Would you like to live in a Palace?

Albeit for a fee and for a few days? Who wouldn’t right? Well if you have the moolah, here is Tripadvisor’s top ten Palace hotels. For more details click the tripadvisor report.

  1. Bussaco Palace Hotel, Luso, Portugal – Built in the 19th century for the last Portuguese Kings, the Bussaco Palace Hotel is one of the most beautiful hotels in the world. It is located in the lush Bussaco National Forest, which was once the grounds of a Carmelite convent established in 1628.
  2. Palazzo Magnani Feroni, Florence, Italy – Dating back to the 16th Century, the luxurious palace once belonged to the artistocratic Feroni family. With breathtaking views of downtown Florence, the Palazzo Magnani Feroni Hotel is located in the historical San Frediano neighbourhood.
  3. Parador de Lerma, Castilla y Leon – Located high above the town, The Parador de Lerma offers once-secret columned arcades. The first Duke of Lerma ordered the construction of this castle for King Philip III in the early 17th century. It served as a place of enjoyment for the King.
  4. Taj Lake Palace, Udaipur, India – The Taj Lake Palace was built as a summer retreat for Maharana Jagat Singh II, the 62nd successor to the royal dynasty of Mewa, between 1743-1746. The extravagant white-marble hotel is located directly on Lake Pichola, and appears to be floating.
  5. Kempinski Hybernska Prague, Prague – Kempinski Hybernska Prague was once a 17th century baroque palace. Now completely reconstructed, the luxury hotel combines modern design with traditional elements, including a private baroque garden and original double entrance doors.
  6. Ciragan Palace Kempinski, Istanbul, Turkey – The Ciragan Palace Kempinski was once an Ottoman palace built by Sultan Abdülaziz between 1863 and 1867. In the early 1900’s, the palace became the meeting place for the parliament, however it suffered a devastating fire in 1910. It has since been restored as this luxury hotel with breathtaking views of the Bosphorus.
  7. Taj Rambagh Palace, Jaipur, India – Today, Taj Rambagh Palace is an exquisite hotel with stunning suites and ornamental gardens. The palace was originally built in 1835 for the queen’s handmaiden, and was eventually turned into a royal guesthouse and hunting lodge. In 1925, the palace became the home of the Maharaja of Jaipur and remained with Jaipur royalty until 1957.
  8. Gritti Palace, Venice, Italy – The opulent palace on the Grand Canal was built in 1525 as the home of the Doge of Venice, Andrea Gritti. It was later the residence of Vatican Ambassadors. The Gritti Palace became part of the Luxury Collection for Starwood Hotels & Resorts in 1994. It still possesses the original ceilings and entrance flooring.
  9. Hotel Du Palais, Biarritz, France – Hotel Du Palais was the summer retreat of Napoleon III and Empress Eugenia. Empress Eugenia was said to have fallen in love with the beaches and landscape of Biarritz as a child, so Napoleon III had the summer residence built for her in 1855. Presently, the elegant hotel still displays the style of the Second Empire.
  10. Hotel de Crillon, Paris, France – One of two identical palaces, King Louis the XV directed the Crillon to be built in 1758. It was once the home to the Duc d’Aumont and the Comte de Crillon. Located in the famous Place de la Concorde, the prestigious Hotel de Crillon is honoured with 18th century classical French decor.

Happy Birthday to you….

                                                                      
Today GG & BB turn 8. Happy birthday sweeties!! The last eight years have been a fun-filled roller-coaster ride for all of us. We’ve had our share of sweetness and some sadness, but overall, it’s been delightful and I am glad that nature thought us worthy of the twins!

They’ve taken some sweets – Smarties to share with their friends in school. Tonight their school celebrates the Mid Autumn Festival and Family Day and we’re sure to have a blast there also. Enjoy your day darlings and we’ll continue our studies and work tomorrow…

Here are a couple of videos for your enjoyment!

 

This and That…A Khichadi Post


This post is a khichdi of different things. First things first though – a khichdi is an Indian lentil and rice dish which is essentially a one pot meal. You just chuck in rice, lentils, vegetables with some spices and create a fulfilling meal! The image is courtesy of Wikipedia.

