I keep Coco with me in the mornings when I get ready for work. Apparently she got a little too close to me when I was putting on my perfume and, consequently got some on herself. Ming came home around noon, 4 hours after she had the perfrume put on her, and she still smelled like it. Oops.
I guess the upside is that Coco smells nice with the Tiffany perfume on her (and I didn't really waste any perfume since she caught the residue of my spray.) I think Tiffnay should go into the perfume market for pets. I am sure they'd make a lot of money on it!
Wednesday, June 27, 2007
Friday, June 22, 2007
Skincare Regimine Change
I have been using Shiseido products for years. Shiseido has always been a good solid company and I never had any problems with the products. The "problem" with the Shiseido lines, however, is that they just don't do anything to wow me. I didn't see any major changes or improvement since using them -- and I have used 3 or 4 different lines of Shiseido. Now that I am coming close to using up my supply I have decided that I want to give another brand a try.
After reading numerous forums I decided to go with Decleor
With an Amex card (thanks Ming) I ordered a new regimine for myself. I also found a very helpful forum which had a lot of reviews and product critiques: Essential Day Spa forum
In ~10 business days I will have my new skin care line and I'll report back how it works out.
After reading numerous forums I decided to go with Decleor
With an Amex card (thanks Ming) I ordered a new regimine for myself. I also found a very helpful forum which had a lot of reviews and product critiques: Essential Day Spa forum
In ~10 business days I will have my new skin care line and I'll report back how it works out.
Tuesday, June 19, 2007
Tiny Url Rant
I really dislike tinyurl.com. It is a site which allows the user to basically create a Unix synonym. For those who don't know what that is, a user can enter a URL address for any site and tinyurl.com will generate a smaller, more compact URL which links to the original URL address.
I am not sure why anyone uses tinyurl.com. Do they really find long URLs that difficult? When you use tinyurl you are basically:
1. hiding the real location of where you are trying to send someone
2. giving up that user's internet habits since I am sure tinyurl has a bunch of tracking metrics encoded into the tinyurl.
I find it annoying whenever I see a tinyurl. I want to know where I am going, particualrly if the user didn't exactly disclose what the URL is. A description of "check this out" doesn't really tell me where the URL goes to. I do a lot of web surfing and I try to be careful about where I go and clicking on a url who's true location has been hidden is just asking for a lot of trouble.
Also, I find my privacy valuable. I don't need any more metrics collected on me than there already is (e.g. Google urchin trackers are everywhere now.)
I am not sure why anyone uses tinyurl.com. Do they really find long URLs that difficult? When you use tinyurl you are basically:
1. hiding the real location of where you are trying to send someone
2. giving up that user's internet habits since I am sure tinyurl has a bunch of tracking metrics encoded into the tinyurl.
I find it annoying whenever I see a tinyurl. I want to know where I am going, particualrly if the user didn't exactly disclose what the URL is. A description of "check this out" doesn't really tell me where the URL goes to. I do a lot of web surfing and I try to be careful about where I go and clicking on a url who's true location has been hidden is just asking for a lot of trouble.
Also, I find my privacy valuable. I don't need any more metrics collected on me than there already is (e.g. Google urchin trackers are everywhere now.)
Monday, June 18, 2007
Ratatouille
I am huge Pixar film fan. With the exception of a Bug's Life, I love every single one of their films. Their latest endeavor is a film called Ratatouille. It is about a rat who has dreams of becoming a world class chef. The website has previews of the movie and, as always, the details never fail to amaze. I'll be one of the masses who stand in line on June 29th when the movie comes out
Friday, June 08, 2007
Blog for Coco
I've created a blog to chronicle my adventures with Coco
http://puppylover54.blogspot.com
http://puppylover54.blogspot.com
Thursday, June 07, 2007
Wednesday, June 06, 2007
Italy Blog: Return
Return 5/30-5/31
In order to get to the Milan airport from Florence we had to take a train from Florence to Milan. From the train station we had to take a 1 hour shuttle to the airport. Because the shuttle doesn’t run late at night and we had an 8am flight, we decided to finish our trip up by spending the night at the airport.
We got to the Milan airport at 5pm and proceeded to find things to amuse ourselves until we could check into our flight. We talked to the representative for British Airways and he told us how we go about redeeming our VAT (European sales tax). He also told us that for you cannot check into the flight until about 6am. We had 13 hours to kill at the airport with a cart full of luggage (we ended up buying a lot of souvenirs.)
To pass the time we read various books we had bought, surfed online, watched downloaded episodes on Ming’s laptop and generally just walking around the airport to keep us from sleeping. I did sneak in a 20 minute nap but Ming was a trooper and stayed up the entire time.
