South Africa Preview

South Africa so far has been frickin' mind-blowing.

Caroline has had everything pre-planned: from our tours to our meals to our cocktail spots. It has been so effortless and amazing.

Hopefully I'll be able to update in full at some point. But I've taken so many pictures. (almost 1,000 keepers so far...) and I'm just really not sure if I will be able to post and recap EVERYTHING. So I'm going to try to at least post an abridged "preview" in the off-chance that I'm never able to post every little detail.

We've been to the winelands...

They were, of course, spectacular...

We've had an amazing meal at some top restaurant for every single meal. It's been decadent, and yet, incredibly affordable. (Our most expensive meal so far was only $65 a person.)

It's such a fun and lovely group!

We've seen seals...

Baboons...

Ostriches...

Penguins...

We went to the Cape of Good Hope (the southernmost point of Africa.)

Did I mention we are having EPIC meals???

And today we went to Table Mountain...

Ahhhhhh!!! CapeTown is one of the most beautiful places I've ever seen!

And I still have 4 days to go!

18 hours in Amsterdam!

I landed in Amsterdam around noon on Saturday.

Got to downtown around 1pm, which left me some time to explore. (I've been here a few times, but the last time was like...wow...I'm just realizing...10 years ago.)

Amsterdam Centraal is probably the easiest major city to get into from its airport. It's just a 15 minute train ride which puts you at the train station which is in the center of everything.

Seeing as I'll be back here in April with Teebags, I didn't wander around too much. Everything still looks as I remember it. I just really needed fooooooood.

Decisions, decisions...

The choice was easy.

Oh god they were so good.

After my snack and a little more exploring. I went back to my hotel, the Barbizon Palace, and crashed.

Woke up at 5am (it was pretty easy...jetlag) and booked it to the airport for my 12 hour flight to South Africa.

Since Delta's partner, KLM, is headquartered here in Amstrydam, the lounge here is pretty awesome. They have a full buffet breakfast with pancakes and donuts and those yummy little deli meats and fresh rolls that European people love to eat for breakfeast.

YUM!

See you in Cape Town!

Off to Amsterdam & Cape Town!

I'm off to Cape Town to celebrate Caroline & Charlie's Honeymoon!

As you may or may not remember, Caroline & Charlie got married back in December.



Caroline is originally from South Africa. So for their honeymoon, Caro and Charlie wanted to bring 20-30 of their closest friends to experience the wonder of her hometown (before they take off on their own private honeymoon safari). And since we all became pretty close over the course of the wedding adventure, I got invited to come along too. Yayyyy.

So for the next week we're going to go on tours, wine tastings, hikes, concerts, swims, and just lay by the beach/pool (it's SUMMER!).

Everything is already planned. All we had to do was buy a plane ticket. And my plane ticket happened to come with a 24 hour layover in Amsterdam. Super Win!

I feel so lucky and am sooooo excited!!!

LOTS of pics to come soon!

Perks of Being A Wallflower

Saw it last night and I love love love LOVED this movie.

Here's some behind the scenes footage of one of the best scenes. Ezra Miller and Emma Watson/Hermione Granger's choreographed "Living Room Dance". (Just watch the first part of the clip.)

NEMO!

Here in the NYC Nemo didn't hit us very hard. I had to dig my car out of two feet of snow because the snowplows plowed all the streetsnow onto all the parked cars...but that's pretty much it. We didn't lose power. We snuggled. And we watched House of Cards on Netflix.

Back home in RI though they lost power and were blanketed with snow...

My daddy sent me some pics.

He is at the moment probably huddled next to someone's wood burning stove right now covered in blankets and probably shivering with his teeth all chattery.

Send warm thoughts to those without power!

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Here's a rando road in Barrington...

Here's the golf course of the RI Country Club...

Here's my dad's backyard...

Here's 106 Nayatt...the house we grew up in...

And here's Hanley Farm...my dad's current home.

It's a lot prettier than Hurricane Sandy!

AT&T Superbowl Ads

These were the funniest ads of the night!






Also, the best comment I heard all night was when the power when out and someone said, "Yay... Now the rich people get to live in the Superdome."

Haha. Eeek.

The Conlix Pup Cometh!

The Conster is now full-term and probably going to have her baby any day now.



It's a girl and even though they have not yet officially named it, the front-runner name is Beatrice.

We LOVES a Beatrice Bhandari.

We loves alliteration. And we loves it because we'll just be able to call her "Bea", which was Connie's childhood nickname anyway. (Connie -> Bonnie -> B.) So much meaning!

I'm going to do what I did when Oliver was about to be born. Imma call her Beatrice regardless of what they end up naming her. Sorry about it!