N and R played petanque

Petanque is a french game similar to italian bacci ball, where you have these heavy metal balls that you throw to get as close as you can to a smaller wooden ball. It is kind of like horseshoes, except in this game you can knock other people's balls out of the way. While I was introduced to it in the US, I was really excited when R decided to buy me my own petanque set while we are here in Paris. Apparently, getting a true french-made set of petanque balls is pretty tough in the US. Anyways, I was really excited to have my own set, which looks like this:


There are places to play petanque all over paris, and unfortunately many of them are occupied by old french men who are very good at petanque and rather intimidating. We decided to go to the Luxembourg gardens, a really great garden on the grounds of the Luxembourg palace, in search of petanque grounds. After finding go carts and pony rides and table tennis and just about anything else one might want to do in a park, we eventually found the petanque area, which was mostly occupied with some pretty serious petanquers. Serious petanque looks alot like old people standing around, aka this:





I asked the friendliest looking among them if the courts were reserved or if we could just play, and he directed me to the ones that were ok for commoners like me and R. R and I got started, playing petanque according to how we've played petanque at lab picnics every year for some time now. Within five minutes an old french man lumbered over grumbling at us about something or other. I quickly assumed he was coming to kick us off the spot, but then he stopped grumbling, and seeing i was confused, asked in french "should I speak French or Arabic?"

Unfortunately, when I suggested English, it turned out that was not an option. Luckily his french was quite clear, and he basically told us we were playing all wrong. He then proceeded, in a very hands on way, to show me the correct way to throw a boule (the metal ball). Before I knew it he had one hand firmly on my wrist and the other pinching the nape of my neck, and he pulled my arm through the motion of a proper boule toss. I was struggling with keeping a straight face, while R was not even trying to. Nonetheless, it was great to actually get lessons on petanque from an expert. I'm guessing he was an expert because when he went back and sat down by the reserved courts, lots of players would come over and shake his hand and say hello. Anyways, it was pretty comical and the type of random experience that only happens when you stay somewhere for more than a couple days. I feel like our trip has been full of experiences like this (for example being invited for drinks at a real florentine palace) and they're the types of things I wont soon forget. R and N trying to play petanque look like this:




Finally, a few days later I cam across Place de Dauphin, a really charming little park that is close to all the tourist spots, but somehow appears completely undiscovered by tour groups. It was really quaint, quiet, and best of all....full of people our age playing (and often failing at) petanque! Some were even worse than us. So tomorrow we are planning to go there to play petanque with people our own age. Because it's a younger crowd, it is totally normal to show up with some beers and maybe a baguette or two, and make an afternoon of it. Place de Dauphine looks like this:

N and R are troubled by a new trend in tourism...

In our previous years of travel in Europe, we've seen alot of pigeons and alot of tourists. But it was not until this year that we saw the two come together in a very wierd way. Both in Italy and in France we've now seen multiple times tourists feeding pigeons....not in the conventional way, but by hand! Since I consider city pigeons to be alot like rats with wings, I was pretty grossed out by this. Tourists with pigeons look like this in Venice:


And tourists with pigeons in front of Notre Dame in Paris look like this:

Happy May Day!

I'm still not sure what May Day is all about here. It is a national holiday so everything except places of food and drink (which is basically everything excluding museums) are closed. So really that's just leisure as usual. But I do know that the French May Day tradition is to give the lady in your life a bouquet of "lilies of the valley." Had I not known this, I would have figured it out within minutes of leaving the apartment this morning for my coffee, as I passed nearly a dozen people on the street selling them...school children, gypsies, even the fake-tan orange guy who is usually seen on the subway yelling at people to buy his pineapples, all were selling this flower. I bought some for R, and they look like this:

They dont look like much but they smell quite good. Anyways it was the first day of great weather in a while so we, like everyone else in the city, took advantage. We spent the morning in the Luxembourg Gardens playing a french sport called petanque (a post will follow with pictures), then had a small picnic for lunch in the Tulier gardens in front of the Louvre. Both gardens were packed with people, I would guess that not a single parisian stayed in doors today, everyone was out relaxing in the great weather. We walked around some more, had drinks at a cafe, then got falafel for dinner from what is supposed to be the best falafel in Paris (L'As du Falafel). It was messy and garlicky and quite good. We ate them as they are supposed to be eaten, standing in the street with sauce all over your face. While we enjoyed them, I'm partial to our falafel place in philadelphia. Anyways it was a really nice day and I hope the weather stays this way, at least for the next 12 days.