6am finally rolled around and we checked into the flight. We then talked to 2 other people who all gave us conflicting answers on how to redeem the VAT. So, we have talked to 3 people who work at the airport and not a single one of them gives you the same answer – you gotta love Europe. Bleh. Ultimately we figured out what to do and then went to our gate and waited for boarding time.
The rest of the trip passed by in a blur because we slept the entire trip. We were so happy to come back to the states and I couldn’t wait until I could sleep in my own bed again. Even our shower, which has absolutely no water pressure, was a welcome sight to me after having to put up with the European showers.
I’m glad to be back in the states and it’ll be a long time before I want to go on another plane ride.
In order to get to the Milan airport from Florence we had to take a train from Florence to Milan. From the train station we had to take a 1 hour shuttle to the airport. Because the shuttle doesn’t run late at night and we had an 8am flight, we decided to finish our trip up by spending the night at the airport.
We got to the Milan airport at 5pm and proceeded to find things to amuse ourselves until we could check into our flight. We talked to the representative for British Airways and he told us how we go about redeeming our VAT (European sales tax). He also told us that for you cannot check into the flight until about 6am. We had 13 hours to kill at the airport with a cart full of luggage (we ended up buying a lot of souvenirs.)
To pass the time we read various books we had bought, surfed online, watched downloaded episodes on Ming’s laptop and generally just walking around the airport to keep us from sleeping. I did sneak in a 20 minute nap but Ming was a trooper and stayed up the entire time.
6am finally rolled around and we checked into the flight. We then talked to 2 other people who all gave us conflicting answers on how to redeem the VAT. So, we have talked to 3 people who work at the airport and not a single one of them gives you the same answer – you gotta love Europe. Bleh. Ultimately we figured out what to do and then went to our gate and waited for boarding time.
The rest of the trip passed by in a blur because we slept the entire trip. We were so happy to come back to the states and I couldn’t wait until I could sleep in my own bed again. Even our shower, which has absolutely no water pressure, was a welcome sight to me after having to put up with the European showers.
I’m glad to be back in the states and it’ll be a long time before I want to go on another plane ride.
Italy Blog: Florence
Florence 5/27-5/30
The only train tickets that I was able to buy ahead of time (while still in the states) was between Venezia (Venice) and Firenze (Florence.) When we arrived at the Venice train station we realized that I bought the wrong tickets. I had bought train tickets for another train station in Venice and not the one we were at. Ouch. I had no idea that cities had multiple train stations and I thought that Venice was small enough that it should only have 1 train station – boy was I wrong! The Tren Italia website certainly wasn’t very helpful either since it simply asked me what city I was departing from, not which train station I wanted to depart from. Ultimately we ended up sneaking onto a train (and risking a fine since there wasn’t enough time to buy an actual ticket) which would take us to our actual train station that I had tickets for. We had approximately 2 minutes between the time from when the train [that we snuck onto] got into the station we had tickets for and for us to high tail it onto the train. It was definitely a lot more stress than we needed at 9 in the morning.
Finally we made it to Florence and the weather forecast was for rain. This time our hotel was close enough to the train station that we were able to walk. By the time we got to the hotel the sky looked ominous and we were so tired that we didn’t want to do anything except eat lunch.
We had lunch at the restaurant next to our hotel and that was probably the best meal we had in Florence. Ming had a pasta dish with duck and I had a pasta dish with porcinis. We shared the most amazing steak: a 1 kilo (2.2 pounds) bisteca alla fiorentina. It is basically a huge porter house cooked medium rare (they cook all steak that way in Italy) and extra virgin olive oil is drizzled on top of it. We thoroughly enjoyed the steak and it helped to put is in a better frame of mind.
By the end of the meal it was raining steadily and we went back upstairs to grab our umbrella. After having gone to Hawaii and getting caught in the rain season (on our very first vacation together) we have learned to always bring an umbrella. I am glad that we brought it b/c it made all the difference when we were in Florence.
The rest of the day we meandered around for various site seeing and shopping. Florence is definitely a walking city. Everywhere you go is about 10 minutes by foot. Florence is like a real city, e.g. people live on the upper levels of buildings and commercial stores are at the bottom.
Towards the end of the trip, when our feet started aching and my back was begging for me to sit down and rest we decided to head up to the clock tower near the duomo (yup, Florence has a duomo too.) The clock tower is 414 steps and it doesn’t have an elevator. We thought that 414 steps was easy (considering we had already walked nearly 50 miles for the entire trip by that time.) We failed to realize that the steps were incredibly steep, there weren’t any hand rails and it was basically a very steep ascent up several meters. Finally, huffing and puffing later, we made it up to the clock tower and saw Florence from a bird’s eye view. The city was breath taking. I love the terra cotta roofs and it makes me want to get one for my house – just kidding Ming!
