canavese and provincial italian foods

so i went to milan after rome.
met my friend alex there who was kind enough to let me stay in his house!
i got my own little room and it was so nice because i had been at a hostel for a week which doesn't always produce the best sleeping conditions. have to say i slept a solid 10 hours that night which is pretty rare for me.

he also was kind enough to pick me up in milan!

the drive to piedmont region and canavese was nice. the air was fresh finally and there was rain and low lying clouds on lush green mountains. it was really beautiful.

this was the only part of my trip where i took not one photograph. oh i took one of this building that was built sort of in the shape of a typewriter....

just kind of small towns and lovely nature. it was a great end from the trip being in two lively people filled smoggy dirty cities to be in nature.

went to this little restaurant in a house much like the place i went to in germany when i first moved here. to me it was pretty neat....i mean we have this in the US in some ways....out of the way bed and breakfasts.....or small town diners....i think maybe alex would liken this to a small diner instead of a classier place.

first up was veal with this sauce made from cheese, anchovies, capers and tuna all blended together. i still remember that taste being my favorite one. i am a stinker with food usually. i will try things but i make faces. most of you know this.

so that was delish. next up...raw veal. being that i was a vegetarian at one point this was an internal struggle for me. on the one hand, it's baby cow killed for our pleasure. on the other hand it was raised there on this farm so i also know from lessons with seamus that local is always better.

so i went with my guts, literally, and tried it. i have been a meat cutter but have never tried any kind of raw meats.

first time for everything.

it was okay. nothing really spectacular about it.....it had a walnut oil, if my memory serves me, but it was kind of bland and i didn't eat it all....

i think the next three dishes were grass. literal grass from you know, outside!

the first one was a quiche type dish, pretty tasty. the second one i didn't like really....it was polenta with cheese and grass but it tasted kind of like manure.

the third one was a more hearty type of green or so it would seem with crusty baked bread....

then i got the beef that had been stewing in wine for a day and some roasted potatoes. that was really tasty and then at the end i had this limoncetta. i wanted a giant bowl of this stuff. so cool and crisp and lemony!

to go along with this meal i had wine from probably the vineyard next door.

really nice.

got a coffee walked around the small town, had some white wine from alsace region of france which boarders basel and germany...

next day was up and off to get a coffee and catch a train to basel.

so thanks alex for showing me provincial italian life!
it was a great way to end the journey.

best part of waiting at the milan centrale station:

i was having lunch and this dude came up to talk to me and you know how it goes, small talk...where you from and so on. then he point blank says that american girls are hot in the sack. then asks if i like it in the posterior.

i laughed so hard food came out of my mouth.

i wish him luck with his approach to finding good butt sex!

then i went to zurich and stayed there the night and came home..

now i want to go back to london to see the banksy show and i also want to plan a bike trip to strasbourg as well as going to munich, berlin, frankfurt at end of july to see kelly, paris at one point because it's only 3 hours by train from here and costs 80 francs but want to plan far enough in advance to use couch surfing if i can....

wheeeeee

to the nannies/parents i know.....

hola!

so when mom got home today we were talking a moment before i left and gernot came up and shoved me quite hard in the uterus area of my stomach and then pinched me super hard in the stomach. i immediately scolded him and tamara said "just ignore this"

i said 'what?'

she said 'it's best if you just ignore this'

my reply was a bit rough but i said in no uncertain terms would i ever ignore this kind of behavior from any child.

i can ignore a lot of things from kids...kids can be wholly annoying sometimes but that's part of my job, life with kids and every parent/caregiver knows this.

but ignoring a child who kicks and hits an adult?
no no no.

i have never in all my years of child care had any parent tell me to ignore a child who was hitting/kicking and so on.

even my brother, who was far worse than gernot in the mental capacities, was put in the corner/time out when he bit me or an adult when we were kids.....he learned and eventually got better....

so yeah, that's my funny ha ha for the day

new bike...

i got a bike today!
i am so happy. i felt so happy and free while riding it....the wind is cool and has been for days and the sun was setting and i live near a river which was awesome to ride on....i am so happy to have a bike again to get places instead of walking. i enjoy walking or taking the tram but i love being on the bike.

