My Traveling Days #WorldTravelingCrush

I have been friends with Cristina for a few years now, our lives have led similar and parallel paths. We are both married to architects (I happen to be one as well), we have been neighbors before, and are destined to be neighbors again, we became mothers at the same time, twice!, we are intensely passionate about design and we both love to travel.

My traveling days have taken a dive since my kids started paying full price airplane tickets, but when we got the news that my husband was exhibiting at the Venice Biennale this year, we started planning our architecture-packed trip, kids in tow.

 I have never prepared myself so much for a trip before. It was the first long trip we were going to take with both kids, and I was adamant on being efficient in my packing and trying not to look like a disheveled desperate mother in the pictures. I went through a bunch of blogs and posts about traveling with kids, about traveling in style, you name it, I read it! Needless to say, I ran into the World Cuff on a number of “must-have” lists for traveling, and then it hit me… I am going to win the #WorldTravelingHands contest! I am going to have so much material, that baby is mine! So I packed my yummy scarf, my portable battery pack, and my trusted World Cuff, and was on my way. 

 Aside from visiting the Venice Biennale, our trip was focused on visiting work by Le Corbusier and Peter Zumthor, along with other wonderful works by Herzog and DeMeuron, Zaha Hadid, Renzo Piano, Olgiati, to name a few.

 

I was so excited to see these buildings I had studied and seen only in pictures. I was also worried that my kids might get bored or misbehave in certain places, and even though we didn’t get off scot free –Andres, my 3 year old, jumped on a 1920s cot in one of LeCorbusier houses and nearly gave the clerk a heart attack- my worries were warrantless. Instead, I experienced something I wasn’t expecting, the wonderful opportunity of seeing these masterpieces through my children’s eyes, discovering these places not only as an architect, but as innocent, playful, wondering little persons who can’t wait to run up and down a ramp, roll down a hill of grass, discover a hidden room; who couldn’t care less who made the building but were just interested in the space and how they could have fun in it.

And even more priceless, witnessing my children discovering the world, its similarities, its uniqueness, its diversity, trying to instill in them patience, tolerance, and appreciation for all things different, old and new… The passion for discovering new horizons, new perspectives… that is what I have always loved about traveling, that is what my parents instilled in me when I was a child, and that is what I want my children to get out of this experience and hopefully the future ones. This trip with my family reminded me that travel is the best investment you can make for yourself, and now this is true for my family as well.

I will treasure these memories forever, my heart is exploding with joy just writing about it, and although I didn’t win the #WorldTravelingHands contest, I had a wonderful time trying! My goal now is to try to win every single year; lets keep on traveling… and don’t forget to take your World Cuff!

Love, Ana Gonzalez

 Shop World Cuff here: goo.gl/e53muQ