Positive day!

Today was a very positive day! Went to Bristol Farms to get some prosciutto and cheese for the p-club meeting, and the lady behind the meat counter remembers me! She asked why I wasn't around for the past month, and said I was beautiful, and I look like a celebrity...in Hollywood! She was so nice. And she gave me helluva big chunk of sample prosciutto, and even added some cantalope! I have to say, for some weird reason, some ladies in their late 30s-50s really like me. Hmm. And then I ran into this cute group of boy scouts who were selling popcorn, and when I was handing over the money for a pack, one whispered to another not so quietly "I think she's cute!" Man, I love attention from 8 year olds. :) They are the best kind! And at Carmax (had to bring my car for a quote :( ) the guy was like commenting how an "attractive girl" like me shouldn't let people test drive my car with me alone. To top it off, this group of korean guys who came to test drive my car asked if I wanted to hang out to drink after and called me a singapore princess. Ego trip! I just want to document this so I can make myself feel better on my down days. There's still hope! :)

Roma+ Florence

We spent three days in Rome, took a rental car to tuscany and back to rome for the last two days of our trip. Rome was nice, I didn't like it as much as the other big cities because there were just too many beggars around, but I loved it for the beauty. Vatican city and Sistine Chapel was unbelievable, and I loved the Pantheon and Colosseum. The Trevi fountain was cool, but it was just too crowded to be picturesque, and I really don't see the big deal about the Spanish steps. But wherever I go, the buildings were beautiful and possessed an old charm. We walked around A LOT. Mosquitos everywhere, and it was HOT. The last day, we went to these bath ruins, and it was cool. It was sparse, but there's something about the ruins that felt like you stepped into an ancient era. It was nice. The food that stood out was the spaghetti with pepper and sheep cheese, a roman favorite, at casa copelle, and the fried anchovies at this restaurant next to the pantheon. We had dinner at Al Duello the last night, which was rated the second best restaurant in Rome, and it didn't disappoint. I got the tasting menu of seafood, and the seabass carpaccio in orange sauce was the best thing ever. They made their own olive oil and bread too, which was nice. It was a really nice meal.

I have to say, Tuscany wins hands down in the food department, despite the gruelling long winding drive you have to take to get to any of the small town. Castellina in Chianti, I will be back. The restaurants there blew my mind. It was at Alberggacio, which is 1-michelin star-rated, where I had my best meal of this entire trip. And the pizza at Fonderario in the same town that prompted me to eat my crust (I've never liked pizza crust). It was soft, bready and chewy at the same time. Yum!

The castle Meleto in Gaiole in Chianti where we stayed at the honeymoon suite was beautiful. A courtyard so beautiful it's unreal, which overlooks the rolling hills in Tuscany, the vineyards next door, the infiniti pool. Our suite was huge, and aside from the lack of A/C, it was really nice. I have to admit, it was a bit intimidating staying there just because we were isolated and it felt soooooo old and ancient, but it was beautiful, with a canopy bed and all!

Florence was blah, so I dun wanna talk about it. The duomo was nice, I guess. As for Sienna, I'm glad we made the hike up the bell tower in the square, the view of sienna from there was so exquisite!

In all, it was a great leg, thinking back on it. The wines were superb, the food was great, and it was nice being in the countryside for a while, although, next time, we're coming back in autumn. Ha. It's way too hot in August.

 Vatican City.

 Inside the Vatican Church.

 One of the dead popes. Deron said that they believe that pops were immortal, so they don't decompose, and hence the open glass style of the coffin.

 The Colosseum!

 Pantheon, us at the restaurant for lunch.

 A roman favorite, fried anchovies! It really was quite good, not fishy and not salty. Fresh anchovies!

 The Pantheon at night. Pretty!

 One of the vatican museums.

 One of the rooms in the museums.

 Us posing in front of a modern art bronze sculpture of a mass.

 The Sistine Chapel!!

 Our bathroom in the castle/

 The guest bedroom. Deron calls it the mother-in-law bedrom. Hurr hurr hurr.

 Our bedroom! :D

 Sienna with the bell tower we climbed.

 The view was breathtaking! :)

 A random artist doing chalk drawings on the ground! Italians are real artistic. Saw a mother and daughter selling pencil drawings of the Colosseum for 5 bucks. Should have gotten it the first time we saw it. They really are talented!!