i guess i could write more about italy. i have to say i am far more impressed with northern italy but the eternal city was something to behold.

i loved being at the pantheon and in the roman forum. the ruins are pretty much ruined save for what has been preserved so it's random columns and walls of buildings...arches with old murals....me and susie had the best lunch ever at an off the beaten path place that i never got the name of.

we first went to one restaurant and susan was wanting pizza. this waiter came out and gruffy said 'no pizza, not until seven thirty that night' so we got up and left and walked a couple blocks and ate outside at this lovely small place that was full inside which was a good sign.

i had the simple yet delicious caprese salad and susan had this mixture of things....the waiter even drew a picture of me with my glasses on the top of my cappucino. very cool.

the home made tiramisu was really delightful.

susan left that afternoon and i went to experience doing laundry in rome at a coin op place. that was way too much fun and then i chilled at the hostel meeting these great people....travis and i forget his lady's name. they were super...

the next day, thursday, at the suggestion of a friend i went back near to the pantheon to get freshly roasted and brewed coffee. divine. i sat there a while absorbing the feel of the place....outside....watching the world go by.

stopped by the vatican to get my tourist prize possession which is a plastic holy water bottle with a picture of benedict on it. hysterical!

friday i set off for northern italy which i find to be far greater than southern italy though i have to be fair, i should go visit more of the coast next time in the south...

northern italy reminded me of southern switzerland as it should. from canavese one can, on a clearer day i suspect, see the southern side of the alps. it was gorgeous there. fresh clean air that i hadn't breathed in days.....simply lovely.

more to come.....

rainy monday in rome

so as i mentioned monday was a bit rainy...torrential downpours was more like it but it lasted only till around noon so it was ok!

we went out and just walked. walked to some bridges and walked to piazza de popolo and to the spanish steps, to the trevi fountain and over to the colosseo....stopping along the way to admire all the old stuff!

just sort of using the map and wandering. we had fun dancing in the rain and speaking in our silly italian!

we waited until the afternoon to do the vatican. the hostel was a ten minute walk from there. so we went back to the store and to the hostel around 2 or so and recharged with lunch and a bottle of wine and went back out to the vatican and wandered around there a while and to other parts of the city....so monday was 'associate with cattywompus streets of rome'.

we eventually found ourselves back at the hostel with three bottles of wine. this was probably not the best of ideas but susan and i had a blast drinking it and catching up and chatting about life and so forth. it was probably one of the only times we truly just relaxed a bit and soaked up each others company. she's a good egg....she's 24 and moving back to canada to go back to school....she was living in koblenz germany and hopes to move back one day...

met this great family on monday as well from heidelberg who had two kids. they were super cool and i ended up making friends with them again after susan left and i have their contact information and they have invited me to stay with them there and i think i shall! the dad is an improv theater performer and their two kids are 8 and 14 and they were just super laid back....nice people. we talked about politics, why germans wear their wedding rings on the right hand instead of the left and about me teaching their son english!

so after our wine we gathered up lindsey, trooper that she was, and set off to see the vatican at night! lindsey told us that in the building near the vatican is where the pope kept his study and there was one light on so me and susan were yelling up at the window asking the pope to come down. we had a good time!

then lindsey and susan talked about the differences between eastern and western canada while i navigated us the very long way back to the hostel. don't give a wine filled meesh the map to rome. ever.

it was really something. the whole of rome at night was so different. so many people were back inside so it was as if we had the vatican to ourselves. we got yelled at by some german police guy which was funny....

we decided to get up early and head to the sistine chapel and vatican museum early to beat the crowds. good idea that was!

so tuesday morning we got up and i walked to the bakery but it was closed for tuesday was a holiday in rome. monday was as well but i guess tuesday may have been their independence day. i will look this up right now! okay so the 2nd was the celebration of the birth of the italian republic.

http://tinyurl.com/mso2fy

so i stopped elsewhere for my coffee. no worries. had some corn flakes....off we went!

it was 14 euro to get in and i wonder where all this money goes. to the pope!

i have to say it really was beautiful. most people rushed to get to the chapel where the michelangelo was but it was nicely unbusy so we just took our time wandering around looking at the raphaels and other arts around! simply neat.

