A Study in Sands

Those of you suffering the long, grey winter in Vancouver will probably want to skip this post.

I HAVE to tell you about the two best beaches on Tenerife.

The first was the one that I frequented the most, just a 10 minute bus ride from right outside my hotel. Playa de Las Teresitas is a man-made beach on Tenerife, and so the only one (so I've heard, I didn't see all of the beaches) without black sand. In 1973, the city brought 4 million bags on sand over from the Sahara to make this beach. They also constructed a breakwater to protect the beach, so it's popular even for the locals just to come down and swim laps (it's 1.5km long).

The next beach I discovered because I happened to meet two new friends on the way to the bus station! Otherwise, I probably wouldn't have gone, only because the bus to that beach stops right by Las Teresitas and I would have just gotten off there. Vacation = lazy.

Playa del Roque de Las Bodegas is a black sand beach, and absolutely gorgeous. There's something weird about seeing yourself covered in black sand. Especially when you're getting on the bus and trying to hide from the bus driver that you're covered in it and probably about to leave half the beach behind on the bus. Overall, a great day!

So now I can say that I've been swimming in the Atlantic. Oh, and for those of you who hate me after reading this, you might be comforted to know that despite washing my hair daily, I STILL find the odd piece of sand in my hair.

Tenerife, Canary Islands

Wow! I have been MIA. Apologies, but that's what happens when you're on vacation and have no homework to do, which translates in to not needing to do anything to put off doing homework, like blogging.

For Christmas and New Year's Eve I went to Santa Cruz, Tenerife. The weather was like Vancouver summers - warm in the day, and brisk in the evening.

Santa Cruz is a good base to travel around the island. One day I went to Las Americas on the southern end of the island and it was a totally different scene. It was tourist central. Santa Cruz is a port city, and the main tourists they see are those stopped in for the day on a cruise ship. That said, I was pretty surprised at the lack of English language in Santa Cruz. I ended up speaking some crazy mix of English, Italian, and the little bits of Spanish I could remember from high school.

One of the coolest things that I happened upon, because no one seems to write about it, are all of these painted rocks behind the auditorium. I wish I had more information to give you, but I can't seem to find any! Anyway, if you go to Santa Cruz, check these out.

The island has a lot of great museums, but I was fooled by everyone's reviews about the museum of Science and Space in La Laguna. We took a day trip there, and as soon as we walked in I realized I  had just paid to enter a poor man's version of Science World!! I guess that's all part of the learning experience...

I was also somewhat fooled by the reviews everyone had of shopping in Santa Cruz. People raved about The Meridiano, and seeing as I'm a buying student, I thought that I should do some homework and go shopping! It was pretty dismal. But that's the review by someone who lives in Milano. ;)

Overall, it was a great week. They really know how to do Christmas (they have their own song!) and New Year's Eve there! We went to a huge outdoor symphony and fireworks on Christmas, and another outdoor concert and fireworks for New Year's Eve.

The week inspired my New Year's resolution, which is to travel to the seaside at least once every 6 weeks just to breathe the ocean air. Those of you who have spent the majority of your lives by the ocean will understand!

Merry Christmas! Buon Natale!

Ciao tutti!

It's a beautiful time in Milano, and not just because I'm on a three week break from school. For those of you who started to hate me when you read that last sentence, don't. I may be on holidays, but we had one week of our new term before our Christmas break which is just enough time for them to pile on the homework. Due the first week back.

Anyway, none of that matters because it's Christmas in Milano! And that's serious business. There are lights everywhere. Even better, right outside my school, and along some of the other streets like Via Montenapoleone, they play Christmas music outside. Seriously. After we finished our final presentation earlier this month, we walked/skipped outside, where the sun was out and the Christmas music was playing. My heart grew three sizes. Right then and there. Then we celebrated with rooftop cocktails.

I don't have much else to say on the topic of Christmas in Milano, other than it's awesome. Music, lights, trees, Christmas markets, Pandoro, truffled everything. So I'll just share some photos! Oh and if you're lucky, I MIGHT blog about how I learned to cut Pandoro hearts. So cute!

Christmas Market at the Duomo - mostly just cheeses, meats, and desserts!

Christmas lights at home <3

Beautiful, even in the rain.

