The Trip So Far.

Wow! Well finally our feet have touched the ground and we're in a city for a few days.

At the moment we're in Cairns, N. Australia... I'm sat supping coffee while my poor wife (still can't get used to saying that) is busy redoing her diving certificate as we're going out to the great barrier reef in a couple of days. I'm really, really excited about it as I've heard wonderful things about the reef in Oz, and I can't wait to see if it's all true.









So far we've been through Thailand: Where we both slept like Buddha. It was straight after the wedding and all the tiredness of the preparations just exhausted us.
















Laura wanted to know why the small three wheeled speed mobiles are caleed Tuk Tuks. It's something to do with the engine sound we were told. The drivers however don't give a damn, they just want to get you through the clogged Bangkok streets in as little time as possible in their amphetemine fuelled city race. We went out for a spin on one as passengers, Guess what laura thought of it?! She Was Horrified!

We Did It!

To everyone who was there, to evreyone who couldn't make it, to everyone who sent their wishes and everyone who basically helped us have such a fantastic, special day, a big huge

T H A N K Y O U !!!!

Today is our anniversary. We've been married for a whole two weeks now and to be honest, it's only just starting to settle in and seem real.

I'm sitting here in our cousin's house in a chilly suburb of Melbourne.... unable to sleep, partly through bloody jetlag, but mostly through the fun of looking back through my memories of the last two weeks.

We lived a hectic and kinda organised chaos in the days leading up to the 27th July. We had friends and family arriving every day and yet we hardly saw them we were so bloody busy organising last minute things(and you know we're really good at having things to do at the last minute!)

The big day came and stayed. It seemed to last a week I felt so happy. It lasted long enough in the real world too. I think I said goodnight to the last few Gnegnos from Trento at 6.30 7ish.

It's difficult to put into words how well everything went, but I guess that's why I'm writing this to try and do just that. Basically Laura looked stunningly beautiful. Her father (who isn't very well at the moment) proudly brought her to be given away. The service led by Don Gianni of Bari was profound, spiritual, and incredibly open minded. The folk who organised the reception at Masseria Spina Grande did an amazing job, the masseria looked dreamy and otherwordly, the food was delicious (I wanna eat it all again) and they bent over backwards and more to accomodate all our crazy requests. The band whirled us and jigged us and had us dancing to the raunchy Southern Italian sounds to the small hours. Finally, and perhaps most importantly, it was a genuine honour and a heartfelt pleasure to share such an important moment in our lives with almost a hundred people who we care about so much and who made it obvious that they care about us just as much. You made our day incredibly special and started our marriage in the exact way we hoped it would start and will continue, full of laughter, smiles and tears of happiness.

Once again from the bottom of our hearts we thank you all each and every one of you who lived this moment with us.

Seth and Laura Dickens - Scarasciullo.

Melbourne Australia August 2006.

Arrival...

Well I'm sat here now in Bari, but I I feel like I could just as easily be sat at the top of a rollercoaster ready to plunge down the slope at top speed. I can't believe it's just one week tomorrow.. .the time seems to be going so sooo fast.

We arrived two days ago after a monster jouney from Trento (12 hours in 35° heat, 1150 km and 2 mega wrong turns) with my two lovely little future nephews stuck in the back of our overloaded car. It should have been a nightmare but it was o.k. really.

We arrived in the middle of the night at Laura's house where her Australian cousins and their 3 children were sleeping. We crept in to the house... dropped a couple of things into Laura's room went back out to the car and started playfighting. We heard someone creeping around in the house so we went back in to see who it was. It was the littlest, Ellie and her Mum, Janine, but one by one they all woke up as they (and we) were so excited about seeing us again that they couldn't sleep. The last time we all saw each other was in Melbourne when we were saying goodbye to Laura who was leaving Oz to return to Italy, not long after Me and her had met. Neeedless to say, we stayed up till about 4 in the morning chatting, chatting, chatting.... It was a really lovely reunion, though I think the kids must have been exhasted the following morning!!!!