N and R have a Parisian picnic

As soon as i bragged on the blog about how great the weather has been....it started to get rainy. But two days ago, before the rain showed up, the weather was perfect for a picnic, so we headed out to the Tuilier gardens, which are the grounds of the Louvre. Picnicking is at its best here, because so many French specialties make for perfect picnic snacks, like olives, cheese, pates, and breads. All of these things came from my favorite Parisian grocery store, Le Grand Epicerie, which I wish we could afford to shop at regularly, but its too pricey for every day food. So we only go about once a week to pick out some things to treat ourselves with. Even though its so pricey, I could spend hours just walking around the store looking at all the different things they have there.

We had many delicious things. Our olives were from Provence, they were nice and spicey, and looked like this:

We also had a tartine de poireaux (egg and leek tart), chevre rocamadour (a cave aged goat cheese that is smelly but very flavorful), pate de campagne poivre verte (country pate with green peppercorns), Bordier butter (Bordier is a bretone man who makes the most amazing butter i've ever tasted....it is a waste to cook with this stuff, it is best enjoyed just spread liberally on bread), fresh baked cereal grain bread...and pringles and M&Ms.

Tartine poireaux looks like this:

Bordier butter spread liberally on cereal grain bread looks like this (mmmmm):

Chevre fromage on cereal grain bread looks like this:

The pringles were hard to resist, since they have so many strange flavors here like goat cheese and ham. Our pringles looked like this:

Finally, Paris recently outlawed public consumption of alcohol, which had been legal until then. But drinking is a big part of the way of life of parisians, and it turns out that this law was really only passed so that they could crack down on homeless drunks. This means they don't actually enforce the rules if you look like a decent person. A few years back we were picnicking in the lawn of the Eiffel tower, and a police came by to tell me i cannot drink (i had a beer), and when i asked if i should dump it out, the police replied in french that if it were him, he would just drink it quickly. So with our picnic, I had a nice belgian beer, triple karmeliet and R had a diet coke. Our drinks, in their coasters looked like this:

N and R usually enjoy the best bread they've ever had

It's well known that the french are serious about their baguettes, but it's only after spending some time here that you really understand how important this bread is, and why. The why is simple, it is really, really, really good....the outside is a thin crisp layer that crunches and crackles when you press it, and the inside is soft and full of flavor. The baguette is so important here that they insist you should only enjoy a baguette within 6 hours of baking, and after that it is too late. We've been sticking to this pretty well, as in the morning i go down the street to my favorite baker (boulangier) to pick up a baguette for the day. It's about two feet long and costs less than a euro! Breakfast is a piece of baguette with butter or chestnut butter or jam. Lunch is bread and cheese or butter sometimes with a thin slice of ham for flavor, and by dinner it's time to buy another baguette!

At any time of day you can see parisians walking around carrying a loaf or multiple loaves in their hand. The funny thing is that Europe and France are pretty different in their thinking on hygeine compared to the US. Usually when you buy a baguette, they pick one out of the basket and put it on the counter, no paper sleeve, no bag. Then you just pick up the bread and walk off...I've seen people sitting on park benches with their baguette sitting unprotected on the bench next to them, baguettes strapped naked to the back of bicycles, and so on. People also will just walk down the street eating their two foot long baguette for a snack, as if it is a candy bar. I've taken to doing this on the days that i show up and the baker and am handed a baguette that is still hot to the touch.

