Southern Hospitality- Zafferana, Syracuse, Ortygia and Easter

So I am waaaaaay behind on blogging! Many things have been going on since spring break and this includes apartment hunting, which is a whole different ball game here. Hopefully we will have news on that soon!

Anyway- for spring break we took a trip to Sicily. There were 6 of us. We rented a house and a car and had many adventures over the course of the week.  This will take two posts!

We decided to stay on the east side of Sicily outside of Catania. When we arrived, we picked up our 6 passenger van and headed to our house for the week. The realtor and owners met us and showed us the way to the house. It was about 20km outside of Catania in the country. To get to the house, we drove down a dirt road past an orchard filled with lemon trees. Luckily, our friend Kira was with us who could speak Italian, which leads me to the name of my post- Southern Hospitality. We had so many instances of Sicilians going out of their way to make sure we felt at home. The mother and her son left us cookies, salami and wine for when we arrived.

They offered to show us around Zafferana, the small town where we were staying.  They showed us the family butcher and gave us veal and sausage! They took us to the town square with a beautiful view of the ocean and we went to get lunch at a local pizzeria where we met another friend. Gaetano took good care of us and told us he would deliver pizza to us if we needed. He even pinched Kira’s cheeks! He was adorable and we would pay him a visit later in the week.

Tour around Zafferana

The next day we took our first road trip to Syracuse. We visited the ancient ruins which were beautiful and went to get lunch nearby in Ortygia. It was a beautiful town where had a great lunch and got to witness a gorgeous sunset.

Lunch in Otygia

View upon entering Ortygia

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Beautiful Sunset

Cannoli

We had to do our grocery shopping for a few days because it was Easter weekend so we loaded up on food and wine in preparation for spending time at the house.  On Easter Sunday we took a walk around the property to take pictures and collect some fresh fruits and vegetables, since they told us that we could use whatever was on the property. As we were walking back an old women called down to us from her balcony and asked who we were because she didn’t recognize us. When Kira told her we were on vacation she offered us their desserts that were left over for lunch. She was VERY persistent and offered it to us at least 4 times but we had just eaten and had so much food at the house. She was not very happy with us and told us she was just a nonna who wanted to help us! More southern hospitality!

Easter morning, we even  had our own little “egg hunt”

We decided to make lasagna and some appetizers. I was able to do my own little cooking class. It was fun to show everyone how to make sauce and have so many extra hands in the kitchen! We enjoyed a great meal together and laughed and played games late into the night.

Our vacation was definitely a relaxing one. Everyone got to sleep in and we weren’t in a rush to get places. We played games every night, mostly Celebrity and just enjoyed each others company.

 

Wine County Weekend

Who knew that wine country was so close to us? Just a mere 2 hours and we get views like this:

and this:

 We were lucky enough to get asked to go out of town for a night and enjoy wine and food with good friends. The weekend was filled with a lot of laughs, a lot of wine and a lot a food. We went to Ca’Brusa which is an agriturismo, all the food is found on the farm where the restaurant is located. We took part in an 11 course meal. Yes you read that right, 11 courses! I don’t even know if I can remember them all but here are some pictures.

Our group

“Barolo in the veins”

Roasted Rabbit

Spinach flan

Dessert

Some of the other courses included, Crostini with whipped cheese, assorted meats and bread, Vitello Tonnato, thinly sliced veal with a tuna sauce, tagliatelle with ragu, spinach ravioli, beef cooked in wine, and roasted duck pieces and spinach as a side. All amazing and we were so full!

Earlier that day we went to a winery, Mauro Veglio, it was run by a really nice family. The woman showed us around and explained their process. She also explained what types of wine are grown in the Piemonte region- dolcetto, nebbiola, barolo and barbera.

Our friend Jeff picked up the guitar and made the wine tasting a bit more musical. It was a fun experience with a great view.

 

We stayed at a really beautiful (how many times can I say how beautiful it was?)  place that had nice apartments for our group size.

We walked to brunch the next day and enjoyed some more delicious food at La Torricella. We got ot relax a bit outside then we headed back to the city. It was  truly the epitome of a relaxing and fun weekend.

 

Post brunch nap on the hillside

What I learned from hiking- always buy a return train ticket

For those of you that read the blog and know me, you may know that I am not really an outdoorsy type. I have never really been camping- unless camping is classified as sleeping in an RV for a Dave Matthews concert. I never grew up doing outdoor activities so I didn’t even really know if I would like them. I just kind of assumed I wouldn’t. Sleeping outdoors with no bathrooms doesn’t really sound appealing to me but when my friends asked me to go camping at Lake Como, I thought, well this could be fun because hiking is basically just walking right? Well I learned that I was partially right but I also learned something else about traveling: if possible, always buy a return train ticket. I will explain this a little later….. Todd helped me to get ready by supplying me with a backpack and a few other tips for my trek.

