Happy Birthday to our Little Mommy

This is a short note to our mom congratulating her on another year of excellence! Its her birthday today and even though Al and I can't be there with her for this joyous day we wanted to share a little piece of French ethos with her. Today while we are exploring the depths of the Louvre we will be seeing little Pickle's face instead of Mona Lisa's! Instead of Raft of the Medusa, we will be seeing...Raft of the Momdusa. We will be gazing up at Venus de Momlo rather than the subpar Venus de Milo. We love you so, so much Mom and will be thinking about you all day. Talk to you tonight!

Piadina, Piazzas, and Prezzemolo

Kate and I are leaving northeast Italy, the Veneto, for Paris tomorrow. This area is so different from southern Italy: it is wealthy, it is hilly, and menus contain donkey and horse. We have explored this region pretty thoroughly. We wandered the labyrinthine calle of Venice (and got lost for 45 minutes one night!), we explored Roman ruins and Shakespearean sites in Verona, and we witnessed some of the ways in which carpet bombing can transform a medieval city in the student town of Padua.

With all of the history and culture here, we felt the need to decompress. Fortunately, the Disneyland of Italy - Gardaland - is located just outside of Verona on Lake Garda. While it was pretty funny seeing piadina being sold instead of hotdogs and Prezzemolo prancing around instead of Mickey, we were both impressed by the quality of the rides and the artistry of the props/sets. Our favourite ride was the strangely named Blue Tornado, an inverted coaster with a double inline twist...the double inline twist was so twisty that it twisted the sunglasses right off of my face mid-flight. The sacrifices we make for 30 seconds of excitement.

Kate and I are both foodies, and food is a major part of cultural immersion...and travel in general. These are some of the food/drink highlights of our time here:

Affordable Regional Red Wines: Valpolicello, Amarone, Robusto

Funghi Risotto

The (Un)official Drink of the Veneto: Aperot Spritz

                                                                                                      

PORCHETTA 

A Dinner with Jesus Saved Milan

Kate and I have been in Italy for five days now and our time here keeps getting better and better. Our first stop was Milan, and it was as mediocre as numerous people told us it would be prior to our departure from Vancouver. We essentially went to Milan for Da Vinci's The Last Supper, but we thought we might as well stay a few days since neither of us had been there before. While our time in Milan was by no means horrible, the city just cannot stand up to Venice, Florence, or Rome. We found it difficult to find affordable food, the tourist office was unable to provide much advice with regard to sights and self-guided walking tours, and the architecture\geography of the city is fairly humdrum when considering other European cities. We should mention, however, that Milan has one of the best bike rental deals, through the city transportation department, and we took advantage of this $2.50\day bargain.

Some quick observations on Italian culture thus far:

- Everyone actually does use the stereotypical "finger cone" gesture...even old ladies.

- Italy produces some of the worst beer in the world. Warm Peroni literally tastes like it is made with barley, hops, yeast, water, and vom.

- There seems to be fewer women out on the streets here, compared with the Netherlands, France, and Belgium. This may be due to population discrepencies, Catholicism, gender roles...or because the guys here are lechy and slimy. Lots of old guys too. Gross.

- They have the market on coffee bars, coffee-bar-based pastries, and ice cream...hands down.

ABCD in Milan's Galleria

Chillin' - Venezia Style

We are getting really frustrated over not being able to watch any of the Canucks games. If things keep going this way, we may just have to stay up till 3am and watch some games via streaming video.

Here is a video we took right after we arrived in Venice. Kate would like you to ignore the weird strand of hair that remains plastered to the middle of her forehead for most of the clip...it was a long train ride:

Next stops: Verona, Padua, Vicenza...and Gardaland Theme Park!

