THE SUMMER OF LOVE

October 12th, 2025: As the first cold front makes it’s way to South Florida, and I sit here enjoying the golden light on the field and picturesque clouds and the sound of the airplane overhead, I’m already missing summertime. While I’m enjoying that everything is pumpkin and squash themed, and my classroom is about to evolve into a spooky haven of Jekyll and Hyde analysis, the heat of the summer is still burning in my mind. Memories of hot summer nights, damp mornings and salty air swirl in my mind, and it’s only right to recap the enrapturing, raucous, and delightful summer I had, filled with love and hope and light.
January 18th, 2026: Sitting here, months later, hardly enjoying yet another cold front in this chilly Florida winter, I may get around to finishing this post! Or maybe, we’ll see every season before it makes it’s way back to you. Four parts, each a different country, pasted together in a beautiful collage of adventure, love bursting at the seams.

Part 1: Costa Rica

It started with my and Nathan’s departure from Costa Rica, which was a whirlwind of last minute packing, salty tears and shots of tequila. We were surrounded by all of the love that we had cultivated in 2 years living in another country, building a life with connections and memories that will last a lifetime. It was a Fourth of July, birthday, despedida celebration that left me and Nathan in a sense of melancholic wonder as we flew away, with the journey we had both separately been on, and with the journey we were about to embark on together.

Part 2: Mexico City, MX

We began our summer of love in La Cuidad de Mexico, a vibrant and sprawling city of culture, heritage, and life. This city is full of wonders, some of which I’ll never get the chance to explore. But if I said just to go for the tacos, it’s worth it. I couldn’t possibly tell you the most important or best things to do in Mexico City, because even two weeks there, milling around and taking our time, was only enough to skim the surface. I can give you the highlights, and give you a starting point for your own Mexico City trip (which is really what I want, because this place is so underrated I can’t even take it).

eat tacos

Every day we ate the best tacos we’d ever had in our lives, watching flawless systems of revolving el pastor as it was artfully sliced into a corn tortilla and garnished with simple onion, cilantro, pineapple. We kept going back, again and again, to the same taco joint that was open late, just minutes from our hostel in the heart of everything.

just…explore!

It seems so simple, and we were balling on a budget during our trip, but that’s one of the beauties of Mexico City: you don’t need to break the bank to experience it fully. There are so many little neighborhoods, filled with history, bazaars, street art, adorable coffee shops and hidden gem taco joints. Some of the favorites that we wandered through, got caught in the rain in, and did a quick hit and run were: Roma Norte, La Condesa, Roma Sur, Polanco, and of course Centro! (I looked up several self-guided walking tours and pored over travel blogs to figure out what I wanted to see in each place. Centro has a lot of historic buildings which I loved, and the Reforma walk/bike ride are mentioned on every site.)

cruising the canals at Xochimilco

Now this was our last minute fit— like I said, I read a lot of blogs but I still wasn’t sure how I was going to make this event happen. But no matter how intimidating it may feel to self-organize in a foreign land, this was a MUST. The most spontaneous thing we did here, no regrets. Basically, Xochimilco is an area in the WAY south part of CDMX. We had to take several trains and trams all the way to the end of the line just to get to the town, and after that we walked for another 10 minutes to get to the canals. The beautiful thing about this part of the adventure was that we were joined by strangers. We used the Community forum on HostelWorld, an app I use to book hostels, to reach out and see if anyone was interested in joining us for a canal ride. The planner in me was absolutely fine organizing meet ups with three new friends who were down for a spontaneous, day-of adventure.

We met Deborah in Polanco for tacos, and found out some amazing things about her world travels. She had just gotten off a flight from Southeast Asia and hadn’t even slept yet! On top of that, she had been traveling for work/school for over a year at that point, and we got to hear about all of the crazy places and adventures she’d had. Together, we rode the public transport down to Xochimilco and walked to the canals, where we found a boat operator that was willing to rent us the excursion at an amazing price (way better than if we’d scheduled ahead of time). At that point, we met up with Susannah, another incredibly well-travelled American on a solo adventure, and Justin, a German filmmaker on a hiatus, determined to try every taco that CDMX had to offer. After we stocked up on micheladas— enormous concoctions of beer, lime, and tajin— we were ready to start our cruise.

We talked, we laughed, we thought we were gonna run into the insane traffic of other embarcaderos, but we didn’t. We soaked in the rainbow of brightly colored boats; bachelorette parties of flower-crowned girlies, casual Sunday picnics of Mexican families barbequing, and wide-eyed tourists who stared straight ahead and tried to appear to enjoy the whacky, incomprable experience of boating through the throngs of people. We splurged on mariachis who jumped from their boat to ours and performed the most intimate, raucous, beautiful concert I’ve ever experienced in my life. Men who were experts at their instrument, playing through the hue of golden hour from the depths of their souls these classic songs of love and heartbreak and celebration. I don’t think Nathan nor I will forget the mariachis as long as we live.

palacio de bellas artes

I was in utter awe of palacio de bellas artes. Seeing the magnificence of this building in person was enchanting. We walked past it on our city exploration, and I couldn’t believe what was in front of me. The fact that Nathan and I got the opportunity to actually see a show there was cherry on top. It happened that while we were there, there was a 'Folklore Ballet’ running at el palacio. We weren’t sure what to expect, and that was honestly best for what we experienced.

