I’m loving that my daughter is now old enough to enjoy shopping-time with me. I get tempted to try things on her, she gives spot on advice (e.g. “Maman, c’est moche! / c’est bizarre! / c’est quoi ça?!? / Maman, ça c’est pour les enfants!” / ENG: “Mom, it’s ugly! / it’s bizarre! / what’s that?!? / Mom, that’s for kids!”) & we often have the best laughs out of things we don’t buy! 😂
Since my neighborhood is celebrating flowers this week, I thought I’d join the party!
London’s climate this past weekend:
I got back a week ago from a trip to Dubai’s Palm Islands and we’ve been blessed with unseasonably warm weather in London so I didn’t quite get a chance to miss Dubai’s sunny charm… until this morning! Headed out early with the kids for breakfast and a familiar windy & cold London combo enrobed our walk… the city is blossoming however (see last pic) so we still decided to walk… Nevertheless, as soon as I got to the resto I took refuge in my iPhone’s Dubai snaps for some warmth!
Bubbled my way to blurry by sipping on my first guilt-free drink since Pregnancy #2! Yup I’m pretty much done with breastfeeding! I have a feeling I’ll have a couple more blurry London nights out coming up to celebrate the end of my abstention!
If you want to take a break from Gaudí while in Barcelona but not completely escape the fantasy of his work, why don’t you go to the source of his inspiration… nature! and see what it has to offer: a good place to start is: La Boqueria… at first glance from the Las Ramblas street, La Boqueria seems like yet another produce market, but once I stepped into it, I felt like Alice in Wonderland falling into the rabbit hall and onto an imaginary world where all my culinary fantasies were on creative display, in rich colors and abundance! It’s like a museum of Catalonian culinary tastes had come to life and I was invited… My main challenge though: for the most part, no pictures were allowed (they seem to think they’re a museum too!) but I still managed to get you some!
Much to my surprise my 3 year old was serving as somewhat of an art tourist guide during our latest trip to Barcelona! After our first encounter with a modernist building, she reacted “immeuble bizarre!” (eng. weird building) and since that caught our attention, she then went on to say that everytime she spotted a building she felt was out of the norm and most often that would turn out to be a Gaudí building or another very original modernist building! So when we went this morning to the Sagrada Família I was perhaps more excited to see her reaction to that fantasy of a church than seeing this architectural marvel myself… and I wasn’t disappointed! After we stepped out of the cab, opened the stroller and made sure we grabbed the 200 moving pieces we dangle around with us (e.g. gloves and scarfs we don’t need but just in case…), I finally told her to look up and in an instant her eyes grew wide open and she said “maman maman immeuble TRÈS BIZARRE! with such a sense of accomplishment that she had found that “building” that she might have convinced herself that she made it appear by her dedication to this spot-the-weird-building game! While she was mesmerized by the grandeur of the church, what ultimately captured her imagination was a small ladybug that is sculpted on one of its main door… that ladybug and the curiousness of its presence became the subject of her long monologues and questions afterwards! Today was a very sacred family day at the Sagrada Família…
Stylish and unapologetic, Catalonia’s capital captured my imagination from the first day. I really think we’re gonna be very good friends… She dresses her buildings in couture-like detailed designs, juxtaposes them with ultra modern buildings, drizzles the art of a visionary artist here and there and throws in a beach for good measure!
I think my ballerinas have found their car!
P.S. When I asked my editor (i.e. my 3 year old daughter 😜) what she thought of the photo, she said: “Mais où est donc ta tête maman?!” eng. “But where has your head gone mommy?!” Not sure if she meant that literary or metaphorically! 😳
#LaVéritéSortDeLaBoucheDesEnfants #DontTakeLifeTooSeriously 😂
UPDATED (by popular demand): here’s the front! 👅👅
SilhouettEtiquette 