Siena, Italy

May 23-28, 2007

Ah, back in Italy. I guess I'll always have a special fondness for Italy now ... after all, that's where we got married two years ago! This time around we decided we'd base ourselves in Siena for the entire time, and did day trips to Rome and Florence. The past 2 times that we've been to Siena we've rented the same apartment, but this year it was already booked ... so we stayed at the hotel where most of our wedding guests stayed in 2005. It's a cute little place, and our room was big and great - but unfortunately it was located right next to the reception area, so it got pretty loud at times. Ah well! So let me list a few pics and notes on Siena to start (I'll do posts for Florence and Rome separately - although I'm not sure why - does anyone even read this blog?!)

Of course I have to post a pic of the town hall in Siena, cuz' this is where we got married! I love the Piazza del Campo ...

Siena was playing a football match while we were there - oh my, the town folk sure got into it! They had a huge parade throughout the town - I swear, every single resident was in on it - there were marching bands, scooters, cars, flags, lots of honking ... they were pretty hyped - and it started around 11am and carried on for the next 13-14 hours. Crazy! (I'm happy to report that they won that game ...)

Of course we HAD to go back to Papei, the little trattoria where we had our wedding dinner. Mmm, I dream about that wild boar pasta all year long ... so of course I have to have it as soon as we get there. It's the BEST. We ate at Papei 2x this trip ... I wish he had gone more ... :)

Some random notes/thoughts/highlights on/of Siena:

• The Brugs Blonde and Grimbergen on tap at the Australian pub ... happy hour! The theme of this trip was definitely beer ... so we didn't indulge in much wine tasting this time around. Next time. ;)
• The food at Papei, of course. I swear, that trattoria makes the best food on the planet.
• The craziness (mentioned above) of football day in Siena - great energy!
• Wandering around all of the back streets is always cool in that town - everything is so old.
• Taking the last night bus back to Siena from Florence ... drunk Italian teenagers, smelly stinky men ... I swear, we were the only sober ones on the bus. The driver was crazy - we thought for sure we were going to die on one of hose winding Tuscan roads ... it was quite entertaining, that's for sure!
• Trying to figure out the public bus system - buying the right tickets, finding the right bus stop - somewhat frustrating at times. :)

All in all, it's always good to go to Siena. No matter what! It's a comfortable little place for us - and like I said, I guess I'll always have a special spot for it now. I think we should get a villa just outside of Siena - that would be totally sweet.

The Bloodhound Gang in Munich

May 21, 2007

When we were trying to figure out where in Europe to go this trip, we got kinda stumped. We weren't sure where to go, what route to take ... so we decided we'd see if any of our favourite bands were playing anywhere - and plan accordingly. We found out that the Bloodhound Gang were playing a few shows - so we were planning on seeing them in Copenhagen. Then they announced the Munich gig ... so we changed our plans, as Copenhagen just wasn't fitting in with the rest of our trip too well. I bought our tickets online as soon as they went on sale, to make sure it didn't sell out on us!

It was a fun night. Behind the venue (Muffathalle) is a beer garden, so that was the place to start the night off right. We had massive pretzels and big litre beers for dinner - yum! The band (all except for Jimmy Pop) were just a couple of tables over from us, so that was cool.

When we got inside, it was time for the opening band - Montreal. Umm ... no offense to them, but it's been heard before (maybe not in German though). So onto more beer! I left Dan for a bit and did a little schmoozing (yes, ME, if you can believe it) and managed to score us some VIP AfterParty Passes. Wooo! The show was great - they're hilarious, those guys ... they were totally into it. The show was full of energy, the crowd was totally into it - all in all, it made for one of the best shows I've ever been to (it being in Munich also played a part, I'm sure...). Here's a pic of Evil Jared, almost naked - of course.

We were excited about the afterparty, but it didn't really amount to much. The band had to get on the bus and head to northern Germany for the next night's show, so we only saw Lupus Thunder and Evil Jared (in only a small towel - ha!). I had a *brief* conversation with Evil Jared at least. But there was no Jimmy Pop in sight, dammit! Ah well, we made some new friends that night, so that was cool.

