Finding Wisdom, Courage and Grace on the road less traveled.
Too bad it’s not obvious here but to give some perspective of scale: standing straight in front of him, my head only comes up to his lowest hand. He is the size of a house! I tried to steal him for you but he wouldn’t have fit in my suitcase!
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Just because it looks bad on the hanger, doesn’t mean it won’t look amazing on you.
Cynthia is fantastic at this. She can see the potential of a piece of clothing from a mile away. She will make me try things on that I’d never look at twice. Asymmetrical cuts, drapes, and shrugs. Women’s bodies are not two dimensional. Try things on!
Wear pretty underwear.
Not for anyone else but you. You never need a reason to indulge in luxurious things. Life should be indulged. Everyday, always.
Ice cream is good for digestion.
According to Maria. It’s also great on lazy sunny Sunday afternoons, during 3 hour brunches.
The only love that’s free is the love that comes from your mother
It’s unconditional, ever-open, ever-lasting. Even when you’re PMSing, illogical, cranky, mean, immature, and irrational – she will always be there. All other love is bundled with a set of expectations and a certain level of give and take.
Use a face scrub twice a week, and a mask once a week.
One scrubs away dead skin. The other sucks up impurities.
Use under-eye cream every single night.
The skin under your eye is more sensitive than skin on the rest of your face. Take good care of it.
Use sunscreen every day.
No ifs ands or buts. Your skin will thank you when you’re 40!
Buy yourself diamonds.
You’re worth it. =)
If he doesn’t call or email, he’s not into you.
Move on. There are bigger and better fish to fry.
Throw away holey socks and underwear. Pronto.
I always get told off for this. Cyn will find holey socks hanging to dry and will come bursting into my room, yelling. Like my mother has said before – Be sure your undergarments are presentable; you never know when you’ll need to be rescued by a hot fire fighter.
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And we’re back. From another insane weekend of turbo travel. Exhausted, happy, and a little more worldly. This time it was a romantic weekend with my Cynthia. Best friend, almost-lover, rock, shield, love.
We found cheap flights into Dubrovnik from London. And then somehow, through a friend of a friend of a friend, we found a beautiful flat inside the old town for a great price. Fantastic view of the hills and the water.
We spent one day exploring the Old Town – wandering the Saturday market, eating dried figs, walking the city walls and sunning ourselves in 24 degree weather. Shiny old cobblestone streets, beautiful squares and amazing views of the Adriatic sea. Travel like this is good for the soul. Time stretches. People suddenly become more approachable, beautiful, friendly. And you approach life and love with arms wide open – like everything is possible. Even if only for a few days from our busy work schedules, these crazy trips are healthy for the mind. They remind us that there is a world out there just waiting to be explored.
Day 2 we hired our landlord’s husband to drive us into Montenegro. In all honesty, I became enamored with the idea of Montenegro after watching James Bond. It looked so romantic, beautiful, exotic. Well, apparently that whole scene with the train and the outdoor cafe wasn’t even shot in Montenegro! Ha. Regardless, it was a beautiful day of winding roads, mountains and bays. We crested mountain peaks that opened to gorgeous valleys below. Montenegro is stunning. Like an oil painting, all the little uninteresting parts up close come together to form a gorgeous whole: terra cotta rooves, turquoise waters, rolling hills and mountain valleys. Absolutely stunning.
Interestingly, my favourite moments are of the simple times: singing Madonna in the car with our driver/friend Zoran; accompanying Cyn in not-so-pretty-side-of-the-road bathrooms; quiet sunsets; watching a movie in bed; rum and tea in beautiful cafes. It’s the time with loved ones, set in beautiful backdrops, that make these trips so precious.
However, a girl weekend really isn’t a girl weekend without SOME insanity:
To view all pictures from the trip, click here
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I’ve seen only a dozen sunrises in the last year, a handful of them from airplanes crossing timezones. The rest have been in Greece – while dancing on the shores of Little Venice in Mykonos, and this past weekend, in a car, on our way to souvlaki breakfast after clubbing in the Gazi district of Athens.
My times in Greece can be summarized in four words: girlfriends, food, dancing, laughter. Time just warps here. Timezones become obsolete. We eat when we’re hungry, not when the clock says so. We dance till exhaustion, or when the lights come on. And we stroll ancient streets in Plaka, at the foot of the Acropolis in between.
Life needs to be lived like this. Coffee with friends, late lazy lunches on romantic hillside cafes, laughter and storytelling with strangers, moments of family, gratitude, wonder and joy.
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I feel like death. After 10 days of running around London on a packed agenda, going to Palma this weekend to celebrate Maria’s birthday was going to be a miracle in itself. The fact that we actually survived the last three days, after all the dancing and drinking and non-sleeping that we did, boggles my mind. It’s Monday afternoon now and I’m about to keel over in my chair. I have never been so exhausted. Ever.
