Georgia Road Trip, Part 1

Last weekend was a long weekend for us with a holiday on Monday. Daniel and I used the opportunity for a road trip in Georgia. We wanted to explore an area we hadn't been to and decided to stay in Americus, GA as our base for exploration.

As I researched hotels in Americus, I discovered the historic victorian Windsor Hotel right downtown and we decided we simply had to stay here. 

 It is run by Best Western and we found it quite affordable.

The lobby alone was worth the visit.

 Such a magnificent building and so nicely restored and maintained.

At some point during the weekend, we saw all the hotel guests taking their picture in this huge mirror. We thought we were so clever...

Our room was on the second floor, but of course we had to explore the entire hotel. 

The hotel has two restaurants, one for fine dining and the other a pub, which is where we ate. The food we had was really good. 

Of course, an old hotel like this has to have a haunting or two. We read all about it after the shutters in our room kept closing and opening by themselves. We found it interesting, but other than that, we had no ghostly visitors.

As legend has it, there is a mother and child and an old porter who still roam the hotel and try to interact with the guests.

Breakfast was served in the elegantly restored dining room. 

That was a little more breakfast than I had thought it would be, but since we ended up skipping lunch, it served us well.

If you zoom in and look at the floor, it is a mosaic of tiny tiles. 

That was only the hotel part of our trip. We were so surprised by everything we saw and visited that I am going to overwhelm you with photos in my next few posts. 

It's too much to put in one post alone. Plus, the four places we visited in the vicinity of Americus were all completely different from one another.

One thing I can say for sure, Georgia keeps surprising us. Stay tuned...

❧ Silke

Work!

Happy weekend, friends!

I was going to post a blog post last week, but I should have known that that wasn't going to happen. Last week was add/drop week at SCAD (Savannah College of Art and Design), when student can add and drop classes without any financial consequences.

View from the building where I work

What that means is that it is REALLY busy. We have walk-in hours all day every day during that week when students can see us without appointments.

Student work in one of the buildings - it's huge!

It's also the week when most of the departments have student orientations and faculty meetings, which we try to go to.

One of the School of Design buildings decorated with clown shoes

I advise all graduate students in Design for Sustainability, Industrial Design, Design Management, Service Design, Creative Business Leadership, Writing and Dramatic Writing (for theater, movies or television).

From an exhibit at the SCAD Museum of Art

Altogether, I advise about 450 students. It was so fun to see many of them again after winter break, as well as the professors. Yes, we are busy but for me it is incredibly fulfilling work.

The view from my parking garage

As an added bonus, I get to be around art and creativity all day long and work smack-dab in the middle of historic downtown Savannah (although it's a little dangerous that I work only a block from the main shopping street).

Next week will be a lot calmer and I won't have evening meetings to go to, so hopefully I'll check in a little more often.

I wish you all a beautiful Saturday!

❧ Silke

Virginia Museum of Fine Arts

Aside from the Edward Hopper exhibit, the Virginia Museum of Fine Arts was beyond impressive. We had no idea how huge it is and only saw about a third of its collection. It definitely calls for another trip!

The Faberge flowers were exquisite.

Ancient art from east and west.

This was a huge piece of art "painted" entirely with pins. I would not have the patience!

This painting was equally large and painted in layers with resin in between, which gave it a lot of depth.

 The details in this piece were stunning as well!

As we were eating lunch we watched this bridal party taking photos. They must have been freezing as it was not a warm day!

We were lucky in the timing of our trip. Just three days before, this statue was moved from Times Square in New York City to it's new permanent location at the VMFA.

A magnificent work of art!

Hopefully you enjoyed this little stroll through the Virginia Museum of Fine Arts. It's definitely worth a visit! I know we'll be back...

I wish you all a relaxing Sunday! We are getting ready for the start of school tomorrow. Let the fun begin! :)

❧ Silke