cronicles della mia cucina: sunday brunch!

i've only just begun and this post has already made me hungry.  i currently have no groceries and sunday brunch was always one of our most delicious events.  

we started off the year, going to our favorite spot for brunch on sundays but once we got into cooking, we decided to recreate brunch at our apartment.  the meal slowly grew from simple to a smorgasbord of amazing things all made from scratch.  below, enjoy a sampling of photos

wheat bagels in the process, almonds being toasted to be turned into almond butter, and V making smoothies

finished wheat bagels, a variety of spreads, mimosa fixins, the grinding of almonds into almond butter and coffee

another table view: eggs and hash-browned potatoes and friends!

bagel batch #2 and homemade bread becoming french toast! 

after this specific brunch, i remember a group food coma that resulted in movie-watching-turned-napping in the via della guardia movie theatre. 

x!

L.I.Z.s on the road no more.

the L.I.Z. adventure has come to the end.  the fest in spain was the perfect finale; in fact, i'm not sure i could have traveled any more after the week of insanity.  

other liz is (hopefully) over the atlantic ocean right now and i'm back in trieste.  i'm here until friday and have no real plans except to drink a lot of coffee and eat a lot of gelato.  i will be catching up on a lot of backlogged blog posts to hopefully have a fresh slate upon my return to the states..  so! get ready for many outdated posts about travel adventures from months ago. it'll be fun. 

x! 

L.I.Z.s on the road: the FEST

oh man.

other liz and i are in benicassim, spain for the festival internacional de benicassim.

it is quite possibly the most intense week of my life and last night was only the first night of the music. we spend our days on the beach and the music begins at 6pm and runs through the night.  no, that doesn´t leave much time for sleeping and it´s so hot that sleep is uncomfortable unless you´re on top of a float in the ocean. my skin is so saturated with sunscreen from constant reapplication that i´m not sure it´ll ever come out of my pores.  i would venture to say that the beach is more crowded than north myrtle during UVA beach week in may and i have seen more hilariously awful tattoos than should exist in this world. 

wish me luck on survival of the weekend.

x!

ps, i´ll be stateside in less than a week!

and then there was one.

welp. 

since my last update, the L.I.Z. adventure has taken a break in trieste.  we're down one L.I.Z. (hopefully she's able to actually leave the country tomorrow and be done with standby hell) and the past few days have been full of nostalgic cooking, the trieste farewell tour, and cleaning, cleaning, cleaning the apartment.

it's 4:46 am now and i'm wide awake.  this morning, L and V are flying back to the states.  i woke up to give them goodbye hugs and now the insane seagulls are on an indescribable rampage of extreme noise-making, i'm crying, and my mind is swarming with memories from this year -- so of course i can't go back to sleep. 

even though it most definitely is, i still can't believe that this year is over.  it honestly feels like so recently that we were just moving in and getting to know each other.

i knew that it would be strange once everyone had left and i was the only one here but i honestly didn't think i'd cry this morning.  i haven't cried yet while saying goodbye to anyone, but of course it was the amazing roommates that started the waterworks.  although i shed a tear (or many tears), it's not so bad right now because other liz is here and she and i are (or, will be when the sun comes up) busy preparing to go to spain tomorrow (!), but on the 18th when i return to trieste and am really alone for a few days, i think it's going to hit me even harder that this year has ended. 

it was just such an amazing year that i'm not ready to be done with it! 

x 

L.I.Z.s from the road: episode 3

since the last update, we've spent approximately 19 hours on trains, buses and boats but have made it to hvar island in croatia!  our perch on top of a hill looking out over the adriatic sea is definitely the most beautiful place we've been to on this trip.

to backtrack a little bit... during the first part of our trip, the weather was uncharacteristically COLD.  i say "uncharacteristically" because it was late june, i'm actually not sure what the weather is normally like at this time of year in prague, budapest, or belgrade.  i just know that it was june and i was cold and not happy about it.  not being the only l.i.z. to feel this way, we were all three incredibly anxious to get to the coast.

so, the other day (i'm so lost as to what today's date is, what day of the week it is, or how quickly time is passing) we got on a train in belgrade heading to bar, montenegro.  after something insane like 11 hours, we made it to bar and then took a taxi (with a hilarious woman that kept trying to chat with us despite the fact that we had no common language) to budva, the "montenegrin miami," where we stayed for a couple nights.  even at night, it was much warmer in montenegro and we were excited. that is, until we woke up the following morning to an overcast sky.  luckily, the weather cleared up and we were able to enjoy some blue skies and a good number of beach hours for our two full days there.