 The courtyard of our castle. The picture doesn't do it any justice at all!

 The infiniti pool. :)

 The plating at my fav restaurant!!!

 A roman traditional soup, tomato bread soup as an amuse bouche!

 Yum!

 The steak tartare blew my mind. It had so many layers of flavors, peppery and sweet and the steak itself was so sweet and fresh. Mannnnn.

 Deron's squash blossom filled with ricotta cheese was outstanding. Possibly the best taste of the meal. It was filled with tender cheese which was soooo fresh, and perfectly flavored to bring out the delicate taste of the blossom itself!

 The basil ravioli with pinenuts was good, but falls short compared to the rest of the dishes.

 Deron's risotto with sausage and garden vegetables was the best risotto of the trip. It was so flavorful, meaty and chock full of nicely roasted vegetables at the same time!

 My locally hunted deer meat was soooo tender, so sweet and flavorful. Mmmm!

 I couldn't resist ordering another course, and got the gnocchetti with fried sage leaves and basil, in a saffron broth, it was crazy wonderful. Best gnocchi of the trip! :)

 My fav white wine from our vineyard.

 The duomo at Florence.

 The raping of Sabbadinian women. This sculpture was carved from a single block of marble!

 Perseus with Medusa's head.

 The BEST pizza, with anchovies and garlic. The dough was soooo good.

 The best pasta of the trip! With sheep cheese and pepper. The pasta was fresh and aldente and the flavors were so simple but strong.

 Home made pistachio panna cotta with hazelnuts. This was really good, a bit heavy but the pistachio taste was so natural and good! :)

 The bath ruins that we went to.

 The most amazing grilled fresh prawns in choc sauce. The amazing thing about this dish is that the meat was soooo seasoned and flavorful, which seemed impossible since it's fresh and you can't marinate it for that long!

 The freshest burrata ever!

 I can dream of this dish, the seabass carpaccio with orange sauce!

Deron's gnocchi with seabass was wonderful, light orange sauce, and wonderfully light. Yum!

Paris.

J'adore!!!!! My favorite city in France, for shizo! The shopping, the glam, the lourve. I love all of those! Stayed in a hotel which had Versace tiles, Hermes soap and Bang & olufsen appliances, can't fight with that! We spent the days going shopping, and the nights drinking. It was loads of fun. Went to the chanel flagship store on rue cambon, and Ariane and I happily spent 2 hours there while Jenn and Lier went to Louboutins. Had the best hot choc's at Angelina's near the Lourve, best meal was at Le Chatriebriand, where we had to line up for 1.5 hours, which was totally worth it, best shop Chanel of course, and funniest incident was when we went to station Cambronne, which was a pretty shitty neighborhood, trying to find Cambon where Chanel was cuz Ariane thought her friend misspelt the name of the street. The lady at the train station was SO confused, and we were trying to show all our designer stuff to her face so she can understand us. Ha! Man, did we look dumb. And grossest bar was at Le cab near the lourve, where we saw this guy flash his weiner at another girl and the carlsberg beer was 15 euros. 15 euros for CARLSBERG??? I was NOT a happy girl that night. And let us not forget the never ending stairs at all the train stations, which was especially miserable when we were lugging the suitcases around (when we got to the hotel finally, Jenn said with a note of finality: Gonna CAB IT to the airport when we go!). :P People were surprisingly friendly, especially when we keep hearing from our french friends and others that they were not. Not to mention the catcalls, and the random declarations of love we got along the way. I guess they just haven't seen enough groups of asian women who actually made an attempt to dress up! We had a cab driver who was singing to us the whole trip, and also a street guitar player who switched to "sakura" when we walked by. It was magical, this city. So much beauty, so much glam! :)

 Us at Hotel du Nord, a local french restaurant.

 My favorite restaurant's tasting menu!!!

 Drinking wine is cheaper than water, I swear.

 Scallops so tender, with a sauce so delicate.

 The freshest and sweetest tomatos in a saffron seafood broth. Yum!

 The most tender squid, with fresh vegetables. Loved it.

 The ending dish, which was amazing cuz they are just bits of cantalope dusted with this amazing array of spices which explode in your mouth. Yum! I didn't put down the rest of the courses, which were good too, but these were the highlights.

 Notre dame!

 The tower, of course.

 At a bar on Avenue des Champs-Élysées the last night, it was great!

Arc du Pompeii I think. It was really pretty!