I am very thrilled to share the photos I took from my leisurely trip yesterday to Brugge, Belgium. The photos are not technically perfect due to the fact that I was too lazy to bring my DSLR and just used my point and shoot/digicam Sanyo X-Acti. I feel that I did not do justice to my subject by making less than perfect images. Oh well, there will be other chances again I hope and next opportunity to see a city with rave reviews I should bring the DSLR.

I planned this day trip more than a week ago after finding out that my husband will have his boys night out. I grabbed the chance immediately to fulfill my now deprived wanderlust. Read more…

Roads are part of our everyday life. They lead us to where we want to go. Without roads there is no progress. Roads connect us to the world.

Country roads, city roads, muddy roads. I like them all.

• Note: These photos were taken during our recent road trip in the West Coast of USA, and some were from a visit to Canada, the rest are from here locally (Netherlands).

Are they barren or are they lush? These trees are extremely unique and they thrive in the desert. This huge national park located in Southeastern California, around 2 hours from LA is surely worth your visit. The attraction is not just the trees but the also the stone mountains.  When I was there mountainers or rock climbers visit the park in droves and they do group practices there.

Would it be nice to have some quiet time reflecting somewhere in France, Spain or Italy in some convent or retreat house. And yes some of them charge a nominal fee between 15 to 30 euros and some even for free!
Here are some links I found:
Order of Saint Benedict (OSB)
Santo Espiritu del Monte
List of Retreat Houses and Convents in Spain

At this moment, I am thinking that since I will be attending a conference in the UK for 3 days I suddenly thought about prolonging the trip by buying BritRail FlexPass
and travel all the way to Inverness. I found out from the Britrail site that a 4-day Flexpass anywhere in UK and Scotland costs around 203 Euros (4 days), 294 Euros (8 days).