How much do you see your friends and family?
When scientists have gone around the world searching for the “happiest people” or the “healthiest people” there’s one trait that comes up that ranks highest on both lists. Time spent with friends and family.
How much time do you spend with your friends and family? Whoever it is that you like, your social support network – it doesn’t matter if it’s your blood relatives or your new found “family” in a hippie commune. It seems that the more time you spend with the people you like, the happier and healthier you will be.
This should be an easy prescription to fulfill. Who doesn’t like seeing their friends? After time with your good friends you can feel refreshed and revitalized. They can give great advice and perspective on problems you may be having, or things you find stressful. Or hearing about their problems can help you shake you out of your own head, and help you to become stronger and more generous as you help them with their problems.
But count up the actual hours we spend with people we don’t know or don’t like (at work perhaps, or commuting, or in obligatory social settings we don’t actually enjoy) and add to that the hours we spend effectively by ourselves (watching TV, on the computer, on the blackberry), and there are very few hours we actually spend interacting with our friends.
By the way, I do not count sitting in the same room as friends and watching TV as time interacting with the friends. I know many people do count this time as social time, laughing at youtube videos, watching movies, etc. But I feel in these cases that people are interacting with the screen that is manipulating them emotionally. They are not getting real time human interaction with another human that is responding to them. A screen gives out one way, it is not a give and take relationship. And thus many people end up spending many “empty” hours feeling like they are interacting with people while on facebook, email, or while watching TV. But I do not think it subs in for actual time engaging with another person in the same room at the same time.
So in short, take a little tally this week. It may be more important to your health than getting exercise or eating right. Post in the comment field below – how many hours do you spend a day or per week with people you like?
Springtime in Switzerland
I love traveling to new countries – and this time around it was Switzerland and Austria. We began by staying with Heraldo’s sister and her boyfriend outside Zurich (really cute small town called Schindelegi). I loved the tiny streets of the old town in Zurich. We had fun hiking to Rapperswil, enjoying the 13th Century monestary and castle (complete with chicken coop built in 1250 and still in use). We spent some quality time on trains and buses (that arrived and departed with Swiss efficiency). I most enjoyed the day trip to Teecino – the southern part of Switzerland that is definitely Italian in flavor (and language). Not only were the gardens, lakes, and stores beautiful in Lugano, but I enjoyed the mixture of Italian and Swiss culture. The Italian culture has such vitality, exuberance, love, art, and passion. The Swiss culture has a love for organization, cleanliness, modern-ness, and healthy outdoor living. The combination of the two makes for a very pleasant style.
Then Heraldo and I jumped a plane to Vienna. After taking about an hour to get checked into our hostel (you get what you pay for) we enjoyed the city very much. The beautiful old buildings are amazing, and we even got a little waltz and polka in when we found an accordian player playing in the city gardens.
Salzburg was similarly spectacular with more castles and churches than you can shake a stick at. Make sure to hit up the Afro Cafe if you’re in town, the food was awesome and the ambiance was quite impressive.
It was nice to see Heraldo’s family again – his mother and father made the trip all the way over from Brazil, and his sister and Jonas were such fab hosts. Next reunion – Boston!!
Older Travel Bits
I’m always happy to do some traveling -
it’s very refreshing to see new places (or return to old haunts). Here’s a little history on my last few trips…
Vacationing at home is quite nice. Heraldo and I did a mini-vacation in San Francisco a few weeks back. If you haven’t yet experienced the Japanese baths at Kabuki Spa in Japantown, they are well worth a visit. Just make sure to get there when they open so you don’t have to wait too long.
Also amazingly charming (and affordable!) is the Queen Anne Inn – conveniently located near Japantown, birthday parties, and the Fillmore area. Of course best of all was seeing friends and I really enjoyed a West African dance class at Mission Dance Theater – what a great studio!
Ballroom comps are a lot more fun with a posse to hang out with. I road tripped down with Heraldo to L.A. to dance at Calopen with Gavin. We learned that driving down to Irvine on a Friday afternoon is a baaaaaad idea in traffic land.
After being so late I had to do my hair and makeup in the dark in a moving car, I’m going to leave more time for travel next time! However the dancing on Saturday went really well, and it was great to see some old friends who have disappeared to LA (like Julie Goldman who is now dancing some crazy bad ass salsa.
It was super fun to have Gavin and Meghan and Heraldo to hang out with – and get a chance to visit other friends in the LA area, as well as visit a new tea house Royal T that combines Japanese tea house, full Japanese food menu, cute Japanese waitresses in anime style French maid outfits, and modern Japanese pop art gallery. Googley eyes everywhere make everything way cuter. If you’re near Culver City, definitely worth a trip.
Anna and Heraldo just did a short jaunt down to San Diego / Carlsbad. Anna gets a super freakin’ awesome deal when staying at KSL properties (Thank you Decathlon!) and thus Heraldo and Anna stayed at La Costa in Carlsbad for the long weekend. They did a day trip with Kaye and Christian to Balboa Park for photo taking, flower sniffing, and general good times, and visited a new tea house in La Jolla. Excellent
food, decent tea (could be stored better to retain freshness) and bizarre service. Anna very much enjoyed the lounging by the pool in the beautiful San Diego sun, and is excited that the next set of travels are people coming here to San Francisco! More San Diego photos are here.
