This week was a whirlwind tour through Italy mainly for work, five cities in six days. My trip started in Torino which had some of the familiar qualities of a major Italian city (sprawling piazzas, imposing duomos, abundant gelaterias) but it didn’t do much for me. I should qualify that statement with the fact that I completely blew through Torino and didn’t spend more than a couple hours wandering the downtown area looking for a nice place for dinner. I was looking for a restaurant called Mare Nostrum which came with high recommendations. For some reason when it was described to me, I took the restaurant to be a quaint little trattoria where I could just stop by and easily get a table. It was a Monday night after all. I strolled in around 8pm and was immediately turned away as they didn’t have anything available the entire evening. I came to learn later that Mare Nostrum is the best place in Torino to have seafood so I was sadly mistaken when I thought I could get seated instantly.
The next evening in Milan more than made up for my loss though. During the day I asked a local for a restaurant recommendation and he quickly called and made reservations for me at, in his words, “a good and reasonably priced” restaurant near downtown Milan. The main attraction for my evening though was an opera at Teatro alla Scala. Knowing I was heading to Milan I had secured a ticket to see Macbeth at the famed opera house. Teatro alla Scala had recently undergone renovations that included the addition of a new surtitle system. The theatre and the music did not disappoint even though I had the most uncomfortable seats I’ve ever experienced in my life. If I merely twitched in my seat I’d bump into my neighbor. My fault for not wanting to spend 500 euro on a single ticket. Dinner afterwards at Il Pontaccio was impressive as well. When I walked in the waiter knew exactly who I was without me saying a word. He sat me down in a nice corner table and immediately poured me a glass of prosseco. Next to the glass he put down a basket of bread cubes that had been lightly toasted and tossed in olive oil. After a few questions about the menu he decided himself on what I should have for dinner. I started with a beautiful and fresh lobster salad with watercress and pomegranate, followed by risotto Milanese and osso buco for my main, ending with a light and fluffy tiramisu. The waiter also gave me the tastiest glass of Barolo to go with my meal. By midnight I was full, drunk, and happy and ready to get back to the hotel to sleep it all off.
After my seminar finished I had about a day and half to do some sightseeing. I decided to check out the towns that are the setting of Shakespeare’s Romeo and Juliet. I first took a brief tour of Padova (Padua), the city Romeo flees to after he kills Tybalt, Juliet’s cousin. Padova is known as the city of the “Saint without a name”; the city of the “meadow without grass”; the city of the “café without a door”. I was able to see the Prato della Valle, an elliptical square that is the largest in Italy (the meadow without grass), and the Basilica di San Antonio (the Saint without a name because his worshipers referred to him just as Saint). I ended my visit with lunch and a macchiato at the Pedrocchi Caffé. The Pedrocchi Caffé was built between 1826 and 1831 as a place where professors, students, and merchants came to discuss political and social matters. It made me think of Sproul Plaza in Berkeley. During those days it never closed so became known as the café without a door. I headed to Verona (the main setting of the Romeo and Juliet) to see the outdoor Arena di Verona and Juliet’s balcony. The Arena was built completely of stone in 1913 and is home to the most famous open air opera season in the world. Unfortunately I was a bit early and since the season doesn’t being until the weather gets a bit warmer. Although no one has proved the existence of the star-crossed lovers, the del Capello family did exist and owned the house on Via Capello which has the balcony that supposedly inspired Shakespeare’s work. After some shopping in Verona I continued on to Sirmione on Lago di Gardo. Sirmione is a beautiful little peninsula that is considered the pearl of Lake Garda that has given inspiration to figures like Dante. Perhaps it was the season or the late hour of the day but Sirmione is what I see when I imagine a quaint Italian town. It was fairly empty and quiet when I came up to the site of the overbearing Castle of Sirmione. There were plenty of winding alleys and I could hear the water all around me. When I came up to a shop that listed enoteca and formaggeria on the window, how could I not walk in? I had no idea what cheeses I ate or what wine they gave me but it was the perfect ending to my day.
I think instead of living la dolce vita (the sweet life), I'd like to experience some more days of la dolce far niente (the sweetness of doing nothing).
