Ciao Italia!

It is official - Giuseppe and I are heading out to Florence on the 13th of February (Valentine's Day a'la Italy!) for 17 days, with a few quick stints in Munich (yay for Bavarian chocolate!).

This is very exciting for us for a number of reasons:

1. This is my first time to Italy.

2. This is Giuseppe's first time home in almost exactly 11 years from moving to the states (March 3 will be 11 years).

3. This will be the first time I get to meet Giuseppe's other family members that don't live in the states.

4. This will be the first time that Giuseppe not only goes home to Italy but more special, and the most special of all the exciting reasons, Giuseppe gets to go home, like his house home in 11 years.  The house where he grew up, the town he lived in for almost 21 years, the place where his paintings have been, where his entire family history resides, perfectly in place and preserved since the day they left.  The hair on my arms is standing on end...

5. Oh yeah, this is our honeymoon.  Not bad, eh?

This will be a very special trip for us...we will be staying in Ponte Vecchio, Florence the entire time, with trips to Calabria, San Marino, Pisa and Sienna, but we are just excited to be together, experiencing such a lovely place, Giuseppe's home, and just traveling together.  The weather is to be cool, but hopefully sunny.  I hate the rain, so I am hoping for not too much of that, but who cares....really, we'll be Italy!!!!!!!  Yipee!

PS.  G got new glasses, fancy and fashionable glasses-I'll post pictures on Sunday when they come in!  So H-O-T!!!!!

Love d:)

NYE 2008 & Amsterdam, Part 1

Well, I am more than happy to let you all know that the pictures of NYE 2008 (mostly Zareena, Zareena, and more Zareena!) and our first of 2 trips to Amsterdam (we hit the city again in April on our way home) are up on flickr! (Giuseppe finally found a card USB to transfer the pics...good hubby!)  I will be posting some Christmas pictures too of Carmela & Jason's in Wisconsin, and although I unfortunately didn't take any in RI (bummer), please know that we had the most wonderful time in RI this year and my family was really understanding about having a December 29th Christmas morning this year...now be prepared for our 2009 Christmas plans - we are hopefully heading off somewhere like Paris for the holidays!  F*#k the gifts, we want to go and have fun!!!

NYE 2008:  We went to Zarak & Fatima's in Salem this year, they just moved into a new townhouse in a nice area, and we were thrilled to be there with them, and other friends, including Mr. Wayde!  It was a rather low key night (although I hate to say, we are not NYE party-goers, so you will most likely not glimpse too many of those occasions!), with good food, music, dessert, wine and champagne and Zareena, who partied on with us until the wee hours of the morning...with a quick nap in there for about 20 minutes.  Oh, and many, many cell phone calls.  She is one popular - and chatty - little girl!  We left at around 2:30 am and headed back to Billerica, and then chilled the next day and headed back to RI the 2nd, due to some snow!  It was nice, next year, maybe we will try and live it up!!!  

Amsterdam:  This is a great city. We didn't have even good weather to view it, but even in the wet and cold, it has this chic Euro-punk feel to it, the most pedestrian friendly city I have ever been to...really neat to see all the bikes...I mean, ALL the bikes.  I think I saw 1 car for every 100 bikes.  That is one moving city.  It has a feeling of carnival with all the lights, signs and people, and yet feels really old and historical like London does.  We walked around all morning, and got to experience the city as 2 people and then as part of a crowd of thousands of strangers, as the city awoke.  

We took the tram a few times, viewing the city, and also headed to the Reijk Museum and to wander around the park, eat some dutch waffles, drink tea...it was a nice time.  Unfortunately, we were beyond tired (to the point where my bones hurt) and so we headed back to Schipol and slept for a few hours, before heading on the last leg of the journey to Dubai.  Home, sweet home.  And our plants were still alive, to boot!  Yay!

Check out the pics at flickr!!!!

Bye..d:)

Shop 'til you drop...

Dubai Shopping Festival is upon us (that is right, we actually have a 32 day stint where shopping is even more publicized than usual to, you know, get people to shop more than normal-is that possible???).

The entire city turns into one big festivity of shopping, entertainment, raffles, games, etc.  It is crazy, I think...I haven't taken part.  Yet.

Giuseppe and I were at the mall the other night and I noticed that there were tons of sales (not something you see often here at all), like 60-75% off at Topshop, ALDO, etc.  I just passed it by.  I was not there to shop (I know, shocking!), but now I know...it's DSF time!

The festival is actually a time that the government started as a way to bring up the economy some 10 years ago, to bring tourism and trade into the Emirates.  I am thinking they have been successful.  I can't imagine they are still doing it for the "economic boost."  We need no more boost here.  

So, I am off this week to take part in, well, the festivity of SHOPPING!  I think every country should have this...it makes you feel better about shopping a lot but saving, and here we really save because we are a tax-free nation, so....

