Guangzhou family time finished, Manny and I swept off to Belgrade to meet her international crew of friends, an event decidedly more terrifying than meeting her family since I would be without the protective barrier afforded by the lack of a common language.

Manchit and I shared a huge flat in central Belgrade with her amazing friends Da Bao, from Guangzhou, and Rob, from Leeds, while spending as much time as possible with Alex, native Serbian, and MunHui, from Malaysia/Guangzhou.

 

Three couples and each one with the partners living on opposite sides of the world. We should get a sponsorship with WeChat the amount we all use the Chinese video chatting app!

The week was a blur of art galleries, club nights, prosecco, chants of “Da Bao” at every opportunity (I don’t know why ether, but it’s a name that lends itself extremely well to chanting at any moment), dinners, and waaaay too much meat in a short period of time. Our best meal was a four course extravaganza concocted in our AirBnB that culminated in one of the neighbors shutting off our apartment’s power (Really? We were being too loud at midnight on a Friday?) and then us continuing the party with a blacked-out rave, a portable speaker in a fruit bowl for extra punch and our cell phones providing the light show.

The only regret from the week (other than a few personal mental flubs, as per usual), was that we weren’t able to spend more time just hanging out in the apartment chatting about nothing and everything. It’s easy to see why these are some of the most important people in Manny’s life – gorgeous souls each one – and more moments with passionate people is always to be envied.

4am goodbyes to MunHui and Alex at our apartment, noon farewells to Rob and Da Bao at the airport, and then onward to India via a short six hour layover in Dubai.

Six hours in Dubai’s airport didn’t seem too appealing, so we zoomed into the city in a taxi, heading straight for the Burj Khalifa and the mega-mall at its feet; we meandered through the mall around midnight as the last stores slammed shut their gates and the workers finished their mopping for the day. Throughout the mall, the traditional Chinese bright red pavilions had been constructed for the two-week celebration. Now, in front of our eyes, the walls came down piece by piece. The holiday was over and the mall was reverting back to its normal working order.

For us, of course, the holiday is just beginning, but the pace has changed. For the next ten or so weeks, it will be Manchit and I and not much else. Blog posts to come more frequently in the future, we promise. We were just having too much fun to want to talk about it.

Shouting love from above the din of Delhi’s madcap traffic to you and yours.

Talk to ya later

🙂

D + M