The preparations for the big day are all going extremely well…. so well in fact believe that it can't all be a coincidence. Someone or something is guiding us… really, it’s all just so wonderfully falling into place.I feel so lucky.

Yesterday for example we went to meet the musicians who are playing at the church (remember: the ones I was really unsure about at the beginning, shame that I just don’t on me!) We went to where they live, in a truly beautiful trullo house, with vines loaded with grapes, and flowers creeping all over the Terracotta veranda tiles.

To cut a long story short, they are incredibly kind, interesting and talented people. We were only supposed to talk for 20 minutes or so about the wedding ceremony, but ended up getting on so well that we chatted for ages and made the violin player, Leo, late for his job at the Bari Symphony Orchestra.

We then met one of the members of an an association that runs the B&Bs where a few of our mates are staying near Monopoli (Jules², Beth and Francesco e Alberto.) The association works to promote sustainable tourism in the South of Italy with a real emphasis on helping people to see the real beauty of the south, its fantastic friendly people, wonderful countryside and beaches with the minimum of environmental impact. They also try to provide a really authentic Southern experience, none of them tourist brochure hotels here!!! Anyway as it turned out he was also a really great, friendly guy, whoe gave us a heap of great ideas on places to go, things to see, restaurants and Trattorias to eat, beaches to snorkel etc etc…. really lovely and DEAD useful.

To finish I just want to say that at the moment I’m feeling really emotional. I keep on getting moments where tears of happiness flow down my cheeks. I’m so struck by the momentousness of what I and Laura are about to do. I’m full of trepidation and excitement for the coming days. I’m having thoughts of thanks to all of you, my friends and family for helping me to be the person I am and particularly for my beautiful mum. I am so, so looking forward to seeing you all here and sharing these wonderful moments with you all.

Until next Thursday…?

Seth.

AARRRGGHH!!!

One month to go!! How scary!!!

<---- Only one more month till these two wierdos ---->


get hitched and become one great big crazy,song singing, key losing, ever smiling, grumpy morninged wife and husband.

We're not quite panicking yet (although there have been a few kinda tense moments of "Oh my god it's nearly here and we've just not got enough time to.... " I'm sure you can imagine. Overall though we're managing really well to stick to our overall philkosophy of just taking each day as it comes. We sort of reckon it's silly to get all stressed out over something that is supposed to be a celebration of lovely, wonderful, positive feelings. Still on occasion we panic.

One thing that has been bugging us is the honeymoon... we RRREEEAAALLLYYY want and need a lovely relaxing time together after the wedding and still we can't decide where to go. The compass seems to be pointing towards an adventure holiday in N. Australia or Indonesia. What do you guys think?

We are also asking anyone who is wondering "Hmm what on earth can I get those two delinquents as a wedding present?" to make a donation towards a honeymoon fund. We were thinking of doing a great big wedding list, but decided in the end that we're pretty happy with all the bits and pieces we've managed to collect during our two years living togther. So if you would like to help us on our way to a trip to always remember and treasure, we'd really really appreciate it.

We have also made a small list of lovely plates and glasses etc for the house for anyone who is feeling mega traditional and doesn't like the holiday idea. It's at a shop in Laura's hometown, Bari. I think they even do like a little display inside the shop... fat lot of good it'll do us foreigners though ;-)

So if you want to give us a day's diving, a lift in a taxi from the airport, a sailing lesson, a meal in a restaurant or travel a sickness pill, we've sorted out an account just for the honeymoon.These are the details:

Country Code: IT
Check Digit: 49
CIN: U
ABI Code: 07601
CAB: 01800
Account Number:000073196453

The shop where we are doing the traditional wedding list is:

Genni.
Piazza Umberto I 30,
70100 Bari
Italy.

If you'd like a copy of the list, we can send you one.

