To leave and to be back...

The moment you drive up the house you were so eager to leave on a vacation a mixed feeling of excitement as well as dread sets in. In the two weeks we were gone, the grass in the lawn was now a field with swaying blades of grass welcoming you. Weed has overtaken one of your favorite knockout rose bush. "I am not doing lawn work today," I declare as I step out, "just too tired to handle this." Husband agrees but looks at the work in front of us. We go to the backyard to inspect our pool and things are still looking good but there is weed everywhere. The okra plant is now a rogue plant looking to compete with trees overpowering the basil  next to it. I walk back in closing the door saying, "Nope, not going back out till everything is clean." Husband comes back and tells me, "something is surely dead in the weed." Yuck!!!

That is what you get for leaving home and going to far away fantasy lands for two plus weeks. The walks, the sights, the relaxation, and the multiple coffees that you enjoyed while neglecting your house...well the house wants it revenge back. I have been walking around slowly into every room to make sure that the solitary roach has not invaded it yet. So far so good but I am always stuck with one rogue roach that manages to make my home its home in my absence.

The first few days away from home was filled with me moaning for sleep. I missed my bed, my shower, my home and my potty. We were driving through the roads of France and Spain, peeing in seatless toilets and eating food that could have easily spent a few more minutes in the oven. I was craning my neck to get a shut eye while also ensuring my husband or his brother did not take a nap on the steering wheel. I was cranky when we reached Barcelona.

From there on, every road we took was an adventure. Of course after a full night of sleep everything smells good and a smile is plastered on your face. Yes, the roads that took us through our vacation was filled with filthy toilets and basic food (sorry EU, you need to up your game on travel amenities along the road), but the views were one of a kind, the people were great and if all else sucked, the coffee still rocked. I am more of a tea person but the espresso and the style of serving it made me an instant convert. You cannot do that style with making tea.

This was one of the few vacations where I relaxed without worrying about coming back to work and mundane life. I relaxed at a coffee shop sipping on my new found love, noisette, and chatting up with our favorite Romanian barista who served coffee with such elan that I thanked my stars for being in that place at that time. Yes, this trip got me obsessed with coffee that my sister-in-law and I would sneak out in the pretense of shopping to get a sip of coffee. We would giggle like little girls while adding the 4th pack of sugar that most coffee shops thought was weird. We tried every coffees shop on the street and always landed at our favorite place.

All that high from coffee to looking at my lawn made me groan. This is it, the reality of life. You cannot go away thinking that everything will be at a standstill waiting for you to come back. Life growed on in our yard while time stood still in our vacation. I did not care if it was a Monday or a Friday. Every night when we settled in the various hotel rooms, we slept dreamless sleep, toes curled from all the walking and snored away to peace as the tired of the day behind slowly slipped away.

In a few days time, our lives will return to the grid but the memories we made will remain forever fresh like the Italian Coffee in the small shop across from Garbatella station in Rome.

Missing you already Europa. May you stand stuck in time from past with everything modern assimilating beautifully in to your lifestyle. May the coffee never go down with the recession. And hopefully we will meet again for a nice chat over a cuppa.

Love
Travelling ART

Travel Time - Page 8

The drive to Santa Fe was fun. We had music in full blast, listening to songs from all world languages we drove on lonely roads towards New Mexico. We also stopped en route at an Indian Reservation store and did a lot of shopping.We bought everything Touristy and spent a bit of a time there hanging out and stretching our legs.

Once in Santa Fe we changed and decided to live it up on New Years Eve. We put sickness out of our heads and headed to a local Mexican cuisine. We really loved the food and the ambiance. We ate our tummy's fill and drove to the city's town square.

There was a stage set up in the middle of the square and S, Babs and I got on it, played "Ainvi, Ainvi..." on our cell and started dancing much to the amusement of everyone around. We could not stop giggling. We urged the boys to join us but they laughed and refused to be acknowledged as a part of our group. Later we did convince them to do one step. We could not stop laughing at our dancing escapades.

