Where We Were and What We Ate

One of our favorite things about traveling is the food.  We definitely love to eat amazing food.  We started our journey in London and had an amazing dinner at a place called Polpo that was recommended to us by our waiter at lunch.  We had no idea we were going to one of the 'it' restaurants in SoHo.  However we did not plan well, so all I have is the blurry pic below taken by NN with his phone.  You will just have to take my word for it.

Hanging at the bar at Polpo.  We love Prosecco and they had their very own that they make, which makes them Awesome!

Another camera phone pic in Amsterdam.  These were really good pancakes with bacon and cheese in them. I don't think the picture shows exactly how gigantic these were.

NN, flashing his beautiful blue eyes, with gelato from Amorino.  I debated putting the close-up of what is supposed to be a flower made of ice cream on top of a cone, but decided the adult jokes that may come from the pic could be a little much.

Decisions, decisions!  All the macarons were so pretty!  Un Dimanche a Paris is similar to the Chocolate Bar.  I did buy some chocolate candy here, but ate it all before I could take a picture.  Again, you will just have to trust me.

Here we are at La Duree, a Parisian Tea Room.  This was our best meal in Paris!

I believe this was diced tomatoes with extremely fresh buffalo mozzarella, and all kinds of absolute deliciousness.  Thank goodness NN knows how to share!

I have pics of our entrees, but why waste time?  Let's just skip to the good part, dessert!  This is a mille-feuille, which I had been wanting to try the whole trip.  It is similar to a Napoleon, but a million times better.

NN had a cappuccino while he watched me eat dessert.  Just kidding! I shared...a few bites.

I think I should have sent it back since it was simply inedible.

So after we ate, we then went through the bakery part, and bought all kinds of macrons and desserts.  Their macarons were so good that we went back to buy more to bring home.  And the answer is 'No' there are none left and I only shared 3 or so with NN because no one wants a fat trainer.

Here is one of the larger macarons!  YUM!

Here we are at Maison Berthilon, which is the oldest ice cream shop in Paris.  From where we were sitting we had an amazing view of Notre Dame and the sunset.  Simply amazing!

Here is what we, yes I shared this time, ordered to eat.  I am not sure of the name, but it was well worth the 18 miles I had to walk the next day to work it off.

NN ordered some type of coffee drink that almost made me want to take up drinking coffee, almost.  Clearly he approved of it.

Our last afternoon in Paris we decided to have a picnic with bread, cheese, champagne and dessert, Parisian style, on the Seine River looking back toward Notre Dame.  A very nice French lady offered to take our picture because she said we must be celebrating something special and we should have a picture.  And indeed she was right, we celebrated the first anniversary of our legal ceremony while we were there, along with a truly amazing trip!

One thing I did learn about Paris and Parisians is that life is much more simpler.  They wear flat shoes and don't worry about vanity too much. I joked with the Nutrition Nazi that I was going to take up the Parisian diet when I got home because all the women were so damn thin.  On this diet pain du chocolate or croque monsier are perfectly acceptable for breakfast every day.  You then eat some form of simple lunch followed by an espresso in the afternoon. For dinner you have a glass or two of wine, smoke heavily, and pick at a few peanuts and olives.  I think I would take up smoking before I take up drinking espresso!

Where We Were and What We Did

So we were in one of the biggest cities in the world, and aside from NN taking my picture every 5 seconds, we visited some really cool attractions.  Be warned...this post is extremely picture heavy and of course rich with my wonderful wit!  Most of the pictures do not do justice to the items being photographed.

This was one of the most amazing things that we saw the entire trip.  The lights flash, like a strobe light, the first 5 minutes of every hour.

The grounds of the Eiffel Tower are a really peaceful place!  This is one of the few shots that I actually took.  I may have to expand NN's name to include Camera Nazi.

Here I am in front of the Lourve museum.  In true French aloofness, (yes that is a word), there was some type of heavy smoke in certain sections of the largest museum in the world that houses priceless works of art, but they only shut those parts off to the public instead of evacuating them.  Makes perfect sense, right?  We decided to not be part of the potential disaster and left to grab lunch.

Before the smoke issue, we did get to see the Venus de Milo.  For the record I had to take about 10 shots before I finally got one with none of the other 10,000 people in the museum.