In November, the ever traveling pair trekked up to the North Bay for their
third weekend away. Karen and Scott had planned a lovely weekend through the “Wine and Food Affair” of
the greater Healdsburg area. The happy wine and food tasters scurried from tasting room to
tasting room on Saturday in the middle of a rainy afternoon. Despite the weather they
managed to hit 7 wine tasting rooms and stay quite warm with the food pairings that were
offered at each. FYI to all vegetarians – apparently wine pairings involve lots of meat,
so BYOS (bring your own snacks). The quartet did do some winery touring by bike the following day
when the weather was a little better. They stopped at 6 wineries, enough for all involved to
be a little worried about Anna’s capabilities to ride her bicycle straight forward.
None the less both solo bikers and the tandem made it safely back to the hotel. With a stop in Napa, the party returned to Oakland for Heraldo’s bladesmithing class and Irish Ceili dancing in Alameda.
A well planned weekend, but now Heraldo and Anna are glad to be home and have a few weekends to
catch up on laundry.
Heraldo and Anna took for a major whirlwind tour of the Boston area in October. They visited with his brother, Andre, at Boston University. The Brazilian bakery was well worth a stop, and they managed to not get too lost in Boston’s traffic center.
They also visited Anna’s grandmother in Duxbury, overlapping with Anna’s mom, cousin Doug and his new baby Jack. It was exciting to meet the newest member of the Wunsch clan and the first of the next generation (photos of everyone are here).
The impetus for the whole trip, of course, were the wedding nuptials of Jacob
Grigolia-Rosenbaum and Jocelyn Aframe. Heraldo and Anna greatly enjoyed their most
splendid wedding that involved not only super food, drink, and friends, but a sword
fight between the groomsmen and groom with the bride saving the day. Anna greatly
enjoyed getting to see all her college friends again and can’t wait till the next wedding…
Anna and Heraldo had a lovely trip down to Santa Monica / Studio City / the Huntington Gardens in October. They were very lucky to stay with their friend Genny in Studio City (and are quite happy that the megadoses of B are doing such a good job!) As always, the Huntington Gardens were lovely, if you haven’t visited them, we highly recommend it (and I recommend Heraldo’s lovely photography that captures my hair in SuperRed Mode. The Chinese Gardens are growing in quite well, and even though the Chinese tea snacks still aren’t that great, it’s a beautiful place for a cup of tea.
Anna had about 24 hrs. turn about time between camping and Florida for nationals, and most of that was spent at the doctor’s trying to get some antibiotics for her flu. Equipped with drugs and lots of ballroom dance gear, Anna and Gavin headed out to Orlando for some humidity and the American National Ballroom Dance Championships. They danced on Tuesday (very sick) Rising Star Rhythm and the smooth section of the 9 dance competition. On Wednesday (slightly less sick) they danced the Rising Star Smooth and the rhythm section of the 9 dance competition. They were very happy not to fall down in front of the judges considering how sick they were, and are hoping for major bonus points on “improvement” the next time the judges see them. However, a good time was had by all, and Gavin and Anna enjoyed seeing their friends and coaches dancing.
Heraldo and Anna’s August trip was to Black Rock City for some camping. We had a lovely time and met lots of new friends and visited with some old ones. Unfortunately, Anna got very sick on Tuesday and was sick through the rest of the trip. Blech! Even with that, it was good to get out to nature.
In July 08 there was a brief detour to Vegas for a bachelorette party (including a pretty talented balloon animal maker who could swing dance on stilts!!) (And there will be another Vegas trip for a ballroom dance competition in August). But Anna doesn’t really count Vegas as “travel”.
Anna was thrilled to join Heraldo for a week in Japan in June. Heraldo headed out for a Google trip to the Tokyo office, and Anna went along… why not?? Both Anna and Heraldo studied Japanese before they met and traveled to Japan as exchanged students. However this was their first time visiting the country together, and they enjoyed staying in
ryokan (Japanese style inns), visiting beautiful Japanese temples (see Heraldo’s amazing photographs), and soaking in onsen (Japanese traditional baths). Although it is nice to be home, the recent travels have been great.
In May 08, Anna and Heraldo headed on a Royal Caribbean cruise to Mexico with
19 of their friends.
Woohoo! The cruise was an amazing time – horseback riding through the most scenic parts of Cabo San Lucas, swing dancing on the streets of Mazatlan (and nearly losing Gavin and Bryan to the cactus patch), and zip lining through the jungles of Puerto Vallerta (more photos here).
Anna was so happy that so many friends were able to join her to ring in her birthday with
pirate style.
Heraldo and Anna headed down to Brazil in March 08 to visit Heraldo’s family.
They spent a wonderful week in the south of Brazil with Heraldo’s mother, father, and maternal family.
They then headed up to Sao Paolo for a week with his paternal grandparents, aunts, uncles, and cousin.
Anna greatly enjoyed spending more time with everyone, and was happy that Andre and Marilia were able
to visit at the same time (photo evidence here. Anna thanks her Portuguese teacher, Narima, for helping prepare her for
the trip but needs to practice a whole lot more!!