On the day of the wedding we were dressed to the 9s (it is a wedding after all) and took a taxi to the rental car company. We had to drive a rental car to the wedding since it was on a remote estate in the middle of the countryside. The wedding was great and Ming saw a lot of old acquaintances. We had a fabulous cocktail hour followed by a 5 course meal. The biggest bummer of the evening was that it was cold and I hadn’t brought a jacket (it had been in the high 80s the entire trip) because I didn’t think I’d need one. That night ended up being very chilly and heating lamps had to be brought out to keep the guests warm. I borrowed Ming’s jacket for the entire evening to stay warm. Dinner lasted until 11pm and that’s when we had to head back to return the rental car … that’s where the excitement began …
We got back to Florence ok and decided that it’d be best to return the rental car to the same location we picked it up at because they had a garage attendant who could call us a cab back to the hotel. Originally we were going to return the car to another location so we only had driving directions to that other location. The exciting part of this trip occurs now since it is a near nightmare trying to navigate the streets of Florence. Basically we had to deal with the crazy motorists (who create lanes on their own and don’t follow what’s marked on the roads) and we didn’t have any directions to where we were going. We drove around for about 40 minutes trying to find the car rental return and a gas station. Everything in Italy closes early and there wasn’t a single gas station with an attendant open at midnight. Finally we drove into a gas station that had a pay machine and had the lights on. We couldn’t use our credit card and had to pay in Euros to get the gas. Once we filled up we couldn’t figure out how to get our change back. Apparently the pay machine only knows how to take your money and not give any change back. Ahh! After struggling for a few minutes we decided to forgo our change and got back on the streets to try to find the car rental return. Around 1am we gave up (since that is when the gas station attendant would have left to go home) and we got back onto the freeway again to go to our original car return location.
We found our original car rental return location easily enough and dropped the car off. Now we had to find a cab to take us back to the hotel. It was past 1 in the morning and we were both sleepy and tired. The problem now was: how do we hail a cab when we were in some remote, industrial area? We didn’t know the phone number of the cab company and they don’t have any yellow pages for us to find the phone number. We were about a 40 minute walk away from our hotel so we started to make our way to the hotel, hoping to find a free cab on the way. We’re dressed to the 9s, in a strange city, and it’s late at night. Do we feel safe? Nope. I clenched Ming’s arm the entire way because I had this ever present fear that someone would come up to us and mug us. Eventually we made it to the hotel, the entire time never seeing a free cab. We then proceeded to drop into bed and snooze soundly since we were leaving the next day.
We were so ready to go home at this point!
The only train tickets that I was able to buy ahead of time (while still in the states) was between Venezia (Venice) and Firenze (Florence.) When we arrived at the Venice train station we realized that I bought the wrong tickets. I had bought train tickets for another train station in Venice and not the one we were at. Ouch. I had no idea that cities had multiple train stations and I thought that Venice was small enough that it should only have 1 train station – boy was I wrong! The Tren Italia website certainly wasn’t very helpful either since it simply asked me what city I was departing from, not which train station I wanted to depart from. Ultimately we ended up sneaking onto a train (and risking a fine since there wasn’t enough time to buy an actual ticket) which would take us to our actual train station that I had tickets for. We had approximately 2 minutes between the time from when the train [that we snuck onto] got into the station we had tickets for and for us to high tail it onto the train. It was definitely a lot more stress than we needed at 9 in the morning.
Finally we made it to Florence and the weather forecast was for rain. This time our hotel was close enough to the train station that we were able to walk. By the time we got to the hotel the sky looked ominous and we were so tired that we didn’t want to do anything except eat lunch.
We had lunch at the restaurant next to our hotel and that was probably the best meal we had in Florence. Ming had a pasta dish with duck and I had a pasta dish with porcinis. We shared the most amazing steak: a 1 kilo (2.2 pounds) bisteca alla fiorentina. It is basically a huge porter house cooked medium rare (they cook all steak that way in Italy) and extra virgin olive oil is drizzled on top of it. We thoroughly enjoyed the steak and it helped to put is in a better frame of mind.
By the end of the meal it was raining steadily and we went back upstairs to grab our umbrella. After having gone to Hawaii and getting caught in the rain season (on our very first vacation together) we have learned to always bring an umbrella. I am glad that we brought it b/c it made all the difference when we were in Florence.