on monday, july 4th (the only date i will remember from the whole trip), we took another 10 hour bus ride from budva to split, croatia!  after the bus, we took a ferry across the sea to hvar island and have 3 more nights in this incredibly gorgeous haven.  dubbed "the sunniest place in europe" by wikipedia, we are optimistic for the weather.

today, other liz and i rented mopeds and drove them all over the island -- we passed lavender fields (the smell was amazing!), bopped around the old town, stari grad, and stumbled upon a secluded beach cove for a late-afternoon swim.  it was a pretty excellent first day on the island.

tomorrow, V comes to join us!  we have a long list of things we still want to do on the island including hiking up to the old fortress, going to the beach club in the woods?, finding other secluded beaches, taking a taxi boat across to a smaller island for a sandy beach day, etc. etc. 

x!

L.I.Z.s from the road: episode 2

current location: SERBIA!

since we last spoke, the 3 lizs spent the night in the danube-front marriott in Budapest, which was incredibly luxurious.  we collectively took 4 showers, primped excessively, hoarded toiletries, got a late checkout and stayed in bed until noon. it was excellent.

after wandering around budapest a tiny bit more and enjoying some delicious Thai food, we hopped on a train last night at 2330 headed to serbia -- we're getting back to other liz's roots.

i've had a few overnight train experiences this year and none have been horrible.  have you seen the episode of seinfeld when kramer hangs out with all the japanese men and they sleep in the dresser, each in an individual drawer? well, this felt kind of like that. or like sleeping in a coffin. either way, it wasn't my favorite.  i did really enjoy it when the customs officer (at the serbian border) laughed about us all having the same name.

today, we are covering beograd (where they use cyrillic, making navigation difficult, and currency is confusing but we think things are cheap?) and then tomorrow we're off to montenegro!

we are having a great time but I am exhausted. I am just a tornado of emotions, so much is going on inside that I'm just emotionally and mentally drained-- I'm homesick but foo which home? America or the home I've created in Trieste? Or do I miss the people- which people? My family and friends in the states or the family I've come to have over the past year? It's really sinking in that this year is over and I've said goodbye to a lot of people. Those who matter most, I know I'll see again but the uncertainty of when is still sad, you know?

Oh, life.

x

L.I.Z.s from the road: episode 1

First of all, blogging from my "iDevice," as other Liz has me calling it, causes many more capital letters than I use intentionally and I can't seem to create the center alignment that I recently adapted for blog entries. Also! My iDevice sometimes changes things to be spelled in a British way such as centre and favourite, so excuse me.

I'm disregarding all these nuances to update you on where the 3 Liz's are in their journey. You're welcome. It will be a brief summary of the highlights but you'll be caught up to speed.

Today is our 3rd day in Budapest. I'm obsessed with this city; I think it may be my favourite of all the places that I've visited this year (so far, at least). Today we check out of our fabulous hostel and move to the river-front Marriott (thanks marymom and daddyjohn!), about which Eliza has never been more excited.

After spending Saturday night (which turned into Sunday morning) through early Monday morning with Ron (coincidentally in Budapest at the same time) exploring the city on bikes, yesterday we ventured to Lake Balaton! Sitting by the largest lake in Eastern Europe (possibly all of Europe) was a relaxing break but produced a bit more collective sunburn than we hoped for.

Before making our way to Budapest, I reunited with "my Liz friends" in Prague. I liked Prague but it didn't blow my mind. I'm reluctant to write it off completely, however, because I've heard so many people rave about it. When I arrived, it was much colder than I had anticipated and I was very distracted with seeing my friends after so long. I was getting used to the travel routine that other Liz and Eliza had created with each other and trying to get filled in on everything I had missed. I'm assuming that these factors played a large part in my opinion, or lack of opinion, of Prague. I'll have to go back some day.

Now that we're in Budapest, we're in a groove of traveling with each other and I'm familiar with the city (having been here just a few weeks ago) makin things super easy. Tomorrow night, we're geading to Belgrade, Serbia and then we'll make our way over to the Adriatic coastline (hopefully our sunburn will have healed and our skin will be prepared to bask in the rays again). I'm excited.

Yesterday, I kept forgetting what country I was in. I don't know if it was sitting by the water and thinking it was the Adriatic (the Lake Balaton situation was very much like Barcola), or the train rides or unfamiliar language but more than once I was confused about our location. It was the most enjoyable state of confusion I've ever experienced.

More updates to come as we make our way through our itinerary.

X!