Archives > May-June 2008
So last night was great! I went out with some bellydance friends to sushi at my favorite restaurant Nu, then we went to a Maroccan bar-lounge named Yacout, where we smoked narghilè and danced oriental music for hours. This place is great because it's very elegant, and they play modern music which anyone can dance, but of course for bellydancers it's a lot more fun than for others!
These pictures were taken last Thursday at our show in Milan @ Cà Bianca, my dad also shot more videos but they are too large to fit online.
Ishtar al Cà Bianca, 26 giugno 2008
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| Danza Ventre Saggio Cà Bianca 26 giugno 08 |
Hey there I've been around, trying to juggle work with PT work with studying with family and friends and just wish there were at least 48 hours during the day to take care of everything worthy equally.
And you know me, I much rather keep quiet on the site instead of talking about boring stuff and murder you slowly with my nonsense :)
I posted some new pictures in my bellydance gallery, the quality pretty much blows, I hope to get better scans soon.
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| Bellydance |
So!! this is my last vacation day, my break was great! on Saturday morning I woke up and went to dance class like every Saturday... in the afternoon I got all my waxing done at the beauty salon and in the evening time I went with Lucrezia to see Negramaro at S. Siro stadium. The concert was incredible! I had been to other Negramaro concerts but this was my first non-theater acoustic one, and they broke a record for being the first Italian band to play at S. Siro! By the time we left the stadium and got through traffic I got in bed at 2am and at 7am the next day I was awake to go to Stefania's house in Pontremoli, Tuscany... where Ste, Lele, Maui and a friend of Ste's were already there. Got there at 10.30 and after a bit we were on our way to the Forte dei Marmi. Too bad we didn't have nice weather, but besides that we had a pleasant time playing volleyball, chatting and making fun of the guys in the group!
In the evening time we went to eat the typical Panigacci of Podenzana, and on our way back we hit this trash bar/pub that had a live dj playing cheesy music and featured a gigantic screen with karaoke lyrics. After several shots of rhum and pear we were gone for good! We started singing crazy music on the microfone and making weird sounds, so the dj pretty much turned everything down to the lowest possible LMAO.
So anyhow, check out some pics of the weekend. Hopefully soon I'll post a couple of video of yours truly with Lucrezia singing like retards at the Negramaro concert!!
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| Pontremoli - Ponte 2 GiuGno |
Help! Weekends keep on running by with a million commitments, outings with friends, teaching, visiting family, dancing... yesterday we had a performance and it was great, because we were around 25 girls and the place was full but not packed, so we were able to comfortably eat and change between performances without the waiters seeing us with our boobs hanging out.
It's only Monday, a whole week to go... it's not nice to always look forward to the end of a standard time cycle, is it? I keep telling myself it's the change of season, yet again I feel that most of my time is dedicated to my obligations and there aren't enough hours in the day to live the life I want to create for myself.
I've been having this odd feeling lately, despite all the good times and the bad I just wish I could crawl onto the couch with a bucket of Lego like I used to do when I was little and build my dream mansion, with the garden, the swimming pool and the security gate... at least I could see it all realized somehow, even if on small scale and made of colorful plastic.
It's such a long way towards heaven, and I am reading a book a friend gave me entitled "Happiness in this world." It's a small simple reading that leads to understand the philosophy of Buddhism. I've always been curious about this religion, which I am finding out slowly is about believing that something greater is not outside but inside of us and our potentials. I feel a little guilty about reading this, I feel like I am committing a sin... but is it a sin to look for an answer to life and happiness?
When I asked my friend how she felt about changing religions and "abandoning God" she simply answered, "if there is a God and he sees me this happy in my path to self discovery then he will be happy for me, and if there isn't a God I will be happy for myself and that is all that will matter." So far I am just reading, there's no point in fussing over the what-ifs, so far I am generally looking around for changes, I feel like a vortex slowly but steadily sweeping over what isn't sane in my life... slowly but surely I'll knock down all the pillars that limit me within my walls of standardness. And once I've built the foundations of the dream of a life I want I'll build that swimming pool, that garden and that security gate all around it.