Anyways, I had a funny experience earlier this week. Sunday was easter, and monday in France is a national holiday, so everything was closed. But even when everything is closed, Parisians (and N and R) still need their baguettes. So i wandered around until I found the only bakery open, and it is one i knew is bad from previous experience, but what choice do i have? So I went in. Something I've not even seen in the US before, the baguettes in this place were all mis-shapen and ugly looking. Everyone in there buying them was really angry! Each person got to the front of the line, saw the baguettes and started complaining about how awful they were, saying they wanted a real baguette. Then they were told that is all they have, and the people would buy the baguette and storm off angrily, complaining under their breath. It was pretty amusing to see how bent out of shape everyone gets when they don't get a good baguette. To be fair, the baguette was pretty disappointing. A mis-shapen easter holiday baguette looks like this:

Happy Easter from N and R

This is a little chocolate cake i picked up from the baker with our baguette for the day. It's supposed to look like a nest with a few eggs and a hatchling in it, but my picture did not come out great. Anyways, happy easter, hope everyone is having a nice day.

How have N and R already been in Paris for a week??!

Time is passing all to quickly as we are now only 3 weeks away from returning to the real world. Our first week in Paris has been great. In seven days we have not yet seen a single cloud.

Our apartment is in the 14th Arrondissement, in a neighborhood known as Montparnasse. It is a nice neighborhood because it is removed from the tourist central part of paris (about half hour walk to either eiffel tower or notre dame). It is a very friendly neighborhood, and is known among Parisians for two things: movie theaters and crepes. The area is mostly populated with people from the part of france where crepes and galettes (savory crepes made with buckwheat flour) come from, Brittany. So we have been eating alot of very delicious galettes and crepes. Tomorrow I will try my hand at cooking some french cuisine, making galettes with vegetables and herbs i bought at the market today. Our apartment is really nice, and looks like this:

One great thing about our apartment is that, technically, we have a view of the Eiffel Tower! Our view looks like this:

And the street we live on looks like this (when there is no market):

or like this (when there is a market):

Some of the things bought from market look like this:

We have not done all that much sight-seeing yet, since we've been to Paris a few times before now. We've mostly just been enjoying the weather sitting outside at cafes for a drink or coffee, and of course there has been much shopping (mostly R) and much eating great Parisian and french food (mostly me.....there are not a great deal of vegetarian options to be had here). More to come...

N and R were in Como, and then Milan, but are now in Paris

We've reached the final leg of our trip, a one month stay in Paris. I'm not sure how two months passed so quickly. At any rate, we spent a couple days on Lake Como in the resort town of Bellagio (I've never seen so many asten martins, rolls royces, and mazeratis) before driving to our final italian stop, Milan.

On the last day in Bellagio, we had drinks at a lake front cafe, which looked like this:

We also took a boat ride (basically public transportation connecting all the lake villages) from Bellagio to Como and back. The boat ride was great, the views amazing, and we even stopped at Tremezzo, made famous by George Clooney who apparently lives there. The boat ride looked like this:

N and R in Lake Como also looked like this:

Next we drove 1.5 hours south to Milan, where we returned the rental car. We were there during Milan's Fashion week, which is such a big deal that we actually could not even find a hotel in town, but stayed in the suburbs. While we didnt see anyone famous, we did see several tall skinny model type people followed by camera crews walking around. Milan was full of people who looked like they were out of magazine adds, even more so than New York or Paris. It was pretty interesting to see. As a big city, there's alot to do in Milan, and we didn't have time for too much in the one afternoon we spent there, as the following day we were heading out for Paris on a 6AM train. In any case, the duomo there is incredible, and when N and R stand in front of it, they look like this:

Finally, at 430AM on saturday, we awoke, and took a taxi to the Milan train station, where we boarded a train that took us from Milan to Paris over seven hours of amazing scenery. The train passed through the italian and then french alps (picturesque lakes and snow capped mountains out the wazoo) before passing through some of the most breathtaking countryside i've ever seen. In the final two hours of the trip, passing through central france, we saw fields of patchworked green and yellow stretching off into the distance, the yellow being rapeseed flowers (used to make canola oil). The flowers were so bright yellow and so vast in their presence that it was a really amazing sight. and of course, i didn't take any pictures. Driving through Chianti and the rest of tuscany a month ago i thought italy had the better countryside, but this train ride reminded my that the french countryside, which is much underrated, is actually even more picturesque.

