Utah

During the height of quarantine and the unemployed life, my best friend and I were talking about how difficult this time had been. We were craving a change in scenery but also knew we had to do it the safest way possible not only for ourselves and our families but also for those around us. So we made a spur of the moment decision to jump in the car from my home in Orange County, CA, and visit the otherworldly national parks in Utah that we had heard so much about but had never had the opportunity to visit. So off we went

Marseille, France

While living in Paris, I hadn't heard the most ~favorable~ of things about Marseille when telling the locals that NYU Paris was taking us there on a weekend trip.  Many Parisians described it as the Detroit of the U.S. and questioned why I would even bother to visit, probably having to do more with their soccer teams' eternal feud rather than any other factor. Little did I know how wrong the Parisians were...