Christie, Dan & me

Me n' Verena

How could I NOT buy this shirt?! Tee hee!

Munich, Germany

May 19-23, 2007

Munich was SO MUCH FUN! Oh yeah, we had a total blast there ... it was our first time, and it definitely made a good impression on us. The people are soooo nice - and the food and beer was right up my alley. Meat, potatoes & beer = yum! We also went to a concert in Munich - we saw the Bloodhound Gang at Muffethalle - what a wicked night that was.

Let's start with some general Munich stuff ... I'll do a separate post for the concert.

Awesome food, everywhere ... from spatzel to bratwurst - all good!

At the Hofbräuhaus

We had a lot of fun at the beer halls and gardens! They were so great - such great energy and happy, happy people. We also checked out quite a few museums and galleries in Munich - we've gone to Europe so many times over the past few years that we got museum'd-out ... so we hadn't been to any for a couple of years. We checked out a modern art gallery that was really cool - it had a few pieces by Jeff Wall on exhibit, so they were cool to see (he's such a huge art star, yet most people in Vancouver have no clue who he is ...).

The Englischer Garten ("English Garden")

Ha, surfing in Munich!

Overall, we had a great time in Munich and were sad that we didn't have more time there. It would be a fun place to be with friends (oh, we bid farewell to the gang after Barcelona, so it was just Dan & I in Munich), that's for sure.

We'll most definitely be going back to Bavaria in the future ...

Barcelona, Spain

May 15-19, 2007

Went from Amsterdam to Barcelona, along with the rest of the Canadian gang. Dan & I rented an awesome apartment there - it was the penthouse suite with a rooftop terrace! Very cool, we even hosted a little party one night. :)

Dan & I had just been in Barcelona last June, so we had pretty much done all of the major sites and whatnot, so we decided to just relax a bit and take it easy. So we slept in most days and didn't have any set itinerary. In the evenings we'd meet up with the gang for food and drinks. I don't have many pics with me at the moment, but here are a few:

The Sagrada Familia

On our rooftop terrace

Random thoughts/highlights on our time in Barcelona:

• the kick-ass fresh pasta and sauce we found in our local grocery store. Seriously, some of the best pasta we've ever had.
• the little birdy who flew in our window while we were out one day ... poor little thing.
• the crazy "fairy bar" and the smoke-filled club that we all went to one night -- maybe drank a little too much that night!
• our apartment being on the top floor of a 7 storey building with no lift - no biggie, but the stairs kinda suck when you have your full backpack on!
• the AWESOME tapas we had at "Art". Mmmm ... egg, potato, chorizo ...
• finding out that Moby was doing a DJ set on our last night there ... we were totally gonna go, but found out that the dress code was "dress to impress" ... err, when you're living out of a backpack ... needless to say, we didn't go. Damn!!
• poor Marcie losing her camera :(

Amsterdam, the Netherlands

May 12-15, 2007

Some notes/highlights from our 3 nights in Amsterdam:

• Spending our first night of the trip at the Hilton. Because we spent our 2nd wedding anniversary on the plane (May 11), we decided we'd splurge. What a treat!! I could get used to that sort of living ... ;)
• Seeing Bart & Ilona again (they're from the Hague, we last saw them in London last June) and meeting up with our friends from home/Vancouver (Marcie, Anthony, AJ & Lisa). We had a lotta drinks and a lotta fun! :D
• Decent weather. What a nice change - 97% of the time when we visit the Netherlands it's terrible, nasty, stormy weather. We got sprinkled on a bit one night, but that was it.
• All the Belgian beer that's available. Mmm!

As featured in RealWeddings!

A par avion design design is being featured in the current issue of RealWeddings magazine!! It came out while I was in Europe, so I came home to a nice surprise ... you see, I thought that I was only going to be given a small photo in the magazine - but instead my designs were given a full page colour spread! Check it out!

The starfish ones on the right are mine, the ones on the left are by another local designer. I'm not too sure why they put the images on the site this way (as mine is the header page, it might work better on the left side)

So anyways, I was really excited to get this great exposure! I've been getting oodles of emails and phone calls as a result - yay! :D