Sunday, April 13, 2008
Two households, both alike in dignity, In fair Verona, where we lay our scene,
Tuesday, April 01, 2008
Easter Sunday
I was back in the San Francisco Bay Area last week for business and it happened to coincide with Easter Sunday. That meant that as soon as I turned up at my parent's house they turned me right back out the door to go to church with my little brother. Although I grew up Roman Catholic, I've been less than religious since I moved away from home so going to mass was fairly excruciating. My little brother and I got each other through it though so that meant there wasn't much left to the Easter holiday except to eat. I was able to spend Easter Sunday with my friends, the Beckers, and they cooked up a great meal complete with Easter ham, a cheese blintz souffle with blueberry sauce, fruit salad, and cake with lemon custard. All homemade of course.
It does tend to seem that I spend more time eating when I'm back in the San Francisco Bay Area than doing anything else. I also have the pictures to prove it.
Restaurant/cafe list for this visit in no particular order:
Tuesday, March 18, 2008
It's Official...
I have skied exactly two times in my life. The first time was freshman year at university where I fell, tore the ACL in my right knee, and had reconstructive surgery. A few weeks ago I decided that undaunted, I would try and ski a second time. Again I fell flat on my face and hurt my knee. Today I found out officially that I tore the ACL in my left knee. Now I have to decide whether or not to have reconstructive surgery on my left knee. For someone who isn't all that athletic or active, I sure do have my unfair share of injuries.
Tuesday, March 11, 2008
Costa Del Sol
This past weekend the UK was hit with severe rain and gale force winds (80+ mph) but I knew nothing of this as I was sunning myself in Puerto Banus, Spain where it was a mild ~70F. I went to Spain this past weekend for yet another training session and asked my friend Tonya to join me once again. By the time the trip came we were both excited to get out of London and head for some sunshine. I think it's just about this time of year when people are the most affected by the gloomy weather and neither Tonya or I were spared. We only stayed a couple of days but it was long enought to get a slight tan, some mojitos, and the requisite dish of paella.
Althought it was fantastic to feel the warmth of the sun again, I probably won't be returning to Puerto Banus in the future. As much as the Europeans may complain that the Americans have no sense of culture/adventure to explore new destinations, I think that the Europeans are much more exposed to this criticism. In my travels I've discovered that the Europeans (mainly the Brits and the Germans) have a tendency to seek out or create places that offer warmer climates and then completely homogenize them by sucking out any sign of local flavor. Puerto Banus is an excellent example of this since it is basically a destination that was artificially created in the likeness of what Brits and Germans believe a city on the coast of Spain should be. There are marinas with expensive yachts, alleys with designer clothing shops, and hotels filled pools and lagoons. However, there are no signs of local Spanish culture. For a small fortune, every restaurant serves either fish and chips or paella and sangria, which is not a Spanish dish or drink typical of the Andalucia region where Puerto Banus is located in. You also didn't need to go far to find your local Irish pub. This was most apparent to us when, trying to get a drink before dinner (since dinner starts at 10pm), we entered a romantic looking Italian restaurant. The cheesy owner in his "Miami Vice" outfit seated us in the bar where the walls were decorated with pictures of him with celebrities. For 30 minutes we watched as couple after couple of 80+ year old Brits came in for their "early bird" dinner special and he kissed each one on both cheeks.
We were much luckier in our choices though since we were able to find a couple really good authentic restaurants that had food we wouldn't likely see in London or San Francisco. In the pictures you can see the traditional dish of espetones de sardinas (sardines roasted on bamboo spits).
Sorry I haven't got much to write about this time but I didn't make it back from Puerto Banus until ~1am last night so I'm completely exhausted. It was also a serious downer to come back to some horrid weather after spending two days laying out by the pool. I did manage to take a few pictures though.
Monday, March 03, 2008
To Ski or Not to Ski
One picture can easily describe last week in Germany for me.
