Fallingwater is one of the most famous homes in the United States. Built in the late 1930’s, it was designed by Frank Lloyd Wright for the Kaufman family of Pittsburgh department store wealth. It features cascading levels of concrete, and a waterfall built into the home’s environment.

In this post, I finally explain why I decided to write about some random, fairly spontaneous travel to Western Europe in 2018. Bear with me.

Here’s a quick recap. In 2018 I went on an impromptu work trip to Berlin, which was extended at the last minute to Aachen, Germany. This was stressful, but fun.

(If you want, you can read the previous posts in this series for more context. Otherwise, the next paragraph serves as a condensed recap.)

My boss gave me a few extra days off before I returned to the United States, so obviously I wanted to take advantage. My goal was to hit up some cool places and stuff.

I got some travel recommendations from colleagues, and picked a few of them to visit.

The first was Maastricht, Netherlands.

I haven’t written anything along the lines of a “life update” since August, I think, so it’s time to remedy that.

The truth is, I had a lot to look forward to coming into the Fall. I decided to actually go on a nice solo backpacking trip, and made a couple of plans for socially-distanced meetups with friends – some of which actually came to fruition. But after that, at times I felt like I had little left to do but to wait out the rest of the year, and ride out the increased cold, darkness, loneliness, boredom and isolation that winter would bring. (I don’t think I minced words with those adjectives.)

The truth is that the last few months have been much better than I was expecting. And no, not just because of birds.