Brussels - Day 1

We booked a quick weekend trip to Brussels and were very excited to try the EuroStar. Our train was the 6:06AM from Waterloo, so we planned on getting to sleep early. Of course, as usual, reality did not go as planned and we ended up joining Rachel and Dave to dinner with his parents at Wodka (a great eastern european restaurant). We got home at 11:30pm, and after packing it was 12:30am. With our 4:10am wake up looming, I must have been very nervous to sleep through the alarm because at 2:30am I shot out of bed and turned on the shower. Good thing I looked at my cell phone before I hopped in!

Checking in for the Eurostar was a breeze – we picked up our e-tickets and getting through security and passport control was quick and painless. Makes you wonder what the airports are missing! Of course, because we are so used to the hassles of air travel, we had oodles of time to spare… eventually they opened up the entrance and we made our way to our seats. It was very nice, with big seats. Nevertheless, we managed to get seated behind the only group of peope alert at this time of day and let’s just say they were not particularly quiet or considerate. Happily, the staff was able to move us to another car and the rest of our journey is a blur (familiar theme in our early morning travels).

When we got to Brussels Gare Midi, we found our way to the metro and ultimately to the hotel. We stayed at the Rocco Forte Hotel Amigo and when we walked into our room we both let our a sigh of relief. We definitely need something higher end after our experience in Florence and this fit the bill. We were so excited to see that a copy of Jon’s favourite painting, The Son of Man by René Magritte (see entries from Paris), was hanging in our room. As it turns out, Magritte is Belgian and the painting below is also by him.

The hotel is just off the Grand-Place, which is a beautiful square in the center of Brussels. The square is surrounded by impressive buildings constructed as early as the 15th century. On the picture on the left, I am touching the the bronze deathbed sculpture of Everard 't Serclaes, which people seem to think is good luck, which I'm happy to try for!

The rest of the day, we explored the city. One Belgian claim to fame: the inventors of the indoor mall.

A few common themes: a) chocolate b) waffles c) baked goods. And of course, we found a wonderful old-fashioned bakery off the Grand-Place before we even got to lunch!

Of course, another Belgian specialty are Moule Frite, so Jon did his research and has lunch at the best place in town, called Chez Leon.

After a hearty lunch, we were off, but truth be told, I was struggling - I was tired, thirsty, hot, cold. LOL - here are some pics of me powering through it like the athlete that I am ;)

In the afternoon, we went to the Musical Instruments Museum which was really neat. They give you headphones and as you walk past all different types of instruments, you hear music played by that instrument.

Here's Jon getting very grossed out by the idea of having the earphones touch his virgin ears:

But he got over it:

On our trek back to the hotel (and I was so tired that it really felt like a trek), we found the choclatier to the royal family, Choclatier Marie - and perhaps we tried one of two. We walked past one of the most famous catherdrals in Brussels and at the point we were without a doubt due for a nap. We walked by Cathedral de St Michael, which is one of the most beautiful in Brussels and a great example of the Gothic style.

But in usual form, we kept treking for a bit more and stopped off at Manneken-Pis, a statue of a little boy peeing, which people call the city's oldest citizen (dates ~1619). Legend has it that he was able to save the city from a fire with his pee. I'm skeptical.

We picked up a yummy belgian waffle, which did not come with a fork or knife, so as you see we had to improvise a bit.

For dinner, we made a booking at La Manufacture, which was (as usual) a bit off the beaten path. It was within walking distance of the hotel which was a nice treat; decor and food were both great. I got the ostrich for my main, which I haven't ordered since our honeymoon. And speaking of our honeymoon, I truly don't think we've eaten quite like this since then!

Jon's Office

Some of you might wonder how Jon is getting along in London. Here's a picture of him, hard at work in his office!

Open 24 Hours - Redefined

Jon and I are big fans of late-night food shopping. You've got the whole store to yourself and what else are you going to do at midnight on a Saturday night - ok don't answer that question. Anyway, we had the car for 24 hours, so we figured we would make the most of it and go to the Tesco in Earl's Court. It's huge and prices are great so it was almost like being back at Fairway! So we stopped off on our way home from the party to the Tesco, which has a huge sign that says "Open 24 Hours." After struggling to find the entrance to the garage, we got out, got a cart and walked to the store, which we promptly learned was closed. I could not resist snapping a shot of the sign on the door to the store. Only in London does "Open 24 Hours" mean, opened 24 hours on most days.

