Amsterdam

A few weeks ago, A fine excuse to go to away presented itself when good friends Victoria & Troy planned a 2 day stopover in Amsterdam while en route from Chicago to adopt a child in Ethiopia.

The flight is extremely short from London at forty minutes or so. We were at our hotel by lunchtime and ready to go.

By then, I had already mowed through three stroopwafels. The first one was consumed in the car from the airport.

I waste no time consuming local culture, you see. I also love stroopwafels.

We met all met up for lunch in a cafe near Rembrandt Square, and after lots of eating, Victoria & Troy went for a nap in an effort to beat jetlag, leaving Darren and I to walk around.

We walked and walked. We repeatedly got lost.
In a determined moment, Darren decided that we should find Anne Frank's house. Despite being on the correct street and in a city with many tourist-friendly signs that provide directions to places such as Anne's house, we failed miserably. This gross failure allowed us to answer like surly kids, "nothing" when asked later in the day what we did all afternoon.


Naturally, I consoled myself with more stroopwafels before having a pre-dinner catnap.

For dinner, we went on a bit of a wander and found ourselves at Brasserie Harkema.

Day II:

The next morning, our plans to meet up at ten were changed due to uneven sleeping. Darren and I had a lovely breakfast out (yes, that's pie!) and were about to continue our trek to nowhere, when I decided to invoke plan E.

As I hadn't expected anyone's jetlag before our trip, I had mailed my friend Erik, who works in Amsterdam, to let him know I'd very briefly be in town but that meeting up might have to wait until my next visit. Fortunately, Erik was having a quiet day, and was happy to have us visit his labs on very short notice. We enjoyed the grand tour at the University before heading back to meet Victoria and Troy for lunch.

After our wonderful tour, we met back up with Victoria & Troy, ate more lunch, attempted to shop, and wandered to the Rijksmuseum, which like so many buildings in the city was covered in scaffolding and under some sort of renovation. Fortuantely, part of the permanent collection was still open.

Naturally, we got lost a few times, but we managed to find our way home in time to get ready for dinner at De Kas, which is a restaurant which sources from its own farms and greenhouses.

The food was brilliant, and the space was lovely. This is a restaurant that I'd include in my top 15 easily.

After a good night's sleep, it was time to head back to London, with plenty of licorice to tide me over until our next visit.

Rome II

Sunday:

Sunday was a less ambitious day. We mostly just wandered around to the city.

One of the thngs I like to do most when travelling is to try to get a sense of how people live in the place I'm visiting. Thus, places like supermarkets and pharmacies are always on the agenda, in addition to strolling around some more residential areas.



We started out by heading to the Spanish Steps in search of breakfast
and had a good laugh at the Expensive! store ...



Then, we wandered over the the Trevi Fountain, which was much bigger than I expected. There are buildings closely built all around it, which made getting a full picture of it difficult, especially as it was surrounded by other tourists. I gave up, concluding that a postcard might be a better way to get a reasonable picture of it.



Then went to the Trastevere, which is a very popular neighborhood for going out and people watching. We had some delicious pizza, after which we walked along the Tibor River (left).

We pretty much just wandered around for the rest of the day. How else do you think I managed to eat so much gelato?



Monday:

Our final day kicked off with a trip to No. 3 on the list, the Colosseum. We walked to the Colosseum via the Roman Forum. We didn't actually go in, we only walked by.


The Colosseum was smaller than I had envisaged. I was surprised to learn that a number of it's exterior decorations were removed and used for St. Peter's; that this structure was regarded as junk during the Renaissance.


After our wander around the Colosseum, we had some lunch and did a bit more wandering. Around three, we did what English people do when they have an hour to kill, we went to a pub before meeting our car to the airport.

Rome I

I've been slacking lately, or maybe just working too much. Regardless, this posting is long overdue and is going to be more brief than I would have liked.

Rome is wonderful. It's a big museum with a population of over 3.5 million.

In deciding what I wanted to see and do (besides eating) on this trip, I kept the list short. The trip was only for three and a half days, and the guidebook made it abundantly clear that it would take me over a month, just to see all of the museums.

The Short List:
1. The Sistine Chapel
2. Raphael's The School Of Athens at the Vatican Museum's Raphael Room
3. The Colosseum
...with everything else being gravy.

Friday We arrived in the afternoon and in the evening we mostly focused on the wandering around and eating.

This bridge is covered in beautiful sculptures.


We also made it to the Pantheon
Its ceiling is particularly famous.


Saturday
In the morning, we set off to the Vatican Museum.
The museum, much like an Ikea, is laid out such that visitors must walk through everything, rather than just heading to the items your looking for. In the case of Ikea, it's to make you think that you really need a furry, white rug (Thanks, Adam!) in a moment of weakness, whereas at the Vatican, it's unavoidable due to the floorplan.