The rest of the day we meandered around for various site seeing and shopping. Florence is definitely a walking city. Everywhere you go is about 10 minutes by foot. Florence is like a real city, e.g. people live on the upper levels of buildings and commercial stores are at the bottom.
Towards the end of the trip, when our feet started aching and my back was begging for me to sit down and rest we decided to head up to the clock tower near the duomo (yup, Florence has a duomo too.) The clock tower is 414 steps and it doesn’t have an elevator. We thought that 414 steps was easy (considering we had already walked nearly 50 miles for the entire trip by that time.) We failed to realize that the steps were incredibly steep, there weren’t any hand rails and it was basically a very steep ascent up several meters. Finally, huffing and puffing later, we made it up to the clock tower and saw Florence from a bird’s eye view. The city was breath taking. I love the terra cotta roofs and it makes me want to get one for my house – just kidding Ming!
On the day of the wedding we were dressed to the 9s (it is a wedding after all) and took a taxi to the rental car company. We had to drive a rental car to the wedding since it was on a remote estate in the middle of the countryside. The wedding was great and Ming saw a lot of old acquaintances. We had a fabulous cocktail hour followed by a 5 course meal. The biggest bummer of the evening was that it was cold and I hadn’t brought a jacket (it had been in the high 80s the entire trip) because I didn’t think I’d need one. That night ended up being very chilly and heating lamps had to be brought out to keep the guests warm. I borrowed Ming’s jacket for the entire evening to stay warm. Dinner lasted until 11pm and that’s when we had to head back to return the rental car … that’s where the excitement began …
We got back to Florence ok and decided that it’d be best to return the rental car to the same location we picked it up at because they had a garage attendant who could call us a cab back to the hotel. Originally we were going to return the car to another location so we only had driving directions to that other location. The exciting part of this trip occurs now since it is a near nightmare trying to navigate the streets of Florence. Basically we had to deal with the crazy motorists (who create lanes on their own and don’t follow what’s marked on the roads) and we didn’t have any directions to where we were going. We drove around for about 40 minutes trying to find the car rental return and a gas station. Everything in Italy closes early and there wasn’t a single gas station with an attendant open at midnight. Finally we drove into a gas station that had a pay machine and had the lights on. We couldn’t use our credit card and had to pay in Euros to get the gas. Once we filled up we couldn’t figure out how to get our change back. Apparently the pay machine only knows how to take your money and not give any change back. Ahh! After struggling for a few minutes we decided to forgo our change and got back on the streets to try to find the car rental return. Around 1am we gave up (since that is when the gas station attendant would have left to go home) and we got back onto the freeway again to go to our original car return location.
We found our original car rental return location easily enough and dropped the car off. Now we had to find a cab to take us back to the hotel. It was past 1 in the morning and we were both sleepy and tired. The problem now was: how do we hail a cab when we were in some remote, industrial area? We didn’t know the phone number of the cab company and they don’t have any yellow pages for us to find the phone number. We were about a 40 minute walk away from our hotel so we started to make our way to the hotel, hoping to find a free cab on the way. We’re dressed to the 9s, in a strange city, and it’s late at night. Do we feel safe? Nope. I clenched Ming’s arm the entire way because I had this ever present fear that someone would come up to us and mug us. Eventually we made it to the hotel, the entire time never seeing a free cab. We then proceeded to drop into bed and snooze soundly since we were leaving the next day.
We were so ready to go home at this point!
Italy Blog: Venice
Venice – 5/24-5/26
We took the train from Milan to Venice. Tren Italia (the system which runs Italy’s trains) is pretty comfortable but it doesn’t come close to comparing with Japan’s ShinKanSen (bullet train) system. Overall, I was happy enough with Tren Italia and the trip between Milan and Venice flew by, particularly since I was asleep for most of it.
Venice is a beautiful city. The buildings are amazing and architecture is astounding. I can see why people call it a romantic city. It is a city with many canals and the only way to get anywhere is on foot.
From the train station we took the vaporetto (a water bus – a big boat) to the hotel. We originally thought we’d take the varporetto everywhere since it was the only option to get anywhere (other than by walking.) The varporetto we took ended up being very crowded, slow because it made every stop, and thoroughly unenjoyable. Once we made it to our stop (45 minutes later) we decided that we’d walk everywhere rather than experience the vaporetto again.
Venice has a lot of alleys which are great to explore and a ton of piazzas (plazas). After 3 days of exploring the alleys and piazzas, however, they start to look alike. There are gift shops on every block (multiple on a single block) and you cannot go anywhere without running into one. Venice is truly a city for tourists. All of the gift shop owners speak English and they are prepared for you (meaning high prices for everything.) All of the restaurants have English menus and the waiters all speak varying degrees of English.
