to them!

in case you were wondering, yes, that’s a real dead stuffed bird in that cage…

signed the guest book 🙂

ahhh, we’re going to be eaten alive!!!

here’s our room, and when we were shown the room, he said ‘here’s a little sherry to help you sleep’

love the old school calendar with us written in! actually, in order to book him in the first place, i had to call to reserve the date, and then send him a check!

meeting some new friends as always, they were much friendlier than the geese!

we also got to have dinner with my friend from high school and her husband who happened to live 15 minutes away! of course we forgot to take pictures though 🙁 the next day as we were leaving, don said ‘you come into my life, and then you leave me’ – guess he just absolutely loves running a b&b, most people get burned out but he’s been doing it over 30 years.

we wandered around the town and surrounding fields and river, very pretty 🙂

Categories
places to go stateside

Seattle, WA – ’11

one of the places in the US that we both always wanted to go was seattle, so we took another random trip.

our main goals were to find the fremont troll and to have coffee in as few starbucks as possible..

this was the view from our hotel!!! so legit. and just a bike ride away from the downtown area. we did ride bikes there and discovered that washington has a bike helmet law for everyone so we were nerdy tourists with our helmets and cameras.

there’s me taking photos and then the photos i took below!

i had always heard of the gum wall in SLO but have never been to it, apparently there’s one here too. it was just as gross and awesome as you would expect!

we found the first starbucks, just to take a pic but then went and had coffee somewhere else. i can’t believe how many starbucks there are in this dang city!! we did achieve our goal though and found quite a few cute shops to have coffee.

sometimes on trips we get sick of eating out, so we have to find other ways to have meals…and we always bring a laptop with plenty to watch, this time dollhouse

ooh, look! i touched the space needle!

and jared is holding it

and our other goal: achieved! the troll is awesome!

this was in a bathroom

jared, nerding it up in front of google

and fun architecture! yippee!

we drove to some of the other areas surrounding seattle as well, cool places to live and to skip rocks, which if you are wondering, is just as awesome as it used to be. you should do it soon.

 

Categories
places to go stateside

Chicago, IL – ’10

being wedding cinemtographers, we’ve had a few really cool opportunities to travel for weddings. in 2010 we were flown to chicago to shoot a wedding for an awesomely amazing couple. they were so sweet and the wedding was beautiful. we planned to stay a bit longer to see the city since we hadn’t been there before. we hung out with seth and dez of zelo photography who were also flown out for the wedding. if you haven’t been here, chicago (or chi-town if you are cool like that) is a pretty awesome city strewn with tons of public art, gardens on top of high rises and beautiful architecture. it was quite windy the weekend we were there and cold, we’re such wimps being californians born and raised…

we may have spent a bit of time at the bean. i was SO excited to find out that we would get to see the bean!! it’s so cool!

found this cool spot and didn’t want to feel left out so we joined in…

the new batman movies were shot in chicago so looking at some of these areas reminded us of the films

we went to a few antique shops and passed this along the way…what the heck?!?!

this art piece was one of my favorites!

a little mocktography never hurt anyone

loved the spray paint art!

can’t have a visit to chicago without their world famous deep dish pizza!!! can we say cheesydeliciousness?? if that’s not in the dictionary, it should be…

chicago at night is just as wonderful as it is in the day, reflection of light is a photographer’s playground!

this is a video art piece fountain, she moves her mouth to spit out water