Thanks in advance to anyone and everyone kind enough to give us a present. Writing a wedding list a strange and slightly embarrasing thing to have to write about, but you only get married once so I guess we'll not have to do it again!

Love to you all, Seth and Laura.

A South Italy or a South Park Wedding?

Hi everyone!
Are you invited to these folk underneath's wedding?













Ok then introduce yourself, but not with a banal photograph!

Click here and create a caricature in the style of the characters from the cartoon "South Park." Then mail it to Seth or Laura who will sort out sticking it on the blog.
Let's hope to god that they come out O.K.......
Nicola

Beh! You'll see how you've got to do it on the site.......
You're a great bunch of people! I'm really fond of you!

Nicola

N.B. It's notpossible to save your caricature on the site itsself. You can however do it using a little trick!Create your caricature, when you're satisfied with the result, (?!) press the "Print" button (normally this lives right up in thetop right hand side of your keyboard.) The print button creates an image of whatever is on your screen.

Then open Paint or a similar program, go to the "edit" menu and click on paste. The image from your screen before will be pasted into the new paint document. Then select just the caricature, add a name then save the result as a jpeg fil (.jpg) and email it to Seth and Laure. The game is won!

Divertitevi! Enjoy it!

If music be the food of love, play on.

Laura and I were discussing a while back whether we wanted to have music in the church during the service.

Laura was al for it and contacted the local priest who gave her the name and number of a local organ player. I was a little unsure at this point as the church itsself has a wonderful atmosphere all of its own. A small 10th Century church, with incredible views of the surrounding nature and beauty seemed to be at risk of being spoilt if we stuck an electric organ in there.

Laura tried and tried again to call this "Electric Organ Player" but she was never in. At this point I was imagining that she must be some kind of doddery old dear that spends all her time in musty, smelly churches playing stuffy music for stuffy peoiiple. More fool me! I also thought well if wqe can't get through, it must be fate.

Well I'm happy to admit, here, on the record that I was wrong.

Laura eventually managed to get in contact with her, and spent an age on the phone with her laughing and chatting. Sabina, as it turned out was really understanding and didn't want to make us or anyone cringe on the day. She said that she has a lot of friends in the area who are musicians and perhaps we'd prefer that. At the same time she offered to send us a cd of her and her husband playing. Laura accepted and I'm so glad she did.

The CD arrived the other day. I'll let the music speak for itsself, click the play button below to listen to it. One thing, as you listen imagine the music spilling out the doors of the church on a bright summer's day. Heart - soaring stuff!

4 Steps To (Dance) Heaven!

Hooray we've done it!!!

I'm typing away, knackered as ever, but this time tired for a good reason.

Last night we danced, sweated, drank, whooped, cheered and danced a little more after our friend Sergio (the guy in the white tee shirt), who is a dance teacher, came to our house to teach us Trentini how to dance the pizzica / tarantella.


We had planned to stream it live accross the web, but as it turned out, it was far, far more difficult than I'd first thought. (Anyone out there got any ideas how? Julian? Daniel?) In the end my lovely sister, Anna joined in via webcam and then my lovely folks dropped in for a jig later.

We did however manage to get the main points of the lesson on video, to share with you guys so you can all dance like the wild things I know you all are!!! I danced like a wild thing all night. Trouble is I looked like a wild thing in pain! In fact I'm surprised the RSPCA didn't call round to put me down!

So when you've got a spare 5 minutes make click on this link here to see how bad I was!!

P.S. You will need Macromedia Flash Player to see the film and also to see the "Who's Coming"Photo Album

Strictly Come.... do folky dance ...innums.

Hello there lovely folk!

Here in Trento we're getting ourselves together to be the hottest, wildest, most glorious dancers in Italy, ready for the after wedding party where there'll be a pizzica group to keep everyone's feet a tappin'.

And how are we gonna guarantee that we'll be super cool hot dancers like the Southern Italians and not funny little moutain men like us Northeners are? We're gonna be getting private dance lessons. And what's more, so are you!! Intruiged??? well then, read on!!!!

