Travel Diaries: Welcome To New York!

I'll be spending the next couple of days in New York, meeting Diego. I arrived on Friday morning, and he received me with the sweetest collection of presents in the whole world! I honestly never expected such an amazing welcome, but he did surprise me with all the things I love!

I especially liked the cropped dress he got for me in Soho... There's something about the colours I just loved from the first moment! It definitely is summer. When we entered a store, a women told me I looked just like summer... And it was all because of this amazing dress!

After having some good breakfast and a short nap, Diego and I adventured into the city and spent the day wandering around. For lunch, we had prosciutto panini with soda at Bottega Falai. We then stopped by at some Cuban bar, where he had a sangria and I had a Margarita. We came back home around midnight, and we ate the most amazing bowl of chocolate ice cream... It might not have been a very healthy day but it was amazing!

Hugs from the city that never sleeps (just like I feel right now),

Photography: Laura Beltran-Rubio

Travel Diaries: Madrid, The Last Stop

Before coming back home, we spent a couple of days in Madrid. To be honest, we only did this because we knew we were gonna be exhausted after all the things we did in France and Italy, so taking a couple of days to relax in Madrid sounded just perfect.

We arrived in Madrid in the afternoon, took a nap and then went out to have something to eat. We decided to go to Plaza Mayor and drink some sangría with tapas. Luckily enough, it turned out that day was the Día de Galicia, so we had the chance to see some amazing performances of traditional dances. It was truly lovely!

The next day, it was my beautiful sister's birthday, so we decided to celebrate it eating some paella at the delicious Restaurante L'Albufera (near the Hotel Meliá Castilla). We ate –a lot more than we should have–, my sister had a tiny bit of a birthday cake, and we had lots of fun. I'm pretty sure this has been one of her best birthdays so far. She loved it!

After all this food, we were so full, that we decided to take a short walk, while doing some touristic sightseeing. We passed Cibeles and then headed to La Gran Via, before going back to the hotel to pack our suitcases.

It's amazing how fast these holidays went by! It had been a very long time since I last spent such a long time with my mum and my sister, and I really missed it. I somehow grew used to travel on my own and this whole experience of family holidays was lost in my childhood memories... But travelling with two of the people I love the most in the world was definitely something I wouldn't have changed for anything else!

Happy summer!

Photography: Laura Beltran-Rubio

Travel Diaries: Tivoli & Rome, Day 3

On our third––and last––day in Rome, we decided to spend the morning in Tivoli, a small town about an hour away from Rome, where you can find the most beautiful gardens on Earth! The place is called Villa d'Este, and it was declared a World Heritage Site by the UNESCO.

One thing I noticed here was the reason why kings and queens loved to have these enormous gardens in their palaces... And it thrilled me! See, this morning was so hot that we were about to melt. The temperature was above 38ºC (100ºF), and the sun was shining as bright as it possibly could... So we we're just dying from the heat. But when we entered the garden and, especially, when we were near the water fountains, the temperature dropped at least 10 degrees! I swear!

After spending the morning in this wonderful and magical place (I swear the pictures don't show how beautiful the place actually is), we had a quick––in Italian standards, of course1––lunch at the Piazza Garibaldi, before taking the train back to Rome.

We got to Rome in the evening, so we decided to go back to our hotel for a while, and wait 'til the night was fully set to go out for a walk. We started at the Vatican City––we always do, out of my mum's obsession––and then walked around the center. We finally went to the Castle of Sant'Angelo, where you get the absolutely best view of the city. It was absolutely breathtaking!

I'm sad to tell you that this post is almost the last one! I'm sadly sitting back at my desk and, although I did miss home, I can't believe the summer went by so fast! The good thing... Is that you'll get to wait until Monday before seeing the end. And the other good thing is that New York is patiently waiting for me to come back next week!

Warm kisses from cold Bogota,

Photography: Laura Beltran-Rubio