Ziatitina

Belated Merry Christmas Wishes to all of you, wherever you are.

I hope you had lovely, relaxing days surrounded by the people you care about and somehow recovered from all those Christmas parties, drinks and dinners Personally, I had the great privilege to spend a few days in Arundel with my dear friend Jo and her family. It could not have been any nicer and I certainly know a lot more about English Christmas traditions now. I knew already that the 4 weeks leading up to the big day normally tend to be quite frantic…drinks, more drinks, and of course… more drinks. One reason or another for celebrating with friends, colleagues, clients…you get the idea. In between that you obviously have to squeeze in some present shopping, which in my case turned out to be an absolute disaster this year. I admit I did attempt to enter “war zone” Oxford Street on one occasion, but I lost the will to live after about 10 minutes. I would have probably hit someone over the head with my laptop bag if I didn’t leg it out of Selfridges as fast as my short legs could carry me. Ooooooh…the people… what can I say? I’m no good at this…fighting my way along corridors, being hit by elbows ( and hitting back), queuing up for hours at the cash points, trying to carry all those bags on the crowded bus, not getting wet under the pouring rain… and in the end not finding anything suitable for your loved ones. So, my motto is: long live Internet shopping. Works a dream, trust me

Here are a few impressions of my short but brilliant stay in Arundel. Unfortunately the weather was rubbish, but that did not stop us from talking a few nice long walks around town.

It has been an eventful year and a lot of stories have been told. Are you ready for more ??

HAPPY NEW YEAR!!! MAY ALL YOUR DREAMS COME TRUE….

Tine

That’s it for my travels this year I think.

I just spent a few delightful days back home with friends & family to catch up before Christmas. Once again I won’t be going anywhere, but I think I have done my fair share of travel this year so it won’t hurt too much. Here we go again with my airport and journey stories….I can’t help it, there’s always something worth mentioning! The journey from the office in Covent Garden to London City Airport is normally an easy and pretty straight forward one…except when you have a 20kg heavy suitcase (filled with presents), wearing heels and 2 of the longest possible escalators are out of service for refurbishment. Not funny…it took me a good 10 minutes to get down there with a queue of people behind me. Thank you Transport for London! I appreciate the refurb but it would have been lovely to have a helping hand off somebody….but obviously the staircase is only 50cm wide – no chance of helping anyone!

Anyways, got to the airport, checked-in, on the plane and with a usual 30 minutes delay I am finally home. The next couple of days were quite busy with lots of random things, including a trip to Pavia which is about half an hour from Milan. Unbelievable…I haven’t been here before either! Gorgeous little university town near the river Ticino with a real nice medieval flair to it. I’m still deeply impressed by the towers poking out of nowhere and incredibly high. Too bad that it was already dark when we walked around so I did not have a chance to take pictures, but I truly enjoyed it.

What can I say? 4 days are never enough, especially if you want to combine friends, family and all the other things you want to do. I’m sure I’ll be back soon….I believe there is a very important birthday coming up for one of my girlies in February, so wait for more news then

Just a few random impressions from our big pre-christmas dinner on Saturday night….

2 weeks to Christmas, how scary is that??? Well, the good news is that there will be loads and loads of parties,celebrations, drinks and dinners…no time to worry about it really! Mine are starting tomorrow at lunch time, as a work colleague rightly told me today “We better sort this out now, you’ll probably be pissed for the next 2 weeks”. No chance of that, but it will be quite busy that’s for sure

Tine