To conclude, we've safely arrived in Paris, have been here for two days, and I will post soon about our early adventures in this city.

N and R were in Ravenna, Bologna, and Venice, but are now in Bellagio

Our week of travels before settling into Paris has been going great. We left florence last saturday and drove to Bologna. Bologna is the culinary capital of italy, and for good reason....the pasta there is amazing! we ate well, and hung out in their very medievil central square, which features a giant fountain by my favorite renaissance scultpor, Giambologna. They also have two leaning towers. I'm not sure why I didn't take pictures in Bologna, but it was a really lovely city.

Next we went to Ravenna, which is famous for its 5-6th century mosaics that decorate several churches in the historic center of town. These are the best preserved examples of Byzantine art....and well they were fine. R liked them maybe more than me. I thought they were cool but was not blown away. I was quite happy however, when we stumbled onto a farmer's market and came across a beer stall...the brewers from this small italian craft brewery (Cajun) had a table set up, and after enjoying several samples I bought some nice bottles of italian beer. finally.....in florence and further south i had alot of difficulty finding good beer, as it seems people there are pefectly happy drinking bad beer. In Ravenna we looked like this (note leaning tower in Ravenna also....its like no one in italy knew how to build foundations for their towers):

and some of the mosaics looked like this:

The next day we drove north to Venice, where we spent two days. I could say all kinds of awful things about Venice (the food is bad...there are no locals....they nickle and dime you and everything is expensive.....it is touristy to the point of disneyworld, to name a few), but when it comes down to it, R and I loved it and had a great time. For all the times I've seen Venice in the movies or on tv, and knowing that it is a city of hundreds of interconnected islands, nothing really prepares you for seeing it with your own eyes....It was difficult for me to imagine how such a city ever came into existence, let alone rising to be one of the most powerful and influential cities in italy during its heyday. There are no cars, all supplies are delivered by boat. The public transportation is all boats. There are countless buildings that have a door, a few steps, and then water, with no dock or anything. In fact the hotel we stayed at had a dock out front for guests arriving by boat. I cant imagine how people lived this way. Now of course they don't....all the real Venitians have apparently moved to the mainland because of rising prices in Venice, which has become increasingly focused on tourism at all costs.

When we first arrived, it was a really nice sunny day, and we enjoyed prosecco on Piazza San Marco, which looked liked this:

Gondalas are all over venice and look really great, but the cost of riding in one (>80 euro) is pretty ridiculous. nonetheless, seeing gondola's floating down alleys and cannals adds alot to the venetian scenery. This is what a gondola repair shop looks like:

The wine-boat, which delivers jugs of wine to all the local restaurants looked like this:

Finally, N and R in venice looked like this:

This morning, we left venice, and while we were sad to leave, it was hard not to be cheered up knowing that we were trading one boat ride (grand canal in venice) for another (ferries on lake como). So we drove about 5 hours west across northern italy, and are now in one of the Italian lakes, Lake Como, which is nestled within the Italian foothils of the Alps, in the Lombardy region of italy. We arrived just before sunset, and I will for now just leave it at this. The view from our hotel looks like this:

N and R are on the road again

Somehow, six weeks went by and our time in florence is over! We packed everything up tonight and will be off to Bologna tomorrow. After one evening there, we will head to Ravenna on the eastern coast of italy, and after an evening there we will head north to Venice for two days. That is the next time we'll have internet, 4/11. More from there...

N crossed some things off of his to do list...

There are many things that over the last 5 weeks here I had said to myself "oh i should do that sometime." Today, with only three days left before we make our way to venice, I decided its time to start knocking things off my to-do list.