When I moved to the UK I had a list of several things I wanted to do in Europe before I left (I may share my list at another time) which included hitting the slopes at some point. I had always wanted to snowboard/ski in Europe but it was always too expensive and too far to go for questionable conditions. Any snow holiday in Europe would need to be booked far in advance and who knows if there would be snow by the time the trip came. Several weeks ago I was scheduled to come to Nurnberg, Germany to work at a trade show. I figured this would be a great opportunity to stay the weekend and hit the slopes. I emailed the sales team in our Munich office and before I knew it we were all set to go. Someone in the sales office had booked rooms for us in a guest house in the small village of Fischbachau, where he lives, and it would only be a short 15-minute drive to the resort near his house. He even offered to lend us his season passes so we wouldn't have to pay a dime for lift tickets.
The week of the trip came and it was just a disaster. The person who planned the trip for us got scheduled to go to a meeting in the San Jose office. Although we were able to meet him the night before he left, we were completely on our own to head to the slopes. The slopes near Munich also had not seen any snow for the last 5-6 weeks so the conditions were not going to be great and everyone else from the local office backed out as well. So here we were in this small village on our own with no snow while the person who planned the trip was enjoying 100" base at Heavenly Ski Resort.
The next morning we headed to the resort to find the conditions had further degraded. The mountain with no snow turned into a rainy mess of mud and little snow. We'd come all this way though so we weren't going to turn around now. Seeing as the conditions weren't promising, I decided I may as well take some ski lessons and spend my day challenging myself. I've snowboarded for nearly 10 years so snowboarding in horrible conditions wouldn't be any fun. I rented some skis and was assigned a 19-year-old recent high-school graduate as a teacher who looked like she couldn't be bothered to teach an old grandma like me in her hungover state. You could tell that she hadn't the faintest idea why I hadn't been skiing since I was two, like her, and why did I think I could learn now. You'll love the irony that her name was Theresa as well. I decided to just be happy that I had a private lesson with ski rental for well less than I would pay at any resort in Lake Tahoe. We went through most of my lesson and I was progressing fairly well, even Theresa commented that she didn't believe I'd only skied one before. We were using the small t-bar lift on the side of the slopes and were headed down for the last run of my lesson. I got a bit distracted and let go of the t-bar too early. Theresa said I could get back on the t-bar lift if I grabbed it quickly which just turned into me missing the t-bar and laying splat on the wet snow. Before I knew it the next t-bar grabbed onto my ski and instead of flipping off, it pulled my left leg all the way back until I heard my knee pop. At this point I was laying on the wet snow unable to move, trying not to cry out of sheer pain, and trying to figure out how I was going to get down the stupid mountain. None of this impressed Theresa and I don't think she'll be teaching any old ladies like me anytime soon.
The snow mobile finally came to collect me and brought me down to their small hut where I waited for the ambulance to take me to the emergency room. I was just happy to hear that this tiny village had a doctor let alone a real hospital. I was brought to the ER where I had some x-rays taken and a very stoic doctor poked around my leg a bit. In the end 2 hours on the slopes cost me 3 hours in the ER, 228 euros, a strained ligament, and a very injured ego (for everything else there's Mastercard). For the most part I'm doing fine, just hobbling around a bit like an invalid but I'm able to drive and get around. I probably need to have an MRI taken at some point. The gods are definitely trying to tell me something considering I've skied twice in my life and each time I've injured a knee (I tore my right ACL the first time). Although I've never had a snowboarding related injury (knock on wood). I really do have to thank my coworker, Stefano, for being such a great help to me. He ended his ski day early to come to the ER with me and even bought me a hot chocolate :-)
Of course my fantastic weekend didn't end there. My friends, the Beckers, happened to be in Munich at the same time so I went down to spend Saturday with them since I wasn't flying out until the evening. Mrs. Becker is five months pregnant so it was great to see them since last I saw her was pre-pregnancy. We had dinner Friday night and had a full day of sightseeing planned for Saturday, including a visit to the BMW Museum. We got up on Saturday, had a massive breakfast at the hotel and headed down to the Marienplatz area to see the Glockenspiel chime at 10:30 am. We walked around a bit and within 30 minutes the blue sky turned to pouring rain, to torrential hail, and finally to snow. We didn't have any shelter and it didn't help to be running around on my bad knee. On top of that we ducked into the tourist office where we found a brochure for the BMW Museum and read that the museum had not opened yet (it's been under renovation for a couple years now).