Hopefully we will check out some of he other things too, like the games, rug festival with all handmade rugs from Kashmir, Iran, Turkey and Afghanistan.  I bet they are just beautiful...and we may try and make our way back over to the souks for this thrilling time...it is sure to be crazy.

Love d:)

***Note: There is still no images up yet.  We can't use our secret weapon for downloading, we will have to go and buy a USB card holder, so we can just remove the card from the camera and insert it into the computer that way...sorry for the wishful thinking on my part yesterday.  Perhaps none of you even care, but I really look forward to sharing with you all our Amsterdam trip and Christmas and New Years festivities.***

Back to my old self...

(Note to self: be prepared next time.)

I am here!  I am back!  I finally have the gusto and peace to write again, regularly.

I guess I needed more time to readjust than I thought...

The jet lag has been terrible and Giuseppe and I have found ourselves getting up anywhere from 7 am to noon, with naps in between at times.  Crazy.  But little by little, I feel whole again.

So, hello!  And hello 2008!  

Dubai has welcomed us back with big, open (at times, wet) arms - the weather is cool, well, 60's and 70's (sometimes, even high 50's - gasp!), but when you get used to 80's at night, you can see my point.

The city is still booming, never stopped despite our venture back home...I guess it lived on without us.  The sky has been more cloudy than usual, but I suppose it is refreshing - and a nice touch of reality - that this place is not always fun and sun in the sky, no clouds, just perfection.  If this is winter, I can handle it.  At times, it even feels good to have to put on a hoodie to go outside, just a little nip in the air that runs through you enough to give a chill.  Feels, well, good.  

Other than that, lets see if I can catch you up with everything that is going on.

First things first, before I forget, I will be uploading images to flickr today (yay!) - although we haven't found our USB, we have found an alternate route, so stay tuned for that.  In addition, I will posting another post here on Blogger, with images, for those of you who are fans of reading my babble, and seeing pics too.  They will include a recap of our last weeks in 2007, and our trip to Amsterdam, in some fashion...maybe a few posts will handle all this excitement.

Second, Giuseppe and Wayde have been hard at work on their brochure mailer, and updating the site, some renewed design ideas for both, etc.  Their building was accepted - with a respectable and firm handshake - by the first committee and it is now moving forward until it reaches D.M. (Dubai Municipality).  We have no doubt about this process going very well - perhaps with a few changes here and there.  I am just really, really proud of them.  Not bad for their first BIG commission.  Not bad at all...

In lieu of not having major work during this period, the three of us have decided that this is a grande time for some traveling.  Giuseppe and I will be taking an overdue honeymoon to, well, somewhere.  There are a number of places we have researched, including going to Italy and visiting Giuseppe's hometown, Spain, South of France, and some islands as well...we have also looked into going nowhere at this time.  The latter not being my favored option, but...

I will keep you posted!  Any trip is a great experience, so I am up for some travel right now!

So, today, we are headed over to hunker down in the Tardif flat for an afternoon of computer-geek business - website, brochure, iTunes, syncing, etc.   We are a bunch of plain ol' tech geeks. Sometimes, we all sit together, on 2 laptops and our iPod Touches, man, we are consumed by technology.  Oh well, sue us!  

I will be back in a bit with some more images for your viewing pleasure - yay photos!

Bye for now...

d:) 

Happy 2008 all!

I am deeply sorry for neglecting my blog for the last few weeks, but I have to be frank: I needed my time with family and friends and away from the computer screen.  Honestly, that is all. It wasn't because I had nothing to say (as if THAT would ever happen), I really was just enjoying being home, eating, celebrating, gifting, etc.  All the good stuff, that unfortunately, had little to do with sitting down and writing.

But needless to say, HAPPY 2008!!!  I hope that you all had such a great time for the holidays as well, and rang in the New Year in your own special way...

Giuseppe and I had quite the whirlwind trip, from sitting on runways for hours, to delayed flights and lost baggage, to lots of time with new babies, friends and mom's and dad's and sisters and brothers...and in the end, here I sit again, back in Dubai, welcomed by tons and tons of rain, ready for another really exciting year!

First things first: I got a new MacBook PRO!  Finally. It is just lovely, I still have to get a few accessories, etc. but it is just so awesome to know that I can get back into web designing with iWeb (I know, it is no really designing the whole thing, but I really love using it!) and playing around with photos, music, etc. and I don't have to worry about using someone else's computer all the time.  

We also are thrilled for the trip we are about to take.  We spent a day in Amsterdam on the way back here, and that is a pretty neat and amazing city, and now we are looking into planning a few weeks away for our delayed honeymoon...so far, we are thinking: Florence/Milan, Barcelona, Paris, India, and also some islands, Wayde wants us to meet him in the Seychelles in the Indian Ocean, so we are really having some fun looking into things!

If anyone has any ideas or places they think might be worth looking into, let us know!

I will post all the images in flickr soon, and also on here too, but unfortunately, we lost the USB cord...so we have to get one.  I will keep you updated!

Miss you all already, but are looking forward to a great year of visits from everyone - hint hint:)

Love d:)