This was no Swan Lake, and we sat up in the mezzanine to experience a vivacious display of traditional costuming, music, and dancing. Every color of the rainbow came together in a burst of life, we watched depictions of courtships, bull wrangling, and celebrations of life. Mariachi pranced across the stage with every instrument at their disposal, and the dancers stomped and hollered and flowed through the stories of Mexican folklore. I felt so lucky to witness it, a beautiful display of theatre in a new place, not to mention the Tiffany glass curtain behind the proscenium, an iridescent, arching mosaic of an enchanting snow-capped mountain range.

Chapultepec Castle & Park

If you ever visit, don’t miss a day exploring Chapultepec. Not only is there an insane castle that doubles as a museum, which you can spend hours perusing and feeling very fancy, but it’s also basically the Central Park of Mexico City. You could spend the entire day there, exploring, meditating, admiring the beauty and serenity of a green space within a sprawling metropolis. As for me and Nath, we did all those things, plus a bag full of impulsively purchased sweets and pastries. Also we got caught in an epic rainstorm that had us standing on benches to keep from floating away, and sprinting through the downpour to find shelter at an adorable coffee shop where we drank mochas and waited for the storm to pass.

hot air ballooning over ancient temples

Okay…we caved. We went back and forth on whether we should (or could) splurge on the iconic hot air ballooning excursion over Teotihuacán. If the two of us, barely skidding through our month of travel with bank accounts intact, could do it, so can you. This experience. Was. AMAZING. That’s all there is! We got picked up in the wee hours of the morning, and spent a lovely taxi ride with another American gentlemen that was visiting to watch his son compete in volleyball. We spent the whole day together, joined by some more people eventually, as we navigated the tiny town of San Juan Teotihuacán.

I’ve spent my life in various methods of air travel: hang gliders, paragliders, ultralights, and the list goes on. I’ve even bungee jumped. But nothing, nothing compares or can even be in the same world as watching hundreds of colorful hot air balloons dot the pale dawn sky as the sun rises behind you to illuminate ancient pyramids. Literally nothing. Just do it. Make some friends, eat some yummy food. Buy the pictures and videos.

And like any great vacation…always leave them wanting more: Here are two things that, since leaving Mexico City, have stuck in my mind and ensured that I will be back.

frida khalo museum

I know, it’s insane that we weren’t able to visit the most iconic place in CDMX, but they were booked out for weeks and we were traveling on the fly. We made up for it by having a lazy day and watching Salma Hayek’s Frida, which gave me an enlightened understanding not only of the history of the city, but also the beauty of everyday life there. Also, there’s this wonderful scene where Frida visits the pyramids of Teotihuacán with Leon Trosky, famed Russian philosopher and Marxist, and one of Frida’s lovers. Even something so insignificant as watching the dramatization of this in the movie created a lovely connection for us when we, too, walked the steps of the Pyramid of the Moon as lovers. Granted, Nathan is no Russian philosopher (though he is really into chess and stoicism these days).

estadio azteca

Home of the Copa ‘71, the first Women’s World Cup, hidden from history until recently; I would love to go back and be a part of a football match in such an iconic location. Guess I’ll just have to wait until they officially host the Women’s World Cup there ;)

Part 3: Medellin & Cartagena, Colombia

Which takes us to the pinnacle of this four-country endeavor: Ale & Ani’s wedding. I’d already been to both Medellin and Cartagena, so it was a happy, familiar landscape to be apart of a spectacular whirlwind weekend of love.

2025 marked the start of ‘wedding season’ in my life. For those of you who read my blog post on Krystal & Colin’s wedding, you know how enthralling it is for me to be in the general vicinity of a huge celebration like that. As for my cousin’s wedding: it was like we were in a movie, the whole week long. In actuality, when you see those cheesy, unrealistic movies about destination weddings, the adventure, the silliness, every detail absolutely perfect, this was that.

The rolling orange backdrop of the city of Medellin, wearing a cape of regal mountains on its shoulders, wasn’t even the noteworthy part. So if you’re hoping for an extensive travel breakdown of Colombia, you’ll have to pray I write about one of my mi gals trips one day. This…was all about family.

I grew up with family friends that have, for as long as I can remember, been closer than blood. My parents best friends, my aunt and uncle, and their two kids, my cousins. None of which I’m technically related to, which is why people are always so confused when I tell them that my family is Venezuelan, but I’m not.

Saying I grew up around the Vecchi’s family would be understating. I grew up in the Vecchi’s family. We went to the birthdays, and tried to learn the words to cumpleaños feliz; we celebrated New Year’s, and adopted the tradition of eating 12 grapes at midnight. The first phrases I knew in Spanish were cabeza de chola (which my auntie would yell at my cousins as her sandal flew through the house), Katira (my uncle’s nickname for my auntie), and your general assortment of Venezuelan-Italian curse words. There is no doubt in my mind that my constant lean towards Latino culture was bore from the love that I felt in the Vecchis’ home growing up. Claudia & Alessandro’s aunts, uncles, cousins, grandparents, and family friends meshed us into their world, and we became familiar and familial in their lives, too.