The kicker to all this was that during our tour of the Munich Residenz, I received a text message from British Airways informing me that my 9pm flight was canceled and that I should call to make other flight arrangements. I quickly called British Airways and Stefano and we rushed to Munich airport to try and catch a 4pm flight. Due to the weather the airport had closed down for several hours so there were massive queues of angry customers with no place to go. Luckily we made it to the airport on time and our flight was only delayed to 5pm. This was unlike some customers whose 9am flight was canceled, then got rebooked on the 1pm flight which turned up 5 minutes after our flight started boarding.
All in all I'm happy to be home safe and sound while warm and dry. I'm not too much worse for the wear and the few pictures I took are on the right.
Sunday, February 10, 2008
What's That in the Sky? Is it a Bird? Is it a Plane? No...
...It's actually the sun.
Although the weather in the UK hasn't been terrible this winter, it has still be awfully dark with the sun rising after I get to the office and setting before I leave for my commute. We typically lose any glimpse of sunlight by 4:30pm when it become pitch black outside. I was warned about this when I first moved to London that my biggest issue wouldn't be the weather, but rather the darkness and the grey. People here actually suffer from a condition called SAD (seasonal affective disorder). So when the weatherman forecasted a bright and sunny weekend, I had to make sure I got outside for a least a few hours a day. I've got some projects I've been focusing on recently so I've spent plenty more time in my flat than anywhere else outside of work. However I am a true Northern California girl at heart which means that I prefer to be outdoors rather than indoors and at any sign of sunshine I will put on the warm weather gear. This weekend that meant t-shirts, tank tops, skirts with no tights, open toe shoes, and most importantly, sunglasses. I stopped short of the flip flops considering I was already a frightful sight to the Brits, daring to go out of doors without a coat, scarf, hat, and gloves in the middle of February.
What the Brits were wearing:
What I was wearing:
Saturday morning I called up Tonya to head down to Borough Market since it had been ages since I'd been. I'm not sure if I've mentioned Borough Market before but it is a huge farmers' market in the middle of central London. It's one of the favorite American tourist spots since outside of the vendors, all I ever hear are American accents. I was great to get out and see the fresh meat, cheese, produce, and fish and we stopped at one of my favorite stalls, Brindisa, for a fresh off the grill chorizo sandwich. We ate our sandwiches in the churchyard next to market and then did a bit of shopping. With all the fresh goodies, I'd made up my mind to make a bouillabaisse so I had to go pick out all of my ingredients.
This morning when I awoke, the sun was still shining brightly so after I spent some time cleaning the flat, I headed down to Kensington Gardens for a stroll. I got on the bus which stops in front of my favorite store, you know it, the Whole Foods. I popped in for a quick cappuccino and then headed across the street to enter the park. It was before noon so the park was quiet still as people were setting up their football (soccer) matches and rollerblade obstacle courses. Other people were taking their morning run/stroll through the park or just walking their dogs or enjoying a cup of coffee and a pastry. It was a really lovely day out with the sky so intensely blue and bright. Excuse me for getting a bit snapshot happy in Kensington Gardens.
Thursday, February 07, 2008
Lucky McBride
Part 3
The girls didn't want to spend the entire week in London since this was Bernice and Melissa's first trip to Europe and Margaret has been to London before. We discussed several other places to visit that wouldn't require too much travel time such as Paris, Brugge, and Brussels, but we wanted to pick a spot that would be new for all us. In the end we settled on Ireland since it's cheap to get from London to Dublin, Ireland and it would be a new experience for everyone. In addition, Bernice works for Diageo which owns several beer and spirit producers in Ireland. We are always taken care of when we visit any of the Diageo brands with Bernice, but no of us expected the VIP treatment that we received in Ireland. Big thanks to Bernice for setting up all the visits and for sharing the privilege with us! She really went above and beyond to get us some once in a lifetime experiences.
We arrived in Dublin midday and decided to take it easy on our first day since we'd had some late nights in London and we had an early morning planned the next day. After checking-in to the hotel we headed to the Grafton Street area of Dublin for lunch. For our first tourist activity we went to Trinity College to see the Book of Kells. The book contains richly decorated copies of the 4 gospels of Mathew, Mark, Luke, and John written around 800 AD. The book was given to Trinity College for safekeeping and is visited by nearly 500,00 people every year. The end of our tour took us through the Long Room in the Old Library Building. The Long Room is 65 meters long and contains over 200,000 texts with some dating back to the 17th and 18th century. You can see some of the photos that we weren't supposed to take. The room was built using Irish oak which then depleted all of the surrounding forests. Some of the trees are just starting to grow back now. After some shopping and a light dinner we called it a day.
