Wonderful Wales
16 Jul 2011 5 Comments
in Wales, wedding Tags: Aberystwyth, Wales, wedding
Aberystwyth Castle
I am still alive!
Sorry for my protracted absence but what with a week abroad and a week of the going-back-to-work blues, my blog was sort of waylaid. But no longer!
I have already written about Wales in detail before, and of course about Aberystwyth. As for the wedding, it was marvellous. The bride was beautiful, the groom was a perfect gentleman, the speeches had the perfect dose of British humour (no one can beat them at it) and I made my presence well known during the ceremony, with my dash for my reading (in my camera bag at the other end of the room) right when the registrar said, “If there is anyone against this marriage speak now or forever hold your peace.” In the ensuing silence all you heard was me on my wobbly heels running for my reading, which was immediately after.
Aberystwyth from above
I don’t think anyone will remember me as the photographer, but as that girl running down the aisle at the most inopportune time!
The weather was variable, as good British weather should be, raining in the morning and partly sunny in the afternoon. A comfortable temperature of around 23 degrees with a breeze.
The cable car to Constitution Hill
The week flew by with a series of errands and many many breaks for delicious food and tea, and before I knew it I was on a plane heading home. When I got off the plane, the wall of heat and humidity hit me and I started to sweat almost instantaneously – but when I passed passport control and saw my beloved hubby eagerly waiting for me, the heat was forgotten and everything was wonderful again.
Farewell, Dear Christine
15 Sep 2010 Leave a Comment
in Daily Life, wedding Tags: car, Christine, Italy, Stephen King
This morning Andrea took our beloved FIAT Punto, once my brother’s FIAT Punto to the car wreckers. In Italy when you trade in an old car (at least one that’s as old as Christine) they make you get it demolished. With the certificate of consignment you can change over your insurance, and therefore go get the new car.
This is the first time I have ever had to actually get rid of a car. I never had the time to experience that in Canada and in Italy I never had the guts to drive until 4 years ago so this is it the first time ever.
Now you may ask, “Why ‘Christine‘?” Well anyone who has ever read Stephen King will probably understand. In any case here is a link to the novel summary. I am not the one who gave her this name. It was my brother. She had a habit of stalling whenever she went on a hill, or worse on the highway, therefore risking my brother’s life multiple times. But, when he handed the keys over to me upon his return to Canada, I found my fears were unfounded. She stalled on me once only in two years of faithful service. And ya, near the end she started having some serious issues with getting into gear (we especially did not like 2nd or 1st). And yes we had to change the battery – twice, and the tires (all of them!) and the windshield wipers (3 times), but in the end she was a faithful friend. She took me to see Lago Maggiore, Lucca, Pisa, lots of little town around Genoa. back and forth to airports innumerable times. She carried multiple bookcases from Ikea and a desk without a complaint. She was dinged, scratched and beaten multiple times and still carried on.
Will the new car-with-no-name be able to compare to you?
Just know that you will be in our hearts forever!
And the Winner Is ….
10 Sep 2010 4 Comments
in Daily Life, wedding Tags: car, peugeot, wedding
A few posts ago, I wrote about how we were car hunting – that being the wedding gift request. Well we searched, discussed, battled, debated (I argued with car dealers – what is this no test drive thing?). I won battles, I test drove. More debates and in the end, here is what we chose:
We even got it like this four-door and black. the car just came in today, and now all we have to do is register it and trade in the old one!
So thank you to everyone who donated – we love your wedding gift!!
Trash the Dress
05 Jul 2010 2 Comments
in wedding Tags: photo, trash the dress, TTD, wedding
I’ve been meaning to write this post for a while as a follow-up to my wedding day post, but things have been just a little hectic recently, as always!
I’m pretty sure I already wrote about the problems I had with my wedding dress, and the fact that I had to have a new one made in less than a week and a half…which was miraculously done and done well! So what to do with the old wedding dress? Well my friend and bridesmaid had the answer. A new trend sweeping North America – Trash the Dress. This is where basically after the wedding the bride and her bridesmaids (and sometimes the groom!) get to dress up and take all those pictures they really wanted to take on their wedding day but couldn’t because or else they risked ruining the dress. Usually wedding dresses are worn only once, so a lot of people love this idea of using them again.
So we decided to use my already ruined dress to have some fun! So, a few days after the wedding, my bridesmaids and I dressed up and walked around Nervi, oblivious to the strange looks everyone was giving us, and took pictures of ourselves playing on the playground, invading someone’s ape, as well as a kind soul who let us climb into his offroading jeep! You can imagine that we were pretty hot after all that walking and posing, so we decided to cool off by doing this:
I won’t even tell you the looks we got here!