The most negative memory I have of our Italy trip occurred in Venice. We had one particularly pompous waiter who demanded that we pay him a tip. In Italy there is a cover charge to sit at a table. It is understood that you do not pay servicio (tip) unless you feel that the waiter has earned it. We paid our bill and upon seeing that we did not leave him a tip (we didn’t think he had done anything to earn it, and he routinely made us go out of our way to get his attention for simple things including getting the check) told us that servicio wasn’t included in the bill and waited at our table until we gave him some Euros. I was too surprised at his audacity to put him in his place like he deserved. We gave him a servicio just to get him away from us and we will be sure to never go there on any return trips.
We explored the city a lot and walked around aimlessly. The biggest downside to Venice is the amount of tourists it gets. Because there are so many tourists it makes it impossible to enjoy the city just as it is. Anywhere you go you bump into a handful of tourists, making it impossible to enjoy the city for its true character. The number of tourists kept us from enjoying Venice and we were ready to leave before all 3 days were up.
As we were leaving Venice we learned a regatta was taking place on the grand canal. It would have been something exciting to see but we were too tired of Venice by then to care and we were happy to be moving onto the next city.
We took the train from Milan to Venice. Tren Italia (the system which runs Italy’s trains) is pretty comfortable but it doesn’t come close to comparing with Japan’s ShinKanSen (bullet train) system. Overall, I was happy enough with Tren Italia and the trip between Milan and Venice flew by, particularly since I was asleep for most of it.
Venice is a beautiful city. The buildings are amazing and architecture is astounding. I can see why people call it a romantic city. It is a city with many canals and the only way to get anywhere is on foot.
From the train station we took the vaporetto (a water bus – a big boat) to the hotel. We originally thought we’d take the varporetto everywhere since it was the only option to get anywhere (other than by walking.) The varporetto we took ended up being very crowded, slow because it made every stop, and thoroughly unenjoyable. Once we made it to our stop (45 minutes later) we decided that we’d walk everywhere rather than experience the vaporetto again.
Venice has a lot of alleys which are great to explore and a ton of piazzas (plazas). After 3 days of exploring the alleys and piazzas, however, they start to look alike. There are gift shops on every block (multiple on a single block) and you cannot go anywhere without running into one. Venice is truly a city for tourists. All of the gift shop owners speak English and they are prepared for you (meaning high prices for everything.) All of the restaurants have English menus and the waiters all speak varying degrees of English.
The most negative memory I have of our Italy trip occurred in Venice. We had one particularly pompous waiter who demanded that we pay him a tip. In Italy there is a cover charge to sit at a table. It is understood that you do not pay servicio (tip) unless you feel that the waiter has earned it. We paid our bill and upon seeing that we did not leave him a tip (we didn’t think he had done anything to earn it, and he routinely made us go out of our way to get his attention for simple things including getting the check) told us that servicio wasn’t included in the bill and waited at our table until we gave him some Euros. I was too surprised at his audacity to put him in his place like he deserved. We gave him a servicio just to get him away from us and we will be sure to never go there on any return trips.
We explored the city a lot and walked around aimlessly. The biggest downside to Venice is the amount of tourists it gets. Because there are so many tourists it makes it impossible to enjoy the city just as it is. Anywhere you go you bump into a handful of tourists, making it impossible to enjoy the city for its true character. The number of tourists kept us from enjoying Venice and we were ready to leave before all 3 days were up.
As we were leaving Venice we learned a regatta was taking place on the grand canal. It would have been something exciting to see but we were too tired of Venice by then to care and we were happy to be moving onto the next city.
Italy Blog: Milan
Milan 5/22 – 5/24
After we checked into our Milan airport it was about 9pm and we were ravenous. Ming and I walked around the neighborhood surrounding the hotel to try to find somewhere where we could eat dinner. We stumbled upon a place called Rendez Vous and this restaurant ended up being the place we have the fondest memories of.
Rendez Vous is the neighborhood watering hole. A watering hole in Italy is not some dark, dreary, dive-like bar. Their watering holes are actually quite nice. Their patrons dress like Europeans (generally dressed in nicer attire that is a step below semi-formal.) We saw plenty of patrons who were dressed in clubbing attire but they were simply going to eat and not go to a disco (the European word of club) afterwards. People came in and out of the restaurant and it was obvious they frequented the restaurant a lot since they’d chat with the restaurant employees for a spell before leaving.
