Holi, the festival of colors

March 15th was Holi, so this time I decided to introduce the kids to the festival. The easiest way is to host a Holi party. A week before I made gujhiyas ( a sweet made only on this occasion). Ashish loves them, Soryan has also started experimenting new food. Arnav on the other hand does not eat anything that he does not recognise. I called all the desi friends and told them about the party. I made gajar (carrot) halwa for the occasion in advance since this takes 5 hours of continuous stirring. So anyway, the menu was planned. I had to make bhelpuri, dhokla, dahi vada, rice pulao, gajar halva. My other friends were bringing chole, mixed chicken-fish-lamb grill, lamb curry, naan, chura matar, rai ka pani (kaanji), famous costco apple pie, chhena payast, and chicken biryani. YUM...
Some of my friends showed up at 9:30 AM. The kids were very excited and they all had their numerous water guns ready. The plan was to fill a bucket with water and mix color in it. The kids would then fill it up in their water guns and spray on each other. My kids did not seem to have enough patience with that and ended up in the pool. After 3 hours in the pool they were tired and ready to get out. After a shower and snacks they were all playing video games. The rest of the crowd showed up between 12:30 - 1:30. My friends kids who came late were very upset so we mixed color for them and they all went out and sprayed color on each other till we were out of colors. Then they too ended up in the pool. Kids really had a lot of fun. The adults just focused on food. It was delicious. The party ended about 1:30 at night. It was a LONG day and we were alll ready to crash.

Desi's go to Italy....
















I saw a documentary on Venice and I was fascinated by the architecture. The whole city built on water and the main source of transportation being water taxis... I had to see this for myself. So last summer on our way to India we decided to break journey in Italy. Now since the decision was made we started planning the trip. Our first stopover was Milan. We decided to take the train to Venice, stay there for 2 days and then head to Florence. Spend a day in Florence and then take a half day trip to Pisa. Then head back to Milan airport. Typical desi mentality.... cover as much as you can.
Finally everything was planned and booked and we landed on Malpensa airport. We put all our luggage (remember India trip.. so we had 4 huge suitcases) in the luggage storage at the airport and went to the train station by bus. We took the train to Venice and found pretty good seats. The kids were all excited and in a great mood which made all of us extremely cheerful. Finally 3 hours later we were in Venice. The hotel was a only a block away from the train station so we all walked. It was a very nice cozy family owned hotel named "Santa Lucia". Next day we all woke up fresh and ready to explore the beautiful city. We went outside to the small garden and had breakfast at the hotel. The coffee in Italy is unbelievable.
What a beautiful city. Ashish had to drag me back to the hotel since the kids were very tired from walking the whole day. I was fascinated by the architecture. 2 days were just not enough. I would love to go there and just roam the streets. Next day we went to Murano the glass factory. It was interesting to see how easily they made such beautiful glass pieces. But everything was very expensive. I have heard that Rome is a better place for Murano glass. The island is too commercialized.
After Venice we headed towards Florence. We dropped the idea of going to Pisa because it was turning out to be too tiring with 2 kids. Florence is a completely different city. From our hotel we wanted to go to the Dome and stopped a taxi. The taxi driver told us it was just a 5 minute walk. 5 minutes for Italians maybe. The whole day went by walking since we wanted to see most of the Piazza's. Outside Uffizi museum there were some sculptures. I was fascinated with one of them titled "Rape of the Sabine Women". The eyes of the women being raped had so much anguish and pain. I had tears in my eyes just looking at it. I never thought stone sculptures could be so expressive.
Northern Italy is a place for people who enjoy historic buildings and sculptures. The kids had no interest in that, so I kept feeding then gelato. They were pretty happy after that :)