10 things I want to do in Rome

1- See my family. I have missed them terribly since I moved to England

2- See my friends: work friends, play friends, food friends..everyone I have not seen since March

3- Go to Sperlonga, or Sabaudia. The lovely beaches of Italy are a must in the Summer, and if I cannot make it to Sardegna this time around, at least I can chill in Sperlonga!

4- Gelati: both Daniel Gelo - with their coconut, mandarino and watermelon flavors, but also Ciampini with fragoline and panna.
(I am salivating just thinking about it)

5-Giacomo: Al Vino Al Vino, la caponata, sitting by the courtyard sipping a glass of Bisol and eating the figs that Giacomo brings us (yes, I am spoiled!)

6-Caffe: shakerato, al vetro, con un goccio di latte. I am so excited at the idea of paying 80 cents for an amazing coffee, I cannot wait.

7- Rome: I miss walking around my city. Taking in the beauty and chaos, the dirt and magnificence of Rome. I heart my city, even when it's 40C

8- Shop: Monti, Testaccio and via del Babbuino..I shall shop and be merry!

9-La parlata Romana: believe it or not, I miss hearing some of the typical Roman expressions, the jokes that only a Roman would do and understand.

10- Water: drinking fountains everywhere and perfectly sparkling water easily available. Now, that's luxury!

Only 1 week to go!

Jumping over

This week I am in rural Pennsylvania. My colleagues and I are on a company retreats..one of the activities was sledding...

Exciting, exciting news!!

Well, first of all, I just got an invite from Max Mara to go see their new Bridal collection!
They are promoting the new line with special events in the various flagship stores across Italy.
On Dec 3 I will go try some dresses and talk to one of the style consultants from the shop.

Even more exciting..I was having coffee with a friend, who also happen to own my favorite shop in Rome. he has great taste, knows me and my taste well and knows fashion in the wider sense.
We talked about various dresses, designers, fabrics ( he killed my shantung silk idea), styles and...HE OFFERED TO DESIGN SOMETHING FOR ME!!!
I am terribly excited about the idea of having a B's original design. For now, I quite like these sketches by Minnesota designer Katherine Gerdes.

Will keep you posted!

Wedding Planning - location hunting

The days are going by quickly and I suddenly found myself short of a year from the established wedding date.
The list of things to do is quite long, but, as far as everyone says, this is the best part of it all.
I get to pick locations, make lists, try menus, try dresses, plan events, and all the rest.

I have yet to register to one of the many online services that help you remember all the things you need to do (read, theknot.com) and I am somehow resistant to do it, maybe because I think I can remember everything by myself.

So far, Mr R and I started drafting a list of guests. We started with over 200 people. We tried to include everyone we wanted to invite. We did a second round and cut the list down to 160. Now we are at 140 and we do not seem to be able to go below this number. What to do?

As far as locations, we have visited 3 and already feel strongly in favor of one.
The first we visited was a bit too far out in the country, and while the location was spectacular, the food was not stunning.

The second venue- a private villa- was perfectly located but the option for indoor space were a little limited as the gazebo didn't look pretty enough, or just simply not to our taste.

The third place, a very unusual but extremely beautiful one, is a bit out of the center.

What to pick? Should I look a little more?

Here are some pictures from the various locations:

The beauty of Rome

A few days ago, while sipping prosecco and eating figs, I was reminded of the beauty of Rome.
We were with a group of friends, celebrating a happy moment and in front of us, was the most beautiful city in the world.


I know I am bias, I know I Rome has its defects, but when I looked out from the tarrace at Mr. P's house, I could not help but fall in love with my city again.

Big News

I told my family and my closest friends..so I feel like now it's official enough to put it on this blog.

Mr. R proposed!!!! We are engaged and will get married in 2010. It's funny, I started this blog almost two years ago, at the end of a long, wrong relationship. I had no idea it would become such a great and fun way to communicating with friends and family around the world.

Well, we are now fiance and fiancee. We are very happy!

Life goes on, with our adventures and travels.. but now we have another, great adventure to look forward to. The planning begins!