got to the room. the chapel! it was neat. i did a report about it i think in sixth grade and kept thinking about michelangelo being on his back a lot...also about some dude who kept annoying him and so he painted him in the right hand corner of the wall mural with a serpent around his legs with the mouth on his groin and going into hell. the man asked the pope to have michelangelo take this out but the pope said he wouldn't make him do that!

i snapped two photos of the ceiling while no one was looking by placing my camera on the shoulder bag. no one was any wiser.

the dudes were pretty good about it. some idiots seriously took out their giant hulking SLR's pointed them at the ceiling and use the flash! there are giant signs saying no photos. with big photos of cameras with the circle with the red slash!

okay. that was that. we left. more later.

working with stories.....

so i think in order to really get down on the computer my adventures in italy i will have to condense them into separate pieces. i did so much that if i start writing about one thing that will lead to stories about something else....so i don't want to make a big sweeping blog about generalities.

i will start with getting to rome. the flight was a bit freaky at the end with lots of clouds. i kept thinking about flight patterns and how pilots navigate through clouds without hitting other planes trying to do the same thing!

either way we landed...obviously.

after getting my precious bag from cargo i went along to find the train to rome termini. this was easy enough but the lady in front of us was taking SO long that i thought i would miss the 636 train! thankfully she moved! the train was packed and i enjoyed standing looking out the window....

got into termini and found the A metro and also a one euro cappucino.

thus beginning my quest for the perfect italian coffee.

meesh should have gotten a map before heading toward the hostel. the directions on the website said 'get out and turn around go six blocks and there you will be'. there were literally 8 exits to this metro. or at least six! so i wandered around then found a hotel where i got a map and promptly found my way.

much like other cities, the street names change after a few blocks....

got into the hostel and it was already about 830 or so. susan wouldn't arrive until around midnight. i went out to a cafe and had wine and pizza. pefecto!

got back up to my room to read my maps and talk to my roommates. two aussies and to canadians. they were all plastered. literally. the aussies thought it was awesome that i played the didgeridoo. they gave me some wine and we chatted it up for an hour or so then susan arrived!

hurray.

we planned on what we would do the next morning....basically walk, drink coffee....

so we got up and it was pouring down rain. we had some coffee out on the deck and walked to this awesome bakery and got another coffee and some pastries and bread and had a leisurely breakfast watching the rain come down.

being good little travelers we brought our rain coats and it wasn't cold so off we went!

.....more to come....it's my 'sunday' thankfully it's monday and i can go do things like get my tram pass for the month of june and go get my phone activated at the store and purchase a chess set for i will be finally going with my pal alessandro to play chess this evening along the river. i look forward to chess.....

i will begin with london

so i flew from basel to london gatwick on the 28th...of may!

got in around 930 and a semi drunk louis met me at london bridge station and we went to a pub but they stopped serving at 11? what the heck was that all about? either way instead we went back to his house over near canning town....canary wharf....

the weather was excellent.

next day we got up and went out to the city proper. my eyes were burning like crazy. i never really have allergies but this really felt like allergies! went to boots and got myself some allergy medication that helped greatly. went to the natural history museum which was freaking awesome then on over to the geology museum where i felt what it would be like to be in an earthquake, like a really big one! they also had an escalator that went into the center of earth!

after this we headed over to the V and A museum translated to the victoria and albert museum. this was super giant and cool. i didn't go the last time i was there so i was glad for it. so many neat arts and crafts....tombs....sculptures....and fashion!

i especially enjoyed the wedding dress mannequins without heads.

after this we went to hang with some of louis's friends. two that i remember are jerry and bara. super irish and way into soccer. we had many beers, played some music and went to this cool little bar. the fellas wanted to keep going out and meesh was plum pooped. besides i think one of their friends got mad at me for untucking his tee shirt. mike and dave will appreciate this about my aversion to men with tucked in tee's. anyhoo, louis and i stayed and had another drink then went over to brick lane. i got some bagels! it's been so long since i have had a bagel!

the counter person called me sir. i know i have short hair. so now i wear my hair a bit differently so as to not be confused with the males.

