around the world with our guest blogger

We have many talented designers here on Long Island, and nothing thrills me more than when I get to meet one of these designers. Whether it is through a showhouse, or in one of the many great showrooms here on Long Island, or in the online community - it is always worthwhile.  I've been fortunate to recently meet one of my favorites online, and having seen her work in several showhouses, was thrilled when she contacted me about being a guest blogger.  Anne, from Tarasoff Interiors, is an avid traveler and is treating us to some of her favorite memories and pics from her travels!  Thanks Anne!! Enjoy :)

I Love To Travel
by Anne, Tarasoff Interiors

Everyone who knows me, knows that I love to travel.  The first question I am asked is, “What is your favorite place?”  Well, that answer requires a lot of thought!  I have been to 68 countries, six continents and 385 cities outside of the USA.

There is nothing quite as enchanting as watching a sunset seated on a camel in the Sahara Desert, sleeping in a Berber tent and waking up to watch the sunrise.  I have walked the Wall of China, (not all of it!), climbed the ruins of Angor Wat in Cambodia, trekked up to the Eagles Nest in Bhutan and prayed that I wouldn’t see the head of a hippopotamus while gliding in a mokoro (a dugout canoe) in the waters of Botswana.  Flying low in a four-passenger plane over the 1500 ft. high dunes of Namibia with the sun changing the pastel colors of the sand is truly breathtaking.  Fishing for piranha in the Amazon, which the natives eat, was a bit creepy and snowmobiling on a glacier in Iceland was very scary.  Then there was the surprise of going to a wonderful concert in a jewel box of an opera house in Ulanbataar before boarding the Trans Siberian train, traveling through six time zones going from Mongolia, the Gobi Desert, Siberia, and arriving in Moscow.

But my favorite?  A small, very beautiful country which has had more than its share of tragedy – Rwanda.  I read about a gorilla trek and I said yes!!  What an exciting and exhilarating experience.  It was a hard two hour trek up a mountain, walking behind a guide who was cutting a path with a machete, to get to where there was family of gorillas.  To be up close, I mean really up close, to a silverback gorilla is stunning,.  He was very watchful of us and his family, which included three small romping baby gorillas with their mama.  We stayed quietly with the family for one hour and I loved every minute of it.  Our guide had an exchange of grunts (conversation) with the silverback and I would swear that they understood each other.  I can’t say that I looked forward to the two hour trek down the slippery mountain.

While I can’t imagine anything more exciting, I will keep trying to find out.  Where am I going next?  I want to go beyond the beyond.  What I take away with me, besides all the wonderful memories, are the design concepts from all the different ethnic groups: luxurious silks, intricate tapestries, crude weaves with exotic designs, furniture and carpets woven for palaces and simple floor mats in yurts.

My mantra is a quote:  “It is not the years in your life that count, but rather the life in your years.”
-- Anne    
www.tarasoffinteriors.com