i'm dreaming of a....

...white christmas?

hmm, let's take a minute to ponder that one... every year, we take a dozen or so cardboard boxes out of storage and decorate our houses for christmas.  my favorite decoration was always my mothers nativity scene, which is ceramic and handpainted by my mother herself (but if you ask her, she isn't creative or "arty" at all).

i'd take out the statues of mary and joseph, the wise-men, the angel, sheep, and camels and place them all in a perfect arrangement.  the tree, i think i usually got frustrated with about halfway through, but the nativity scene i loved from start to finish.

being in the middle east for christmas this year got me thinking; where does this notion of a white christmas really come from?  really i'm just desperate to find ways to connect with christmas while feeling so far away from my family.  and suddenly that nativity scene, those camels with ornate coverings draped over their backs, and the wise-men in their robes and headdress, came floating across my mind once again. and what i realized is that i'm much closer to the roots of christmas here, geographically anyways, than i ever was in the states.

white christmas, camels trekking across white desert sands perhaps?

new views

they say a good portion of the value of real estate is in the location, right? well, needless to say, i'm pretty happy with the view from my new place.  check it out!

 emirates palace

rotana pools and beach

prague

this is a city i've always wanted to visit.  another one of those very walkable cities which is exactly what i did, only this time i had company.  since i arrived to prague on friday evening and was leaving saturday evening, there wasn't going to be much time for exploring.  luckily, i was able to coerce the marketing guy from the glass company i was visiting into walking around with me for the day!  it was much more enjoyable than a tour group and allowed me to see a lot more in a shorter amount of time, not to mention the company wasn't so bad either :)

one of the downfalls of having someone walk you around is that you don't spend much time looking at a map, listing places you want to see, you just kind of walk and take it all in.  it is a very relaxing way to see a city, but i'm afraid i don't remember the names or much of the information about the specific places i saw.  what i do remember is that prague is beautiful and i had an amazing day!  here is a little window into my day in prague.   

 view from my hotel room

 adorable toy store with wooden toys, they just don't make them like this anymore!

 picturesque pastries

 bell tower

 castle guards

 pretty church at castle

 old jewish cemetary in prague, nothing like the cemetary i visited in milan.  there are about 12 layers of graves and literally thousands of graves... interesting history, check it out here.

 love the detail in this door.

 i climbed a ridiculous amount of stairs to nab this view!

 they have this great idea in Prague to use these beautiful vintage cars as sightseeing vehicles you can hire to take you around the city, genius!

 a view from a bridge

 astronomical clock at old town city hall

 world's smallest hotel, really.

 town square

i really enjoyed Prague, i must get back there sooner rather than later... one day just wasn't enough!

czech love

november was a whirlwind of a month.  in this time i managed to get a new apartment, experience some of the Formula One festivities, including performances by Kanye West and Prince among others.  and over the Eid Holiday I was also able to squeeze in a trip to the Czech Republic. 

i was invited on this trip by an amazingly creative glass company called Lasvit. the main focus on this trip was to understand more about the world of glass blowing, i even got to give it a go myself  (more to come on this later)!  after my glass blowing experience in the small town of Novy Bor, we took a lovely drive through the countryside of the czech republic to a beautiful spa town called Carlsbad.  remember when i was in italy and found that lovely little restaurant the one that was "a place that dreams are made of"?  Carlsbad is another one of those! this town is famous for its hot springs and a very popular place for filming movies, including the likes of Bond with Casino Royale. we didn't spend much time here, just a late lunch and evening stroll through town, but it was enough for me to know that even though this place may have never been on my list before, it definitely is on the list now as a place to go back to!

 a walk through town

 grandhotel pupp

 buildings are built around each hot spring

both traditional and contemporary.

hot spring

next up.... prague!

home sweet happy

after a long hiatus... too long really (meaning i probably lost any non-family readers at this point)... i am back!

you better bet i wasn't sitting around with my feet up all this time doing nothing.  i should have a better excuse than that, right?! 

here's what has gone down.