But where there’s a will, there’s a way, and I can’t pass up the opportunity to write about our latest adventure. There were four girls this time and the minute we left the office with our weekend bags, it was apparent that we looked like trouble. It dawned on me how funny we must have looked — four girls, obviously on a weekend getaway, the comfort of the girl-mob mentally to keep our spirits up and shyness suppressed. We were chattery, giggley and ready for anything.
Palma itself isn’t actually that impressive. Lots of yachts, a nice gothic cathedral along the water and great little streets in the city center that reminded me of Barri Gothic in Barcelona. It’s a place for the rich – just as Monaco is for the French, Mallorca is for the British. There were more foreigners than there were local Spanish folk and that kind of touristic feel doesn’t appeal to me very much. However, the food and the nightlife were amazing. We ate all day long and danced all night. We had no plans to see any of the sites and instead wandered the streets, shopped, lounged, took coffee breaks and basically gossiped the entire weekend.
For dancing, we went to Moon and Level in Palma – both along Avinguda Gabriel Roca. There was a Spanish flair to many of the mixes, which made for some great Latin dancing! =) To eat, we had fantastic tapas at RBK – a very local place with wooden tables and floors, amazing kalamari and tortilla de patatas, and great sparkling red wine. Add to that some shots of rum and we were ready to celebrate Miss. Maria! On Sunday we went to Puerto Portal for a loooong brunch —- overlooking the most beautiful yachts. Very posh (which isn’t usually my style) but fantastic food and desserts.
We visited Magaluf on Sunday afternoon and everything that we’ve heard about it is true. It is a total war zone – super ugly, very British and very sleazy. Think Cancun on Spring Break. Just disgusting. Cheap, cement, ugly hotels, lots of drunk British people and dirty beaches. Thank goodness we came off season. I couldn’t imagine being there when all the high school and college kids are around. Yuck.
Anyway, the weekend was a great success. Completely exhausting, but great fun. We lost Maria’s purse (including her wallet, her passport and 200 euros cash) on Friday night but then found it again an hour later. We also met some American army boys from Seattle who are stationed in Germany and visiting the island for the weekend. So random. Oh, and I danced with a Brazilian for half the evening – not a surprise. All in all, another weekend of chaos and fun.
On our plane ride home, Cynthia and I were marveling at how blessed we are to be living the lives that we’re living. We ride airplanes like they’re taxis.
As exhausted as I am, it’s a great day to feel thankful. =)
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I’m back from a wicked weekend holiday in Lisbon with the girls. It’s Monday and the damage is done – we’re back at work, totally exhausted, sore and sleep-deprived. But damn, it was worth it! This weekend topped all other girly weekend trips thus far and now Lisbon is my new favourite city in Europe. It’s cheap, colourful, warm, friendly and beautifully historic. It’s a hilly city, with cobblestone streets, medieval castles and old monasteries. The food was exquisite – fantastic fresh fish and to-die for pastries (pasteis de Belem). We had the most amazing chocolate mouse I’ve ever tasted in my life.
If you’ve ever seen the movie Vicky Cristina Barcelona, you’ll recall that the threesome in there happened because there was a special chemistry that could only exist between the three characters – they all fed off each other. And M, C and I were just that amazing combination of personalities that made this trip so special. It was madness and silliness and the most painful laughter I’ve experienced. It was the ultimate joy for me to be with my two best girl friends – no limits, no holds-barred, no secrets or rules.
We met people who couldn’t speak a lick of English, danced to live Brazilian samba music in hole-in-the-wall pubs in Bairro Alto. We salsa’d till 4am and tiptoed in our high heels through cobblestone streets packed with locals and tourists. It was music and laughter and sunshine and amazing food. We climbed ancient castle walls, rode trams in the evening wind and hopped in and out of taxis so cheap it didn’t feel like Europe!
I’ve always loved Latin everything – the dances, the culture, the music. And Lisbon surprised me because it is the most latin city I’ve experienced outside of South America. We met some new Brazilian friends and managed to communicate with non-English speaking people with an English-Portuguese dictionary. It is in these moments, where you are pushed linguistically and culturally,when travel really stretches you. It forces you to communicate outside of your own tongue, it forces you to see through another cultural paradigm and it makes you forget about all the material comforts of your own life and home and pulls you into a completely new world. This is the reason I am addicted to it: the newness, the stretching, the moments of pure disbelief that you are actually there, doing what it is you’re doing, meeting with the people that you’re meeting. It’s the kind of shake up that makes me feel so so alive.
I’m exhausted and completely sleep deprived. But memories from this weekend are the happy thoughts that would give me the power to fly if I were Peter Pan. =)
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Hi there! I'm Denise. I share my name with Dionysia, the Greek god of wine, pleasure and joy. I'm a photographer, writer, marketer vagabond. I take photographs of enchanted places and the people seduced by them. This blog is an account of the wisdom, joy and grace that I've encountered along the way, and a place where I showcase some of my favourite photographs.
If you have similar stories to share, have questions about purchasing prints or just want to say hello, I'd love to hear from you!
