April, May, June, July….the time does fly!

Boy the months have passed quickly! After setting into our new home in Pacifica, selling our home in San Francisco and paying off all our debts (yay!) we immediately left for a 4 week trip to Europe with our college aged kids to visit family in France and Belgium and to tour the Baltic by land and sea for the first time. It was a lovely trip and we found we could easily live in Amsterdam, Copenhagen or Stockholm with their marvelous mix of historic and modern buildings, the best bike lanes, great food, and very ecologically minded governments and people.

Did you know that the new trash processing and recycling center in Copenhagen is designed with a ski slope on its roof, a climbing wall on its side and various running and play areas? This is the most creative public/private use of a building we have ever seen. And of course their recycling and incineration processes are very efficient and clean as well.

 

 

 

One of our other favorite buildings in Copenhagen is the new state of the art opera house. We were fortunate to get a backstage tour by an opera performer with lots of stories of performances and details of logistics. The most incredible part is that behind the stage there are 5 other full sized stage areas that can be rotated into position within a couple of hours. Turnadot and Nixon in China were still mostly set up!

Space aged lobby – actual performance hall is inside orange structure.

 

Our very own opera star, Elisa Boles.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

We only had one day in St. Petersburg, but we spent a fair bit of time at the Cathedral of the Resurrection, also known as the Church of the Spilled Blood. Colorful Russian onion domes and magnificent mosaics on every interior surface were incredible. While the mosaics on our new home are lovely, they are just a starting point for this amazing form of art.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Usually I get depressed coming home from vacation, but coming home to our new Net Zero Energy home in Pacifica feels great. Between the modern design and breathtaking ocean views, we felt like the AirBnB vacations were just continuing!

We also came home to a busy architectural practice and are now getting ready to submit two new homes for permit in Los Altos and Menlo Park. Details to come soon!

Leave a Reply

Your email address will not be published. Required fields are marked *