Barcelona

A couple of weekends ago, Dave and I decided to go on a little mini vacation to Barcelona. It's only about a 31/2 hour drive away from where we are living in France. That's right, only 3 1/2 hours to reach beaches, sun, and palm trees. We also found this awesome website they have here called http://www.covoiturage.fr/ where people offer spots in their car for trips to various places, kind of like car pooling. It is a really cheap option for traveling to places in and near France. We got a ride to and from Barcelona for about 55 euros each. It was the cheapest option we discovered and it got us to Barcelona the fastest. We will definitely be using this site again for future trips.We also got a cheap, well rated hotel by using the Hotwire website. You don't get to find out what hotel you get until after you pay, so it can be a bit risky.  But, it does allow you to see the rating of your hotel and we've lucked out the last few times we've used it.  With hotel and transportation taken care of, we heading on our way for a whirlwind weekend tour of Barcelona.

The first night we got in pretty late so we decided to head to bed with plans to get up early in the morning and explore (see...I get up early sometimes). The first stop was La Sagrada Familia, a large Roman Catholic basilica designed by famous architect Antoni Gaudi. The church is still incomplete, but Gaudi began construction on it in 1883 and worked on it up until his death in 1926. The church is still being worked on to this day. It is a crazy building and so weird looking. There is a lot to look at, but it was really cool. We got there early since we didn't have advanced tickets, but the line moved fairly quickly and we got inside only having to wait about half and hour in line. The church was really interesting, one of the weirdest churches I have ever seen, definitely worth the wait.

The outside, so much going on

Jesus on the cross, does he remind anyone else of that guy they suggest you make on the back of your cheese string?

The ceiling inside, very cool

The inside, the pillars are supposed to give the feel of trees in a forest

Dave and I

Next we climbed a giant hill to get to Parc Güell, an outdoor park and garden scattered with buildings, bridges, stairs, and other interesting architecture. This park was also designed by Antoni Gaudi and has the same sort of weird and interesting architecture throughout it. It was a really cool park and well worth the climb up mount Everest to get to it. We enjoyed a few sandwiches for lunch as we wandered and enjoyed the sites here.

The entrance 

Very interesting architecture 

Hot and sweaty, but worth the climb for the beautiful views of the city

On our way back from Parc Güell we made a quick stop at Barcelona Cathedral. This was a beautiful cathedral and it completed our morning site seeing tour. Barcelona has beautiful architecture and I look forward to making another trip there in the future so I can explore some of the other sites.

Next on the agenda was the relaxing part of the trip. We stop off at the hotel to change and headed down to Barceloneta Beach where we sunbathed, relaxed and swam. The salt water at this beach made it so easy to float in the water. It was so relaxing to lay back in the water and float away. Dave and I agreed that we could have stayed in that water all day. We enjoyed some sangria and a few beers on the beach and then called it a day. Next visit I'd like to devout more time to living the beach life.

The beach

Finally, a use for my ridiculously large sun hat

That night we had grand plans to head out on the town since the metro runs all night on Saturdays. However, I think I got a bit too much sun and I had a headache I couldn't shake (damn my pale Irish skin and its sun hating ways!), so we ended up relaxing in the hotel with plans to get a good sleep and continue to explore for our last day on Sunday. Next time I plan to make use of your all night metro though, so watch out Barcelona! Watch out!

Sunday we had a bit of a sleep in, how Spanish of us, and then heading out in search of Tapas (obviously my main reason for going to Barcelona...delicious food). We went to a tapas place I had read good reviews for on Trip Advisor called Ciudad Condal and it did not disappoint. The tapas were delicious and we had our fill. We enjoyed them with a nice lemony Spanish beer, that was perfect for a hot summer day. Tapas are awesome for someone like me who can never make a decision, because you get to pick tiny tastes of everything. It's awesome. All the tiny bites really do add up and I left feeling full and happy that I had finally tried tapas in Spain!

Look at me, I'm awful...grabbing my fork before Dave can even get a picture of the delicious Patatas Bravas (crispy potatoes in a spicy sauce)

Tiny green peppers in salt, mini burgers, and one of our favourite plates asparagus and delicious, delicious mushrooms

Ham and chicken croquettes

Calamari with lemon, a bit chewy, but still yummy

Crispy camembert with raspberry sauce, mini hotdogs (not exactly spanish, but we couldn't resist)

We ended our trip with a walk down La Rambla, a busy street in the centre of Barcelona full of vendors, street performers, and tourists. It was neat to walk down, but it was quite busy. At the end of La Rambla we were back at the waterfront so we wandered around the boardwalk and enjoyed an ice cream looking over the water. The water was full of jelly fish, it was one of the coolest things I have ever seen. I had never before seen a real jelly fish and they were so beautiful and graceful in the water, too bad they sting! But they are certainly pretty to look at. We heading back to the hotel with enough time to pick up our bags and head to our meeting place for our ride. It was a fast trip to Barcelona but we fit a lot in and we had a lot of fun. Next time I plan on adding a bit more relaxing on the beach to our trip and a bit more sangria...oh and paella.  We will definitely have to plan a next visit soon!