It was so cold that night that we could not hang out a lot in the open. We rushed back to the warmth of our car and headed back to our hotel. M was going to join us to celebrate the eve with us.

M came with her daughter. Babs and the daughter started  bonding over Netflix while the adults bonded over wine and alcohol. We chatted our hearts out and yelled Happy New Year as the clock struck 12!! It was a fun trip indeed.

Our vacation was over. The next morning we headed back to Dallas feeling bad that the fun times were over and we were back to reality. Despite having flu we enjoyed the trip very much. We go to see so much that we would have missed had we flown to  these places.

America is vast. Unimaginably vast. I cannot still comprehend the vastness, ok you get it. We drove through so much wilderness with not a single human to be seen for hundreds of miles. It freaked me out a couple of times when it was just the three of us driving through the blackness of the night. America has awesome roads even where only ten cars drives through in a day. We saw beauty that nature has made and that which is man made, both of them have their own charm and deserve admiration.

If I had to do it again, sick or not sick, I will do it all over again but I would want to go to Yellow Stone! Maybe end of this year :)

Love
Exhausted ART

Travel Time - Page 7

The La Reve show we saw at Wynn was something special. I have never been to any of them ever before and just the set was spectacular for starters. Later as the show began we had our mouths open for most of the time. People going in and out of the pool that seemed to be going in and out too. People jumping from 30' with no protection into water and starting to dance. Amazing! We thoroughly enjoyed it as we headed back to spend our last day in luxury before we drove off from Vegas the following morning.

By this time, typically people with flu would have recovered but since G and I both drugged ourselves to heal, we were still sick. On and off fatigue and weakness and fever with cough and cold. We did not want to give up. Our from S was also falling sick but he braved on too. There were two healthy people in the car as we headed to Sedona.

The drive was spectacular. I bugged G into driving us to Hoover Dam. He sulked as we had already seen it but I persisted. Babs and I quickly walked up to the dam, took photos and got back into the car. By the time we reached our hotel in Sedona it was dark. The drive down through the mountains was scary but S drove really well and took us to our rooms safely.

The hotel itself is another story. It was adobe, red floor, quaint and picturesque. From outside our rooms we could see the red hills. There was a courtyard and a cute little restaurant. We ate dinner and heard a local musician sing. He got fascinated by the little monkey Babs and dedicated songs for her. We danced with our spouses and Babs. It was romantic and cozy.

The following day we woke up late, relaxed, ate breakfast in a cute little restaurant and headed out to see FL Wright's church Chapel of the Holy Cross in Sedona. It was a hike and we did it enjoying the view all the way up and down. G and I declared that we would consider Sedona in our list of top 10 places to settle. So far Goa is the only other place on the list.

We followed our church walk with a visit to the Amitabha Stupa. It was peaceful. We sat down there in silence for quite a bit as Babs played with the glass stones, collecting them and dispersing them. She was in her element being a kid while the adults sat down and thought about life as it stood till that day. There is something peaceful about anything Buddhist.

We ate some local ice cream in the cold and Babs and I got to play some wind instruments in the Sedona main road. It was super fun. Later that night, we headed back to our rooms, changed and enjoyed dinner at the hotel restaurant again. There was a jazz musician there that night. Before we headed to our rooms my girlfriend S and I danced Bangra to Jazz and ran out of the restaurant giggling like little girls. We could not believe that we had started off dancing nicely and then suddenly decided it was time to add the Indian flavor into Sedona! ha!

Last night in Sedona before we headed to New Mexico. The vacation was winding down but none of us felt better health wise. The spirits were up but the spirits we bought from Dallas was still in the sacks as none of us were in the mood to get drunk while loaded up on fever meds and antibiotics...

Love
Sickly ART

Summer!!!

I still cannot believe that a whole academic year has gone by us. Our daughter finished her first year in school. It feels like yesterday when I wrote the post on her starting school and now I am writing one about her finishing it.