Our trip to meet our friend in the city went very smoothly. We took a bus, a train, then another train and we were in Lake Como a few hours later. We walked through town to the funicolare, which is a train on a  cable that takes you up a mountain. A lot of people had the same idea because it was a beautiful weekend.

Lake Como

We proceeded to hike for a while and find our way. My friend had found a list of hiking paths so we were following one of those.

Along the way, there are places called rifugi that provide food and shelter to mountaineers, climbers and hikers. We decided to stop for a bite to eat but as we have a learned “a bite to eat” in Italy is never just a bite. We ended up stopping for quite the lunch. The service was a little slow because it was during the lunch rush but our server was great and we had some amazing “mountain” food. Most of the time mountain food means polenta and some kind of meat but I had this delicious concoction called pizzocheri, that I haven’t had before but have heard of. “Pizzoccheri are a type of short tagliatelle, a flat ribbon pasta, made with 80% buckwheat flour and 20% wheat flour. They are cooked along with greens and cubed potatoes. This mixture is layered with pieces of Valtellina Casera cheese and ground Grana Padano or Parmigiano Reggiano, and dressed with garlic and sage that are lightly fried in butter together” (thanks Wiki!) It was amazing! My friends had some wine and we finished with coffee and dessert. Not exactly what you do in the middle of a hike but when in Rome Milan!

When we got back to hiking, we made our way to the top of the path we started in the morning. We got some great views. The only problem was that is was pretty hazy. A woman at the top said that normally you can see all the way down to the lake and farther beyond the mountains.

When we got back to the train station we realized we had about 10 minutes to buy our tickets and catch the train or else we’d have to wait an hour. We went to find the ticket booth and since it was Sunday, there wasn’t anyone working the booths, just the automatic machines and only one of them was working. Another was cash only. We waited in line anxiously, debating whether or not to just get on the train and hope a conductor didn’t check out ticket, and the train came and went. I was printing the ticket as it pulled away from the station. We were pretty frustrated because it was getting late on a Sunday but we decided to make the most of it and head back for a drink. The place we settled on had beer and wine and to our surprise brought out a GREAT spread of food. It was definitely an upside to having to wait an hour. Plus the view wasn’t bad……

We made our way back to the train and had a relaxing ride back. From the train station our one friends went back to her apartment in the city and Katie and I had to catch another train back to Opera. We, again, had 10 minutes to buy tickets and catch the train. There were a bunch of different train lines and sometimes the smaller trains fall under the bigger lines and we weren’t sure which one we needed, so we were running around and when we finally figured it out we had missed the train. Luckily this one was only a half hour wait. We went to our track number and there was nothing on the board by our track but we didn’t see any other tracks so we decided to sit and wait. When it got to be 10 minutes until the train was supposed to leave, I said to Katie, “if the train were leaving soon, wouldn’t it be here by now?” We went back and looked at the board and next to our track number it said SOT*, so we asked someone and they said the train was DOWNSTAIRS, which in hindsight makes sense because we had to go upstairs that morning when we got off the train. We should have thought of that but it was a pretty long day. So again we ran around, found the train and within a minute of getting on the doors closed. So after a beautiful day of hiking and food, we learned, ALWAYS BUY A RETURN TICKET. It’s pretty much the easiest thing to do but you always think there will be time to go up to a booth a buy a ticket…….Lesson learned!!

*I have since learned that SOTTO means under, so we won’t be making that mistake again 🙂

 

Czech it- Prague!

So this is quite the gap between posts about the same location. I have been slacking. I need to catch up because we have done some pretty awesome stuff lately so….Prague.

We took the train from Budapest to Prague. It was a 7 hour train ride that started off in a very interesting way. We went to that really fun ruin bar the night before and stayed out very late. I ended up getting about 3 hours of sleep and we had to catch a 9:20 train. When we got to the train station a man came up to us and he was wearing a neon vest, like when you go running, that had a photo ID on it and the back said porter. He asked about our train and I gave him the confirmation sheet. He printed our ticket then proceeded to take each of our 4 rolling bags by himself to a train. I have to say, I wasn’t really feeling right about this, but I wasn’t in the condition to really question it. The guy was very pushy and not friendly and he was moving pretty quick. We got on the train and noticed it said it was going to Munich but before we could ask he has put our bags on the storage racks and was insisting on a tip. We tipped him and he wanted more and wouldn’t leave. Needless to say, even though he was dressed officially, we got scammed and put on the wrong train! Luckily, we were there early enough to figure out our mistake but we were shocked it happened to us and we didn’t realize for sure it was a scam until we heard it happened to other people.