You can see some more pictures of our day by clicking here. Enjoy!
Life as a Signora
26 Jun 2010 Leave a Comment
in wedding Tags: Daily Life, Italy, wedding
Now it is all over. The preparation, the emergency dress fittings, the airport pick-ups, last minute frustrations of people not wanting to do their jobs, the making of wedding programmes and favours late into the night. The nerves. It all came to a head exactly seven days ago as I stood outside the church with a very nervous brother by my side, waiting for my turn to enter.
I walked in and saw him waiting there for me by the altar, just as nervous as I was and I couldn’t wait to get there, to stand by his side. And I did, and everything went well, even though I accidentally put his ring on the wrong hand (but the right finger) and he tried to put the ring on the right hand (but the wrong finger)! I think and hope everyone had a good time, and now I am eagerly awaiting everyone’s pictures to get to me, like the one above (thanks Lan!), so I can start putting together my album of memories. I am also battling with technology yet again as the drivers for my camcorder are not working with the computer and I can’t get my wedding video off the tapes! But no worries, all will be resolved and we are in happy, post-wedded bliss and I am seriously trying to get used to the idea that all the people I know are now referring to me as signora. I’ve always associated it with being older, more responsible, no longer young, having grown-up kids, that sort of thing. But lo and behold I too have become a signora, and, guess what? It isn’t so bad!
Time: Where do You Go?
15 Jun 2010 Leave a Comment
in wedding
I can hardly believe it – in a few very very short days it is all coming to a head . People have arrived and are arriving, the weather is misbehaving, but I am still hopeful, and I am just running around like the preverbial chicken.
My apologies for not posting more, or for not replying to everyone’s comments but I promise I will make up for it later 
Thank you all for sticking with me – hold out just another week or so and I’ll be back in full swing!
In the meantime, feel free to browse through the archives or look at my Photo of the Day feature.
Thanks again everyone!!
Bridezilla to Be
23 May 2010 Leave a Comment
in wedding Tags: bridal store, bridezilla, out of business, wedding
Yesterday, my bridesmaid and I and Leah, my future make up artist decided to do a trial run on my whole wedding look, from jewellery to make up to shoes, just to see how the whole thing would come together.
So, on Friday evening I spent about an hour looking for my shoes, which had been hidden, of course, in plain site, but anyway it wasn’t a good sign.
The next morning I happily took the car, picked up my bridesmaid and went over to Leah’s ready for a day of girliness. We eagerly got out my dress, which has been safely stowed at Leah’s for months, slid it on and zipped…it….up….but not quite. What the…? No, people, I am proud to say that I did not gain weight, but unfortunately the dress lost some.
A few months ago, when I had got the dress, it needed just a few minor modifications to make it fit just right. Well, the modifications were done, and I was harassed until I went to pick it up, at the storeowner’s home, from her son, so I never got a chance to try it on. It was a rainy day and I was with my fiance’ so I just brought it to Leah’s house and forgot to even try it on to make sure everything was OK.
Then, along came our trial day, and the test run….and the alteration was not done well at all…the dress had suddenly become too small around the bust. Now, I wish I had become bigger up there, but this is not the case, and I cannot make my ribcage smaller. But no worries, there are still three weeks, and thankfully, it is Saturday, so we can take it in right away.
I call the store. No answer. I leave a message on the answering machine. I have lunch and call again, and again, and again. No answer. Well this is odd. No fear, my bridesmaid and I hop into the car with the dress, and make one quick stop on our way downtown to visit her seamstress. We explain our case and she says, I think I can fix this, we have to be creative because it is always hard to make something bigger, but no worries. If the store can’t fix it, bring it to me. OK. We continue on our way downtown and, while my friend is parking, I start heading into the vicoli to the store. I get to the storefront and squeak in terror. There before me, with the name still there is a huge sign: AFFITTASI – FOR RENT. The bridal shop had gone out of business!
I cracked, picked up the phone and had a near hissy fit. My bridesmaid, bless her, said, breathe, all is not lost, come back to the car, we’ll go back to the seamstress.
And we did, they debated, figured out the best way to go and Thurday morning I’m in for a fitting. I didn’t have the heart to ask how much, I just hope it is ready in time. Three weeks and counting. Gulp!