sometime in the last month, things have all fallen into place.  first and most significant, is that i found an apartment (finally)!!!  and bonus, it came with an amazing roommate and new friend.    the place is coming along slowly, but nicely. i have a case of something i am deeming the "expat stuff dilemma".  by definition, we expats are a special breed prone to wandering.  we don't know how long we will be in one place therefore investing in a lot of furniture and other stuff you will then have to drag around the world comes at a price, one we aren't usually interested in paying.  the solution for most: ikea.

everything you could possibly need for an apartment at a price that won't leave you cringing... my situation poses a bit of an extra challenge. i am an interior designer. i design luxury hotels. i have expensive taste; i think i was born with it, really.  so i had to do what i do best, get creative. i'm pretty sure i've been to ikea at leat 2 times a week since moving into this place and  i've got a nice share of it coming my way this weekend, so i believe i've fulfilled my portion of the expat quota for their profits this year! 

the great thing about the "expat stuff dilemma"  is that when you live in a community where a large amount of people are expats, people are always coming and going... and therefore purging their barely used items at a fraction of the cost! i was able to score some pretty sweet living room furniture and fit out my spare bedroom in this fashion!  the best and most popular website for this in the UAE is called Dubizzle (yes, that is for real kids!) 

there's also a great thing about being an interior designer.  i know people.... well the right people when it comes to these sort of things anyways. people who will make me custom draperies from their back stock of leftover fabrics.  actually an interesting tidbit about the UAE is that anything that involves tailoring can be done at a very reasonable price here, a fraction of what you would pay in the States!

the bed and the dining table my splurge items. no question about where my priorities rest! for these little gems i will most likely head to Crate and Barrel in Dubai :)  thank god for them, they must have known i was moving here because the dubai location, which only opened earlier this year, just happens to be the one and only C&B outside the US.

more to come soon, maybe even a few snapshots once we get this place up and running!

mia

i have to apologize for being mia the past few weeks.  not having internet at the new place is putting a kink in my blog abilities.   hopefully up and running again in the next week or so!

city walk: milano: cimitero monumentale

i won't lie, i saved this post for halloween... whahahahahahhaha!

seriously though and oddly enough, i think my favorite part of all of Milano was the cemetery.  there is something about the way the italians honor the dead, their families.  they build monuments that tell stories, family history, blips in time.  they are romantic, sad, arrogant, humble, contemporary, and historical.

football... the non-american kind

i can't take credit for being the instigator of this portion of my trip, but i have to say it was quite the experience!

San Siro: Inter Milan v. Tottenham

it so happened that the person traveling with me was hugely excited that his team, Tottenham, was playing Inter Milan while we were in town.  so one evening we ventured into the city, parked our car, and walked through the streets nearing the stadium where vendors were selling all sorts of sports paraphernalia.  my favorite is the scarf that is a "half and half" it has one team on one end and the opposing team on the other.

i don't know much about soccer (football, i'm american ok, to me it's soccer)...  only what i pick up during world cup every few years and quickly forget...  but apparently the match i saw was one of the beginning matches of the Champion's League, which from what i understand is like the world series of soccer.  and last year, Inter won the whole thing!

these fans mean business, and of course because they are Italians they are passionate about it!  

check it out:

 

 it was a pretty full house!

they are also take exiting the stadium after the match pretty seriously... they ask you to stay in your seats until they instruct you to exit by section!  none of the guys i was with were to keen on this and we left a little early to avoid it... in doing so missing my personal favorite part of the match at the end where the players swap jerseys!

city walk: milano: terza parte

 

galleria vittorio emanuele II

 

home to the flagship Prada store

castello sforzesco: if you fancy a day of museum going, this is your place, it houses multiple museums and offers a day pass that gets you into all of them! 

 

i chose to stroll through the courtyard instead, it was just too nice a day for inside activities!

there were enough relics lying around that courtyard to entertain me...

behind the castello sforzesco is a gorgeous park full of walking paths, it reminded me a little of central park, so i took a stroll to the other side where i found this:  

the arco della pace in the piazza Sempione

tired of walking?... rent one of these for a couple of hours!