Carrot and Italian food.

This is not an ordinary carrot. 

So, I'm sure that this doesn't happen to everyone who goes to Italy. After going into the Duomo I decided that I didn't want to climb the bell tower and so I decided to wait around the plaza area where there are lots of tourists, street vendors, and street artists. I sat down in a chair in front of the long line of street artists. Suddenly, this street artist walks over to me, half of a carrot already stuffed in his mouth, he handed me a carrot,

"Here, Carrot!"

Me: "Oh no, it's okay!"

"Carrot! It's very natural! Sweet, it's sweet."

Me: "Uh... uhh... agghh. Okay! Thanks!" 

Lol, yes I took a carrot from a stranger. But it was actually pretty sweet. I didn't die, so it was safe... Thank goodness. I sat there and finished my carrot awkwardly...

Italian story of my life...

Had some Gnocchi. 

I'm never going to eat Gnocchi alone ever again. :/ I got so tired of it because it just tasted so dang cheesy. Sucky thing about Italian restaurants is that most of have a cover/service charge, like €2 per person. And they charge for water, a limited amount of water. So I didnt get any water. And I was gunna die from thirst and boredom of the cheesy Gnocchi taste.

  

I found Hmong sausages! 

;D I wanted to try them, but I wouldn't have had anything to cook it in :(

  

Best Calzone's ever. And only €2.50 each!

   

My thoughts on Italian pasta.

It's a lot oilier than artificial American Italian pasta. But it's delicious! And theres actually a lot of meat. I'm thinking that the meat is more fatty. There seemed to be more meat than sauce which was delicious! I was sooo hungry, I regret gobbling and not savoring every bit of Italian pasta that was in my dish. 

Confessions

Finally, I'm out of Italy! But I must confess . . . I've had at least 2 scoops of gelato for everyday that I was in Italy. These are few of the pictures that I took with my gelatos. teehee x)

 

The best Gelato in Milan. First they coat the inside of the cone with melted drizzling milk, white or dark chocolate, I chose white. And then they nicely top off scoops onto the cone. But its not just the look that is appealing. The flavors are delicious! Whenever I get gelato I always want something that is chocolaty sweet or sugar creamy, in other words: Not fruity. This time I actually got strawberry and it was delicious!! :)

  

In Europe, Alcohol is so casual. They want it everywhere, any time of the day, even in Gelato...

  

But of course, I didn't get the alcoholic icy desert.

  

We went back to Milan and this was the last legit Italian gelato I will ever have for a very long time. :( Funny cause I got it from this Asian restaurant x) But it was deeeelicious, you can see the delicious creamy goodness is about to drip.
 

The Road to Milan

As we headed to Milan, we made a stop at Padua, Italy. And as we left I forgot my favorite brown leather jacket on the train :(((( On the bright side, time to get a new jacket for next winter? ;D

On the other hand, Padua was surely a nice little town! :) There were several inexpensive clothing shops. I was tempted to buy some shoes, shades and maybe a new jacket? ;D but I'm a poor college kid... I don't need those materialistic things! Or so I think.

Well, of course we wouldn't have just stopped at Padua to just walk around. Our main purpose was to tour the Scrovegni Chapel, full of Giotto's Early Renaissance paintings. Around the chapel there was a BEAUTIFUL park! I've been in the city for too long.

The cherry blossoms were falling off of the tree! It reminded me of Naruto lol. 


This not a Cherry Blossom. But it's still beautiful. <3
 

When in Venice...

Less than a month left on my European program! And finally, we are on our 2 week excursions starting with Italy!

The city built on top of water. The European ocean air reminded me of the fresh ocean breezes in San Francisco pier and beaches. I miss Cali! But Venice is interesting city. I didn't realize till I had left that there was pretty much no cars at all. The streets are packed with tourists and some locals. And most of these "streets" are just little allies and for this reason there are no cars. Public transportation consisted of boats running from one side of the city to the other. Riding on the public boats all day got me sooo dizzy... I had to keep my balance even on my bed.

A most pleasant view to enter a city with. :) 

 

Venice from this one bell tower. It sure is a red city.  

This is in front of San. Mark's square. In the light blue/pinkish colored square building is Doge's palace  and that one clock tower who's name I can't recall. Didn't have to the chance to go into the palace but I will this Saturday! This place is packed with tourists and street vendors!

You don't find many of these cute houses in a city like this.

Most of the residents in this town live in flats. Its hard to actually find houses because there isn't actually "land" to build houses on. I decided I probably wouldn't like to live in Venice. But its a nice city! It's just super crowded and there isn't much space to do recreational stuff. Even though you're right on top of water I don't think you can actually go fishing or swimming in the dirty greenish blue water.  And there isn't much grass to do recreational stuff on.

 

  

The view from the public boats :) 

Yeah we like them public boats. Except that it takes a life time to get from one place to another. 

We found "Pretty Patties" --Spongebob

Decided it wasn't worth getting one of these babies for 1.30€ so I just got a jelly stuffed croissant instead.

This is part of the main river that runs through the middle of the city.

The Afterglow in Venice.
This is from an Island off the coast of the main Island. Nice place without too many tourists.

Just had to catch that crescent moon. 

 

That was the first day of Venice and then we had to leave for Milan... To be continued... (in Venice this Saturday)

The Tower

We decided to climbed more than 600 steps to get to the second floor (the limit) instead of taking the elevators, which was one of the best yet most painstaking choices. By the time we were down from the tower my legs were shaking nonstop. But it was worth it!

