Europe Day 5

Day 5 I spent walking a lot in the city !! Almost 6 hours were spent walking & pushing Vedika in the stroller !! I started the walk near Duomo and walked towards Mercato centrale crossing San Lorenzo's market & Basilica & church. Also seeing Medici's Chapel. From there i walked towards Palazzo Strozzi..crossing the bridge..to the other side. Towards San Spirito church. I ate a really nice panini at Gustopanino just outside the church. It was great for just 3euros !!

Europe trip Day 4/ Father's Day idea

Day 4 was spent in the room. Took a breather from the intense heat outside & spent inside working on an early Father's Day gift for Anish. I ordered a book from my local Barnes and Noble store. I saw this idea on one of Heide Swapp's online webstream where she gives quite a few ideas for Father's Day albums, most of them using House of 3 products. But this one was just using a real cool quotation book or a compendium book & just by sticking pictures of Vedika and Anish together it turned into a real neat scrapbook/inspiration book !! I loved working on it and with just a few handful stickers & fabric strips this book came together pretty quickly.

In the night we went for dinner at Il Pizzaiuolo...we ordered a pasta dish..which was highly OK...but both the pizzas we ordered, Vegetariana and Margherita with Buffalo mozzarella were really yummmyyyy. Would recommend this place to anyone who visits Florence !! Also the place seems to be really popular by locals as well as tourists...we had to wait almost for an hour to get the table !! So next time definitely we will be making reservations in advance or do a takeout !! :)

Europe Day 3

Day 3 saw me & Vedika alone as Anish left for work. We ate some quick breakfast, came up got all ready to leave for the city. After getting our bus tickets from the hotel receptionist we headed to the bus stop just opposite to our hotel. Bus no 22 took us right outside Duomo. From there we walked around, trying to find something for lunch. We decided to sit at one of the cafes on Piazza della Republica. Ordered Tagliatelle with Funghi, which again was highly O.K. totally not worth 10 euros I paid for it ! Then Vedika wanted to sit in the Carousel for a ride on the pony. I decided to treat her to it as Florence is not a city for her age kids & there's not much entertainment for her. She did really enjoy it. Then i headed towards Uffizi & from there I took a l-o-n-g walk alongside the River Arno while vedika napped in her stroller. I did some sketching after 7-8 years and though the sketch hardly turned out to what i wanted it to be, it was ok for me as i just wanted to start somewhere !! From there i walked back towards Santa Croce which i had not seen before. & i loved it from outside. I'm gonna try to visit it from inside in the next few days. After that i saw Dante's home & then walked back towards Piazza della Republica & from there towards the bus stop. We reached at the hotel a little exhausted as it was very hot outside ! We got refreshed just in time for Anish to pick us up for dinner at an Indian restaurant called Haveli. Really awesome yummy indian food I've eaten outside of India has been in Florence !! We picked up a few groceries at Coop on the way back to the hotel ! Just a perfect end to the perfect day !! :)

Europe Day 2

Day 2 saw us waking up late, catching up on sleep...being refreshed & then heading to the city for a light lunch. We love Florence, narrow,long,winding streets. Just a place where you can totally lose track of time & be lost in the medieval aged sculptures & architecture around us ! We ate lunch at Il Fratellini on Via dei Cimatori, it was very well recommended by many travel blogs & sites, so we decided to check it out ! We bought one Caprese Panini & one vegetarian mix panini. Both were quite O.K. I guess it was more value for money but less in taste ! Then with a gelato in hand we walked around the city for sometime. We got back at the hotel just in time for dinner, so I made some Maggi for all of us ! :)

Europe trip Day 1

We landed in Zurich with our first views of the Swiss Alps from the plane ! Very beautiful & breathtaking! After collecting our bags we headed towards Hertz to collect our rental car. Our plan was to drive to Engelberg which is the village at the base of Mt.Titlis. Its 1.5 hr drive from Zurich & the drive was very scenic. At the base of Mt. Titlis we were greeted by an Indian food cart, so we decided to pack up some food for lunch to eat at the top of the mountain. We had got Half Fare Cards from the airport, so our Mt.Titlis passes ended up being for 82CHF for both of us & Vedika was considered free. From there the ride upto top of the mountain took us around 45 mins with changing 3 gondolas(cable cars). the 1st one was from Engelberg- Trubsee where we could sit in the gondola. The peak season had still not started so we got our private gondola, otherwise it sits around 6 people & I guess during peak season they would be going full !
From Trubsee we changed into another gondola..in which we had to stand.This cable car can hold upto 80 people & it was full on our ride back down ! The 3rd gondola is the famous Rotair which is the first revolving gondola of the world ! It gives a round view panoroma to the top ! Vedika enjoyed riding on this one. She was excited when it started revolving.
Once on the top, the 1st thing we saw was a huge poster of Kajol & Shahrukh Khan from their movie Dilwale Dulhaniya Le Jayenge ! & then Vedika & I had to pose to in front of it for pictures ! We headed to play in the snow for sometime :).It was exciting to see soooo much snow...make snowmen & snowangels. Vedika had fun sliding in the snow !! We headed to the snow park on Ice Flyer for some more playing. Riding on the Ice flyer was exciting & a little bit scary too...but totally breathtaking views of the Alps !!We did snowtubing & snow-sledging. Our first time doing both ! Was exciting & fun fun fun ! After playing soo much..we were tired..so we headed back to the main station. We enjoyed eating our Indian lunch of samosa & vada paav 10,000 ft above ground ! On full stomachs we headed down to the base again. A 7-8hr journey to Florence, Italy was awaiting us. With a cup of hot chai we started our drive. Our jetlag & playing soo much in the snow was catching up on us...the drive felt very looooonnnggg...as we were tired & had to take frequent stops to refresh ourselves ! But couldnt wait to get to Florence, our most beloved city :)

Scrap World Cup Class

My favorite scrapbooker Celine Navarro is having her first online class and I think I'll miss it as I'm travelling at that time ! But she is having a blog hop and I thought of participating in it. So here is all the info on signing up for her class !

Come join me for my first 4 week class : you will learn many techniques (my favorites!), you'll be inspired by trendy color combos, you'll be in love with new sketches, and you'll participate in the most fun, colorful, technique workshop you've ever taken!

For 25€, you'll have access to :

·      a private blog with workshops posted every Tuesday and Friday with exclusive and brand new layouts made by Céline

·      new color combos twice a week

·      new sketches posted twice a week

·      TWO new techniques posted twice a week

·       inspirationnal posts posted every week

·      my "soccer" and "non-soccer" thoughts and feelings (always in a funny way)

·      what's going on during the World Cup with a different look to it : get to know the countries that participate int he World Cup

·      VIDEO tips and techniques!

·      access to a FLICKR gallery for you to post your beauties

·      TWO live chats where you'll be able to ask your questions

·      full supply lists of products used on my projects

and all this for a WHOLE MONTH!!!

And, the icing on the cake, for the BIG FINAL game, your last class will be a FULL mini album class because, hey! It's the WORLD CUP! :)
And you'll be able to order the kit if you want to.

Don't feel like you HAVE to watch the Soccer games, get READY TO SCRAP!

Happy Teacher's Day

I made something quick for my daughter's teachers at her preschool :) A small scrapbook with the year's photos for her class teacher and 2 quick cards for her other teachers.