Family Vacation, Pt. 2 | New Orleans

After returning from our impromptu international weekend, my parents and I took off for four days in good ol' New Orleans. As many of you know, my family travels a lot and figuratively collects states. Going to Louisiana was a first for us, which made it extra exciting. I don't have a ton to write on the subject, so I'll let the photos speak for themselves.

LAKE PONTCHARTRAIN

THE FRENCH QUARTER

METAIRIE CEMETERY

HONEY ISLAND SWAMP

Family Vacation, Pt. 1 | Montreal

I was so lucky and got to spend the last couple of weeks hanging out with my parents. Being the child of adventurers has its serious benefits. While they were in Boston, we decided to take an impromptu road trip up to Montreal.

Bonus points to anyone that noticed the map my dad is holding in the third picture is upside down.

Up next, New Orleans.

On Surviving Winter | Snowpocalypse 2015

Being a native Californian, I'm eternally unprepared for winter and at the risk of sounding overdramatic, I am surprised I made it through this year in one piece. Boston was hit by blizzards at least once, if not twice, a week for over a month. We broke six feet of snow and set the record for most snowfall in one winter in the history of the city. It was a miserable, brutal series of months and maybe someday, we'll look back and laugh at Snowpocalypse 2k15. Speaking for myself, I'm still trying to shake off the PTSD. I'll be afraid to leave the house without my heavy-duty, dual layer coat for at least another month.

But for all of the bad, I was lucky enough to have some wonderful people trapped with me in the nightmare hellscape. My brothers and good friend were brave enough to venture from Southern California to visit me, plus I acquired a core group of folks I loved enough to get repeatedly snowed in with. I'm talking three days at a time, people. After that, I'm confident that we could make it through an actual apocalypse together.

Maybe it's just the hint of sun on the horizon, but I've come out of winter feeling rather lucky.

2014 | A Year in Review

Every year, I write an essay of repentance for my failures, thankfulness for the good moments, and defiance toward the bad. I draw resolutions from a hat and swear to adhere this time around. I'll take more photos, practice guitar, read all the books I impulse-bought but didn't read. Inevitably, I forget within the week.

For the first time in my adult life, I ended the year without a good or bad classification. I've always conformed to the binary but 2014 has hovered steadily above ground zero. For each negative, there's been a positive and for each step forward, there have been two back. It's been a year of stability - or stagnation, depending on the day you ask me. 

Despite everything, I can't deny it's been a learning process and I'd like to keep a record for Next Year Me. Maybe I'll retain lessons longer than aspirations. I always did learn better the hard way.

• Patience is a virtue I wasn't born with but, my god, she can be taught! Some things are worth waiting for. Some waiting may last for years. Some waiting is for Godot.

• Hard work eventually pays off if you let it. But sometimes you have to pay it forward to yourself, buy that plane ticket, and trust that you can handle a few months of four jobs and no sleep.

• Living away from home doesn't mean giving up your past life. It just requires adapting to a particular sort of schizophrenia.

• Running away won't solve your problems, but it will give you some perspective. Maybe that's all you need to solve them yourself when you return.

• It's okay to admit defeat when you've been banging your head against a wall for a year. You're concussed, you're over it, and any further detriment is likely to be permanent. Stand down, soldier. There are better things than these.

• The best way to cure a fear of solitude is to spend time on your own. A year of alone time under my belt and, hey, it's not so bad. I'm verging on enjoying my own company. Almost.

• You can't predict everything. Sometimes, a silly childhood dream slaps you in the face and you realize six months later that, god, I should have been doing this the whole time. Now it's just about playing catch-up with the years of missed practice.

• I've learned to write in cursive, count in Chinese and Turkish, sing in front of people without panicking, and manage a feature film production. However, I messed up grilled cheese last week. I may never learn to cook.

Instead of declaring resolutions I'll immediately ignore, I'll just hope 2015 contains a little more adventure and a little less overthinking.