First: caffee correto. This is a traditional italian beverage, which is basically just a a cup of espresso, spiked ("corrected" hence correto) with a shot of grappa, a hard (very hard) grape base liquor. I'd seen many people ordering this (even as early as 10AM), and had decided that, as gross as this sounds, i must eventually try it. Today I did! It was very strange, and also quite good. I really cant believe ppl here drink something so stiff before even lunch time. Especially considering lunch often involves beer or wine, is followed by negronis, and finally by wine with dinner and followed by dessert wine. The tolerance of ppl here must be pretty amazing that they are not constantly drunk. Anyways, the corretto was a good way to cap the pre-dinner walk, and is something I may experiment with when we return to the US.

Second: Trippa al Fiorentina. That's italian for tripe. A very popular florentine dish, tripe is the name given to the first three chambers of the cow's stomach (recall cow's have four stomaches). I finally worked up to this, having a cold trippa salad as my first course at dinner tonight: tripe served in olive oil, garlic, parsely, carrots, and celery. The american couple sitting next to us also ordered this not knowing what it was, and while they were quite put off by it, I thought it was very good! Ok it was a little wierd to be able to see all the layers of stomach muscle, lining, and all, but it was in fact very tasty. Tomorrow I will tackle the third to-do task, which is to eat the fourth and final chamber of cow stomach, called lampredotto. R will no doubt be on hand to document with pictures.

N and R enjoyed another spring day...

It was actually hot today...we got gelato twice: once for sorbets (i got mint and strawberry) once for gelato (spanish almond and hazelnut). We also spent a good chunk of the afternoon sitting in a caffe on the Piazza della Republica, one of the big squares of florence. We enjoyed two florentine drinks, the negroni (bright orange drink made from gin and campari and blood orange) and a carabria (or something, made with rum brandy and bitters) at a caffe that has been around since the early 1800s. Drinks looked like this:

It was a nice way to enjoy the weather, and we also did alot of people watching. People look like this:

Also, dada, you will be glad to know that there was also a pretty happening renaissance performance going on in the square, complete with sword fights and costumes. We really thought that if there's any one place where renaissance fair would mean an arts festival it would be florence, but alas. medieval sword fights look like this:

N and R are enjoying springtime

I've been afraid to say it for fear of jinxing us, but it's finally spring! There have been a few rainy days, but other than that the weather in florence has been incredible. We have started making it a regular part of our day to go to the Boboli gardens (giant Medici garden on a hill overlooking the city center) and sit. This became much more relaxing after I convinced a reluctant R that parks are best enjoyed by lounging in the grass. Now we take a blanket, and R reads and writes in her journal. I alternate between napping and trying to draw sketches for things to paint. Today there were alot of school groups at the gardens and while i was napping R watched some teenage drama where this boy and girl were arguing and eventually she got so worked up she took her shoe off and threw it at him. This is what we look like in spring:

N wouldn't quit his day job (if he had one)....

I finally did some painting, and quickly decided that I paint not because I'm good at it, or even that I am expecting to eventually be good at it, but instead because it's fun and relaxing. The other night I painted my first tuscan countryside. While I nailed the cypress tree, I cant say anything else really panned out. I did this over a beer while listening to music, which made for a very relaxing evening. If, however, I dont get better at this painting stuff soon, I might just buy some things off of the street guys and say i made it. For now, though, my tuscan countryside looks like this:

N and R took a day trip...

Yesterday we hopped on a train and took the hour long trip to Lucca, a small medievil tuscan town to the west, before eventually making it to Pisa where we stayed the night. Oddly enough I took almost no pictures, even of the leaning tower....which I guess is ok since everyone knows what it looks like. Lucca, though, was great...we really enjoyed it. Lucca is alot like the counterpart to florence, where you still have typical old tuscan buildings and tiny winding alleyways, but unlike florence it felt like a completely intact community, unaffected by tourism the way florence is. It was a very relaxing afternoon of window shopping and sitting in picturesque piazzas taking in some sun. The city is surrounded by giant medieval walls, and these walls are so wide that the top of the walls are lush with green grass and pedestrian walkways which crowded with people out for their pre-dinner stroll. It was really nice to walk along these massive walls looking out over the countryside on one side of the wall, and the towers rising above the city on the other.

