Post Berlin Blues

Went to Berlin this weekend with a group of 6 people!  It was an amazing trip filled with underground night clubs, amazing South Korean food (best thing since gangnam style for sure), good shopping, superb sight-seeing, and many many laughs and good times!

We checked into the Michelberger hotel in East Berlin around Noon on Saturday, and we loved the hotel lobby so much we proceeded to have a few beers here just chilling and looking at maps to plan our next move.  We decided to go for traditional German food for lunch, and got some half-assed directions from the lady at reception and off we went into the FREEZING COLD!

30 min later we found the place, which really should have taken us about 10 min...but hey we got lost. Poor Marion, who was dying for Shnitzel was brutally rebuffed and told that the restaurant only had the buffet and it was open for just 1 hour more.  We quickly indulged in this amazing buffet, filled with slow cooked beef, amazing veggie stew, roasted potatoes, some sort of delicious Camembert cheese mix and many, many other things.  After eating our hearty meal, satisfied with our 20€ per person including drinks we headed off to do some shopping.  We jumped on the underground and got off at weinemeister, where there was great shopping.  Hello Hugo Boss, Sandro, All Saints and more amazing places...but with our budgets we were relegated to Zara, Mango and H&M.  Found some great deals, and we were all set for our outfits for the night!

After a quick trip back to the hotel to clean up and get ready, we were off again to an underground restaurant in a warehouse....still not sure what the name was. Sadly when we arrived after 10pm, they were out of the mussels and out of the fish.  Which was devastating for a couple of friends, but for me...I opted for the Beef and blood sausage ravioli soup.  Um, I was not disappointed.  After dinner we walked over to the bar since it was still too early to venture downstairs to the nightclub.  We sipped on Tempranillo and Prosecco until around 1am when we made our move downstairs. The downstairs was like an Alice in Wonderland, drug den surrounded by people completely out of their minds on drugs.  After aimlessly dancing to shitty trance music we called it a night around 4am.
PS. This was the latest I've been out in YEARS, seriously years

The problem with staying out late, is sleeping in the next day.  I wouldn't let a little thing like lack of sleep keep me away from exploring the city of Berlin.  Around 11am, off we went to fetch some breakfast in order to make it for the 12:30pm meet up for the "Alternative Berlin" tour which left from our hotel lobby.  Finding a small cafe just down the street, we ate and felt human again.
Back to the hotel to catch the tour, and somehow we missed it.  "No worries, there's another meet up point at the Alexanderplatz Starbucks at 1pm" said the receptionist.  Ok, great....off we went into the underground. Somehow we fouled up again, and missed the timing.  At this point we decided to take things into our own hands. Getting off at the old trusty, weinmeister strause (or whatever)....we ventured north (I think). Towards the Jewish temple, and towards the Bode Museum.  We visited the museum...it was stunning, take your breath away, amazing!  Sorry, but Byzantine christian art from 12th century? I mean, it's nearly 1000 years old, there's nothing like beholding a piece of art that existed that long ago.  Just think of all the people who enjoy this very thing. Ok, I'll stop because I'm getting a little excited.
Post museum we found some nosh at a random place we walked by which was completely over priced...but hey we were hungry. Then we made our way back to the hotel to freshen up.
We were undecided for dinner so I ventured down to the reception to pick her brain....what do you suggest for a cool ambiance with a cheap price? Definitely Kimchi Princess....South Korean food.  Ok, great...and do you have a strip club you could recommend? She blushed....apparently this isn't a fun past time for most people to visit the strip club. Must be an American thing.  ANywhoo, she asked around and the bar tender told her of one up the street. Great....and off we went.
Kimchi Princess was an 11 out of 10.  The food was outstanding, the drinks were phenomenal and the service was impeccable. The waitress was even sweet when we picked her brain ab strip clubs after about 5 beers in. Finally we had the name of a great place and off we went.
Strip club was great, so great that we AGAIN got home at 4am...which was a complete nightmare for our 11am flight.  But by some act of God we made it without me vomiting or the hubs fainting.
Mission accomplished, Berlin, I love you! And now that I'm back at work....I have the post Berlin blues, missing that amazing city.  I will be back, I will....

Last Weekend in October

Happy Monday everyone!
Last weekend we spent in Nice at our friends place, and had a super fun weekend!

Our friends view in Nice!

Friday night we went to Hussard in Olde Town Nice which was very nice. We went with another couple and ordered the appetizer platter to share. Then for my main course I ordered the lamb confit with mashed potatoes.  OMG, it was so good.  The platter had a great mix of burratta cheese, parma ham and foie gras with fig jelly on toast points.  And my lamb was melt in your mouth delicious!  Despite the shit service, we will definitely be going back.  I would rate it a 4 out of 5 stars, and with improved service this could easily be a 5.