Sunday morning - back to work for Jon - with lei, of course ;)

Driving Around in Circles

When in New York, Jon and I always make time for a treat at Bouchon Bakery each weekend. So when we crossed the pond, we sought a similar weekend delight in Chelsea. We found an excellent bakery called Baker and Spice, but even more than our sweet treats, we love to enjoy the Saturday farmer's market in front of Partridge's. All the vendors are local farmers or restaurants who use fresh, local and often organic ingredients. At the moment, our favorite lunch is from the Pie Minister - yum!

In the afternoon, we were off to the party! Let me just say that driving in England was without question an adventure. A few points of note:

1. Being the passenger in a car with the steering wheel on the wrong side is a truly frightening experience. I got to be great friends with my seatbelt and I don't think we went a single mile without me trying my hardest not to jump out of my seat and instead uttering the words "you're in two lanes" or "too close too close" (in fairness, likely not very calmly)

2. Speaking of too close, most streets in London are not meant to be a)two ways and b)two ways with street parking on one side

3. Never, under any circumstance, use google maps if you are planning a road trip in the UK. Evidently the thing to use here is called AA.

4. England road network is connected by more roundabouts with more exits with horrible signage than I ever imagined possible. I don't know if there is a way to fix it, but if there is, there is a big government contract waiting for the person who can solve this issue.

5. Our journey was meant to take 1.5 hours and after I cannot even remember how many wrong exits off roundabouts, it only took us 2.5 hours to get home.

Aside from the journey itself, we decided to add in a vistle to Windsor Castle on the way to the party. And even though we did not enter said castle, we did walk around the cute town and shops surrounding.

The party was, how shall we say - interesting. We got there and got lei'd (in pink so of course they matched Jon's fabulous sweater). After getting a professional picture taken, we went to the back of the house and entered something on the order of a bar-mitzvah party. The whole garden (aka a backyard in America) was tented, there was a dance floor and of course a band to accompany it. And the guests were entirely enthralled by the chocolate fountain - hello, where have they been? The invitation stated this would be a pig and lamb roast and they did not disappoint - there was a full pig on a spit! I had the pleasure of meeting some people in Jon's industry which was interesting (they all speak in this strange language of acronyms), but overall this party was for friends and family so not a lot of business done!

We made our exit in time for that last train I mentioned, which I can't decide whether it would have been a better option - either way this was an adventure we will not soon forget! One last photo to show the near horror on Jon's face as he filled the half-empty tank which added up to £25 ;)

Our journey to the Holy Land...

err, I mean Hot Stuff, the indian restaurant that we have tried to go to and failed countless times - tonight we finally got a reservation and arrived to find the restaurant open! It was not without incident though, because we had to rush to the underground after our bus didn't arrive after 20 minutes. Ahh, getting to Hot Stuff is quite a journey, but as it turned out entirely worth the effort.


Hot Stuff is definitely worth it's review in the New York Times. After admitting our relatively recent conversion to the Indian persuasion, the restaurant's owner, Raj, guided us to sufficiently adventurous dishes (without scaryig Jon away). Everything was delicious and fresh and walking away spending £20 for 2 people (yes, you read that correctly) left us feeling like we should become regulars!

Party Time - Excellent

This weekend, Jon's client invited us to a party at his house, so we figured it would be a great networking opportunity. This is the non-expat party we've been invited to so it should be interesting!

Of course it couldn't entirely convenient and in Central London, but we decided to make the most of it and make a day trip somewhere, TBD. I investigated how we could get there via public transport and found a train that takes about 1.5 hours, costs £17 per person each way and the last train back was at 10:30pm. Jon's client graciuosly offered to put us up in a hotel overnight, but somehow we both decided sleeping in our comfy bed in Nell Gwynn House might be a better option. Needless to say we opted to rent a car, but not before hemming and hawing whether we could hack driving on the other side of the road. And by we, I mean Jon. Anyway, we rented an automatic for fear of stalling on the M3 for having shifted through the gear 'backwards.' More details in the next post on how we got on!