All of this to say, going to Colombia to celebrate the aforementioned cabeza de chola was a vein of electric excitement that ran through us all.

The FIRST of us to be married?! I mean are you kidding?? Our moms were pregnant together, thirty years ago, dreaming aloud about the day that their sons would stand beside each other at the first one’s wedding. And that’s exactly how it happened (oof now I’m tearing up).

As a side note, I’m so grateful that this experience included Nathan, and that he got to see, live in 4K, the vibrant love that our families unabashedly show each other. To know me is to know my imaginative and weird cousin Claud, my sentimental and hilarious Uncle Luis, my passionate and selfless Auntie Carol, and my loud and loving cousin Ale. (And now, my bubbly and driven cousin Ani!) I love and cherish that Nath was welcomed into my enormous family with open arms during our trip, and we really did feel the love tenfold.

We like to say that this wedding felt like a celebrity wedding, but my favorite things about it weren’t the insane floral arrangements, or the 1000-piece band (though those were fucking epic). It was the little touches, the handwritten notes given to each guest, the way everyone sat around the dance floor to listen to the speeches, the blue handkerchief that Ani wore in her hair at the rehearsal dinner that we all took home as a party favor from the wedding.

I loved that as soon as the music started, we didn’t sit down for six hours (yes my entire foot was a blister the next day). I loved that nobody stopped dancing, even the white people who didn’t know a lick of all the Spanish music that was being played. I loved how earnest the newlyweds were at breakfast the next day, unimaginably exhausted but so full of gratitude and concern about everyone having a good time.

It was a celebrity wedding that somehow felt like a warm hug and also like an oversized shot of aguardiente (never, ever again. ever.) It reminds me of this HUGE futon the Vecchis had in their first house. I was…five? I don’t know. But they had this enormous brown-beige futon bed that, in my child mind, was as big as a trampoline (and just as circular). One night I slept over, and we were piled into this huge cushy circle with all these blankets, me and Ev and Claud, and the edges of the futon bed just went on forever and ever, like there was no end to the soft and warm and safe space that my auntie had set me down in. Yeah, just like that.

Part 4: The U.S.

Which brings our trip to it’s last destination, rounding all of our travels into a full circle, bringing me back to a place that hadn’t been home base in a while. With the warmth and the humidity to wrap me in a welcomed embrace, it felt good to be home.

I barely let the wheels of Nathan’s flight home touch the asphalt in London before I was off again too, to explore the Redwoods with my friend Jade. I’d been before, but just a drive-through (some of y’all remember it was a rather painful drive, as I had just been hit by a car a few days before) and I definitely wasn’t doing any hiking. I was so grateful and excited to get the opportunity to explore this magical place more in-depth, and it was just that: magic.

We hiked past giants and stared down 1200 year old trees. We felt tiny in their presence, like woodland creatures from Ferngully scurrying down pine-laden paths. We went off on our own, creeping down trails at 6am, careful not to wake trees lest they were still sleeping. We got tangled up in blackberry brambles, staining our pockets, our lips, our fingertips with their sweet, earthy tang. We explored with few plans, and had the best pizza I’ve ever had in my entire life from a food truck in a dusty town that didn’t even have a gas station (you know we went back a second time, too).

It was my first time traveling with Jade in this capacity, just the two of us. I’m always a tiny bit hesitant with a new travel partner; you never know if their idiosyncrasies or methods will vibe with yours; it’s always a gamble. Jade can strike up an interesting or thoughtful conversation from nothing, but what I found special was her inclination toward comfortable silence, enjoying the beauty and the life all around us, alone but together.

Jade’s an avid traveler, and the fact that she thought of me to reach out to to accompany her on this trip…means I’ve become someone that my younger self only dreamed about. I wonder if 14-year-old Lauren and Jade, hanging out peripherally at birthday parties, would have ever suspected magical adventures, over a decade later, sleeping under the stars atop a Redwood stump and foraging through ancient whisperings from the voiceless storytellers who have seen this land unsullied by our footprints.

énoument: the bittersweetness of having arrived here, in the future, finally learning the answers to how things turned out but being unable to tell your past self

So I want to leave it with this. The Summer of Love was all different kinds: Leaving love, growing love, celebrating love, finding love, giving love out like candy on Halloween— a kaleidoscope of love infinite. The Lauren from last summer got to hold in her hands the answers to some questions that the Lauren the summer before really needed to know. The Lauren the summer before that would have killed for. The Lauren the summer before that wouldn’t have been able to fathom in— well, maybe in her wildest dreams ;)

March 10th, 2026: As the heat comes back to saturate the trees and the air and my skin in a way that only Florida can, spring is upon us (or whatever we’re calling Florida’s other season). And as we’re coming up on that devilishly familiar side of the sun again, I wonder what bittersweetness my future summer self will have to share with me one day, flicking through the photo album of this ardent summer where love was bursting, finally learning the answers to questions I didn’t even know I had.

Lau x