After dinner, we ventured over to Akathan Pub just down the street.  Had a couple more glasses of wine while enjoying the live music, then called it a night.

Saturday I spent perusing the antique shops near the Nice Port.  Found this amazing little gem, for just 20€.

Vintage Guerlain parfume bottle!

Saturday night our friends hosted dinner, before going to see James Bond at the cinema.  Great dinner and great movie!  Funny enough my favorite part was sneeking wine into the theatre.

Sunday we got up early to head to Biot's flea market.  What a BUST....it was full of complete junk so we were in and out of there pretty quickly. The weather had turned cold very quickly around 11, so we decided to venture to the Leger museum.  On the way our driver insisted we stop in the forest to go mushroom hunting.  Wow, so happy we stopped....found these amazing Chanterelle mushrooms to go on our steaks for dinner!

Hand picked Chanterelle Mushrooms!

We finally checked out the Fernand Leger museum, which was pretty cool and at just 5€ totally worth it.

Our friends outside the Leger Museum in Biot

Winter has finally arrived in South of France...time to pull out the winter jackets.  Brrrrrrr....dinner tonight with friends visiting from Miami.  YAY!!

Weekend of Oct 20 & 21

Another weekend has come and gone....flown by once again. I can hardly believe that it will be November next week.  Where did October go?

Anyways, here's a run down of our fairly uneventful weekend:

Friday Night - Stayed in to watch some tele. After a late night at a friends dinner party on Thursday we finally recovered and just wanted to lay low.

Saturday - 10am we were off on a hike. Our plan was to take the Garavan trail up to Castellar, enjoy lunch in the village of Castellar and then hike back down.  On the way up the GPS got a bit funny, and we ended up on the 52(cinquante deux) trail, which was a 70% incline where we huffed and puffed our way to the top.  At the top we realized the mistake and found our way back to the originally planned trail to Castellar.  We had packed a picnic lunch and sat and ate and took in the view.  Here are some pics....

Check out that climb...phew

Here is where we realized that we took the wrong trail

Sparky and Lucia hanging out

The view was worth the climb

Near our lunch spot

View from one ridge to Castellar

Some flowers along the way

Saturday evening we took the train to Nice to visit our friends Antoine & Marina.  We were just cracking open the 2nd bottle of wine and their 3 year old had just been put to bed when he called for "Maman" because he had gotten sick.  Poor baby was up all night sick, and there went our evening of drinks and catching up.

Sunday we took the train back into Monaco, and went straight to church. After church was a lovely luncheon where we collected donations for a shelter in Nice. Was home by 3pm and lounged around the rest of the day.

Leadership

Just finished Steve Jobs biography, and I can't help but process his leadership ability, skills, and styles.

In the short 10 years of my professional career, I have come across every style of
Leader.

First was Wayne Willegas at celebrity cruises, he was the VP of marketing for the majority  of my time there. He was a warm, welcoming guy with an open mind for ideas and even though I was young he was always encouraging of my ideas and my efforts.

Next I moved onto an advertising agency run by two Jewish women in Miami. These women had owned and operated the agency for over 20 years and the one and only client for that 20 years was Sandals resorts. I came into my management role here, and found a very hostile environment. Every time I was in front of them, it felt like I was in front of a firing squad. They would fire away questions, and I would scramble to answer having to learn to be quick on my toes. These women micro managed every aspect of the business, and would one day scrutinize certain things only the next day to completely overlook them and find them irrelevant. They were hard to please, and easily distracted. However, there was a redeeming factor of feeling like you were family. They would ask about personal things, and actually listen and offer advice. It was a strange place to work, very stressful...but it taught me so many invaluable things. Despite the rigor, I wouldn't change it for the world.

Finally I find myself in Monaco with the most laid back of bosses. There are months at a time that no one in the office sees him or even knows where he is. There is a complete lack of communication, and the general direction of the company is unclear. However, it's his way of making you figure things out for yourself. No hand holding, no judgments once you do actually see him. Just, an ease about him that we will figure it out in due time. Yes, this creates all sorts of red flags for me....for example how do we pay our overhead when we haven't had revenue in nearly 6 months? Among other questions.

But what has all of this taught me? What is the lesson to be learned here? What is the best leadership style? How do I want to format my own leadership style?

I wish I had the answers to all these questions. As I hit 30 next year, I want to be on the right path and moving towards a bright future...but at this time I seem to only know that what works for me doesn't necessarily work for anyone else. And with each employee that I manage, my leadership style seems to adjust in small ways in order to facilitate a good working environment.

4 Days In Bavaria (Munich)

So we're back from Munich. It was a whirlwind....well kind of.

