Dubai...Dubuy....Dubye-bye

This week my work took me to Dubai. I was always quite skeptical about this city but I must say that it is really stunning, the city of the future....perfect beatiful streets, incredible buildings, lights and glamour. Burj Khalifa is really, really huge. I had also the luck to enter and stay at one of the villa's at Palm Jumeirah.

Belgrade and the Date Mussel

Despite the snow the visit to Serbia reserved a great surprise. The date mussel. Fishing this mollusc has been prohibited in Europe for many years (in Italy since 1988). Apparently there are no restrictions in Serbia where the date mussel comes from Montenegro. The soup at restaurant Bevanda was amazing and granted a jump back in time of 20 years.

The thin line

Gliding on the edge between joy and desperation, black and white, future and no future. Today we have been there but we have grown stronger.

New year, new trip, new country: Croatia

For the first time in my life I have been in Croatia. Every year we discuss home if we should go to Croatia and we end up somewhere else. Yesterday I landed in Zagreb but honestly I saw ZERO of the city. Last night I travel over to Dubrovnik on the Dalmatian coast. This is a beatiful medieval costal town, surronded by terrific walls built on dramatic cliffs. The weather was superb. The road from the airport to the hotel just wonderful. The sea, the islands off the coast, the mountains in the back, the stone houses with red-tiled roofs. All of it not spoiled yet even if in the high season it might be different. Oh, I forgot the most important thing, the people. Very nice and easy-going.

Haiti - Remember

I have googled Haiti to see how many hits there were last year.
Result: 389.000.000
I have googled Haiti to see how many hits there were in the last 24 hours.
Result: 220.000.000

Nobody ever cared about them, let's pray that we will care about them NOW.

Make a donation to help them.

Luca Collami @ Ristorante Baldin - Genoa

During our last visit to Genoa we enjoyed some classical Italian food revisited in modern style. On a rainy day we had lunch served by chef Luca Collami awarded this year with a Michelin star. Chapeau.

2009 going, going, gone.

2009 is history. Roughly 12 hours to go. A year with ups and downs as always. Last night watched "Brothers" a good way to say farewell. Welcome 2010 and bring us health, joy and happiness.

A travelling working year

2009 will be the year of the travel. Concluded with three in a row: Prague, Cairo and Kiev.

Happy that the holiday season is coming up.

Candy - Paolo Nutini

What a song and the trembling voice of Paolo makes it just so delicate. A top talent without any doubt who is able to set a diamond in the long list of juiceless songs of this moment.

I lost a part of me......

For the first time in my life I am not 100% original. One of my wisdom tooth is gone !!!

Riga and the Antichrist

Three great days in Riga. It was good, good fun to be in Latvia with our friends Claudia and Kenneth. We enjoyed everything: the food, the architecture, the dry (no rain) weather, the beach, the cocktails, the flights, the hotel, the ladies :-), the Lebanese, the movies....yes the movies.
The Antichrist will surely stay in our memories. A shocking movie certainly the last 30 minutes.

Sofia..Utopia...

A troublesome day. After landing in Prague and having the first meeting there I headed for the second part of the journey: Destination Sofia.....but Boeing did not think so. Luckily on the ground they found some problems at the plane so that we switched to another one...2 hours later......Landed in Sofia I have been ripped off by a taxi driver.....

Places I have been

Elisa, Marianna, Stefania, Marco

Back from the summer holiday where we had a lot of experiences and saw lots of places I cannot do anything else than dedicate this space to the people mentioned in the title.

Sometimes life can surprise you. You think you know your friends but still they can astonish you as Marco and his wonderful family did. They let us feel as king, queen, prince and princess in an incredible way.

Thank you, thank you, thank you, thank you to the 4 of you.

Hot weather in Bratislava

At 22h00 the temperature was still of 27 degree Celsius. Strolling around it feels like being on a Mediterranean summer holiday location. All restaurants fully packed and beautiful surroundings.

And then came the time that Luca hit the road again

Last Friday we honoured Luca's decision to move again. Luca once moved from Italy to Holland and now he will be flying over the ocean: Destination Brazil. There he will join his wife and little daughter. This was a good opportunity to celebrate at Carlo's CookStudio in Den Bosch.

Manlio, Erik, Luca, Giovanni, Carlo, Marco, Carlo, Claudio, Giuseppe, Little Samuel, "George Matteo Clooney" and myself.

It was a truly pleasant evening with seafood and Manlio's white wines (the Soave was top).

Michael Jackson

He was not my idol, neither my hero. However there are many many songs I like and he was an incredible showman. One of a kind, I would say. Universally successfull but it always looked like he was leading an unhappy life. God bless him.

Balla Bella, balla ballerina

I thank God, Allah, Buddha or just the fate because today I saw my little girl dancing.

Long Live Gisele (Bundchen)

Dolphins, seals, warlrus and so on

Today we had a wonderful sunny family day out in Harderwijk.