Colmar's Cake Houses

Kate and I left our homebase of Strasbourg yesterday in order to visit Colmar for the day, in SE France. I was actually supposed to visit this prototypical Alsatian city on my last trip to Europe, in order to study Matthias Grünewald's 'Isenheim Altarpiece', but plans changed. Kate and I were wowed by this dark, early-Northern-Renaissance masterwork (which was created for a nearby church that supported a community ravaged by ergotism), but the town itself was amazing as well. We have started to see common traits in all of the villages and smaller cities here: timber-framed houses from the 16th + 17th centuries (often painted with colours that remind one of birthday cake), canals (used for transport and shipping back in the day), steeeeeep rooves, colourful tiled rooves for important religious/state structures, and a regional obsession with storks. Yes, storks...they come to this specific area from Africa to have their babies every spring. 

Unfortunately, life isn't all storks and cake houses when traveling the world. After scamming numerous transit authorities by failing to regularly purchase bus/tram tickets, we were busted yesterday! We were tired on our way back to Strasbourg, and failed to notice the transit employees spot-checking people. That $30 fine really stung...I guess there really are Karma Police.

  

Grape Juice and Black Forest Cake

We arrived here in Strasbourg from Amsterdam at midnight on the 6th after a long but fairly comfortable 11-hour bus ride from Amsterdam. Thankfully, our good friend David was able to stay awake long enough to come retrieve us from the tiny bus drop-off and take us back to his humble abode to pass out on his pull-out sofa. The next two days were going to be nothing less than intense.

We woke up fairly early on the 7th, jumped in our Ford Fiesta rental and were off to enjoy La Route des Vins along the Vosges of Alsace. Our first stop was Obernai which was so adorable with its timber beam houses and miniature doors...it was cute enough to hug. We fueled up with enough coffee to last us for the long winey day ahead and kept heading south towards Colmar. Next stop was Dambach to have our first taste of Alsatian wine. We tried multiple home-grown grape creations and were blown away by many of the local wines, but the Auxerrois stood out to such an extent that we grabbed a bottle for the trip home. Just when we thought it couldn't get any cuter we drove into Ribeauville (ville with a accent aigu, which my brother still can't pronounce). This town looked straight out of a fairytale and we had to stop and eat some bread and cheese before we moved on again to the normal looking world. One of our last stops was at Riquewihr. Unfortunately, we were greeted by a not-so-friendly old Fench maid who was out of most of the wines we were interested in trying. To make the most speedy of exits, we told her we would buy a bottle of her average yet effervescent French Riesling.

We stopped by a birthday party for a friend of David's in the village of Roppenheim, on our way to Baden-Baden. The birthday boy, Julien, was very welcoming and encouraged us to stay for drinks and an Alsatian speciality: tarte flambée! We watched in anticipation as they prepared it with white sauce, bacon, cheese and onions. Once it was ready we pretty much inhaled the first round and were offered more by the generous guests. We didn't hang around for too long, however, because we wanted to see the spa town Baden-Baden before it got too late. We said goodbye to our new French friends, Julien and Marion. We reached Baden-Baden by 9pm and spent a few hours exploring this Monaco-Karlovy Vary-like town for a few hours. We were initially intimidated by all of the tuxedos and chic boutiques that filled the fancy city centre, but after some icecream and map-consulting, we ended up finding some sweet pocketage (David's term for small areas in town and country that are unique, hidden, and fun). We even drank from one of the hot springs. Come on everlasting life!

On May 8th we left Strasbourg fairly early in order to hike/drive/fondle the Black Forest, which lies between the Alsace region and Munich. We decided to use Freudenstadt as our base, and it was in Freudenstadt where we ate...you guessed it...Black Forest cake. After our cake break, we went for a hike in the Freudenstadt mountains, and then headed to Kniebis for another one-hour hike. All that fresh German air had sparked a hunger for all things cabbage and sausage based, so we stopped in a town on the France-German border called Offenburg for a dinner consisting of dry pilsner, Nuremburg sausage, sauerkraut, and spaetzle. This part of the world is truly unique when considering wine, architecture, geographical features, aaaaaaand modern warfare (!)