The employees of the restaurant made us feel very welcome and acted very warmly toward us. They made excellent recommendations to us for entrees and even came by our table strike up side conversations with us while we were waiting between courses. Giovanni and Luigi were the two most memorable employees who started talking to Ming about football (in America we call it soccer) and even told him that the championships were taking place the next day. After showing him the back dining and entertainment room, they even gave him a trick pen to shock him as a joke. It worked at first, but the pen seemed to break after a few shocks. Ming must have been stronger than they thought. They invited us to come back for dinner the next evening and go in the backroom to watch the football game on one of the large LCD tvs they had set up. They told us that the entire room was going to be full of football fans and that we should join them. Since we loved our meal there we agreed that we’d come back the following night and watch football with them.
The next day we explored as much of Milan as we could. We saw Da Vinci’s The Last Supper. It is truly something which you need a tour guide for. You do not realize the amount of creative genius Da Vinci had until you listen to the tour guide dissect each part of the painting and look at it from afar. It was very enlightening to see the Last Supper since I don’t know anything about art – I’m an engineer, not a liberal arts major! ^_~
We did a lot of shopping around Milan since it is one of the fashion meccas of the world. Unfortunately, we didn’t buy anything in Milan since prices were too high and I wasn’t willing to pay for any of those price tags that the designers were commanding.
Milan has a Duomo. All of the Italian cities have a Duomo which is unique. The Duomo in Milan is amazing. It is very large both in height and area. It has many intricate carvings in it and it’s something that only pictures can describe. Look at the pictures area to get a better idea of what I am talking about.
We found out that Italians, and perhaps all of Europe, are very lazy. The shops and restaurants close down for a siesta in the afternoon. I don’t know what the Italian word for siesta is so I will continue to call it a siesta until someone corrects me. They close down anywhere between 2pm-5pm. As a shopper it makes it very hard for me to do much when the city has virtually shut down. We went to a store similar to Filene’s basement (but with names like Gucci, Prada, etc) only to find it closed for its siesta. Ming and I sat on the sidewalk and had to wait for it to open up again. Coming back to it at a later time was not an option because the store was in a part of town which was completely removed from where we were staying and sight-seeing.
The whole day we tried to buy football jerseys to support the Milan team. The football championship was between Italy and Liverpool, England. The Italian team happened to be from Milan so the whole city was cheering on its home team. We tried to find a street vendor who had a Milan jersey for sale but couldn’t find any. We found a few vendors but they didn’t have any cool jerseys for sale; all of theirs were boring and had uninteresting patterns on them. Apparently most vendors come out at night, prior to the game’s start. Dejected we headed to Rendez Vous without a football jersey to cheer on the home team.
Upon arriving at Rendez Vous we found that the back dining room was indeed filled with football fans. We all ate together, cheered together, and shared great comraderie. It was my first time watching a soccer game all the way through and I find that I enjoy watching it more when I’m surrounded by passionate fans and when there aren’t annoying commercials in between plays. Italy ended up winning the championship, although the end of the game was a close one. Giovanni strolled back into the room waving a flag and wearing a jersey shouting “fuerza Milan” (roughly meaning something like Milan’s force kicks butt.) Everyone was happy and we all sucked down limoncello and port to celebrate. All and all it was really fun and we met a lot of great Italians whom we practiced our Italian on … but they kindly switched to English for us to improve the conversation flow. Giovanni even gave Ming the flag and jersey as a momento to take home so that we’d always remember that Milan kicks butt. I think that Ming may start wearing that jersey once we get back to the states. ^_^
After we checked into our Milan airport it was about 9pm and we were ravenous. Ming and I walked around the neighborhood surrounding the hotel to try to find somewhere where we could eat dinner. We stumbled upon a place called Rendez Vous and this restaurant ended up being the place we have the fondest memories of.
Rendez Vous is the neighborhood watering hole. A watering hole in Italy is not some dark, dreary, dive-like bar. Their watering holes are actually quite nice. Their patrons dress like Europeans (generally dressed in nicer attire that is a step below semi-formal.) We saw plenty of patrons who were dressed in clubbing attire but they were simply going to eat and not go to a disco (the European word of club) afterwards. People came in and out of the restaurant and it was obvious they frequented the restaurant a lot since they’d chat with the restaurant employees for a spell before leaving.
The employees of the restaurant made us feel very welcome and acted very warmly toward us. They made excellent recommendations to us for entrees and even came by our table strike up side conversations with us while we were waiting between courses. Giovanni and Luigi were the two most memorable employees who started talking to Ming about football (in America we call it soccer) and even told him that the championships were taking place the next day. After showing him the back dining and entertainment room, they even gave him a trick pen to shock him as a joke. It worked at first, but the pen seemed to break after a few shocks. Ming must have been stronger than they thought. They invited us to come back for dinner the next evening and go in the backroom to watch the football game on one of the large LCD tvs they had set up. They told us that the entire room was going to be full of football fans and that we should join them. Since we loved our meal there we agreed that we’d come back the following night and watch football with them.
