Here's a brief recap of the 10 Best Things from the past 4ish months that I've spent galavanting around Europe (and, briefly, Asia).
In chronological order:
1. Lounging in the garden of Eden with Giulia.
(her family's house in Terracina.)
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| Giulia's front yard |
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| Best Fraaands. |
It's a miracle that we made it there. The night before we were conducting a blitz on Rome. At 5 a.m. we decided to stay up and get the train at 7 a.m., followed by a bus, followed by a 2.5 mile uphill hike to the Simonelli-Gallo family compound. When we finally got there we laid down next to the pool and passed out. And we didn't move for the next 3 days, except to occasionally walk to town for gelato, a martini rosso and a dip in the sea. Most enjoyable hangover of my life.
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| La piscina |
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| Breakfast anyone? |
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| The view |
2. Everything* we did in Ibiza.
(*Excluding getting robbed blind our last night there)
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| Playa d'en Bossa |
Ibiza is the Jersey Shore of Europe. There are some quiet, pristine beaches frequented by people who are taking a break from being on their yachts, and then there are long white beaches where it's not uncommon to see girls wearing half a bikini rip body shots to a throbbing techno soundtrack at 11 a.m. The 9 of us got to enjoy both of these lovely facets of Ibiza. During the day we visited some of the lushest, most idyllic nature imaginable, and at night we went to nightclubs the size of small planets and saw Tiesto, Skrillex, Afrojack, and many other DJs who basically melted our faces off.
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| Hiking in a nature preserve. |
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| Plenty of this everywhere. |
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| A sturdy crew. |
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| Skrillex lights |
3. Immaturity in Madrid, with Cody & Alexa
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| he does what he wants. |
Multiple shots of us posing like the statues behind us. Drinking out of prohibited fountains. One inexplicable gondola ride. And I'm pretty sure that all we ingested over those 4 days was vodka, wine and churros. We are children.
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| casual pose at the chupitos bar. |
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| Just perfect. |
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| our sustenance. |
4. Black Cab tour in Belfast, Northern Ireland.
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| Falls Road murals |
Chris and I went to Belfast to visit our lovely friend Siobhan. While she was still at work, we did a tour of the Catholic / Protestant neighborhoods that were absolutely devastated during the Troubles. Our guide was a cab driver, Paddy, about 65 years old, who was from one of the worst-affected Catholic neighborhoods. For like $40, he picked us up and drove us around for 2 hours, showing us the famous murals and
absolutely ripping on the English the entire time. It was the most biased yet most interested tour I've ever been on.
5. Amsterdam
No description necessary.
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| Supplies. |
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| Mariah my trusty travel buddy. |
6. Beers in Belgium.
After Amsterdam, Mariah and I went to Antwerp, Bruges, and Brussels. There were a lot of good beers. In Brussels, the Delirium Cafe holds the world record for most beers on hand (over 2,000). We sampled a good percentage of them. Our favorite? La Chouffe N'ice.
Here's the description I found for N'ice Chouffe online: "The N’ICE CHOUFFE is a strong dark beer that will warm you up during the winter months. It is spiced (with thyme and curaçao) and a light hop taste, a well-balanced beer. The N’ICE CHOUFFE is unfiltered, and re-fermented in the bottle as well as in the keg." And at 10%, it makes you feel n'ice indeed.
7. Ya's Dublin visit.
Little bro came to visit me before he went to Basic Training on January 2nd. I hadn't seen him since he moved to Tennessee at the beginning of August.
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| We went running so he would still be in good shape for the Army |
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| We went out in Temple Bar. |
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| We went to Zara and tried on really tight pants. |
8. Istanbul adventures with Papá
My dad and I spent 6 days in Istanbul right before Christmas. The city is spread out on both sides of the Bosphorus, so you can take a ferry back and forth between Europe and Asia. We saw a lot of really beautiful, really old mosques/churches/churches-turned-mosques. We played cards, drank tea and smoked hookah in little hole-in-the-wall cafes. We ate a lot of lentil soup. And one day, we stumbled upon an Upper Crust in the middle of nowhere. Many people know how ardently I admire and love Upper Crust. This, plus the fact that it was blizzarding, really made me feel like I was in Boston for a minute.
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| Good ole' Constantinople |
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| Snow at the Topkapi palace |
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| seagulls following the Euro-Asia ferry |
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| inside the Suleyman mosque |
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| at the cafe |
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UPPER CRUST!!!!!!! <3 <3 <3 <3 <3
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9. Pavia with Ale.
Ale is one of my mental patient friends. Nobody can out-party him. He basically invented going out in Boston. In between Christmas and NYE, I visited him in Pavia; the tiny, adorable Italian town where he grew up. It is tranquil, old, and beautiful. I don't understand how a nice little town like that could produce Ale, but I'm not complaining.
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| 1500s church |
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the mutant of Pavia
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I have the smaller (but still double) bedroom, and the huuuuuge bathroom. My bathroom is completely ridiculous. You could rent out that bathroom for $850/month in Boston. I put a desk in it just to take up some of the space. The desk is for doing my hair/makeup but Chris thinks a table in a bathroom is usually intended for drug use, so now we call my bathroom the Cocaine Station.