So we decide to go back during the night time and get some midnight in Paris shots. We stayed out pretty late, some local told us the metro runs 24/7, but it turns out it only runs till about 1:15 am, and we missed the last metro back so we had to take a taxi -____-" But, here are a few nice shots I got:

Mission Impossible: The Louvre

Gabriela and I went to the Louvre Museum today. I didn't realize that it was the size of a whole village! Seriously, I would need to camp in that Mansion for a few days in order to thoroughly get through all the art work. Today, we walked around for about 5 hrs and didn't even get through half of it clearly. It's almost not possible to look through the whole museum! But heres a taste of lugging through 2 parts of the museum . . . 

"Oriental" stuff. 

Rebrandt, one of my favorites!

 

I only imagined seeing it in textbooks...

 

I saw "Moya" and though that meant "Mayan"... in French, it meant Middle age -___-" So off. 

 That's right, the Mona Lisa! :)

This thing's as big as my body.

 

My favorite sculpture, kind of provocative yah i know...

 

Thats a huge shell, bigger than my face! and an egg!!

My Favorite, cause its cheesy. "The lovers, Paris and Helen" :) 

I never thought I'd see one of these guys! This guy actually have 5 legs. This way when you look at him from the front or side he appears to have the right amount of legs 

Discoing

In Vienna, there are so many clubs! Or as the Viennese would call them "Discos." Lots of techno/rave clubs, some r&b clubs, even rocker "clubs." This is the 3rd "Disco" that I went to but I was pretty out of it that day so I want to go again for the full experience.

PROS 

- practically free
- party till 5 in the morn 

- dining area + bar 

- alcohol at 18, for you alcoholics 

- awesome lights 

- vintage building like a castle, fake candle chandeliers 

- laser show - no worries about over excessive grinding 

- separate room for different music styles

- coat checks 

CONS 

- Over-spoken DJ, you know, those DJs that talk like every 30 seconds? 

- Non-separated smoking rooms, in every club that I've been to I've come home smelling like a smoker. It takes at least 2 laundry loads to get that smell off 

- I hate rave music, it tires and bores me (this one really is just my personal con) 

- drunkies spilling liquids on you and all over the place 

2 weeks without a laptop

And I'm still without a laptop -____-" A closer look of the famous “Kepap.” This baby is made with slowly cook lamb meat and thinly sliced onto ¼ of a piece of ciabata-like bread. Some veggies tossed in for coloring and a sauce that tastes delicious! And a pepper that added some spice. But this “sandwich” was pretty much made of meat :)

When I went off to college I told myself I would NEVER live off of sandwiches. That backfired on me -____-“

Delicious ice-cream, topped off with defrosted and syrup fruits? I’ll take that any night.

The Kunsthistorches Museum: Possibly one of the best Egyptian/Roman/Greek/Painting museum in Vienna.

Almost blended in right? ;]
The Kunsthistorches Museum: Possibly one of the best Egyptian/Roman/Greek/Painting museum in Vienna. Almost blended in right? ;]
I wasn’t quite tall enough -____-“

I would steal all these if I can without going to jail.

SOOOOO CUTEEEEEE!

Hanging out with Leopold III; he made the burglar beeper go off on me :/
Apparently, Peferonni means “pepper” and Salami means “pepperoni.” Hint hint, if you ever go to a german speaking country and want pepperoni, ask for salami.

WEIN MUSEUM: Roman Ruins. Of course I was taking notes…. ;0
Heating systems of the Romans. So pretty much, this is the bottom of their floors. When it gets too cold they put coal stuff to a hole at the bottom of their floors and the heat distributes and warms up their floors. Genius right?

I like to walk alone sometime.

I like the “graffiti ghetto” area which in actuality still looks a lot better and cleaner than the US ghetto.

Schonbrunn Palace: I love this place because the courtyard is just wayyy beautiful. And its free! I took these pictures during the sunset and it was FREEZING! And it wasn’t even snowing!
This is the palace itself, which I believe have been made to a museum in today’s modern times. 
More roman ruins!

MAK MUSEUM: The museum of practical arts. I freaken ran into this thing and screamed aloud in my head because its made of metal -___-“

What can I say? SOO COOL.

I’m going to remodel my future home so that it’ll look classy like this.
To be very Honest, the BEST part of any museum HAS to be the Shops. I want this camera!

Stephans Dome (More pictures to be posted later). Domo Kong!!

So after about the 3rd time we finally ordered the correct pizza. I almost finished this one all by my self!

Exploring !!

The Rauthouse (Which I believe means “Rat-house”) where they do their political business.
Hofburg Palace. More imperial stuff…
Volksoper! I went to see “My fair lady” in German. So as you can predict, I didn’t understand anything.

Finally some snow! Its actually warmer when it snows because there is less wind
Now to Esienstadt:

This is what a normal Austrian city/suburb would look like:

In some palace of people with their faces all over the place.
Magnificent paintings that would have taken me a lifetime.

Like I said, the BEST part of the museums, the shops. Never thought I’d find Asian things at a European museum shop.

Outside the Palace.

Walking around behind the palace: The Royal garden

Now off to some church…

To be completely honestly, these things make me feel uncomfortable.


The shrine in the actual chapel.

The best part: FOOD.

St. Michaelkirche (St. Michael Church) I love the Baroque designs on this apse!

Steps unto… Glory?

Guilty feelings always fall upon me looking at these kind of sculptures.
The Imperial Treasury: I’ve never seen such a decorated crown.
”Rose Bush” More like a money tree to me. I would take this.

and this jewelry set if I could


More pizza. I need to eat healthier. but I do LOVE bacon! More Bacon! :)