The next morning we got up early to start on our 3 drive to County Antrim, Northern Ireland, which is located slightly above Belfast. Since I was the only one who could drive on the wrong side of the road, I got the task of chauffeuring the group for the day. The drive took us through some beautiful Irish countryside will green rolling hills, rivers, sheep grazing on hillsides. After a bit over 3 hours we reached our first Diageo destination, the old Bushmills Irish Whiskey distillery. Bushmills is celebrating its 400th birthday this year which makes it the oldest whiskey distillery in the world. Our private tour guide, Sam, took us through the entire process of making Bushmills whiskey, from barley and water all the way through packing and shipping the boxes. At the end of our tour we walked by the restaurant and bar area and expected that we would sit down for a whiskey tasting. Our guide took us right past this area and through the gift shop so we were disappointed at missing out on the tasting. Then he opened another door to a cozy red room with leather sofas and table full of whiskey glasses. Sam sat us down and took us through all of the Bushmills whiskeys: White Bush, Black Bush, 10 year single malt, 16 year single malt, 12 year single malt, and 21 year single malt. We also had a couple glasses of Scotch so that we could taste the difference. Of course since I was driving I only had a sip of each. After the tour and lunch I was keen to head back to Dublin since the weatherman had forecasted winds up to 70mph and snow for Northern Ireland but the people at Bushmills convinced us that we had to go to the Giants Causeway since we'd already made the long journey and it was only 2 miles away.
We had discussed going there earlier but decided to skip it due to the weather but now we figured we had to go. Although it was freezing cold and we were all nearly blown away by the winds, we were glad that we stopped by since it was the type of coastal scenery that just shows you the amazing force of nature. Nothing like that could ever be devised by human hands. Giants Causeway is referred to as the 8th wonder of the world being formed over 60 million years ago by lava outflows. There are nearly 40,000 basalt columns that just seem to jut out from the ground daring the waves to break them. As the waves came up, the sea foam was instantly frozen into snow . Unfortunately is was too cold too stay for long and too dangerous to walk around much but it was worth the stop.
On our final day we found a cute cafe in Dublin owned by a kind French woman from Bordeaux. Crepes were the cafe's specialty but I was treated to a mouthwatering roblechon and bacon tartine. Oh so good! After we filled our tummies we headed to our next Diageo brand, Guinness. Typically visitors go on a self-guided tour but Bernice was able to secure a tour guide, Adam, for us. Adam was the 4th generation is his family to work at Guinness so he knew everything about the brewing process, the building (including the secret tunnels), and the history. The tour here was very different from Bushmills though since Guinness is much more commercial and, being located in Dublin city center, receives many more tourists. Adam did a great job of showing us around and gave us a detailed lesson in drawing Guinness from a tap. I'd heard many times in the past that Guinness in Ireland doesn't taste like Guinness anywhere else in the world and they were right. There is something so fresh about it here that this was probably the only time I could finish a whole pint of it. On top of that the bar area is located on the very top floor of the building with glass walls so that you get a 360 degree view of Dublin. We finished our pints and had a great lunch of all types of food made with Guinness but sadly we had to head to the airport and go back to London. What I'll miss the most about Ireland will definitely be the people. Everywhere we went everyone was so kind to us and actually would stop and talk instead of ignoring us.
After our trip to Ireland the girls were only in London for one more night. Before they headed back to the States, I took the girls to a small neighborhood cafe to try a full English breakfast. We also had a little bit of time to head over to Abbey Road where the Abbey Road Studios is located. If you're not a Beatles fan, the Abbey Road Studios is where they recorded nearly all of their albums including their final one, appropriately named Abbey Road. As thousands of other tourists do, we stopped traffic to mimic the Beatles' famous Abbey Road cover picture in the zebra crossing.
Pictures are on the right.