So back to the trip-after our encounter at the train station we enjoyed a 7 hour train ride, napping, snacking and recuperating for Prague. We arrived at another nice apartment and got out to exploring the city a bit and grabbed some dinner. The next morning we went for our free tour. This was the same company we used in Berlin, Sandeman’s New Europe Tour. We got to see a lot of the city and got some history as well. All of the different types of architecture around Prague are amazing and the fact that it was largely untouched in the war was incredible as well.

Astronomical Clock and town square

We got to see the Jewish quarter, where there is the Jewish Museum and Cemetary. It was a beautiful area with shopping, restaurants and a lot of history.

Kafka statue at the beginning of the Jewish quarter

The Old New Synagogue, the oldest active synagogue

Streets of the Jewish quarter

 

 

 

 

 

After this we grabbed a bite to eat and did some more walking around. Prague is a very walkable place. We had little use for public transport and much of the attractions are just walking around and experiencing the different parts of the city. The food and beer was very cheap and more diverse than Italy so we enjoyed that. Here is some goulash with dumplings that I had after the tour.

goulash with dumplings

We decided to use one of our favorite maps to do a  walking tour on our own. We ventured around parts of the city we may not have found otherwise.

View at the end of the tour

Charles Bridge

Prague Castle in the distance

Love locks

Lennon Wall

Milan!

Outside a modern art museum, this happened

Astronomical Clock at night

We got some great pictures on the Charles bridge, which was beautiful at night and during the day.

 

The next day we did our own walking tour again and went to visit Prague Castle.

 

We stopped a a monastery where they brew beer and make delicious food. We sat outside and enjoyed  a nice break from all the walking and had some of the best beer we had all trip.

Onion soup with cheese toast

Some more beautiful sites we happened upon during our walk

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

We had planned on taking a beer tour one night but Todd got it in his head that he could plan a beer tour. It turned out great, we went to some authentic places and met some locals so that always makes for an interesting evening. We even saw more of the babies pictured above, crawling up a tower on our way to the first bar.

More art- the babies crawling up the tower

On our last night there was a show in town that Harris and Todd were interested in and on our tour we heard that tickets to the opera are very cheap. We went to the box office and got tickets to a Czech opera called Jakobin at the national theater. It was so beautiful and it was one of my favorite things that we did. It was my first opera experience and even though we were far away (the tickets came to about 6 euro) it was amazing to see the orchestra and be in such a beautiful building. One of the most fascinating things about it was that the opera was sang in Czech with Czech subtitles and English subtitles. I have never heard a language like it but it was fun to follow along to see how the words were pronounced.

 

Prague was one of those cities you just know you want to go back to. It had a great feel to it and with it being as cheap as it was, it is hard to pass up. If you get a chance……czech it out! ( sorry, had to do it!)

The Buda and the Pest

For the first week-long break from school, we made our way to our next “B” destination….Budapest. I didn’t know much about the city at all but we started out Saturday morning with a free walking tour to learn a bit about the city and to get our bearings. We learned that the Danube River separates the city into two parts, the Buda and the Pest. Buda is very flat and Pest is very hilly. We walked across the beautiful chain bridge and up to some beautiful views. We also learned that so much of Hungary had to be rebuilt because of destruction from WWII and they became a democracy in 1990. It’s crazy to think that was less than 25 years ago. Here are some pictures from the tour.

Cathedral

Although the weather wasn’t super cold, it was a lot of walking and a bit brisk so we took a pit stop in a bootleg Chipotle (!!) before we made our way to Museum of Terror (sounds uplifting, no?). We learned a lot about Hungary and man, have they had a rough history. It was a very interesting museum. Then we took a mental break at the Book Cafe, it was pretty tourist-y but beautiful.

Burrita- the bootleg Chipotle

Book Cafe

Sunday morning we ventured out to a flea market and when we didn’t like the look of it decided to head over to the zoo. It was recommended by our tour guide and the weather was pretty nice so we thought it’d be a good day to check it out. On the way we passed an ice rink.

The zoo was one of the coolest I have ever visited. You could get really close to some of the animals. We saw a baby elephant, birds, hippos, kangaroos and a lot more. My favorites were the giraffes that we were told were babies but we determined they were toddlers because they weren’t that little.