Beautiful jellyfish...just one of many!

I could get used to palm trees

Until next time...
Au revoir

Stove Top Cookies...It Can Be Done

One of the things I miss doing most since moving here is baking. Back in Canada I had the good fortune of having a kitchen with not only a kitchen sink, but an oven too! Oh the luxury! Since moving here I've had to make a lot of adjustments to my cooking methods, which have been going pretty well for my stove top dinner recipes, but when it comes to dessert it's tough to find many things you can make without the use of an oven.  Also, some times a girl just needs a freshly baked , ooey , gooey, chocolate chip cookie and no other dessert will suffice.  So, what's a girl to do when she has a cookie craving that can't be killed, but lacks an oven? Why, make cookies in a frying pan of course.

I was skeptical this method would work, but decided to give it a try after Dave directed my attention to this article: http://blogs.babble.com/family-kitchen/2012/08/02/apartment-cooking-how-to-make-cookies-on-the-stovetop/

I found two small batch recipes on the internet for chocolate chip and chocolate chip oatmeal cookies and got to work baking.

The result was delicious cookies! I will definitely be trying this again. I found that the oatmeal chocolate chip worked a bit better than the regular chocolate chip, I think the oatmeal made it sturdier and held together better. I also increased the cooking time a little bit. But, they both produced yummy cookies. They may not look as nice as cookies made in the oven, but they sure tasted great.

So if you ever find yourself with an intense cookie craving, but lack an oven, now you know you can make cookies on your stove top.

Oatmeal Cookie Dough Balls

Chocolate Chip Cookie Dough Balls

Put dough in pan with melted butter, flatten with a spatula

Cook for 5 minutes on each side, covered (preferably use an actual lid as oppose to my makeshift lid made from another frying pan)

Result: delicious cookies

 Please, if you have any other stove top dessert recipes send them my way. I'm already wondering if I can make pie on a stove top (I'm thinking that might be going a little too far....crumble maybe?). I shall continue to experiment.

Until next time...

Au revoir

Rome

Rome was amazing! I loved it and I want to go back immediately and stay for twice as long haha. Dave and I took off to Rome for 5 days a few weeks ago, where we met up with a couple of our Canadian friends from back home who had asked us to join them on the Rome segment of their Italy vacation.  It was so nice to hang out with our friends and we had a great time in Rome. Here's a little summary of our days there and some pictures. Warning, this post is a little picture heavy, it was hard to choose which ones to post.

We arrived late in the afternoon on a Friday to beautiful, hot and sunny weather. The first night we took it easy and just wandered the city for a bit on our own. It still amazes me that you can be walking in a part of Rome amongst cars and buses and store fronts and then, BAM , Roman ruin right in the middle of it! It was crazy. We checked out the Pantheon, which was huge and very beautiful. And a few other sites. The best part about Rome is that there is running water sations all over the city with cold, delicious drinking water that is constantly flowing. It was nice because we drank a lot of water because it was so hot, but we didn't have to waste our money on buying water. We just brought an empty water bottle with us and filled up along the way. Refreshing!

Later in the night we went out for our first Roman meal, pizza. It was very good and I got to check the first thing off my "foods I must eat in Rome" list. Rome for me wasn't only about all the amazing sites, but also all the amazing food I could eat (are you really that surprised?!). I had priorities! Haha. And I'm happy to say that I got to sample everything on my list at least once, sometimes twice. More about the food I ate later in this post, but first a few pictures of our first day...