Needed: Decent Meteorology School in London

Honestly, for the past two weeks, I wake up each morning and watch a program called BBC Breakfast in order to get my morning news, weather and transit alerts (the tube certainly has more problems than the MTA, however I will give them this, they are quite good a disseminating when there are problems on different routes).

The meteorologists here just suck. Every day for the last two work weeks, they have predicted rain. They say it will downpour. And if they say it will happen during rush hour, I bring my raincoat and umbrella. I NEVER USE THEM! Everyone always sites weather as the downfall of living in London, and quite honestly I think the meteorologists have some sort of conspiracy going on - I wonder who is paying them to consistently deliver the wrong forecast?

Florence - Day 3

We decided to 'sleep in' today - i.e. wake up at 8am, instead of yesterday's crazy early start and last night's crazy dinner. After packing up, we headed to the train station to give this a try on our ride back to the airport...

Ended up back at Rivoire on Piazza Signoria and today has a very local experience by eating at the coffee bar. I’m getting used to their crazy strong coffee and it is a good thing because it keeps me going through the day.

After dawdling in Il Papiro, one of my all time favorite paper shops, we moved along to the primary goal of the day – finding Jon a nice suit or sports coat, which ended up being a successful mission even though communicating with the helpers in the shop was less than easy.

We couldn’t leave Florence with one last cone of ‘baby yogurt’ (thanks Rachel!) so we walked back to the Duomo. Before we knew it, it was almost noon (check out time at the hotel) so we hustled back to the hotel, picked up our bags, checked out and got to the train station with 12 minutes to spare.
The ride back to the airport was much more scenic on the train, so we were happy we tried it out.



Next trip: Amsterdam with Lisa and Felix, unless something pops up first!

Florence - Day 2

It’s tough to visit any place for the weekend and feel like you’ve seen it all, but it’s especially true for Florence.

We called the advance reservation line for the Uffizi earlier this week, but they didn’t have any bookings available for this weekend. We had heard about lines snaking along the building, so we decided to wake up early (again) to get in line before it opened. That meant a 6:30am wake up and in line by 7:30am. Pretty impressive if you ask me! On the way, I took the opportunity to snap a picture of Jon in front of Ghiberti's bronze doors at the Battistero:
We got to the museum with about 20 people in line ahead of us, so while Jon held our place in line, I grabbed a strong coffee from Rivoire, which was just around the corner but seemingly the only place open that early on a Saturday. The line was oddly competitive with an old French couple behind us constantly trying to cut us and me constantly trying to held our place in the line.

Finally the doors opened and we explored the museum, which contains art from the Medici family collection. The museum is very nice to navigate – it is laid out in chronological order, so for instance, we were able to compare Botticcelli’s “The Birth of Venus” with “The Spring”. OK maybe, we crashed a tour group discussing those two paintings, but it was really interesting- haha! We definitely enjoyed wandering through the museum– very interesting to see how artists’ styles change through the centuries.
We got out the museum at around 10:30 and wander toward the Ponte Vecchio, the oldest bridge in Florence and where most of the jewellery merchants have their shops.

Given that Jon just got me some fabulous earrings for my birthday, I figured we’d skip it on this trip and moved along. Last trip to Florence, I met our friend Basim at the end of the Ponte Vecchio who sold handbags – I looked for him, but seems like perhaps he’s moved on with his career.

On the other side of the bridge, we wandered about the Oltrarno. Between popping our heads into local shops and sitting down on available benches on the sidewalks (have I mentioned that our legs are in serious pain from all this walking?), we passed the Palazzo Pitti (Pitti Palace), which we didn’t go into, but Jon wanted to take this picture of me in front:

Along the same road, we found an entrance to the Giardino di Boboli (Boboli Gardens) which we thought would be a nice diversion. The woman at the gate said admission was €9, so we decided to walk a bit to decide whether we would go ahead. And we just happened to notice a gate open to another garden across the street. We were just starting to enjoy it when, some Italian man came up to us and ushered us out with his hands. Uh, I guess we were wandering around some rich Florentine’s private garden. Oops!