I'm going to Tenerife on Monday morning for 9 days, so my next post might be Spanish, but it definitely won't be until the new year. So, to cover all of my bases, Merry Christmas, Buon Natale, Happy Holidays, Tanti Auguri, and Happy New Year!

xoxo

That's What She Said.

As much as I love Milano, and just Italy in general, there are some things that I will always miss about home.

The other day in class, someone asked me to help plug in her laptop charger, and with the big adapter it was hard to tell if I had done it properly, so I asked her, "Is it charging? I can't tell if it's in all the way."

THAT'S WHAT SHE SAID.

I know you thought it. You probably even said it out loud.

The problem is that I looked around the room for anyone to enjoy this moment with me and there was no one. Just total silence.

If I was in Vancouver there would have been at least half a dozen people to say it first, and then burst in to laughter with me.

Something Like a Phenomenon

You're singing the song now, aren't you? You're welcome.

But in all seriousness, there's something happening in this country that I don't understand. It's an obsession with Abercrombie & Fitch. On any given weekend you can find this outside of the store:

There are no signs, so I'll forgive you if you don't understand the photo at first. This is a photo of the line up outside of A&F. EVERY WEEKEND. There are no signs, so the first couple of times we saw the line up we couldn't figure out why, until our teacher mentioned that the A&F store was so close to school, and we realized that was where the A&F smell was coming from and we put it all together.

One day I'll have to go in, just so that I can say I have. Also, our teachers seem obsessed with using it as an example in lectures, so I can probably get better grades on my finals if I use it as example somehow. Luckily I walk past daily on my way to and from school. I know, I feel like I just became the envy of EVERY Italian teenager.

One day a group of Italian teenagers stopped us in Piazza San Babila and asked us if we knew where Abercrombie was. I replied, "Of course. Just keep walking down that street there and you'll smell it before you see it. Look for the line up."

Il Pane di Luca

Have you ever eaten focaccia?

Yes?

From il Pane di Luca?

No?

Then forget everything you know about focaccia, get on a plane, come to Milano, and go immediately to this place. And for my friends in Milan, let's go tomorrow! I have to thank Lodovica for letting us know that the BEST focaccia in Milan (or the world) is right around the corner from where I live. I can't describe the amazingness of this focaccia, but I'll try.

You walk in and, depending on the time of day, there's a huge assortment of all different kinds of pizza, and your basic focaccia. I simply point and ask for a piece of focaccia, then they cut off a piece, throw it on the scale, I pay, and off I go. Ordering a piece of the pizza is just as easy, but I like to keep it simple and not mess with a good thing.* The focaccia practically melts in your mouth. It's so soft and oily, but then you get a piece in the same bite that's also a little bit crispy on the top, and you just want to stop and thank whoever invented focaccia in the first place. Luckily I don't walk down this street on the way home from school, so I've been able to limit myself to one trip a week.

But, I'm available all week to take you if you want to go. Every day.

Oh and friends in North America, even if you think you've had good focaccia back home, you don't even know focaccia. Trust me on this. Even if it's from an Italian baker who just arrived in Vancouver a day ago with all of his baking supplies and ingredients. No comparison.

*Last week I messed with a good thing. I went for my weekly piece of focaccia, but they were out so I asked for a piece with tomatoes and olives. The lovely lady behind the counter confirmed (or so I thought/heard) that it was olive asciughe. I thought that this must be a way of saying "dried olives" and pictured those really salty olives and thought it sounded just fine. Well, I got home and realized that what she really said was olive e acciughe, which is actually olives and anchovies! Translation fail.

Cheese Rape?

Best. Translation. Ever.

Some history... I think I only picked up on this in conversation because recently a friend and I saw some cheese graters labeled in French as "Rape A Fromage". We're 5 years old, so "cheese rape" was really funny and it stuck in my mind.

A few weeks ago, during dinner, a friend was talking about a recipe that involved grated cheese. She's Italian, but also speaks French and English (and probably other languages!). So when she was talking away and mentioned "raped cheese" I had to stop her and correct her. Especially because she was on her way to the US for vacation! You can't just wander around the US talking about raped cheese.

Even more entertaining was trying to explain what raping the cheese would be... violating the cheese? 

Anyway, hopefully the next time you rape grate some cheese, you'll have a good chuckle!