Then we went to Pisa....and I'm not sure what more i can say about that....we saw the tower and i ate some good seafood. I thought it unfortunate that Pisa's baptistry and duomo, which are actually really nice, are completely overlooked by visitors who are only interested in the tower. The people of pisa seemed to be quite different than lucca and florence or siena....I'm going to guess that pisa is like tuscany's new jersey.

N has been a little under the weather...

There is a great afternoon tradition here in Florence, of going out on a nice day, sitting at an outdoor cafe and sipping negronis (vermouth+gin+campari+blood orange). While you sip your drink they will ferry out different snacks to you to enjoy with your drink. R and I went to the cafe of a famous italian fashion desginer (Roberto Cavalli-whom from now on I would boycott if i could afford anything he makes) and enjoyed negronis and various finger foods. It is a pretty upscale place with very fashionable clientele....so I was very surprised a short time later to realize that I had gotten food poisoning from designer ham sandwiches! That was a couple days ago, and after a little discomfort, alot of bananas and soup, and gatorade, I am finally back in good health. The gatorade made not have been necessary, but since here all oranges are blood oranges, I couldnt resist the opportunity to try blood orange gatorade, which looked like this:

Like I said, it was an uncomfortable couple days but I am fine now, feeling much better. Do not worry (moms). I'm not sure how after eating at some pretty suspicious places in college and after, I only get food poisoning when I go to an italian designer's florentine cafe.

Anyways, since I'm back in good health and have regained a hardy appetite (the worst part for sure of food poisoning, not wanting to eat in a country known for its food), R and I are going to make a short trip to Lucca and Pisa this weekend.

N drank this....

Recall from the Simpsons that Homer Simpson's favorite drink is Duff, the imaginary beer served at Moe's and everywhere else around Springfield? It turns out that the Simpsons are so popular here in italy (i think because the show makes fun of the US so much), that there actually is a Duff beer! It looks just like in the cartoon. I couldnt resist the opportunity to try it (sucker), and bought a bottle the other day. It tastes alot like Stella Artois. After some homework I learned this beer was originally made in belgium, but is now made in Mexico. Duff looked like this:

N and R enjoy another day, another dinner...

After several days of eating out for dinner (mostly pizza...which was very good), I went to market this morning and found these tiny eggplants that were no bigger than my pinky. Intruiged, I bought some and decided to resume cooking dinner at home. First we had papa al pomodoro, the tomato and bread soup i've mentioend before...R's favorite. It is made by: saute garlic and onion in olive oil, add peeled and mushed up tomatoes, rosemary, sage, and simmer. Eventually, add cubes of day old bread and basil.

Papa al pomodoro looked like this:

The next course, pasta, was fresh tagliatelli tossed with sautted eggplant and zucchini in olive oil and pepper and parmesan. I guess this dish would be called Zuchhini Melazanine Tagliatelli (ZMT). ZMT looked like this:

Grated parmesano reggiano has been a pretty important ingredient in our food. The hunk of parmaggiano reggiano we bought is so big it nearly dwarfs our cheese grater:

Third course, meat, was a truffle sausage i picked up at market cooked in white wine with olives tomatoes and onion. While i continue to make really great tasting sausage dishes, they keep looking....not that appetizing. Unfortunately, the delicious sausage dish looked like this:

Finally, fourth course was cantucci and vin santo. Cantucci is a regional variation on biscotti, made with almonds and a little softer than biscotti. Vin santo is a tuscan desert wine that is made from dried grapes aged/fermented in chestnut barrels. This typical tuscan desert involves dunking the cantucci in the vin santo. Cantucci and vinsanto looked like this: