Waffles & Beer & Snails, oh yum!

Because I am the slowest person ever to post photos I will be posting food photos of our Europe trip for years to come! The other day I was really craving a Belgium waffle. Not the kind you eat for breakfast with strawberries and whipped cream, powdered sugar and maple syrup but a real one. The kind you buy from a window or street vendor in Belgium where you get just powdered sugar on if anything because the sticky bread is already super sweet with a slight carmelized crunch on the outside, and it is still warm from being cooked in the iron....mmmm. I had 3 waffles throughout our Belgium stay, this one was the second best and was bought from a window stand in a French-Belgium city south of Brussels. After we went on a hike through the French-Belgium countryside, got lost in a cow paster, and passed a group of high school aged kids on a field trip (the only other people we saw on the trails) we were thirsty. Enter Belgium beer. Believe me, this was not our first beers in Belgium, maybe more like our 10th or 12th. I just find it interesting that each beer has its own glass it is served in. It seems like it is considered a sin if you don't serve it in its designated glass. Each bar or restaurant must have a whole special room just to store all of the different types of glasses for each beer they serve. We returned to Paris a little earlier than we expected which gave us a great opportunity to go back to the last restaurant we ate at in Paris on our way out at the beginning of the month. We loved the lunch there so much we had to go for dinner. I went adventurous and ordered the escargot. I have tried it in the past but never ordered my own. I was very glad I did!

Mmmm Memories

When a trip is long over and you have settled back into the daily grind of work and home the details of your trip seem distant. It felt particularly rush to me because once we returned home there was a mad rush to make our new home livable. We lived our of our suitcases for several weeks until we found and opened the boxes of our clothes. This mad rush lead us right to Christmas when were finally had our housewarming party. And the holiday craziness lead almost to now. I try to reflect on our travels whenever I get a moment. This time I am reflecting on our anniversary meal in Venice. Our wedding anniversary was actually on Aug. 28th, two days before leaving for our trip and one of our worst days of 2009. We had mutually decided not to get any gifts for each other. The trip and the house were our presents enough. Somewhere in the mess of the days before we left and the excitement of the beginning of our trip we made unofficial plans to celebrate our anniversary with an expensive and fancy dinner near a canal in Venice. After our first miserable day in the city of water, canals and flooding the anniversary dinner plan did not look promising. Luckily our second of two and a half days was beautiful and inviting. We had seen two cute restaurants right next to a little canal near our hostel the night before but looked around the entire the next day for other options. Other than the really big expensive restaurants along the grand canal which did not excite us we could not find anything we liked. So we went back to the two places near our temporary home base. We could not have been more satisfied. It was beautiful and delicious. We ordered the fish. we got a kick out of them presenting us the whole, raw fish before and after cooking. Then they proceeded to delicately dish equal portions of the fish on each of our plates. Yum! and what a beautiful place!

Missing photos

It seems quite pathetic that is has taken me this long to post any photos of our trip to Europe to demonstrate how yummy the adventure was. However, what must be taken into account are the following facts: 1) the moment we touched US soil (in Philadelphia) we were on the phone to car insurance agencies trying to work out our car situation (Ed was rear ended driving my car on 8/28, our anniversary, a day and a half before moving out of our apartment and leaving the country for a month. The car was totaled but he was fine). 2) The house we bought with Ed's brother had not closed the entire month we were gone. Therefore we were homeless for a day after returning. the house closed the following day. 3) We moved into a vacant house that needed a good amount of repairs which we have been working on diligently. Ed has but a TON of work into the new place! 4) I had to get a new car, see fact number one. 5) On top of all of this I had to return to daily work. Okay, my excuses are out there...now for some photos.

After our picnic we posed in front of the Eiffel Tower, from left: our friend Kevin, Ed, me.
Ed and Kevin discuss meeting at the Louvre the next morning while enjoying hot chocolate and a beer and waiting for the rain to pass.Kevin stares at my dessert even though he is eating the same, exact thing. The baked apple tart thing was quite good but for the price we paid for this meal at an ubber fancy place not too far from the Lourve I was disappointed. We found better meals for less money.Speaking of better meals for (a little ) less, this was one of our best meals over all. The restraunt he is sitting in is the restaurant we "stayed above". My pest raviolis filled with pesto that was made right there in the town...OMG! Ed enjoyed his mussels too (i'm allergic so I don't dwell on them. I'm sad I can never have them again). My raviolis were followed by grilled calamari and Ed had a steak as his main course. The meal was finished off by a glass of a sweet raisin wine I can not spell or pronounce. The wine is unique to the region and really quite good, and really quite expensive. luck for us it was on the house because we were staying there!After our all day hike we got some to go food from a delicious cheap place and enjoyed the food and wine on our balcony as we watched the sun set. Gorgeous!In Florence we ate at cafe Zaza on a few recommendations. Everything was delicious but again, for the price was a little disappointed. Our meal the next day in a random hole in the wall place with only locals. The food was cheap and good!Another recommendation was made to us to climb up to the stairs by the bronze David and watch the sunset. We'll who is going to do that and not bring a bottle of wine. Truly only a few groups of people did NOT have beer or wine with them. The sunset wasn't the best but you couldn't beat the view!

Pesto and other good things

I visited the birth place of pesto, I know you are jealous. Cinque Terre is the area of 5 fishing villages on the side of the cliffs inthe Italian Riviera. Half of the town consists of beautiful, old, colorful buldings on top of each other piled on the side of the cliff. The other half of the each of the five towns and the space between them are terraced hill sides growing tons of produce; grapes, basil, lemons, tomates, etc. I had booked a room above a restaurant in the 2nd town of Manarola. When we arrived we went to the restaurant where we then followed a woman to our room. it was definitely ABOVE the restarant, we hiked up to nearly the top of the town where she lead us into a beautiful room with an amazing view!!!!!! (pictures eventually) That night we ate at the restaurant way down below. It was fantastic! Raviolo Pesto, grilled calamari and local wine that was okay. But the dessert wine a sweet raisin wine was superb but cost about $40 for a small thin bottle. so we only got the glass which was actually compliments of the restaurant i guess cause we were staying there. The big thing to do in Cinque Terre is the hike. we woke up early the next morning to start the trek to each of the other 4 towns. They say it takes about 5 hours to do the whole hike with little stopping. It was an all day adventure and it was so worth it. The trail at times was no wider the width of my foot with a hill on one side and a four foot drop on the left. 4 feet does seem like much but it is not an easy trail.. but it is a fun one!

Eating our way through Europe

Yay, we made it to Europe and are enjoying the food! Paris had the best bread! Ed indulged in steak tartare and we enjoyed a delicous picnic under the Eiffel tower with procuitto, cheeses, wine and our good friend Keving who arrived on the same day as us. We also had a fun time eating at the cafe where Amelie was filmed, Le Deux Moulin. Ed fell in love with the 3 cheese quiche, one of the cheeses was bleu! On to Avignon where we wandered the old walled city and toured the Pope's palace and has some pretty good tapas. Now we are in Nice where the weather is gorgeous (it rained in Paris, but not bad and the wind was crzy in Avignon). Last night we stumbled upon a delicous and inexpensive Tunisian restourant. it is great what you can find by accident! Today a quick trip to monaco and tomorrow off to Cinque Terre Italy ( where we stay above a retaurant).