The next day we explored as much of Milan as we could. We saw Da Vinci’s The Last Supper. It is truly something which you need a tour guide for. You do not realize the amount of creative genius Da Vinci had until you listen to the tour guide dissect each part of the painting and look at it from afar. It was very enlightening to see the Last Supper since I don’t know anything about art – I’m an engineer, not a liberal arts major! ^_~
We did a lot of shopping around Milan since it is one of the fashion meccas of the world. Unfortunately, we didn’t buy anything in Milan since prices were too high and I wasn’t willing to pay for any of those price tags that the designers were commanding.
Milan has a Duomo. All of the Italian cities have a Duomo which is unique. The Duomo in Milan is amazing. It is very large both in height and area. It has many intricate carvings in it and it’s something that only pictures can describe. Look at the pictures area to get a better idea of what I am talking about.
We found out that Italians, and perhaps all of Europe, are very lazy. The shops and restaurants close down for a siesta in the afternoon. I don’t know what the Italian word for siesta is so I will continue to call it a siesta until someone corrects me. They close down anywhere between 2pm-5pm. As a shopper it makes it very hard for me to do much when the city has virtually shut down. We went to a store similar to Filene’s basement (but with names like Gucci, Prada, etc) only to find it closed for its siesta. Ming and I sat on the sidewalk and had to wait for it to open up again. Coming back to it at a later time was not an option because the store was in a part of town which was completely removed from where we were staying and sight-seeing.
The whole day we tried to buy football jerseys to support the Milan team. The football championship was between Italy and Liverpool, England. The Italian team happened to be from Milan so the whole city was cheering on its home team. We tried to find a street vendor who had a Milan jersey for sale but couldn’t find any. We found a few vendors but they didn’t have any cool jerseys for sale; all of theirs were boring and had uninteresting patterns on them. Apparently most vendors come out at night, prior to the game’s start. Dejected we headed to Rendez Vous without a football jersey to cheer on the home team.
Upon arriving at Rendez Vous we found that the back dining room was indeed filled with football fans. We all ate together, cheered together, and shared great comraderie. It was my first time watching a soccer game all the way through and I find that I enjoy watching it more when I’m surrounded by passionate fans and when there aren’t annoying commercials in between plays. Italy ended up winning the championship, although the end of the game was a close one. Giovanni strolled back into the room waving a flag and wearing a jersey shouting “fuerza Milan” (roughly meaning something like Milan’s force kicks butt.) Everyone was happy and we all sucked down limoncello and port to celebrate. All and all it was really fun and we met a lot of great Italians whom we practiced our Italian on … but they kindly switched to English for us to improve the conversation flow. Giovanni even gave Ming the flag and jersey as a momento to take home so that we’d always remember that Milan kicks butt. I think that Ming may start wearing that jersey once we get back to the states. ^_^
Italy Blog: Arrival
Arrival 5/21-5/22
We chose to fly to Italy on British Airways. Neither of us had previously flown on this carrier before and had heard good things about it. The flight was uneventful but comfortable. The flight attendants were nice and the food was much better than United. We each had the obligatory alcoholic drink aboard the flight. ^_^
I watched The Holiday movie on the first leg of the flight (SFO to Heathrow.) The movie was a chic flick and one that was best watched for free. I probably wouldn’t see it again but it was an entertaining enough movie on a very long flight.
Once we arrived in Heathrow we had a 4 hour layover until we boarded the connecting flight to Milan. The Heathrow airport is huge. We walked around the food and shopping area and it was much larger than I would have anticipated. I saw a lot of wine and alcohol stores as well as many name brand stores. I cannot remember all of the stores that are there but the most memorable one is Pink. I have been told by several people that Thomas Pink makes terrific button down shirts. The shirts are pricey (70+ pounds each) but it is well worth it because the cut of the shirt is vastly superior to any other brand. Ming and I wandered into this store and we should have walked right out. We were both running on very little sleep and hunger – not a good combination for shopping. I decided that Ming should try on a Pink shirt since he always wears button down shirts to the office. He ended up loving the shirts and knew immediately that Pink’s reputation as a purveyor of finely tailored shirts was well deserved. He chose a couple of shirts that he liked and then, being the great guy he is, encouraged me to look around the store. I found a shirt that I really liked and found cute. $500 dollars later we walked out the store and went in search of nourishment before the flight. Note to self: love the Pink shirts but I can only indulge that love once in awhile else I won’t be able to pay my mortgage.
