we ate well

Remember that time last year when Rocky spent two weeks in outer Mongolia? Well, neither do I. I do vaguely remember a two week time span last December that involved a lot of unpacking boxes and very little sleep. I also remember my awesome sister, Hannah, spending the better part of her trip here rocking Winston in the only chair we had in our new house--an old rocking chair left behind by our landlords.

Before he  and his friends left on their epic wolf hunt, they promised us there would a reprisal as soon as we were ready to take it. Since we all live in Asia, we knew we wanted to vacation in Europe. I threw around the idea of Eastern Europe--my favorite. I pushed hard for any of the former Yugoslavian states. Surprisingly, Serbia didn't really sway my friends over. We decided to go with the classics--good food, nice views, great art and really old civilizations--Italy and Greece.

I didn't think it would actually happen until I was sitting on the airplane. I thought of a million different reasons to cancel--some more realistic than others. We didn't kill any wild animals or eat any raw body parts but it was epic in it's own right.

We visited four cities and each took a city to research, book hotels and plan an itinerary.
Rome
Vietre Sul Mare--Amalfi Coast
Santorini
Athens.

Instead of unloading a bushel of pictures on you at once--I have far too many pictures to post and things to say to do that--I've divided them into three groups. Let's start with the most important: food.

My favorite thing we did were food tours. These are the best. We did them in Rome and Athen. Basically you pay a local to take you around and sample the best restaurants and tell you the best things to eat. I vowed to try and do food tour in every new city I visit, on the first day I am there.

These donuts in Athens were delicious. The were just plain donuts:flour, water, yeast but were loaded with honey, cinnamon and pecans. I tried to recreate them myself but no luck so far.

This is another thing we tried out our food tour, feta in olive oil with some cherry vinegar and honey poured on top of it. Moral of the story: everything is good with honey.

This is only a picture you take when you live in Asia and your beef is extremely limited. We walked through the fresh market and I was shocked at the prices and the clean conditions. I kept thinking, 'if I lived here, I would shop here every week and eat meat for every meal.'

This is pork slow cooked and stuffed with rosemary. It would make a divine sandwich.

Our tour guide took us to a pretty unique gelato place. I passed on the basil flavor but the rose petal and violet was surprisingly good.

My city was Vietre Sul Mare--just outside the better traveled areas of the Amalfi. We stayed at this beautiful bed and breakfast. This was our view for breakfast every morning. Where I ate about 10 figs and 25 of these almond/lemon donut bites fresh from the oven.

Gyros while watching the donkeys come up the path in Santorini.

Really we ate well.