On our way back we discovered a side street that had a lot of restaurants and bars. We headed back there for dinner and some drinks that night and enjoyed some authentic Hungarian food and beers.

The next morning, Katie and I went for a run along the Danube. It was beautiful and a nice change from my Opera trail. From there we headed to the famous baths. We went to one of the more famous ones called Szechenyi. I didn’t bring my camera in so check out the link for a few pictures. After some maneuvering to figure out the locker and towel situation, we made our way through the thermal baths. It was an odd experience but I was very glad we did it. Definitely one of those things you don’t think you’ll do in your life. Not sure I could picture myself a s regular in the bath culture but it was very interesting to observe. Each bath area is a different temperature, there are hot and cold and you can choose to take a dip in whatever one as you walk through. There are a lot of showers and saunas as well. The best part was the outdoor pools with the old men just hanging out and playing chess.

That evening on our last night in Budapest, we took a river cruise and were able to take some great pictures.

view from inside the river cruise

Parliament at night

We enjoyed some burgers at a great restaurant near our apartment then headed to one of the famous ruin bars. It had many rooms and so much character. It was like another world. This was another place I didn’t take enough pictures, so take a look here.The atmosphere was great. It was a perfect way to finish the first part of our trip.

A few other notes: the variety of food was amazing, we enjoyed, burgers, Hungarian (beef stew, goulash) and Thai. Everything was incredibly cheap, beers were a few euro if you go to the right place, dinners were under 10 euro a person and pretty much everyone speaks English. Our apartment was beautiful and in a great location. We walked everywhere and only took the metro a couple of times.

Next stop- Prague!

Near our apartment- perfect right?

The mosque outside our apartment

Rainy Walk in Milano

Birthday Festivities

I was really pampered for my birthday this year. Todd had a basketball game out of town the Friday before my birthday so my friends went all out and made me dinner. It was so nice. They made guacamole and fajitas with all the fixings and a delicious peanut butter cake with nutella frosting. It was so nice to spend time with them and eat delicious Mexican since we aren’t able to get it that often.

On my actual birthday, Monday, Todd made me stuffed peppers. It was a nice, quiet night together and the next night, Todd organized a cooking class for me. It was with Cook in Milano, the same instructor we had before. Since it was a special occasion, I got to create the menu. We made croissant with sausage and cheese filling, tagliatelle al ragout, osso bucco with a lemon, parsley topping and tiramisu.

It was a great time with great friends and we made actual pasta from scratch! I learned a lot and have made some of the food already. Thanks to my amazing husband for putting it together. Here are some of the highlights.

Kneading the pasta dough

Everyone gets to chop something!

Birthday Tiramisu

Rolling out the dough

Cutting the pasta

A little blurry but our lovely group

Playing a bit of catch up…..

So this post is all about catching up. The last real post was  about Thanksgiving in Berlin……so let’s start with the Fiera. There is a giant exhibition that comes to Milan once a year, L’Artigiano in Fiera. I guess you could describe it as a giant arts and crafts fair with lots of food and drink. It is held in a convention center (because it is that big) and you need special public transportation tickets to get there. We had heard so much about this and were excited to finally check it out. It is only about a week long.

It is set up by country then by region. You can get food, arts and crafts from all over the world. It is very crowded and kind of overwhelming but we had a good time.

Todd discovered some great craft beer right away!

We spent some time talking to the guy at this brewery and sampling some beers. A nice change of pace from wine!

Can you tell we are now in Germany?

Istanbul

We had a some pre-holiday break festivities where we went to a nice dinner and then a burlesque show. It was a fun night!

Dressed up for a fancy dinner

Baked potato with gorgonzola cream sauce

Our steaks. Todd’s is the ginormous one on the right

Burlesque show

In between dancing and watching the Burlesque show

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

While we were out and about in Milan, I snapped some picture of the Christmas tree by the Duomo.

If you ignore the DHL boxes, the picture is much cooler.

27 was a great year

So yesterday was my birthday. I turned 28 and my mother brought to my attention that I hadn’t blogged in quite some time. I was waiting for my husband to do a guest blog but he seems to have dropped the ball :-). I have some catching up to do but I saw a post on The Everygirl website that inspired me. For those that haven’t heard of Everygirl, this is their manifesto: Whether she is searching for her dream job or a new city to call home; is saving up for a down payment or a trip to Europe; is learning to cook or speak another language, she wants a little guidance. She wants to be inspired. She is The Everygirl. This is for her.

What’s not to love about that?

A lot of their posts catch my attention because they feature strong, independent women who are doing great things in all aspects of their lives. Also, my wedding photographer Jenn, has worked with them which is another connection that I love.