The Raphael Room and the Sistine Chapel are towards the end of the mighty journey, so we decided to bolt through the entire museum in an effort to beat the crowds some of whom were asking if this room of maps with a painted ceiling was the Sistine Chapel.

This plan worked well. When we finished repeating the cycle on round two, the Sistine Chapel was 3x as packed as it had been an hour earlier. I've no pictures of either. Photography is not allowed in the Chapel, and to be fair, it has been thoroughly photographed by people far more skilled with a camera than I.



We wandered around the Vatican afterwards, which is considered a seperate country from Italy. It even has it's own post office with Vatican-issued stamps.
St. Peter's was also a good visit. It's sublime. The sort of faith that leads to the creation of monuments such as this is alien to me.

Following lunch, we headed to the Castello San Angelo. The views from the roof are beautiful and it has a nice cafe from which we enjoyed the sun. I took the first picture on this entry from the roof. (Unfortuantely, I didn't notice the dirt on my lens until later in the day, so expect to see that spot a bit more.)

Rome: Eats

I had the privilege of spending last weekend in Rome.

High on the agenda were:

• Eating
• Vatican Galleries, including the Sistine Chapel
• The Colosseum

I recognize that lumping together what is frequently regarded as a Wonder of the Medieval Age, one of the most famous sets of Renaissance frescoes, and my constant need to eat something may seem a bit odd, but I have my priorities, starting with food.

(You can enlarge the picture of all the eats and a bit of the Largo di Torre Argentina by selecting on it)

1. Meat & Cheese Plate
2. Spagetti Carbonara: Carbonara is a bacony, egg yolky sauce. It's a typical Roman dish. Prior to having it in Rome, I had always found it presented with a cream sauce, rather than one that was yolky. The real deal is superior, by far.
3. Tartufo: gelato covered in mousse. The chocolate one (tartufo nero) was all chocolate, where as the white one (tartufo blanco) contained coffee flavored gelato.
4. Room Service Breakfast: not impressive, but it had a lot to compete with outside
5. Gelato to go #1: Nutella
6. Spagetti Bolognese: Another local dish, it was much less meaty than versions I've had in Italian restaurants in other countries.
7. Gelato to go #2: Pistachio
8. Prociutto & Melon
9. Saltimbocca: Veal wrapped in prociutto. I was so blinded by the prociutto goodness that not did I I forget the name of the dish, but I ate 2/3 of it before I was reminded to take a picture of it, thus the duplicate.
10. Deceptive Roll #1: This roll looks like it's full of squishy goodness, but it was hollow!
11. Gelato to go #3: Tutti Frutti Siciliano: My least favorite, it tasted like Christmas fruitcake. I managed to trade it for my husband's cup of Chocoloso, which consisted of cream flavored gelato with white chocolate cookie pieces. Fortunately, his eyes were bigger than his stomach, so he didn't mind. That, and he didn't want me to get violent.
12. Club Sandwich: This had eggs in it, and it made for a delicious breakfast.
13. Gelato/ Sorbetto to go #4: Coconut
14. Pizza: This was fantastic pizza. Thin crust, fresh cheese, beautiful tomatoes; that the restaurant brought me a bottle of wine rather than a glass had upsides and downsides.
15. Bread: to absorb the wine
16. Gelato to go #5: Hazelnut
17. Rice Ball & Fried Mozzarella: The rice ball was interesting with plenty of tomatoes and mushrooms. The mozzarella just reinforced my conclusion that fried cheese is a Platonic ideal food; specifically, that all foods may be improved through the addition of cheese and/or frying.
18. Carbonara #2: So much better than Carbonara 1!
19. Gelato to go #6: Strachiatelli: Likely misspelled, this is sweet cream flavored gelato with chocolate pieces.
20. Yogurt
21. Croissant
22. Pollo alla Romana & Spinach (this included decptive roll #2, which is not in the picture): A local dish of Chicken with peppers and tomatoes.
23. Gelato to go #7: Panna Cotta - definitely one of the best
24. White chocolate thingy
25. Airport caprese sandwich: If you look closely, you might note the absence of a piece of mozzarella, aka: The One That Got Away (TOTGA). Having learned that the flight was delayed, I settled down with the sandwich, only to have TOTGA fly out of my sandwich when I zealously dug in. *sigh*
26. Airport Pastry: I will find out what this one is called. It's basically a thin ribbon filo dough cocooning a tasty custard center. This is worth looking at, if anything because it's so precise and simple. It's beautiful and tasty too.