Paris! Fete de La Musique

I just arrived in Paris last night.
I already saw some of my friends for dinner and I am now heading out for the Fete de La Musique.
More later

P

Back from Pakistan

It is difficult to adjust to what look like dull colors and smells. I had a wonderful time, I felt at home in a country that is miles and miles away from mine. The hospitality I found cannot be described, as it is something that can only be experienced.

The variety of colors, food, fabrics, music, decoration filled my eyes every day.. Here is a selection of pictures (very limited) from my two weeks in Isloo and Karachi.
Getting ready to go


two men and two women


The beautiful decorations


Delicious food


Helping hands

packing and paniking

I am leaving for Pakistan in two days. I will be gone for 16 days and I cannot wait!
In the meantime I am struggling with the dilemmas of packing..what to bring? What to leave behind?

In the meantime I asked my friends to give me suggestions and share their ideas of what should be in a bag...here are the results (thanks Jess for the pics!)

Hot chocolate in a cold sunny day

walking around Rome is on of my favorite activities especially when the sun is out.
Yesterday and today have been exceptionally beautiful, with a great light and a strong cold wind cleaning up the air. The air felt crisp and made walking particularly pleasant (in a strange masochistic way).

After a stressful day and after witnessing a robbery in front of my office, I took off for a brisk walk in the direction of the Spanish Steps. Mr. R and I were on a mission to go check on a friend's apartment in that part of town. We walked and talked, discussed ideas and projects, propositions and suggestions, until we got to Piazza San Lorenzo in Lucina. This piazza is by far one of my favorites in the city, it's a little pocket of peace and style in the sea of chaos that is Via del Corso.
Here we meet our clients for the Orientation Walk, and here I bought my first Luis Vitton item. The Bottega Veneta Rome boutique in on this piazza as well as Pomellato and the famous Profumeria Materozzoli, all dear destinations to style seekers.

Among all these boutiques sits a cafe of equal relevance: Ciampini.

Ciampini has the best of everything, best location, best ice cream, best cornetti and cornetti salati, best iced tea (along with La Caffettiera) and I recently discovered best hot chocolate.
Not only the consistency was perfect, but the flavor was full and round just like what it should be.
To top it all, my favorite barista added a spoon of panna (cream) feshly whipped. No words can describe the warm feeling I got inside when I sipped on the dark drink...

Perfect meal in Rome

There is nothing like coming back home, especially when home is sunny and beautiful like Rome.
This time the welcome back has been even more pleasant than usual.

My dad invited A., Mr. R and I out for dinner at I Sardi Due. Mr R and I had been blabbering about this restaurant for quite a while, so papa' Nicola decided to take us there now that mamma Anna is out of town (and he hasn't had a decent meal for a while).

We agreed on an early dinner due to my jet lagged status, so the restaurant was empty when we got there. Our favorite waiter, Jimmy was there and he took care of our party. Mr. R, A and papa Nicola ordered linguine al cartoccio. I went for a gluten free dish: fish in spicy tomato sauce.

Everything was so delicious and flavorful! We cleaned our plates and continued with a portion of semifreddo al torroncino: a small bite of heaven... mr. R already decided he wants to go back for his birthday week, he wants to try a different dish every day!

My friends in hats

A few nights ago I was out with a group of friends here in NY.We went out for dinner and then dessert at Chickalicious.
We had a molten choc cake with vanilla ice cream and an affogato al caffe. Both were divine and in a perfect size. Unfortunately I don't have a pic of the food, but I have a picture of us, devouring it.
Notice we are all wearing furry hats. We thought the scene looked straight out of a Russian women convention!

NYT Travel Show

So we started. We are at the booth 474 in the Europe section.
Today was the first day, and it was great! Lots of people came by, including American Express agents, Sean from Bootsanall, and other friendly people!
If you are reading this, and you are in NY, come by in the next days. Here is our schedule:

Saturday, February 6 all day - we'll be in booth 474 in the Europe section

Saturday, February 6 @ 1pm - Context docent and culinary historian Cathy Kaufman will discuss "Tasting the Immigrant Experience," her walk of Manhattan's ethnic food, U.S. stage

Sunday, February 7 all day - we'll be in booth 474 in the Europe section

Sunday, February 7 @ 11 am - Context co-founder Paul Bennett will discuss sustainable tourism and stewardship on a panel of travel professionals and journalists, seminar room 2

Sunday, February 7 @ 12:30 pm - Context docent Katie Parla and Jarnac head chef Maryann Terillo will discuss our 8-day trip to Rome and Naples, "A Taste of Two Cities," with a tasting of Roman and Neapolitan specialties at the Context booth to follow, Europe stage.