One Month and One Day
18 May 2010 6 Comments
in wedding Tags: Daily Life, friendship, Italy, wedding
Today is May 18th . In exactly one month and one day I get married and my life will change forever. I don’t believe that the fact that we exchange rings will really change the way we live our day-to-day lives or anything, but I have this feeling of finality starting to dawn on me. This is it. This is for real. I have decided to hopefully spend the rest of my life with this person and spend it here of all places. If you had asked me 10 years ago where I saw myself I would have said with a great university career and married…in Canada. I never expected to be settling down in Italy. This was supposed to be a one-year adventure, which was extended to four when I decided to study here, then home it was to be. I was supposed to do my Master’s and PhD and get a nice intellectual job and write tonnes of cool papers.
But things turned out so different when I said, I’ll just finish the school year at the ESL school where I am working then go home. I can put aside more money that way – more money for that ever-present MA. Then I was assigned this course, and this guy started to wait for me after classes to walk me to my bus stop. Then he asked me out. I stalled, said no, pushed him out of a taxi (yes this is true – he had tried to kiss me!), felt guilty, called him and finally caved saying I would give him a one-year test period. I was still convinced I was going home. And then, I fell in love, and my entire life changed. My plans changed and things just happened and here I am getting ready to be married!
I still have hopes of going home one day, but am also making plans to stay here. With all its problems and millions of frustrations and lack of space, Italy may very well be my permanent home. I am thinking of having kids and raising a family with the man I love, and, really, does it really matter where you are? I confess that I have been sad certain days because I would have loved to be able to go through a lot of the wedding prep with my mom and my friends, but I was amazed and surprised when almost every single one of my school friends I invited said YES WE ARE COMING. No matter where they were, they bought tickets, and volcano-permitting, will be here for my special day. Even with all this distance between us we have been able to keep such wonderful friendships alive – thanks to internet and the small-world phenomenon it brings with it. When I think about these things, I realise that maybe it won’t be so bad afterall, I really have nothing to complain about, and home is just a mouse-click away!
So, thank you everyone for being here, for reading, for coming and for everything!
And with that, I am off – must go get a quote for the almond candies that go into my wedding favours….(this will end, right?)
No Beauty without Pain
24 Mar 2010 2 Comments
in 1, Daily Life, Italy, wedding Tags: aesthetician, aesthetics, beauty, Daily Life, wedding
As the wedding date approaches, I look at myself more and more in the mirror. I am nearly thirty and still battling with teenage skin..lucky me, nice acne prone skin, which of course, tends to be dry at the same time as oily. No, this isn’t going to be a post about a miraculous skin cure, but about what I decided to do about it.
I decided to go to an aesthetician today and have a deep skin cleaning treatment. I haven’t gone to beauty centres very often, and the last time I went, I went for one of the best Christmas gifts ever (thanks Mom!) – a full body massage. And it was with this wonderful, relaxing moment in mind that I boldly set off this morning.
The girl took one look at me and arched her eyebrows. Not a good sign. She began with what I pretty much expected, cleanser and some steaming etc. then, as she was doing something I hear her gasp. Oh God, what could it possibly be? “My goodness,” she says, “we have to absolutely get rid of this!” Before I could say, “What?” she was slathering hot wax on my upper lip and *rip* off comes my “moustache”. The pain was excruciating. And she made it worse by putting on some cream, which stung like crazy. Honestly, I never noticed I had a moustache, I mean I am not a man, really. Every woman has a bit of hair on her upper lip, we have hair all over our faces, but going to the lengths of calling it a moustache…never! Well, after that sigh of relief (for her, I was still asking myself, why had I decided to do this, again?), she went back to slathering more cream all over my face and neck, and just as soon as I started to relax, I hear another gasp. Groan. “Well these won’t do at all!” she blurts. In less than 3.5 seconds she had tweezers in her hand and was plucking my eyebrows with a speed I could only attribute to an android. Another satisfied sigh. My tension was rising. But the rest of the treatment went happily along without further incident.
Then she started telling me about this long and complicated beauty regimen I should follow to try and keep my skin healthy etc etc. Oh and she suggested I come in for a facial once a month.
Do I really have to?
I do, I do, I do….
Getting Closer
18 Mar 2010 2 Comments
Ah, things are getting just that much closer to getting done. Bridesmaid dresses ordered today, wedding invitations mailed out, favours halfway done, papers almost all consigned, and two people have their tickets!
Still have to do, the flowers,the hair, the tux, the cake, the menu, the programs, the nails and make up, finish the favours, organise hotels, spa day (yes I will do it), photos, video, the honeymoon, what else? I really can’t remember and what, the wedding is exactly 3 months away!
OK people I am staarting to freak out….
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