I'll always have Paris...
My name is Amadora. It means "gift of love" in Italian. I'm addicted to travel, food, the fine arts and anything British or French. This is mostly a place for me to post my favorite quotes. “Traveling is like flirting with life. It’s like saying, ‘I would stay and love you, but I have to go; this is my station.’” — Lisa St. Aubin de Terán
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It has been awhile since I last posted and a lot has happened!
I stopped my consulting business during my pregnancy but plan to start up again by the end of summer.
Seb and I moved to Paris right before Christmas. He got a very fancy new job offer that he couldn’t turn down, so we are back in the city where we fell in love. We found a beautiful apartment in the 7e arrondissement and it gives me so much joy that my twin babies will be growing up with the Eiffel Tower in their backyard.
Speaking of…I gave birth early…Valentine’s Day to be exact. To be honest, I never imagined myself as a mother and never had that maternal yearning to have children. But when I found out that I was pregnant (we got a little carried away during our gastronomic honeymoon through Spain…), I found myself seeing motherhood in a whole new light. I WANTED to be a mother, especially to Seb’s children. I didn’t have an easy pregnancy or childbirth, but when I held both of my babies in my arms, it was all worth it.
Since my children were conceived somewhere in Spain (not exactly sure where!), we decided that their names would be Spanish-influenced. So they both have French and Spanish names. Nicolas Rafael and Lucia Giselle. Nicolas is such a sweet boy, so quiet and full of wonder. It makes my heart ache sometimes because he is so sweet. He is such a good baby. Lucia, on the other hand, is quite the handful! She’s the opposite of her brother - she’s a feisty, animated and quite the crier. They both have my huge appetite :) As for looks, Nicolas takes after his very tall and handsome father (I hope he’ll grow up to be 6’3” like him too!), while Lucia is a mini Amadora. And they both already have baby Barca jerseys to wear when they watch their first Barca game!
We have a nanny to help me out until I can handle both babies on my own. And Seb has been exceptional throughout everything. I feel like I’m living in a dream right now - the most amazing and sexiest husband that I could ever ask for, two healthy babies, and a gorgeous apartment in Paris. Sure, I am severely lacking in sleep, I have yet to lose the rest of the baby weight, I doubt myself as a mother all the time, I am homesick for my family in SF..but I have to say, I am the happiest that I’ve ever been.
As for travel, that has taken a backseat. Between buying and furnishing the apartment, moving from the USA, and the babies, there hasn’t been the time to travel. But Seb surprised me with a trip to Morocco (Casablanca, Fez and Marrakech) for our anniversary later this year! It should be an amazing and romantic place.
miss you all in NY and SF…so much. Come visit us in Paris anytime! We have 2 spare bedrooms just waiting for visitors :)
xoxo Amadora
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“Whatever relationships you have attracted in your life at this moment, are precisely the ones you need in your life at this moment. There is a hidden meaning behind all events, and this hidden meaning is serving your own evolution.”
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Deepak Chopra
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Quote reblogged from Quote Book:And once the storm is over you won’t remember how you made it through, how you managed to survive. You won’t even be sure, in fact, whether the storm is really over. But one thing is certain. When you come out of the storm you won’t be the same person who walked in. That’s what this storm’s all about.Haruki Murakami, Kafka on the Shore (via enderkay)
(Source: quote-book)
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…until that moment I had not understood that this was a story about lonely people, about absence and loss, and that that was why I had taken refuge in it until it became confused with my own life, like someone who has escaped into the pages of a novel because those whom he needs to love seem nothing more than ghosts inhabiting the mind of a stranger.
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Bea says that the art of reading is slowly dying, that it’s an intimate ritual, that a book is a mirror that offers us only what we already carry inside us, that when we read, we do it with all our heart and mind, and great readers are becoming more scarce by the day.Carlos Ruiz Zafon (The Shadow of the Wind)
(Source: myquotelibrary)
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Buying books is immensely comforting. Maybe I won’t read them immediately, but they make me feel so much better whenever I’m sad and blue. Just their presence, it’s like having more to look forward to.
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As it unfolded, the structure of the story began to remind me of one of those Russian dolls that contain innumerable ever-smaller dolls within. Step by step the narrative split into a thousand stories, as if it had entered a gallery of mirrors, its identity fragmented into endless reflections.
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I am pregnant!
Sebastien and I are so, so thrilled…especially because we are having TWINS! I am due in March. In the past year, I’ve gotten married, pregnant and moved back to NYC…three things I never thought that I wanted. And now, I can’t imagine my life without any of this.
We haven’t thought of names yet. I am leaning towards their middle names being Spanish-influenced. Seb & I share a deep love for Spain, and it was during our gastronomical honeymoon through Spain that our little ones were conceived. It was the best and happiest time in my life, and I can’t wait to share my love for the country (and the world!) to my future globetrotters.
And yes, they are definitely getting passports as soon as possible :)
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It’s time to end my holiday and bid the country a hasty farewell.
So on this gray and melancholy day, I’ll move to a Manhattan hotel.
I’ll dispose of my rose-colored glasses and prepare for my share of adventures and battles,
Here on the twenty-seventh floor looking down on the city I hate and adore!
Autumn in New York, why does it seem so inviting?
Autumn in New York, it spells the thrill of first-nighting.
Glittering crowds and shimmering clouds in canyons of steel; they’re making me feel I’m home.
It’s autumn in New York that brings the promise of new loveAutumn in New York is often mingled with pain
Dreamers with empty hands may sigh for exotic lands;
it’s autumn in New York;
it’s good to live again.