We are also running walking seminars throughout the weekend. Check out the schedule here

Weekend in Fontainebleau

Last week we decided to celebrate my birthday outside of Paris. we wanted to get out of the city, travel to the country side, spend time with our friends and relax.
The opportunity came when the lovely J & A invited us to spend a couple of days with them in Fontainebleau.
The town is famous for its beautiful castle, a royal residence for many centuries, for its forest (thre times the size of Manhattan) and for INSEAD.
The lovely J, who happens to be one of the smartest persons I know, is a student at INSEAD. Here she is learning how to save the world from the economic crisis and how to be even smarter than she is.

Incidentally, the day before we left for Fonty, the NYT featured an article on the town, making us even more excited about the weekend getaway. On saturday morning, Mr. R and I walked to Gare de Lyon (10 min ) and got ourselves some return tickets (16 E each). We found the train (it was leaving from a side platform, not the main ones) and started our journey.
In 40 minutes we were in a different world, far away from the temptation of Parisian Soldes and close to a forest, wild animals and fresh air.

A picked us up at the train station, and after dropping our bags at home we went straight to the Jardin of the chateau.
We walked on the icy path, reached the castle, saw the swans that were gathering up by the view visitors in hope of some food. We loved it. The light was incredible, and it felt like we were miles away from Paris.

After a yummy lunch, we headed to Barbizon, a lovely artsy village nearby. Barbizon was the home of artists Théodore Rousseau and Jean-François Millet.

The roof in the picture is in fact the chapel where TR is buried.
The weekend was lovely, the food incredible and most importantly, the company ideal.

We headed back to Paris in the late afternoon, as soon as we got back we opened our computers and started working..home sweet home they say.

More pics here: Fonty weekend

Walking in the cold

A is here! So fun to have friends visiting me.
This morning we went for a great run along the river and Jardin des Plantes. This is by far my favorite park in Paris, not as chic as the Tuileries but with a more authentic feel to it. It's not the place where you meet the people featured in the sartorialist blog, but tt's the perfect park for running, taking a romantic stroll or just simply be. I am looking forward to taking my niece here during the weekend. She is going to go crazy!

After our run- and a generous breakfast- we headed towards the upper Marais. One of our food docents had suggested the area around Rue Charlot and rue Bretagne for fantastic window shopping and supposetly a super chocolatier.
We walked in the cold for about 2 hours, enjoyed this lesser known part of the BoBo neighborhood and actually found some great spots. Among others, we popped into the marche' des Enfants-Rouges. The market takes the name from an Orphan house located nearby where children wore a red uniform.
A and I had just started to be peckish (surprise?) so we took advantage of a lovely Bio stand/ restaurant. We had a gallette made of a weird mix of quinoa, veggies and..something else.
It was cooked on a proper crepes machine and it tasted heavenly..not quite a Thanksgiving meal but definitely delicious..Have a happy Thanksgiving. And thank you to all my friends for being such a special part of my life!

Running again, and for a good cause

Yes!
I am really doing the things I had planned on doing..among other positive and constructive things I started running again. This time, I was inspired by two women: my friend Imogen who ran a half-marathon to raise money for the charity LAM Action (you can donate at http://www.justgiving.com/imogenaylen), and Ms. Malik who runs a non profit called Behbud
Behbud allows women in rural parts of Pakistan to have a job and earn an honest living.
Behbud's mission is to empower women by providing health, education, income-generation and vocational training regardless of color, cast or creed.

Last April, during a trip to Pakistan I had the opportunity to meet some of these women and I was so impressed by their high spirit and desire to work. It was a lesson.

So here I am, training for the Rome half marathon (March 1, 2009). Amina and I will be running for Behbud, and hopefully we'll be able to raise a good sum.
If you are interested, you can donate to both charities, LAM action and Behbud online.

The Rome Marathon is called Roma Ostia. Info here: Roma Ostia

Thanks Imo, Shukran Ms. Malik