Baloney and Bolognese in Bologna

So I just got back from a week-long spring break trip to Italy (cue: jealousy). And let me tell you, it was AMAZING. Everything everyone tells you about Italy is true. The food is delicious (if you're able to stay away from the tourist traps), the cities are beautiful, as is the countryside, there's so much history and art everywhere you look (if you're into that kind of thing), and the people are kind of assholes. But that's OK! Because it's freaking ITALY! And you are not really worthy to be in their fabulous country anyway!

First stop on our trip was Bologna. The people here were actually pretty nice. It's not really a tourist-y city, so no one speaks English. They were really patient and encouraging while I practiced my high school Italian on them (thank you, Mr. Marcheschi!).

Bologna is everything you'd expect a non-touristy city to be. It's tiny (perfect day-trip size) filled with ancient buildings (the oldest university in the world), old towers, and great little restaurants. Bologna is even called "la citta' grassa", the fat city, because every food you think of as being Italian originated in this region: bolognese sauce, lasagna, ravioli, tortellini, cured ham, prosciutto, bologna (baloney)...  Yep! Bologna is a real meat in Bologna. And it actually tastes good! It doesn't always have to be questionable lunch meat. And it's first name doesn't always have to be Oscar.

After our lunch of bologna and prosciutto sandwiches and avoiding a sudden rain storm, we walked all over the small city and saw all of the cool stuff. And by cool stuff I mean old buildings. Bologna's Chamber of Commerce was even kind enough to print a brochure of how to spend "a half-day in Bologna"...I guess they didn't have much faith in their tourist attractions either. We saw the old town square and a few churches, walked down some side streets and walked into some medieval buildings. By far the coolest thing we did in Bologna was climb the old tower. 100m high and way too many steps to count. It led to some great views of the city and surrounding area. Simply beautiful.

yummmmm

Then we got to my favorite part of the trip. GELATO! We walked out of the main square to find a gelateria we had heard about, and it was well worth the walk. La Sorbetteria Castiglione was my first Italian gelato, and will always hold a special place in my heart.  They had fancy flavors, so I can't even tell you what I got, but I can tell you that it tasted like heaven. I would travel to Bologna just to go back to this place.

Finally we got to try bolognese sauce for dinner. Just as good as we thought it would be!

Then we hopped on a train and headed for Florence...which is a story for next time...

The view of the old town square from atop the tower

London Wanderings

We take advantage of the few sunny days we have around here. We walked all the way from Bloomsbury to the Tate Britain along the river, past Parliament Square. It was wonderful.

The spring time weather didn't last long, though. It is once again cloudy and cold.

And I must content myself with pictures of sun and blue sky.

Seeing London's Architecture

Seeing London's Architecture--taught by the ridiculous, eccentric, passionate, and insipiring Benedict O'Looney (he has his own UrbanDictionary entry)--is a history/drawing/engineering/vocabulary/touring/life lessons (although it is labeled as an architecture class) class I'm taking this semester. For the first 8 weeks of class the touring was pretty miserable because London is a very gray, damn cold city. But yesterday, class was completely different. The sun has started to shine in London and it feels like spring.

 For class yesterday we walked to the magnificent Christopher Wren's St. Paul's Cathedral and enjoyed the surrounding buildings. It was the perfect day for it.  Everything looked so beautiful. And it was actually warm outside! At the end of class we visited the observation deck of a new high-tech, low-energy retail/office building in the area to sketch. It was amazing! Such a great view of the city. My favorite class we've had by far.

I sat there drawing St. Paul's until dusk. Because it was just that kind of day.

London is a much nicer, more beautiful city when the sun is out. I hope this spring weather continues!

Pivo in Praha

Sorry I haven't posted anything substantial lately, midterms have taken over my life recently.

I don't know how to read this...is it time to go yet?

But I got to escape school work a few weekends ago and traveled to Prague with all of my friends from BPE on Stern's dime (yep, the perks of being one of Stern's Chosen Ones)! It was an awesome weekend and a much needed get-away from dreary London. It was beautiful and sunny and just tons of fun!
Unfortunately, it wasn't a complete respite from school. Over our weekend in Prague we spent about 8 hours sitting in lectures, learning about economic transition in Eastern Europe. There was more than one instance when I felt as if I was being submitted to cruel and unusual punishment because it was so beautiful outside and there was a jazz band performing on the street outside the lecture hall, which just made me want to jump out the window and escape the incarceration and become a gypsy. But alas, there's no such thing as a free trip to a formerly-communist Eastern European country...so I patiently sat through the lectures.
When I wasn't sitting in class, I was exploring the city! I visited Prague with my parents about 9 years ago. Because I was so young, I definitely didn't appreciate the city the first time and now I don't even remember much about the trip (except for the two most important words in the Czech language that I learned on that trip: "zmrzlina"-ice cream, and "pivo"-beer). So it was really exciting to be able to return to that beautiful city and see if I could pull up some buried memories. And I did! I totally remembered walking across the Charles Bridge, watching the astronomical clock chime in the old town square, admiring the "Fred and Ginger" building (named after Fred Astaire and Ginger Rogers because it looks like a dancing couple...I tried to tell people this, but no one believed me) on the banks of the river, and eating lots and lots of delicious, heavy Eastern European food.

Yep, all mine!

And of course there was lots of beer...tasting. I guess I take after my dad in that Pilsner Urquell on tap is delicious! The best places to eat in Prague (besides street vendors) are by far the beer halls. I had so much fun sitting in those noisy halls with a big group of friends, drinking beer, eating pork knuckles and dumplings (essentially large dough balls covered in fat)...perfect!

Prague is easily one of my favorite European cities. The architecture is so beautiful, and it still has that great old-world feel that you can't really find anywhere else.

American food!

Oh how I miss sugary cereals.

...But these have probably been sitting there for at least 10 years

Happy belated Valentines Day!

Cookie Adventures Continued

To continue our Sunday night warm cookies and cold milk ritual, we made snickerdoodles two weeks ago. So good!

And last weekend we decorated sugar cookies in honor of Valentines Day!

Because we don't have any legitimate baking tools, we had to make due with what we do have...