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| Ila's Birthday 2008 |
It's just another night, some sweet lonely time to think, to reminisce. To figure out what has brought me here and to imagine what will sweep me away. It's temporary solace, I know, it's not the way it's supposed to be.
I just don't feel right about a lot of things, and no matter how much my saccharine optimism tries to conceal it, I'm just another sour victim of a time that does not belong to me one bit, a time that slips away from me the harder I try to grasp onto any possible moment of it.
Sogginess of a life I thought was mine but is in the hands of something greater, I lay my hands into destiny's and hope for the best, or hope for a change.Hope for some just solution that will help me feel finally at home, though I know invane my heart will always and nevertheless be elsewhere.
It totally sucks that I didn't have pen and paper to jot down detailed thoughts as the past wonderful week of vacation at Marsa Alam went by, but I'll try to remember as much as possible :)
We arrived on Saturday, April 26th after a 4 hour flight during which we slept (or tried to sleep) like babies, we picked up our luggage and took a bus to the Carnelia Resort. Carnelia is not a very big resort, it holds about 150 guests, and this in a way was a good thing because I was hoping to relax and confusion makes it more difficult.
My roommate Elda was so much fun, we had a lot of laughs especially late at night while we reviewed the day and laughed at the cultural differences we were noticing. For example, it's a huge risk to drink tap water, or eat any type of weird food, or else you will spend a couple of days sitting on a toilet rather than enjoying the beach. Weather was pleasant, windy though because that region is famous for having lots of wind... but when we arrived the first day it rained... and locals said it was the first rain in months, go figure I had to go and see rain falling in the desert! Thankfully the following days were amazingly hot and the wind made the temperature more sustainable.
The sea in our resort's region was incredibly beautiful, but it was impossible to go in without rubber shoes, because there were a lot of rocks and even sea urchins (I remembered how my ex boyfriend Robert stepped on an urchin in the Caribbean and fully recovered only after months).
We basically spend the days of the week dancing, tanning, going on excursions and bonding, in fact a wonderful thing about my trip was the fact that our group stayed together and happy despite all our age differences (our youngest was 23 and the oldest was I believe 60? I never asked her LOL).
I struggled a whole lot with the food, it was continental cuisine but it was not cooked well, I was hoping to eat more local cuisine like the second night we were there, cous cous and kebab were so dreamy! But as the days progressed I got more and more used to the food, I ate a lot of rice with soy, a type of goat cheese with their typical salt-free bread, potatoes, chicken or anything on the grill and even a couple of their cakes with sesame seeds and jam.
The animation team was made up of 5 Italians kids (because the guests were mostly from Italy), they weren't very experienced but they nevertheless involved us as much as possible without being a pain in the neck. After their show (some were awful while others were really cute and funny) we would either go to the small discoteque or to my favorite, the beduin tent. This was a place to drink carcadè tea or smoke narghilè and listen to Egyptian music... so you can imagine how much we enjoyed chatting and dancing all together! At one point I noticed some creepy guy who worked in the tent was filming me with his cell phone, that's when I started fearing he would take the video to Shalaten, the camel market, and offer me as an exchange good! LOL!!
Highlight of my trip was the snorkeling... and like the song says "first I was afraid, I was petrified"... in order to enter the water without hitting the rocks of the coral reef we had to get in through a ladder on a high bridge, as soon as I entered the water (which was really cold) I felt very vulnerable. It was my first time using fins, but as soon as I noticed that they kept me floating just fine I worked up the courage to put my head in the water and look down; some people had told me that who was afraid of heights would most likely fear depths as well, and this is exactly what happened to me. I saw an incredibly high reef wall in front of me, that continued down for several meters, and on the rocks the most beautiful corals and colorful fish I had only in the past seen in the aquariums! I freaked out and immediately looked back up at the surface, I had stopped breathing, I was terrified... and incredibly in my mind I started telling myself that I had bought the equipment, spent money and booked the special snorkeling excursion the following day and I was going to have to give it all up because it was too scary for me. Then I started saying to myself that this particular fear HAD TO BE defeated because I couldn't miss out on such a beautiful viewing experience, so I started breathing slowly and steadily and I tried again... I eventually succeeded, and I got to enjoy looking at the most beautiful scenery I had ever seen in my life!! The most beautiful aspect was becoming a small part of such an imponent world that up to now I had only seen in pictures and documentaries.