Last weekend we all went up to Lake Caldonazo, near us here in Trento, for a raucous night of swinging, dancing, jigging and reeling at a traditional music and dance night. Well I say we, but everyone seemed to know what they were doing rather better than me, so I just sorta hopped from one foot to the next in the vain hope that noone really noticed I wasn't whirling my fair share. There was one benefit however... I didn't get nearly as sweaty as someone who shall remain nameless, let's just say she's getting married this summer! Guessed who yet?!


Anyway the upshot of this was I realised that I really don't fancy being mister-hops-from-one-foot-to-the-other-in-a-poncy-kinda-way at my own wedding this summer. I agreed hastily then to miss swe... I mean Laura's suggestion that we try out some pizzica dance lessons. Lo and behold though, no sooner had I mentioned by general willingness to try hoopping around kinda less camply, than Laura stunningly managed to find and persuade a certain Sergio to give us dance lessons!


Sergio has an out and out pizzica passion, which is kinda abnormal up here in the mountains, but a great thing for us. His pasion even extended as far as offering to do the lessons for us without charge!!

And the conclusion of the story? And what on earth was I on about when I said this would interest everyone?? Well starting as soon as possible we'll be doing weekly dance lessons every tuesday night in our garden... yes yes Seth but still how does that interest us???... well the idea is that we'll send it all out onto the Net with a webcast or via streaming or something similar so that all of you, coming form worldwide will be able to see, learn and enjoy that wonders of the pizzica.

He he!!! Who knows, maybe we'll even be able to teach the Barese a thinbg or two about their own local dance!!! Wahey go go go the foriegners!!! What d'ya reckon.... shall we all end up looking like this???

Basically... watch this space... as soon as we get more details of dates and times, we'll post them here... so get your dance shoes ready, a few glasses of red wine and a blig plate of bruschetta and lets get dancing!!!!

Pre Wedding Photo Album

Yahooo!!!!!

After a long weekend's work I've finally sorted out a pre wedding photo album!

Laura had the excellent idea to set this up sp that everyone who is coming can get to know each other, at least by sight, before coming down to the wedding this July.

At the moment we've only got a few friends in the album, but over the next few days we'll be putting a photo of eveyone who is coming to the wedding up on the photo album.

In the next days we'll also add a small "Bio" to each photo so when you click on it you can read about each guest and how we know them.

To get to the album, click here or on the photo above.

I'm getting more and more excited all the time. Hooray!!!

Seth.

P.S. If you don't like your photo, send me a new one, I haven't got many modern photo's especially of my older friends :-)

Oh the fun we'll have!

We've had a lovly time celebrating Laura's Birthday this weekend, 31! Been cycling all over Trentino too, up mountains, alongside rivers, mext to lakes and into town, so I must admit I'm writing with very sleepy eyes!
We were talking this evening abou some of the entertainment we'll be having and I want to share our ideas with you!!!

Apart from the huge amounts of food we'll all be having, details of which we'll post soon, there'll be a live band , Naracàuli, too.

Down in the deep southof Italy lives a wonderful type of traditional music, "Pizzica" otherwise known as "La Tarantella." It's a wild, danceable, raucous (and not just a little flirty) type of music which is perfect to celebrate to. Naracàuli play all sorts of wierd and wonderful instruments also. Should be as much fun to look at as to listen to!

The lady dancing up there in fact is doing a bit of pizzica, and in case your wondering why she's dancing seemingly to nothing, listen to this music clip here and tell me if you'd manage to keep your feet from moving when you hear the tunes spilling out across the terrace on a balmy summers evening after a couple of glasses of wine. I certainly understand why she's still dancing away after the music has stoppped!

Accomodation Update.

Hello There Me lovelies!!