either way it was delightful with salt meat of some kind...is that english? i think so. then off to get some curry dinner. so delightful!

we took a cab home and promptly passed out!

next day we walked the entire thames from one end of london to the other end stopping at the tate british museum which i had also not been to. had some fish and chips and a couple beers. got some beverages and went back to relax for the rest of the evening. good times.

the tube the DLR and many other rail lines were totally fucked the whole weekend. my trip back to the airport should have really taken that long...and it would have should i have opted for going to the faringdon station to take the slow train to gatwick. instead i sucked it up and went to victoria station strait from west ham to get the gatwick express for 16 pounds!

was at airport a bit.....then i flew to rome. sweet delicious rome.

london was a great start to the trip. i loved hearing all english again...not that i am biased against hearing swiss german all the time but it was genuinely pleasing to my ears and my brain to simply order or talk to people in strait old english!

had my photo taken with a guard at westminster....also went to the ICA.....very cool contempo place but the exhibit was slightly boring. just videos. of men shaving. annoyingly boring.

oh and on my way out of basel airport there is a passport control because the airport is in france and in switzerland. i realized that my passport stamp from entry was past the 90 day visitor visa. so the man said simply 'where do you live?' and i said 'basel' and then showed him my diplomatic work visa to which he smiled and thanked me letting me go to the gate.

but upon entering london i was in for things i forgot about.....i didn't realize that when entering london i had to fill out the immigration card because i am not EU. so when i was done filling it out i asked this dude what line i was supposed to go in and he said 'where are you from' and i said 'us' and he said the line was out the door and back on the plane to the US. clearly US isn't all that hunky dorey to everyone still eh? i said that obama was president now and that he should really watch his mouth. that's me being confrontational...i said it jokingly and he laughed...then pointed to where i was supposed to go.

upon reaching the not so happy english lady at immigration i was informed that i could very well be kicked out of england because i didn't have the address where i was staying. i had the phone number for louis but i never even thought to get his addy.

then she asked 'if i was to come into the US without an address would you let me in?'
i said 'i dunno i lived in texas so anyone really is welcome down there'
i had to give her louis's phone number and she stamped me on into england. phew!

so on the flight to italy i asked the stewardess for an immigration card thinking this was going to be the norm because i am not an EU citizen. she just laughed and said in italy they didn't care who came into their country. meesh learns many things.

sure enough the guy didn't even look at me nor ask what i was doing there.

ok...i will get to italy. i feel like i want to go backwards. the memories i have of rome are in photos but the memories of canavese are just in my mind. i ate raw veal with walnut oil, this other sliced veal with this cheese cream sauce made of anchovies, capers and tuna....this grass polents, grass dish with bread.....a sort of grass quiche....lemonchetta (spelled horribly wrong) for the final dish....beef soaked in white wine for a day with potatoes.....wine from the region.

i am far more partial now to northern italy. being in lugano in southern switzerland is why....the air was fresh, mountains....green...vineyards.....beauty.

i had a good time there.

back from a great journey....

i arrived in basel at high noon today from zurich. i decided to force myself upon my friend louis in zurich last night after coming on the train from milan. i was so happy to be back in switzerland.

not so much for the cost but for the efficiency!

rome was amazing as was the northern part of italy milan and torino. i took in total from london and rome 710 photos and i deleted a bunch. so i got a dvd to put some of the other photos i have on my computer so that i have room for them.

i have a lot to sort out. it was great to hang with susan and to see old ruins, to drink a shit load of wine and visit the vatican at night.....to take communion at saint peters which reminded me of my father....to finally go 'home' to italy as it were.

so i am safe, happy, well fed and i miss the one euro cappucinos.....also i didn't see one starbucks in italy and i was very happy about this. i didn't even care about the micky d's (i even got a small fries so i could fill my belly with salt) but the coffee in italy is far superior to that of the starbucks.

i am glad i don't have to work tomorrow. i have to reactivate my phone because while waiting at gatwick i thought it would be a good idea to call the US on my cell. i had 35 francs at that point and after a 10 minute phone conversation i was informed that all 35 francs were gone. lesson learned. only us SMS on the road and never ever use that cell to call anywhere unless absolutely necessary!