 

Bye Bye Amsterdam, Bye Bye Poffertjes

 

Wine Tasting at Ruhlmann Wines in Dambach

 

Black Forest in the Black Forest

                                                              

              

Amster-DAAAMN!

We have arrived in Amsterdam and are currently staying with a friend from my days in Scotland. A grateful shout-out to Maaike, who is allowing Kate and I to crash in exchange for dishwashing-based labour and groceries. We have finished the quaint, small-town portion of our European tour and are now gearing up for Strasbourg, Milan, Venice (including Padua and Verona) and Paris. We have spent the past week in Antwerp, The Hague, and Delft. We both liked Antwerp a lot, and this was partly due to the fact that our hotel was located 3 meters away from the cathedral. It was kind of like a huge, slightly seedy, extremely Jewish Bruges. We only spent one day in The Hague, and this was to visit the Mauritshuis Museum, which houses Vermeer's 'Girl with a Pearl Earring' and Rembrandt's 'Anatomy Lesson of Dr. Tulp'. 


Alex's (Art History Dork) Observation on 'Girl with a Pearl Earring': Upon analysing this Scar-Jo lookalike in person, I have come to the conclusion that she is just about to speak. While it doesn't really come across in reproductions, her tongue is clearly pressed up against her front teeth, as if she is about to say "Llllllet me change into some normal clothes...this turban is so damn itchy!"

The past two days in Amsterdam have been raucous. April 30th was Queen's Day, a national celebration and city-wide garage sale based upon all-day drinking and deal-hunting. The city's population doubles for the day, and 80% of the people in the city both dress in orange and drink Heineken all day. This has...interesting....results. Though I must say that there was surprisingly little violence and noise considering the alcohol being consumed, the numerous concerts taking place, and the boisterous throngs. Kate and I spent most of the day wandering and drinking. We had ambitious plans to carouse into the evening, but ambition fades fast when one begins drinking at noon. We were pretty much wiped by 11pm, but it was a Gong Show of a day. Today we met up with my roommate and oldest friend, Dale. He arrived in Amsterdam for Queen's Day and will soon be biking to Sweden over the course of three weeks. He came over to Maaike's for beer, dinner and poffertjes. It was great getting a detailed update on the Canucks, and it was great seeing him, of course.

We will be in Amsterdam for several more days, and we have a few goals that we wish to accomplish: we want to see Rembrandt's 'Night Watch', visit a Jenever gin distillery, and down a nieuwe haring. Kate isn't crazy about this last goal, downing an entire raw herring (with onions!) for breakfast, but the Dutch have been eating this dish for centuries...how bad can it be? BAD, says Kate. REAL BAD.


Continuing with our beer commentary, we are proud to announce that we tried all six Belgian Trappist beers while in Belgium. There is a seventh Trappist abbey ale, but it is based in the Netherlands so we did not deem it vital to our taste-testing. A Trappist beer is a beer produced by Trappist monks. Of the world's 171 Trappist monasteries, seven produce beer. Only these seven breweries are authorized to label their beers with the Authentic Trappist Product logo that indicates a compliance to various rules edicted by the International Trappist Association.Here are the beers we drank, described by Kate:


Achel - blond, crisp and smooth. Probably my favorite of the six (A)

Westvleteren - 5.8% abv with a distinct caramel aftertaste (B+)

Westmalle - pretty dark, similar to Guinness. Has a very nice coffee-esque flavour. Mild, dried hops (B+)

Orval - both disliked this one. Dark and very hoppy (C)

Rochefort - very mild hops (dry hops were probably used), medium in colour and woody finish (A-)

Chimay (Tripple and Blue) - tried 2 of the 3 and disliked both of them. Were very hoppy and had high alcohol (C+) and (C)

 

Posing in Delft - 'Mini Amsterdam'

 

Smallest Village in the Netherlands

 

TV Screen Capture of the Royal Wedding - Apr 29th

 

Amsterdam - Queen's Day Chaos - Apr 30th