Questa Dolce Vita

I haven't much to say about this book yet as I've barely turned the first few pages, however there was already an excerpt that I wanted to share from the prologue. These few lines transported me to my backpacking days when I was younger, no one I knew was married, and Europe was a wide-open play place filled with cheap wine and hostel breakfasts that tasted like heaven after staying up dancing the night away in bars with heinous, tacky names like Lux. Ok, I may still harbor pent-up anger towards that club in Lisbon that wouldn't let our 'backpackers-in-heels'-awesome-selves in unless we gave the doorman 200 Euros each. How could he ask such a thing? That was my food money (Portuguese custard tarts are in fact perfect for breakfast, lunch, and dinner thank you very much). Anyways, here is that excerpt I mentioned before going on a trip down memory lane: 

"A few days later, on the platform at Firenze Santa Maria Novella, I bought a flask of Chianti with two German boys, the kind of wine they sell in bellied bottles with straw aprons, and after no more than a couple of swigs passed out, to wake up in my vomit three hours later in the corridor of an evening Espresso to Rome. Those were the days..." - Tim Parks 

Going through my notes, I realized that I never finished up writing on our Ireland trip from this past summer. We spent the first few days on the west coast of Ireland, and stayed overnight in Westport. After a jaunt at a friend's wedding (first two photos) at a delicious Irish manor in the countryside, we took our little rental straight across to iconic Dublin. I absolutely adored the city- I'm not sure if I'm easily won over by the accents (Colin Farrell = yum), the spattering of run-down-but-still-endearing pubs with live music 23/7, the fact that as a tourist it's socially acceptable to have Guinness for breakfast (and lunch, and dinner), or just an overall combination of all these charming factors. One of the trip highlights was ordering the Pig's Head Carnitas from 777, a wonderfully contemporary Mexican resto-pub, the kind that only foodies know about because they do absolutely no advertising on the facade, the windows are frosted so there's no way to see the in-the-know patrons sipping on lime margaritas inside. Anyways, these carnitas- they bring you out the actual roasted pig's head to check out and take a Snapchat/Instagram photo of before they go to the back and mince it into unrecognizable strips. We loved it. Very THEATRICAL as Mindy Lahiri would say. I suppose the other highlight of our Dublin trip is when we LITERALLY almost missed our flight back to Italy because we got carried away at the Guinness Brewery. We had been there since the early hours of the morning and were still nursing the umpteenth glass at the very top "bar" (beautiful 360 degrees of glass and views of the city) when I noticed our flight was set to leave in an hour and a bit. I'm still a bit miffed about wasting those glorious pints, poor things got left to their own devices at that point. Sorry Guinness, I'm tearing up just thinking about it. 

If you want to see photographs and read about the first part of our Ireland trip (I highly recommend it because the photos from the Wild Atlantic Way are exactly what you'd want them to look like, when you dream of Ireland, this is the dream...): 

A Million Photos of Ireland's West Coast 

A Trip from Italy to the Emerald Isle: Photographs from the Wild Atlantic Way
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Westport is Ireland's Most Darling Town

Back to reality after a four-day long weekend in beautiful Abruzzo- photographs to come, I'm going to continue with Ireland musings. This is probably the second-to-last post with photographs from the trip. As mentioned previously, we opted to stay in a little town on west side of Ireland, aptly named Westport. I regret to say that we didn't get a ton of time to explore the quaintness of the place, having chosen instead to do the Wild Atlantic Way drive our first day there. We managed to pop out in the evening to peruse the shop windows (everything was closed by the time we got out and about) and settle in for fish and chips at a local pub. Initially, we had claimed bar stools at the legendary Matt Molloy's (last two photos) but had to leave when rumbling stomachs won out over our hope of hearing some live music/running into Bono (who has been spotted here in the past throwing back a pint or two). Westport is like a doll-house town, it shouldn't even exist in real-life but it does. The shops are impeccable, colorful, and cute; the streets perfectly clean and flowers (almost) more numerous than the meticulously-placed stacks of empty beer kegs that somehow also look cute even though they should really render the place a bit unrefined. Westport reminds me of Victoria, British Columbia in many ways, but mostly due to the style of the shops, the colors, and the cleanliness. Be wary that this is certainly no Dublin, the streets were fairly deserted once we finished our dinner, the only sign of human life comes from the warm, musical invitations of the numerous pubs. This is, after all, Ireland. 

Honestly, I can't think up more commentary for these photographs as they are simply more from our drive along the Wild Atlantic Way, a continuation of my previous post from the other day (scroll down to read it); I was trying to avoid bombarding ya'll with Ireland's sheer beauty at once. I would like to further emphasize that these are just a smackling of photos that we took during the day and choosing them took me exponentially longer than it's taking me to write this. Uffa. In retrospect, the ideal outfit for this scenery would have been a billowy, cotton dress and a straw fedora, don't you agree? I was decked out in full city-girl mode with high-heeled boots, jeans, and even a leather jacket. Note: high-heeled anything is not a good shoe choice for adventuring on Ireland's coast, it's extremely steep in some areas and you will inevitably at some point step in sheep poop. Yipee! (but seriously, be careful...!). The third photo from the bottom is actually quite a popular surfing beach and I know I've become too used to living in Italy because I sat there frozen (in my leather jacket), teeth chattering non-stop, while all the Irish folks were playing in the water. I promptly went for an Irish coffee with extra Baileys afterwards, or perhaps I should be honest and describe it as Baileys with a dash of coffee. Luckily I'm headed home to Canada for Christmas (whooooo!) and hopefully in that time I'll be able to get back some of my Canadian-ness. I'll keep you posted here, of course. 

Right after our motorcycle tour of Italy, we slept in our bed in Bergamo for all of six hours before promptly hopping on a plane to IRELAND for my dear friend Beth's wedding. We arrived a day earlier and upon the advice of many Irish expats here in Bergamo, we set up shop in Westport, a small and picturesque town on the west coast (photos in upcoming posts). The day was perfect, a rarity in Ireland which sees so much rain to keep it's moniker as The Emerald Isle. The owner of our bed and breakfast didn't just recommend we drive the Wild Atlantic Way (http://www.wildatlanticway.com/home/), she literally TOLD us to go by shoving a map in our hands and the imagery in our heads. Conveniently, we were also given the name of 'the best seafood' joint in Ireland in case we got hungry on our drive. So that was that, we headed out in the car (Massi driving on the left hand side of the road) and prepared for the wow factor. And....WOW is the only way to describe it. The blue skies, the crashing Atlantic Ocean, the dramatic cliffs and emerald everywhere. It's truly a sight to be seen at least once in a lifetime. I stood on a cliff, on many cliffs, wind whipping through my hair, thinking to myself- This is Ireland. Our lunch break was memorable as well because it's where we inaugurated the start of our trip with our first pint of Irish beer- Guinness for Massi, Smithwick's for yours truly. After a splendid morning driving the narrow roads of the coast, we hunkered down for Atlantic crab legs dipped in butter, seafood chowder, and a topped it off with a slice of warm apple pie. You know me, I can never resist anything edible and I feel like Ireland is the perfect place to get your fix of fish and chips, seafood, beer, and "Irish Breakfast" which has become my new favorite despite having no idea what white and black pudding really are...I should probably Google that soon.