The following day we went on a snorkeling trip to Dugongo bay. This is a region known in Marsa Alam for the most beautiful reef and a very rare sea creature named Dugongo, which looks very much like the mix between a sea lion and a manatee. We started swimming along a part of reef which was similar to the Carnelia Resort's, I tried taking underwater pictures but I have a slight suspect that they didn't come out very well. Then we started swimming towards open sea (you heard right! GULP) in search of the dugongo, which, of course, we didn't see, on the other hand we saw a gigantic turtle with two fish resting on top of her, she must have been about a meter long, and swam with such majestic patience I would have loved to go down underwater to touch her and swim with her, she was so incredibly tranquil and at peace in her underwater world!
While we were heading back towards the beach to take a break we swam through a huge group of jellyfish. They weren't dangerous, our excursion leaders had told us, but nevertheless they stung and burnt like crazy! It felt like cigarette burns all over, I had about 7 stings in my back, bust, arms, legs, fingers... everywhere! I started freaking out and a guide told me to take his hand and follow him, thankfully I calmed down and felt a lot better when we arrived at the beach.
Only about a third of us continued to the second part of the excursion, because the first had been incredibly tiring and I suspect a couple of people were afraid of encountering other jellyfish. Not me, I wouldn't have missed it for the world, it was worth all my strength and courage to sustain! And boy, was I glad to have gone on the second excursion of the second reef, we saw thousands of fish of all shapes and sizes, colors and kinds, it was impossible to notice each and every fish as there were so many! SO MANY! The most incredible viewing experience of my entire life, my heart was so incredibly full of happiness as the guide that had rescued me from the jellyfish led us to see amazing corals and sponges and dove underwater to snap pictures at weird fish we hadn't even seen in pictures! I got so emotional at the sight of such an amazing, incontaminated world where everything is at harmony, and myself viewing corals as big as my entire body, and trying to touch fish that were swimming in front of my very eyes. I was sad when our guides told us to head back, but as I was swimming towards the beach and realized this wonderful excursion was over, exaustion started taking over the excitement of it all; only then I realized how tired I was, and couldn't wait to get back to the beach and lay down to rest. But what an amazing experience, INCREDIBLE!
I didn't go on other excursions as some of the other members of my group did, I really wanted to enjoy the beach and relax under the sun. I had a special treatment at the resort's Spa, called Cleopatra. This lasted 90 minutes, they scrubbed natural coconut and milk all over me and wrapped me up in tight towels, they brushed a green algae mask on my face and after a bit they gave me a full body massage (except the belly and chest, which for Muslims is totally off-limits) which left me extremely energized and ready to dance the night away.
On the final evening of our week we performed a dance for resort guests, that was a lot of fun, but before that my new friend Marina and I went to a store in the resort, we each bought a narghilè with carbons and tobacco we contracted with the guy until he was exausted, but we had a few laughs so he invited us to smoke mint narghilè with him. His coworker came in to smoke too, and then they asked us to dance for them, something we of course didn't want to do but they begged us, so we thought, what the heck. It was fun! They asked us to take pictures with them, I kind of felt like a celebrity LOL! 3 sisters from Hurgada, Egypt had asked me to take a picture with them as well, because, they said, they thought "I was an amazing dancer." Naturally amazing isn't the appropriate word, but I really took their compliment to the heart because they are locals and they totally know how bellydance is supposed to be!
So this week was amazing because I got to relax, have fun, dance, and make new friends! Some of us would like to do this again next year, go on a cruise along the Nile river, for example... but we'll see later on, I just got back! :)
Check out the picture gallery, it's not yet complete as I am waiting to receive more pictures!
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| Marsa Alam |