China Pt. 2: 我是机器人

Trips as long as the one I just took are interesting because after a point, it doesn't feel like vacation anymore. You create routines, pick favorite restaurants and meals, get to be recognized in coffee shops, and know where the subways intersect without having to check the map. And then it isn't until right before you leave that you realize you're comfortable with where you are and what you've been doing.

I had that moment of realization; that voice in my head saying, "This is it. This is your life now." And I'll admit, I'm missing the little life I created. There's a feeling that comes with immersion into a completely unfamiliar culture and I'm not sure if I can quite put it into words. Things were difficult there, not speaking the language. I felt so helpless and a little scared and I was constantly trying to grasp onto something - anything - that felt familiar enough to give me a starting point. There was a learning curve I knew I would never surmount, but that was what made the little victories feel so good. The first time I managed to order coffee without help or without pointing at a menu provided this bizarre adrenaline rush. It feels like working towards something tangible and you can clearly see progress when it's made. I haven't figured out yet how to find that feeling in my real life.

I've been back in America for a week now and I have to say, this has been one of the longest weeks of my life. Between jet lag, illness, and reassimilating into the hectic day-to-day, I feel like I've been back a month (at the very least). Perhaps it's just post-vacation blues, but I've come back with a feeling of discontentment. I finally had some space and time to evaluate my life. The scary truth is that while I still have no idea what I want in the long run, I don't think I'm supposed to be doing...whatever it is I'm doing. 

We'll just call this my existential crisis and move on. 

On today's episode of Where In the World is Alyssa, I have for you the second installation of Beijing photos. This includes such locations as Dazhongsi (home base), Costa Coffee (on second thought, maybe this was home base), Wudaoying hutong, and the Summer Palace. The title of this post translates back to the most important sentence I could have learned to say: I am a robot.

China Pt. 1: 北京

I am someone who clearly has an addiction to traveling and despite my rather meager income, I've somehow managed to leave the country several times this year. This current adventure consists of twenty three days in China. I just concluded week one.

Adjusting has been interesting, to say the least. The jet lag was brutal and I think I'm just now getting over it. I've also never been in a situation where I was completely and totally inept when it comes to language. When I was in Istanbul, I began to catch on to Turkish pretty quickly. In Mexico, I understood/spoke enough Spanish to get by. Drunk Scottish was a little harder to understand but, hey, all we had to do was compensate with a little more whiskey and that brought us onto their level. But Chinese is an entirely different experience. There's no alphabet, no real connection between the written and the spoken language, and no reference points beyond memorization (which is one of my weakest qualities). I have a hard time accepting that I more or less constantly need help, even for something as simple as ordering coffee. At least Alex is patient.

Yesterday, we wandered around through Tiananmen Square, the Forbidden City, and a temple called Beihai. These pictures are in no particular order. Also, I generally would change the color tone a little and try and up the contrast but the air pollution is such a staple of China, I felt I had to preserve it in all its hazy glory (particularly in that first photo). At least it creates an interesting natural filter effect?

Color Channel | Event Photography

Trying some new stuff with low light and crazy colors. Color Channel is an awesome band (which you should all check out) that rocked Brooklyn Boulders Somerville on Halloween. I was pretty psyched to get to shoot under such amazing visuals.

Alicia and Ian | Wedding Photography

I've been terrible at keeping up with this thing but, in my defense, it's been a really busy couple of months.

Once upon a time almost two years ago, I was working a nightmarish waitress job. I was miserable but the entire experience was totally worth it because I met this beautiful friend of mine, Alicia. She and Ian are two of the most kind hearted people I've been lucky enough to meet since I moved to the east coast. I'm so honored to have been a part of their wedding (including the most sitcom worthy bachelorette party of all time).

I love you guys!

I was working on that first photo while in the box office at work last night. My boss came in and was bordering on shocked that this was a real wedding. He was convinced that we'd staged it because everything, and I quote, was "too pretty."