We wanted to update everyone on the places Laura found for us to stay while doen in Puglia. Some folk have already sorted out rooms in Bari and Monopoli and others have booked for the whole week in Monopoli. Very together I must say!!

Anyway, here are the places we've seen so far. They are all lovely, so you don't need to worry about dodgy landlords or anything!



*At the B&B in Santo Spirito in Bari, there is a Triple room available (€90) a small apartment (we don't know the price) and three double rooms (€75). The photo here is from this cute litlle place. As you can see all the rooms are decorated on the theme of of one specific artist.


*At the lovely B&B La Porta Vecchia In Monopoli there is one Triple room (90€).

Both Also In Monopoli; The B&B Lamalfitana has two double rooms (70€).
There are also a couple of apartments to rent in Monopoli for a week. They're nice places too. (420€ per week).


*In the countriside near Monopli, there is the Masseria Vagone, with lovely litlle Trulli - Apartments.We were thinking of having the wedding party here at the beginning, though decided against it in the end, just as it's a bit smaller. It's a lovely place however. You'd probably need a car to stay here though. (€35 per person) The owner is a really nice helpful guy too, who can organise bicycly hire too.


If anyone wants or needs help booking, just let us know and we'll be dead pleased to help. You can either leave a comment here or just email us direct. We're getting more and more excited thinking that we'll see you all again!!!

IT'S OFFICIAL

Seth and Laura are getting married!!!

Can you believe it!!!??!! We've finally sorted out everything, and it's all set for the 27th July 2006 .... Are you coming ??? :-D

We've both had various, shocks, worries, heart attacks and disappointments thinking that paperwork was all wrong, the priest wouldn't come, the restaurant owner was nuts, but it's all worked out perfectly in the end, and it's all on!!!!!!!!

So now's the time to pack your sun hat, dig out your old Italian Phrasebook and get a flight booked down to Bari Airport, Puglia Italy.

We'd really like to spend 3 or 4 days with you all together after the wedding celebrating, catching up and having fun, so we really think we ought to help book some rooms for all you lovely guests. We've found several different options for you all. There are two main choices for you:


1) Stay in Bari - Palese (Near Laura's place - See Photo) and spend time with us, getting excited, for a couple of days before the big day. She lives right on the sea and there are plenty of places to go for a swim, but no real "Beach holiday" type beaches. Then on the evening before the wedding we'll all shift down to Monopoli (30 mins South of Bari) where the service is going to be. We have found a B+B near Bari - Palese, which is about €35 - 50 per person and a couple of hotels in Bari - Palese for about €50 - 75 per person one is three star. The other is four star.


2) Go straight to Monopoli and have an out and out beach holiday there, where you are about 5 - 10 minutes drive away from sandy beaches where Laura spends her summer days. We're looking into prices for an agri tourismo (Which is a sort of farm come B+B) and regular B+B's. We're trying to decide whether to stay in the town all together or whether to get somewhere more rural, which would need transport to go back and forth to the beach etc. We're still trying to sort the details out so please let us know what you'd prefer!

Talking about transport, we'll all need some way to get around when we're here. We're trying to organise lift shares etc, but if there are 3 or 4 of you coming, it's probably a good idea to sort out a hire car or bring your own transport. Again let us know if you need help organising this.


So, now it's your turn!!! This is the important bit!!! Leave a note here in the comments section telling us if you can come, when you'll come, where you wanna go, if you'll need help with transport etc. etc. and we'll begin to get EVEN MORE EXCITED knowing that our mates are coming too!!!! HHHOOORRRAAAYYYY!!!

N.B. the sooner we know if you want or need a room, the better chance we have of getting the discount we're trying to negotiate and the more chance there is of vacancies (at the moment there are still plenty.) Soooo lets go for it!!!!!!

Seth and Laura

Suits You!

I went to get some advice about suits for the wedding at the weekend, it was really strange! I felt like a total imposter!

I've never really worn a suit before (except for a court appearance - everyone told me I looked like a jewish baker!) I was sure at any moment they'd see through me and tell me to get out of their posh shop.