We saw so many amazing places, and the history and the gorgeous architecture...it's just such an amazing place that we were actually sad to leave.  Here's a quick recap (I will do another post with more details):

Day 1, Thursday:
Just a quick 1.5 hour flight from Nice into Munich.  We hopped on the s-Bahn and checked into our hotel. Dropped our bags and were at Oktoberfest by 9:45am.  We waited outside the Kafer tent until they opened their doors at 11am, and scrambled to find a seat.  Luckily we sat near 3, young, super fun and english speaking Germans.  We drank, and drank and ate some pork and drank and drank until around 4pm.  Walked back to the hotel in the rain since my drunk hubby dropped our umbrella.   Took a nap, and were off to a delicious dinner by 8:30pm.  SUCH AN AMAZING day!!

Day 2, Friday:
We were out the door by 10:30am, which was impressive for the amount of drinking that happend the day before.  We skipped the 28€ per person breakfast that the hotel offered, and opted for a cute neighborhood cafe, and paid a mere 7€ for the two of us.  We explored a church, walked to Residenz...an amazing former palace for the royal family in the city.  Then we saw more churches, ate a traditional meatball and sausage lunch.  Then we headed back to the hotel for an afternoon steam and sauna session.  Nap, then off to a Michelin Star dinner.  OMG, I am totally not a fan of blood sausage...but I ate it and loved it at Le Barestovino.  More details to come....another unbelievable day!

Day 3, Saturday:
Headed outside the city limits, about 45 minute train ride + 1 hour hike to the Andechs Monastery.  Not only did we enjoy the gorgeous scenery hiking to the Monastery, but once we were there the stunning old buidlings and the view from the top of the hill was simply gorgeous.  Here we dined and drank some beer for abour 3 hours...all while chatting with some locals who barely spoke English.  Hiked and then trained and were back to the hotel in time for a nap, shower and then off to dinner.  We had no idea what we were in store for dinner....wow, was it super cool.  We ate amazing food, and ordered a gorgeous South African wine. It was just around 11pm and we were getting ready to ask for the bill when they cranked up the music, pushed the tables to the sides and everyone started dancing, drinking, smoking and partying. We joined in the fun, until my feet started hurting and were back to the hotel around 1am.

Day 4, Sunday:
Now we had all sorts of plans for this day, but the weather was a bit overcast and the bed was so warm & cozy that we just nested here most of the day.  Finally around 3pm, the maids called to clean the room so we ousted ourselves out of bed and headed to the art museums.  We were given shitty directions, so we had to find our way to the House dez Kunst (house of art).  Basically we were torn between visiting the Pinkotechka modern art museum and this House dez Kunst.  Boy were we disappointed with our decision to visit House dez Kunst. It was the shortest exhibit I think I've ever visited, but I guess it was cool to see some of the art that Hitler collected.  The only redeeming factor was that there was an amazing coffee shop attached to the museum where we sat for a bit and chatted.  And we ended our trip with some sushi at Annas Bistro at a nearby hotel.  It was the perfect end to the perfect trip....NOT(see day 5).

Day 5, Monday:
Wake up at 430am, take the train to the airport for our 6:45am flight....only to get to the check in counter at 6:25 and miss the check in cut off time and have to completely rebook our flight home.  Ugh, not only was it 1000€, but there wasn't a flight until 3pm.  Meaning we spent a lovely 8 hours at the airport.  Yes, we probably could have ventured back into Munich, but it was just too much effort so we slovenly hung around the airport passing time and talking shit.  We didn't make it back to Monaco until 6pm...making this day a complete waste.  Kind of a shitty way to end the trip, but we must focus on the 4 days of awesomeness and forget about this horrible day :)

Dying to go back to Munich, however our list of EU places to hit up is about 10 pages long...so our next adventure will be Scandinavia next the summer.  Well that atleast what we decided during our 8 hour stay in the Munich airport...we shall see! I promise to post a more in-depth review of our trip with pictures and names and costs and transport infos...pinky swear! Maybe in like a week or so.

PS. My parents arrive today, I'm dying here at work because I'm so excited to see them and have a few days off to visit with them.  We will be venturing to Alba, Italy and around Monaco making sure to hit all the good restaurants while the parents are footing the bill!!

Decor do-over

While I'm stuck at the office, and the time is moving slower than a snail because all I want to do is break out and drink some beers in Munich I've focused my attention to Pinterest and the amazing world of decorating.

For me, a house/apartment/flat/mansion is never fully finished.  Even if you've lived there for years, it's still evolving with the addition of some art here or a new piece of furniture there.

Currently for our apartment in Monaco we are at a standstill because we just spent the last of our budget on random decorations so that when my parents visit next week it doesn't look like we live in a small, scary unfurnished box.  Which is more or less what it looked like prior to the purchases.