Ok, so back to the post that caught my attention, it was about knowing when it’s time to move on, taking the leap and saying goodbye, but not forgetting the people who have meant the most in your life. While I can’t relate to everything in the post, a lot of it rings true.  I am lucky enough to have my wonderful husband in my life to share this adventure with. We have already experienced so much together and I am so grateful to have him.

Deciding to move across the world was both easy and difficult at the same time. We had the opportunity to move to Italy which was a no-brainer, but we also had amazing and supportive friends and family, with whom we’ve shared so many fun memories, that were very hard to leave. We knew that leaving would not change these memories and that we would still  have these people in our lives. Technology is amazing these days isn’t it? Even though we are across the world we are still a skype call, text or email away.

So, I guess that what I’m trying to say is that 27 was a great year for big life events, new jobs, marriage, moving to Italy but it also brought along the reinforcing of friendships and creating stronger family bonds. I appreciated every minute of it. I know 28 will bring amazing things for all of my relationships, new and old. I really am a lucky girl. I want to leave everyone with my favorite part of the article:

“Some people have the beautiful luxury of staying in one place all their lives, or planting roots effortlessly and early. But for those of us who feel the restless call to go; to move, I say take the gamble. Not because it’s easy, not because it makes sense to everyone (or anyone), not because you’re sure it’s right. But because one of the best things in life you can do is learn how to listen to yourself; one of the best thing you can do in life is know when to say goodbye.”

Click for a closer look 🙂

Thanksgiving in Berlin

Todd had a long weekend off for Thanksgiving, so we decided to take a trip to Berlin with some friends.  It just happened that our other travel buddies hadn’t been there. I’m not sure what I was expecting from this trip. When we are deciding which trips to take I am usually up for anything since we haven’t traveled much. Berlin exceeded any expectations I could have had. History, good and bad was around every turn.

We booked what we thought was an apartment within a hotel from booking.com but it ended up being an actual apartment. It worked out well for us because we had 2 bedrooms, a bathroom, kitchen and living room. Did I mention the apartment was orange? EVERYTHING in the living room was orange.

Our first day we wanted to take a free tour we had heard about. We made our way there but just missed the 11am tour because of some issues with public transportation. So we walked around and saw some of the sites until the next tour. The tour was really great. First of all it met in front of Starbucks and second, it was the perfect mix of site seeing and information. Our tour guide was great. He was British but he started off saying that before our trip was over we would want to come back to Berlin and he was right. He did a great job of explaining both the good and bad of German history. When people think of Germans, there is an intrinsic negative feel but our guide showed us how Germany doesn’t hide from their past but puts it out there for everyone to see.

Brandenburg Gate. It was was cold

Hotel where Michael Jackson held his kid out the window

Memorial for Murdered Jews

Berlin Wall

Plaza where the book burning took place

Memorial to signify the books that were burned

Berlin Cathedral

One of the best things about Berlin at this time of year are the Christmas markets. They seem to be on every corner. It creates a very festive atmosphere, even with the chilly weather. The markets are for shopping, food and drink. We were introduced to gluwein which is a warm, spiced wine. You can choose to add amaretto or rum to it. Then you stand around with everyone else eating, drinking and listening to Christmas music.

One of the fancier markets we saw on the tour.

Waiting in line for food

Market after closing

One thing I have to say is that German food is not my favorite. I was happy to try it of course but it’s not something I would run back for. We ate at a Vietnamese place, Chinese place and an authentic German  place.  Quite the variety.

Currywurst with potatoes at one of the markets.

Pho

Todd’s german meal. Potatoes and meat

After attending our first free tour, we decided to go on a concentration camp tour the next day. Hopefully there is a post to follow from Todd about that! That took up most of the day and we were glad we decided to do that.

The next day we went to a few museums. The Jewish Museum was the best. The architecture alone was amazing. You walk through the museum and the first part contains a lot of stories of Jews who either survived or didn’t survive the Holocaust but there were pictures and belongings to tell the stories. Then there were huge rooms constructed as memory voids to represent the lives lost during the Holocaust. It was very haunting and an experience unlike any other.

Jewish Museum

The two buildings of the Jewish Museum

Inside the museum

One of the memory voids

The other museums we went to were the Pergamon and I went to the National Art Museum.

the Pergamon

Overall this was a great trip and I really can’t wait to get back. Berlin is such a travel friendly city and there are a lot of options for discounts on tickets, like public transportation and museums. We learned a lot and it really changed my perspective on German culture.

Taking in the night

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