On our way back to the other side of the Arno River, we found an artist’s workshop and bought a beautiful frame covered with marbleized paper that is famous in Florence. Of course, we had a specific reason for wandering back to the other side of town so quickly – we had to go back to Il Pizzaiuolo, the restaurant we tried to eat at for lunch yesterday. We got there just after 12:30 and there were plenty of open tables – by 1pm there was a line out the door!
The service was, how shall I say, leisurely. But the food was excellent- started with bruscetta and each had a pizza (seriously – can we got anywhere without gorging ourselves on local gastronomy?) and we were surrounded by locals, which generally makes us happy.

For the rest of the afternoon, we wandered through the streets of Florence. In putting together our itinerary for the trip, I read about Scuola del Cuoio, which sells great leather goods and also has artisans at work inside the same shop so you can see how things are made. I got a new wallet and Jon finally found the perfect credit card holder and luckily a craftsman was available to personalize it with his initials.

After a significant nap, we got ready for dinner – Jon’s dinner selection – Fuor D’Acqua. Anticipating our normal eating regime, we opted to walk to the restaurant which is in the Oltrarno (Jon’s made it a habit on this trip to pick restaurants at the farthest corners of the city, so at least we ended up burning some of the calories we ate).

The upside of the walk was that we got the pleasure of seeing a fabulous sunset over the Arno River.

Along our walk we also walked through the old city doors, or porte, the remains of which demarcate the center of Florence, or centro storico.

Anyway, we got to the restaurant and quickly realized that without a doubt we were the only non-locals in the restaurant and happily they figured out who we were very quickly. This place is known for their fish, which we were excited about after a night of gorging ourselves with pasta. We started out with a glass of prosecco (yes, first people I thought of were the newly dubbed Blix’s)… and the only waiter with decent English came to the table to explain that, yes there is a menu, but they get fresh fish each evening at 8:15pm and most people just allow them to prepare dishes with some guidance. That sounded exciting, so we went for it, specifying that we wanted the bronzino for our main. We ordered a great bottle of white wine, leaned back and held our breath hoping for the best. Mom and Dad should probably look away at this point, so you aren’t disappointed with the wide array of shellfish (which of course I didn’t touch, but keep the love for Jon strong ;) )…

Our first course came out as a platter of raw fish – tuna, yellowtail, shrimp (yes raw and scary looking) and a ceviche of something. A delicious start and we were feeling happy. Next, a dish with shrimp (cooked this time) on a bed of white beans, which yet again was exquisite. The waiter arrived with the next dish that he dubbed, ‘the last’ and it was our bronzino paired with asparagus (which Jon never ever eats because of the after affects – we all know how much he is missing out). It looked pretty pathetic in volume compared to the lobsters sitting on the tables around us. I tried not to get too discouraged, but it was pretty upsetting – we didn’t even get the pasta with seafood that we requested. Not one to get ripped off, Jon just started eating and drinking everything in site. Literally – ate all the bread in the basket. Poured himself a mighty large glass of water, etc. They took away the dish and I can only imagine the glaring looks he received from us.

But then, another dish came out as our ‘last,’ tuna prepared w/XXX. While we weren’t disappointed with the preparation, we were still struggling to understand why we were getting ripped off. Yes, we knew that we were in Italy and aren’t masters of the language, but had we missed something when we first sat down? We were resigned to the fact that this was it – no pasta, measly main dish, but on the upside, finally we could leave a Tuscan restaurant without feeling like whales.

And I am sure you can expect what happened next – our of the kitchen came a glorious plate filled with spaghetti and shrimp dressed tomato sauce, the way you can only find in a real Italian restaurant. I haven’t seen a broader smile on Jon’s face in a while – and boy did he enjoy the pasta, though at this point we were both regretting finishing off the bread and all the previous dishes because we know what is coming next – our bronzino, baked in a salt crust. Which was so tender and delicious it’s hard to find words. And weak as we are, we couldn’t even come close to finishing half.

The meal goes on for a couple more courses, but I’ll spare you the rest of the details, but just realize that I literally had to move my belt to one whole wider in order to walk out of the restaurant. This one is from a few feet from our hotel room:

Florence - Day 1

Last night, Jon has his first industry party in London, so needless to say it was not an early. Nevertheless, it was an early morning - we woke up at 4:15am to make sure we arrived at Gatwick on time for our 8am flight (OK maybe a bit of extra time, but we've never flown out of there).