But I'm dreaming about the day, who knows when it will be, that we move back into our townhouse in Miami Beach.  Oh, how much I miss our townhouse despite that fact that we're upside down on the mortgage and that my hubby and I nearly divorced fighting over the mortgage payments when we were struggling with our careers 2 years ago.  So for now, our townhouse is occupied by a lovely couple (I'm sure, however I've never met them)....but when we move back I can't wait to get my hands on that place and transform it.

For our living room, I've decided I want a big, cozy, cushy, L-shaped couch to be the anchor of the room. Something like this...although white would be a disaster for our dogs, so maybe a nice grey color:

I even like the layout of the frames, however I do not like the ottoman and the media stand is totally wrong for my industrial loft feeling townhome. Anyways, couch yes love the idea!

Next, for the guest bath.  I love the idea of 2 shower curtains framing the shower!! I'd like to move the door and make it look more like this:

 Next, the master bedroom. I want a big cushy, tall bed and this gorgeous color scheme would be so delightful. It feels so much more grown up than what we had before.  I think it's the pattern the foot stool at the end of the bed really makes a statement. Wow it's so perfect!  Now if only we had this much space.

And a thought for the master bath, not the color but the sink layout:

 
Next our guest room, which was previously our office but will hopefully (o dear God, I pray) be the baby room by the time we move back to Miami. I'm hoping for boys...so I think something like this would be just amazing! And funny enough this is the exact layout of the guest room...I suppose it was meant to be.  Plus, this way we can still use it as a guest room with a fold out couch. Just have the baby sleep in our bedroom in the pack-n-play while the guest is visiting. Love LOVE LOVE this!

Finally, the upstairs patio.  We lived in our townhome for nearly 5 years, and never fully utilized the amazing space on our upstairs patio.  Yes, we had a hot tub which took up 30% of the space, but the other 70% was never furnished.  I will NOT make that mistake when we move back!  Here's my version of what that space will look like(plus, lots of gorgeous pillar candles with melted wax all over the place):

OK, that's all for now.  I will stop by day dreaming and get back to work....only one more hour, I think I can make it until tomorrow (the last work day until Munich).  Au revoir!

Muich Countdown

Happy Monday everyone!  We're off to Munich in just 3 short days, and how am I suppose to work when we plan on checking out all these amazing things:

1. Munich Olympic Stadium
2. Schloss Nymphenburg Palace
3. Neue Pinakothek Art Museum
4. Oktoberfest
5.  Andechs Monastery
6. Dachao Concentration Camp

Think we can fit it all in, plus Michelin Starred dinners and lunches in just 4 short days?  We shall see....CAN NOT WAIT! 

Fashion Friday

It's Fashion Friday, and with the cooler evenings here are some inspirations for looks that I will be trying this weekend:

Super cute stuff right?  Now go & enjoy your weekend!

PS. Munich countdown...just 6 short days.  Cannot wait for Oktoberfest!

2012 Monaco Yacht Show

Well it's that time of year here again in Monaco.  The 2012 Monaco Yacht Show!!  Yay, this amazing show brings more revenue to the Principality than the even the Formula 1 GP that takes place here.  We wandered around yesterday and saw some pretty amazing things.

1.  Refrigerated and heated marble table tops.
2. Speakers made of marble, that can even be used outside!
3. The most amazing hand made, custom made carpet I've ever seen.
4. A wall with a built in wave, which looked as if it was moving...but it's an optical illusion.
5. Really handsome men from the yachting industry.

O yea and there were tons and tons of yachts.  Yachts that make my apartment in both Monaco and Miami Beach look like a doll house.

Here are some pics....Enjoy!

Some of the yachts!

The Upper Deck Lounge, totally decked out with the most amazing chandeliers I've ever seen!

Just a little boat we're thinking of getting (yea right!).

You should definitely consider coming to see this amazing spectacle next year.

Weekend in Review

Ah, Monday is here again and another weekend has FLOWN by!

Here's a review of the weekend --

Friday: Went into Nice to do some decor shopping and ended up being invited on someone's boat in the Port of Nice for dinner.  It turned out to be a great evening with friends, and dinner was wonderful!

Saturday:  I offered to help set up our church picnic, so we drove to the amazing house to get things organized.  We were pleasantly surprised that basically everything was set up, all we needed to do was add some chairs to the area we wanted to hold the service.  Since the set up was so quick, we took advantage of the mountain air and went for a quick hike.  The rest of the afternoon we spent just taking care of errands (grocery, cleaning, etc).

This is the gorgeous house!

Here is where we set up for the church service

This was the view from our hike. STUNNING!

Sunday:  Church picnic was today, and it went very smoothly.  Everyone seemed to have a nice time and the weather was absolutely perfect.


All-in-all, it was the perfect weekend (minus the fact that it was too short)!

PS.  Munich countdown:  10 days!!

Good Morning Monaco

It's a beautiful Friday morning overlooking Port Hercule in Monte-Carlo.  Happy weekend everyone!