We ate at a bar/café and, since this was my first time in England, I had to try something which was uniquely British. The menu had bangers and mash (mashed potatoes and sausage) and I promptly informed Ming that that was what I wanted to eat. I found it very tasty and I can see why the Brits like it so much. Next time I find myself in England, hopefully for a vacation and not a layover, I will have bangers and mash again.
We caught the connecting flight to Milan and then took a train from the airport, Malpensa, to downtown Milan. We had easy directions to take the bus to the neighborhood of our hotel and walk a few blocks, or so we thought. When we got off the train, everything was closed. Apparently, Italy shuts down after 7 pm with the exception of some restaurants and entertainment venues. We asked a few policemen where the bus stands were and they pointed towards an intersection across the street. After a good 20 minutes of wandering in that direction, we realized that their “directions” were way off, and the map that we had of “downtown” was a POS. The map didn’t show any bus stops and only displayed major streets.
By now, our luggage had grown pretty heavy and we decided to ditch the idea of doing it the Italian way and tried to hail cabs. In Italy, people are either friendly, indifferent, or rude. The first handful of cabdrivers ignored us. A few stopped in front of us at stop lights and what we thought was an invitation to hop in turned out to be a wagging finger saying “no-no”. With few options left, we stumbled across a cabbie who was dropping off his fare and agreed to take us to our hotel. On the way, we even provided reverse translation services for a song on his CD which he forgot to credit us for on the fare!
We chose to fly to Italy on British Airways. Neither of us had previously flown on this carrier before and had heard good things about it. The flight was uneventful but comfortable. The flight attendants were nice and the food was much better than United. We each had the obligatory alcoholic drink aboard the flight. ^_^
I watched The Holiday movie on the first leg of the flight (SFO to Heathrow.) The movie was a chic flick and one that was best watched for free. I probably wouldn’t see it again but it was an entertaining enough movie on a very long flight.
Once we arrived in Heathrow we had a 4 hour layover until we boarded the connecting flight to Milan. The Heathrow airport is huge. We walked around the food and shopping area and it was much larger than I would have anticipated. I saw a lot of wine and alcohol stores as well as many name brand stores. I cannot remember all of the stores that are there but the most memorable one is Pink. I have been told by several people that Thomas Pink makes terrific button down shirts. The shirts are pricey (70+ pounds each) but it is well worth it because the cut of the shirt is vastly superior to any other brand. Ming and I wandered into this store and we should have walked right out. We were both running on very little sleep and hunger – not a good combination for shopping. I decided that Ming should try on a Pink shirt since he always wears button down shirts to the office. He ended up loving the shirts and knew immediately that Pink’s reputation as a purveyor of finely tailored shirts was well deserved. He chose a couple of shirts that he liked and then, being the great guy he is, encouraged me to look around the store. I found a shirt that I really liked and found cute. $500 dollars later we walked out the store and went in search of nourishment before the flight. Note to self: love the Pink shirts but I can only indulge that love once in awhile else I won’t be able to pay my mortgage.
We ate at a bar/café and, since this was my first time in England, I had to try something which was uniquely British. The menu had bangers and mash (mashed potatoes and sausage) and I promptly informed Ming that that was what I wanted to eat. I found it very tasty and I can see why the Brits like it so much. Next time I find myself in England, hopefully for a vacation and not a layover, I will have bangers and mash again.
We caught the connecting flight to Milan and then took a train from the airport, Malpensa, to downtown Milan. We had easy directions to take the bus to the neighborhood of our hotel and walk a few blocks, or so we thought. When we got off the train, everything was closed. Apparently, Italy shuts down after 7 pm with the exception of some restaurants and entertainment venues. We asked a few policemen where the bus stands were and they pointed towards an intersection across the street. After a good 20 minutes of wandering in that direction, we realized that their “directions” were way off, and the map that we had of “downtown” was a POS. The map didn’t show any bus stops and only displayed major streets.
By now, our luggage had grown pretty heavy and we decided to ditch the idea of doing it the Italian way and tried to hail cabs. In Italy, people are either friendly, indifferent, or rude. The first handful of cabdrivers ignored us. A few stopped in front of us at stop lights and what we thought was an invitation to hop in turned out to be a wagging finger saying “no-no”. With few options left, we stumbled across a cabbie who was dropping off his fare and agreed to take us to our hotel. On the way, we even provided reverse translation services for a song on his CD which he forgot to credit us for on the fare!
Back from Vacation
I'm back from vacation and still pooped. The next few entries will chronicle my Italy vacation ... stay tuned!
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