I know this pic sucks, but it is because people are idiots.  The sign clearly says not to use a flash when photographing this painting, but people don't care, so the museum decided to put it behind protective glass.  Thanks a lot bad-etiquette-museum-goers.

This is not really a famous painting, as a gigantic painting.  I would venture to say that it was 4-5 stories tall.

All you Tour de France freaks will love this shot!  This was another of my favorites!

Picture #406 taken by NN of me and the Champs Elysses behind me.

I'll be honest I am not usually one for going to look at historical monuments and buildings, but the Pantheon, along with the Eiffel Tower and Arc de Triomphe were some of the most beautiful places we visited.

Inside Notre Dame, where many people failed to obey the huge sign.  I guess it is like the saying, 'We hate to be rude, but we're French.'  (Name that movie.)

NN is enamoured with this place.

We almost did not go to the Luxemborg Gardens, but it was so much fun to grab a chair and  just hang out.  The Gardens feel like a smaller version of Central Park.

See, my fellow Houstonians, fall does exist, just not here.  The Gardens even look like Central Park!

Early next week I am going to post pics from all of the eating we did on the trip.  Thank goodness we walked everywhere or otherwise I would have to throw away my scale!  Have a great weekend!

Where We Were (Part 1)

Let me start by saying I have now had my picture taken by my husband approximately 832 times while we were on vacation.  Homeboy LOVES to take my picture, even after an 11 hour flight as  I tell him not to do it or he will be really sorry.  I really feel for any children we have.  Anyways I am guessing that you realized by now that we had the good fortune to visit Europe this year.  Unfortunately the little OCD gnomes did not sneak in and finish putting the house together while we were gone. Oh well.

So where exactly did we go in Europe you ask?   Well take a look at the photos below and enrich your European history.

I felt all Sherlock Holmes in this pic of Parliament in London.  (Can't wait for the second one to come out around Christmas!)  We got on an open-air double-decker bus tour and it was a lot of fun, until it started raining.

Did you know that Big Bend is actually the name of the bell in the tower, and not the name of the tower itself?

Ok I have to state for the record that NN took most of the pics.  This one in Amsterdam still puzzles me, though, because he is not a beer drinker.

The canals in Amsterdam are really pretty, and it was a beautiful fall day, unlike the summer temps here in Texas.  This was actually the view from our room.

And of course there was Paris!

So my crazy husband is somewhat obsessed with getting the perfect shot that he takes himself, and has sucked me in to his craziness.  I think I have about 10 more versions of this particular shot.

This little church was only a few blocks from our hotel.  In 2 more years the church will be celebrating its 850th Anniversary.

In the coming days I will have more pictures of places we went and the awesome food that we ate.

Europe Rules

When I get back I am going to post some of our vacation pics, but for now I thought I would share some vacation posts from our previous Europe trip 3 years ago.  We were very fortunate to be able to spend most of our time in Italy on this particular trip.

It rained something fierce when we were in Venice.  I was not prepared for the cold and wet combo.  This time I will remember to pack an umbrella.

Venice was still wonderfully beautiful and has the best tiramisu!

This is the view from our room in Sorrento in the Amalfi Coast area.  You should go if you ever get the chance.  It was simply beautiful.

Over my shoulder is Mt Vesuvius and Pompeii.  Again simply beautiful.

Just in case you missed it...one more pic.

This was the view from our table at breakfast.  As you can guess we cannot wait to go back!

The Trevi fountain in Rome, where you are supposed to throw 3 coins with your right hand over your left shoulder into the fountain and make a wish.  Throwing the coins into the fountain is also said to ensure a return trip to Rome at some point in the future. 

The Coliseum from a different perspective.

We ate way too much gelato, but it was so good!

Have a great rest of the week!

Where in the world are we?

For those of you that I have not bored to death with the details, we are on a very long overdue vacation this week.  Where exactly are we you ask?

While this is not a photo from our current trip, it does hold one major clue as to where we jetted off to visit.  This particular picture is from about 6 weeks or so after I decided that NN was not a stalker, but just really over-zealous, and decided that an all-expenses-paid trip to Vegas sounded like fun.  I mean it's not like I was going to get married there...again.