As usual, we mapped out our journey to a T - taking the last late night bus to Victoria Rail Station, then saved a few quid by taking a local train instead of the Gatwick Express. We've always kvetched about Heathrow, but Gatwick feels noticeably older - sort of 70's era. Everything went smooth with check in and soon enough, we were on the plane (of course in the exit row as we've become professionals at checking in on-line exactly 24 hours + 1 hour before the flight departure). We were exhausted and the next thing I knew it, we were landing in Pisa.

It's a little over an hour ride to Florence, so this leg of the journey, we opted for a bus (can't beat €8 apiece!) and in typical Italian fashion, we didn't leave on time. We arrived at Santa Maria Novella Train Station in Florence and I remembered it was somewhat close to our hotel, which I've stayed in twice before. We somehow bumbled to the correct street without a street map. We checked in and got room 315.

So, I can safely report that the trend of accepting the first room as we did it Prague and Paris was just a fluke. I had a feeling that Jon might not love this hotel - but the weak air conditioning and funky smell just hit a chord with him. So he went back to the front desk to 'deal with it' which we also learned is not the best course of action as he didn't get a new room but said they could come fix the air conditioner, which as we know Italians have their special concept of getting things done quickly wasn't going to happen. After viewing 3 more rooms with similar issues, we settled on room 313, on the condition of two additional fans being brought to the room. Now, with all this you would have thought it was burning up in the room, but honestly I had to bundle up in the room, so I guess it's another instance of temperature variance between me and Jonathan.

Finally, we got out of the hotel and decided to walk through the city center on our way to lunch. Our hotel was just by the Duomo, so we passed that and walked toward Basilica di Santa Croce to search out Il Pizzaiuolo, which we are told is the best pizza joint in town (yes, we realize that pizza is not the specialty in this part of Italy and that's why this place is Neapolitan-style). After walking what seemed like forever (and admittedly in some circles), we finally arrived to find a middle-aged Italian man sitting on a chair outside the empty restaurant chatting with his neighbor.

Alas, we experienced our first European siesta during this trip, which evidently is widely subscribed to by local shops and restaurants.

We were absolutely famished, so after wandering around the streets in a few more circles with our inadequate hotel map, we finally sat down at a restaurant in Piazza della Signoria. Our waiter was a nice old man who started us off by asking what we wanted to drink, so Jon ordered two diet cokes so we could amp up our caffeine. The old man replied - would you like a large? So Jon didn't hesitate and said sure. Our drinks (below) arrived in the most massive cups that we knew for sure we'd arrived at our first European tourist trap! And if we were clear from that, the €17 spent on the two drinks clarified it all....

Jon does not take kindly to being ripped off, so he literally gulped down the whole cup - it must have been 1.5 liters; we were slightly tempted to take one of them home to give Charles, a lover of soda, but we resisted and went on our way.

We spent the rest of the afternoon exploring - walking through San Lorenzo Market...

We made our way to Via Tornabourno the main shopping strip in Florence...into Gucci hoping for well priced loafers like my last trip, but actually they were more expensive this time - but we did get some entertainment for a pair of 23 year old Brits buying a custom pair, exclaiming "this makes you look like a real banker now!"

We made it back to the hotel and took a not-long-enough nap before heading off to dinner at Acqua al Due, a place I went with Lisa on our trip to Italy way back when. It didn't disappoint or change much over time - and the weirdest part was that we actually got seated at the very same table as last time.

We had the Assaggio di primi (pasta tasting menu) which comes with five courses of pasta dishes - Riso al Gorgonzola e Martini, Rigatoni alle Melanzane, Maccheroni alla Vodka, Fusilli Cord agli Spinaci and Fusili Lunghi aila Contadina - of course paired with a great tuscan wine. And as if that was not enough, we decided to share the Filetto ali’Aceto Balsamiko, and again my memory of the dish didn't fail me... magnifico! And the diet starts on Monday - we finished with the Assaggio di Dolci, which comes on one plate with tastes of Tiramisu, Pannacotta, Torta di Cioccolatta and Ricotta Cheesecake.

All this talk of inadequate maps and getting lost, I should add that Jon and I are huge fans of Time Out Short List travel guides... click on the link for your next adventure!