As always, a lot of confusion, not that I had to do anything for it but the whole end of school year came so fast that I was not prepared to handle the suddenness. I did not know what to expect and there was nothing out of the box but just the feeling that it is all over and now daughter will move from summer camp to summer camp came upon me very fast. I am lucky that my brother is spending a few days with me, so Babs is staying the first week off school at home. After that the scout for summer camps will start.

Babs had a good school year. I would say Great actually. At first, she did not care for it much but after a few months she settled down well. Now, I have few apprehensions about first grade. She will be a grade schooler next year! No more little kid. Well, she never was one. Her attitude and spunk always made me feel that she was wise and old beyond her age.

I miss my child not having the summer vacations that I had. I know it is random but my summers were filled with staying in bed late, eating late breakfast, moping around the house, playing with neighborhood kids, fighting, napping, eating mangoes, roaming around like vagabonds, just chilling in the house. Unfortunately for her, this is not the case, she has always spent 80% of the year in some form of day care. Does this make me feel guilty? Hell to the yeah (trying to sound cool and hip)! What can I do about it? It is not like I chose to give her this. All haters be damned.

I still think it is relaxing for her. Previously she was in a montessori and it was not a big deal but now when real school is off, she feels the fun of summer vacation. I am planning to make sure that she has fun at least a few days.

Other than that. Life goes on. Some disappointments, some sadness, general ok-ness but not feeling high in life. Waiting for that strong wind to lift me up and give me a few happy moments!!!

Love
Summer Amma!

Travel Time - Page 6

Vegas, as always was welcoming. We loved the hotel room, the view, and the relaxing pace we woke up with. We went down to the hotel restaurant to eat breakfast, which was deliciously lip smacking. Lolled around a bit more before we showered, straightened hair, and dressed up to emerge out of our rooms. We met up with more friends at the mall across the street, ate banana crepes bringing back memories from Paris and aimlessly wandered about doing nothing.

We got back to the room, slept some more and then awoke to get ready for Stratosphere. Not that I do any rides but Babs was excited and so were three other adults. I was happy for them and we left. It was good fun for everyone but Babs did not like the gravity ride much. She explained that it was a big mistake for her to go on it. She did throw a hissy fit when the boys went on two other rides without her as she was too small to ride them.

Babs and I got dropped at the Circus Circus casino where we spent a couple of hours seeing a show and doing some games. I really wonder how they let that establishment exist. The dinginess, the mustiness and the lack of visible exits freaked me out. The architect in me constantly kept spotting the exits just to be sure that I could escape should something started to fall apart. While we were there. the guys picked up McD's for Babs and came back to pick us up. We headed back to the hotel, relaxed, chatted a bit and hit the bed.

That night G coughed and it freaked me out, it was long bouts of cough when I thought he was spilling his guts out. The cough would go on for so long that it freaked both of us out. I did not want to be left behind and took part in the synchronizing coughing contest. We had breathing issues, fast depleting our drug reserves and we were tired a lot. The following morning decided to head to CVS minute clinic while Babs went with her favorite aunt and uncle to see the White tigers at the Mirage. She picked up a stuffed pet and named him Skylar Baby. Skylar Baby goes everywhere with her even today.

G and I came back equipped with the right drugs to push through the rest of the trip and remaining drive back home. We ate lunch and took another nap to get ready to see the night lights of the sin city. Babs and I saw the fountains at Bellagio, walked fast to see the fire show at the Mirage, and then got picked up by G to take us back to our hotel.

We dressed up once again and headed to eat our most fondest dinner ever. We were at Carnevino, Batali's restaurant. From the time we entered Wynn to the time we left with a full stomach we were enchanted. Had no idea that poached egg mixed into mashed potatoes would be so heavenly, or that gnocchi Batali style would change my idea of pasta. Everything we tasted, drank, ate was divine. We left that place so happy and we still cannot stop about that dinner. Babs was beautiful throughout the evening and crashed a few minutes into the dinner.

The following night we had tickets to see Le Reve by Cirque Du Soleil. Could not wait!!!

Love
Happy ART