Yesterday I went for my annual PAP smear test. My ob-gyn has recently shifted his clinic and somehow even though I kept saying the correct name, I landed in the wrong place! I had taken BB & GG with me since I wanted them to see the man who brought them into this world! BB & GG were very excited about this! The test was a routine one, but the Fibroid that I have in my uterus has apparently grown by around 20% over the last one year. It is still small enough to leave it for now, but over the last four years it has grown by almost 250%! Hopefully it stops growing any more and I am saved from surgery…

I also realised that I am seriously overweight! My scale at home is broken and I have not yet bothered to replace it. I weight 92 freaking kgs! I really, really need to do something. I also realised that this weight is very close my weight when I was nine months pregnant with twins! No wonder in the last few weeks, more than one person have offered me a seat in the bus – they thought I was pregnant!!

While coming back home from the clinic, we were talking about the fact that in my side of the family BB is the only boy in his generation – my sister has two girls and other married cousins with children also have only girls till now – and I said, “Because BB is the only boy in this generation, the grandparents tend to pamper him a lot”. For some reason, this set off GG in a fit of giggles and she wouldn’t tell me the reason. Then later when the giggling subsided, we realised that she associated the word ‘pamper’ to diapers or Pampers! Cue to continue giggling whenever the word was used, and believe me she used the word in many ways during the 10 minute drive home!

I also heard some other piece of sad news yesterday – an ex-colleague of mine JS who was just about my age (give or take a few years) expired on Sunday. I am not sure of the cause, but I heard the words Heart Attack. Even though he and me were not close and in fact I disliked him a lot, here’s a prayer for him and his family and may his soul rest in peace. I know he is the only son and has aged parents with medical conditions. May God give them the courage to go through this tragedy. It can never be easy for a parent to see his/her child go before them, this goes against all the laws of nature!

TGIF…

Thank God It’s Friday! Today’s Friday and the start of a the weekend! While most people rejoice at the thought of two blissfull days of doing other stuff, my weekends usually entail doing the same stuff that I have been doing the rest of the week – in fact if I can say so, my weekends are even more busy!

On Saturday, I do have the luxury of sleeping for another 75 minutes and wake up only at 6 am compared to the 4:45 am that I usually wake up. Then it’s a flurry of activities to get BB & GG ready for their Mother Tongue classes aka Hindi classes. I have opted them to take Hindi as their Mother Tongue since here, you have to take an another language in addition to English and the other options with us – Tamil and Mandarin were not really options. Tamil, because even though we are linguistically Tamil speaking, I can’t read or write the language to save my life and Mandarin because we do not speak the language at home and so even though they’ve been learning it since Pre-Nursery, I was scared that when the higher levels of the language kick in, it will be difficult for them.

Coming back to the point, they are out of the house by 8 am and then I have some free time till they are back at 1 pm. After lunch and some rest (read afternoon nap), we then go for their music lessons at 5:30 pm. They are learning Carnatic music. Carnatic music is the classical Indian music more common in south India. They will complete one year of learning in October and this year during the Navratri festival, their class will be singing a song at a nearby temple. More about the festival and their performance later.

From tomorrow, GG has additional ballet lessons on Saturdays. These are special lessons specifically for the exams which her class will take sometime in the first quarter of next year. GG has been learning ballet since she was about 3.5 years old.

Sunday’s are relatively free with just GG’s regular ballet lessons. Normally S will take them both – and it’s just some days when he has to work that I take over. This weekend, being the last day of their semesteral holidays, we’re taking them to see the Smurf Movie. I love the Smurfs and it brings back memories for me too, so we’re all looking forward to it. I’ll review the movie next week!

When Friends are Invited

Image Source

D & P – you know I don’t think I am going to call them D & P anymore. Looks like their priorities are changing and now P wants to be a race car designer (whatever that entails) and D is torn between being a doctor, a vet and multitudes of other things. So I’ll go very Chinese and call them what else but ‘Boy-Boy’ and ‘Girl-Girl’ or BB and GG for short!

BB & GG are having their school term break this week and have been pestering me to ask a very close friend of theirs L home to play. The only problem is that all three children have so much going on in their lives (read enrichment classes and activities) that scheduling a time when everyone is free is soo difficult. In the end we decided that L will come home with BB & GG after their music class today. So this afternoon is going to be utter chaos at home and hopefully V my helper will be able to cope! The two girls will probably ignore BB today and I will get loads of phone calls today…I just know it…

Since we hardly had any vegetables at home, I decided to make a perrinial kids fav at my place – Chole with Puris! I know it’s going to go down well with them…