Dave and I in front of the "Italian Wedding Cake" , as our tour guide called it

Pantheon

The dome inside the pantheon, quite huge

Inside the Pantheon, this picture doesn't do it justice, it was huge

Random ruins in the middle of town

Apparently a colony of straw cats lives in these ruins

The second day was a busy one. We had a guided tour booked of the Vatican and St.Peter's Basilica. I highly recommend getting a guided tour for this site as you get to bypass most of the lines and it really helps you focus in on the important things to see and the meaning behind them. It would be easy to spend hours and hours in the Vatican without seeing everything, this way we still spent hours there but knew we had at least seen the most important things. Plus, at one point you get a tour of the Sistine Chapel and it's very spy like and mission impossible-esque. There are guards there that don't let the guides give tours of this part and everyone is supposed to remain silent. But, all the guards give tours anyway, which is quite easy considering they have microphones and everyone participating in the tour had a headset (which only added to the spy element). Our guide pretended not to know us, sat several feet behind us, and quietly whispered into her microphone while describing the significance behind the ceiling painting in the Sistine Chapel, while we all listened intently , finger to our earbuds....very secret service. It was fun.  The tour was amazing and afterward we had some time to climb the 533 stairs up to the top of St.Peter's Basilica. It was quite the climb, especially in the 40 plus heat and with the increasingly narrower and steeper staircase,but it was worth it for the spectacular view. I enjoyed the view from a safe distance far from the railing for fear I would fall to my death....but  it was indeed spectacular. We also had some time to explore St.Peter's Basilica on our own for awhile. It is quite a huge basilica and is very beautiful. I bought a few souvenirs for some family members and had them blessed with the holy water from here. As for our own souvenir...well Dave picked out a shot glass. Maybe not very holy, but a souvenir none the less. I also have to admit that  I totally bought a vile of holy water from here....that's right....they sell the holy water. It was a busy day. We headed home after our tour, exhausted and sweaty! As would become our daily practice while in Rome we showered for the second time that day and got ready for our evening out. We had a few drinks by this fountain in the middle of town where we had noticed groups of people gathering to drink the night before. It was a fun night!

In the court yard at the Vatican, the dome of St.Peter's Basilica behind us

One of the many famous paintings in the Vatican

The Laocoonte, a famous statue found by a farmer in his yard

Climbing up the dome of St.Peter's Basilica

No railing, just a rope for the steep parts

worth the view

Holding onto Dave for dear life, braved getting near the edge

This famous statue is now behind glass after a crazy person tried to destroy it with a hammer

Inside St.Peter's Basilica

In front of St.Peter's Basilica

The third day we had to ourselves and we spent it traveling and exploring Rome. We went to all the good sites and many churches (Dave's favourite....he wanted to go into almost every church we walked by, but who could blame him when they were all so beautiful and full of famous paintings). We also saw the Trevi fountain which was very impressive. Dave and I made wishes, which I later learned may have not counted because apparently you are supposed to throw the coin over your left shoulder? I'm not sure, but here's hoping I win that million dollars anyway. It was fun and exhausting, but we covered a lot of ground and saw a lot of sites. After yet another shower (it was really really hot people!), we headed out for one of my favourite evenings in Rome. We happened to walk by this little hole in the wall Italian restaurant down a side street that looked like it was busy, so we got a table. We ended up having one of the best meals of the trip at this restaurant. We had buffalo mozzarella with olive oil to start , it was so creamy and delicious. So much more flavourful than any buffalo mozzarella that I've ever had before. Next we had pasta. I ordered the spaghetti carbonara, a cheesy , eggy , bacony spaghetti. It was so good I get hungry just thinking about it. I ended the meal with a delicious tiramisu. It was the best meal ever and I want to go back to Rome just to eat at this restaurant. Mmmmmmmmmmm....

On the Spanish Steps

Trevi Fountain

Thinking about our wishes

Ignore my wish making face, I had to concentrate

Do you see the joy in my eyes while eating this mini tiramisu cupcake?

My spaghetti carbonara

Dave's ricotta pasta, so good

Tiramisu

Dave's amaretto panacotta thing, yum!

The fourth day we had another booked tour of the Roman Forum and the Colosseum. We started the morning with a cappuccino, from a little hole in the wall cafe near our apartment. It was so creamy and delicious and a great start to the day (another thing off the list!).It was really neat to be walking amongst all these Roman ruins and see the amazing arches that are still preserved. The Colosseum was pretty huge and it was crazy to see in person and imagine all the people that would gather there to watch the games. Our tour guide was very good and he provided little humorous tidbits and stories to make the tour more interesting. Later we explored the Palatine Hill on our own, which was also quite interesting and had some more amazing views of the city. This is the site where Romulus and Remus were discovered with the She Wolf, you may remember the famous story. We enjoyed a late lunch at a restaurant near the Colosseum where I had a pasta arrabiata, which was spicy and of course delicious. Later that evening, after a rest and of course another shower to wash the dirt off (my feet were literally black from the ruins), we headed out for another memorable Italian meal. This time we headed to a place we had heard about on Trip Advisor (a great website to check out before you travel anywhere). We had a great salad to start with oil and vinegar, bread, I had a penne amatriciana , which was in a red sauce with bacony meat and was delicious (yes, that's right, I did have pasta twice on this day, got a problem with that?). For dessert we had the special, a cannelloni. I think I forgot to take pictures of this meal, but trust me, it was delicious. A  good way to spend our last evening in Rome.

Ruins in the forum

Arch

The Colosseum

Tuesday we headed back to the airport a little sad to be leaving.  I had the last item on my list, a gelato, to ease the pain of having to leave such a beautiful city. We had a wonderful time and I definitely want to go back. After all there are still so many sites to see and so many pastas to be eaten!

Until next time....
Au revoir