I suppose they did in a way. They told me I should "Perhaps come back for a second visit when I had more suitable shoes" I can't see anything wrong with hiking boots and posh trousers!

It was faily embarassing in places too. I felt sure that the assistants had noticed the great big split in the crotch of me trousers! Still the were dead professional and didn't say anything. I just made sure I kept me legs shut the whole time ;-)

Anyway, I found something I really liked, strangely enough, so now I'll have to go back dressed more approprately for some more tailor fussing. Could this be the start of a new me?

Looking For A Place To Stay?

If you're wondering where there is to stay that's not in Bari (Pretty urban, even if it is by the sea) then fear not, we'll stick a load of details of places near the wedding service, in Monopoli, here soon.

Poor Laura is travelling back to Bari for the second time in 2 days. She'll be looking into B+Bs then and trying to get group discounts. The place in the photo is the "Cute Agriturismo Near Monopoli." We're hoping that everyone will be able to stay somewhere like this!!! Exciting eh?! Fantastic cook too!

Laura will also be trying on lots of wedding dresses while she's down in Bari (oohhh exciting :-) so I'm sure she'll be happy! I even went to the tailors to ask about a suit today! I'm going for the casual look though I reckon, apart from anything else it'll save me in the summer heat!

Seth

So Excited!!!

Wow!! Today we seem to be 99% ready to announce the date of our wedding! (Pssst.... It's the 27th of July 2006)

We've been lookin forward to doing it for ages and ages, but what with living in Trento and wanting to get married in the far distant south (Bari) it's been hard to organise. Still we've now found a fantastic masseria (16th Century Farmhouse.)

It's actually in Monopoli, a short hop down the road from Bari and its airport (where I guess most of you foreign types will fly to). We've spoken to the management there (who seemed excellent.. young, friendly and with just the idea of the sort of evening we want to share together.)We'll have to go back tomorrow as we've only talked "provisionally" up untill now, but all the signs are good! :-D

We also spoke briefly to the priest (we are going to be having a "mixed" marriage... more about that later) who is a really, really nice guy. We went to see a service he gave and it was sooooo different. It really was amazing. We're going to see him also on Tuesday morning to finalise things before we can really announce the date (pssst.... it's the 27th of July.)



We have also found a stunningly beautiful 10th cetntury church for the ceremony. It's a tiny little place stood up on top of a hill with the most breathtaking panorama of rugged hilltops, sweeping plains studded with olive groves which slowly slope down to the sea. It was built on the site of an old acropolis also and you can see why they chose the site. I'm not a catholic myself, but this site gripped me straight away. It felt perfect, a small, unpretentious church for Laura's faith, and the sheer beauty of nature for mine. Amazing.


Finally, we have been to look at a few hotels around the area where Laura lives (for all those of you who'd like to come and share the excitement with us before the big day.) We're talking to one in particular, who we're trying to negotiate a group discount with. We'll keep you posted. We're also going to look at a few hotels and B+B's around the area of the Masseria in Monopoli on tuesday. We really want everyone who can manage to get over for the wedding to be able to stay together for a few days and have a cool time together by the sea (which is beautiful near Monopoli.) Again as soon as we have a confirmed date, we'll let everyone know of places we've seen, prices they're offering and if you speak no Italian, we'll book beds for you too :-)

Basically, we're going to keep this blog going right up to and after the wedding, to let everyone see a bit of the chaos we've created!! We'll write any news here. We'll organise transport here. We'll share ideas and plans here. Laura had the excellent idea of starting up this blog, as you can see below you can leave comments. If you have any worries, questions, problems or even sarcy comments, feel free to leave them below :-D

For now, untill Tuesday, ciao ciao. Have a lovely Easter Monday and we RRREEEEEAAAALLLYYY look forward to seeing you in the summer as soon as we fix the date (Pssst... it's the 27th July)

Seth.