Brrrrrrr!!!

A flurry of wintry powder covered Amsterdam on Friday and left behind a cozy winter wonderland. Mmmmm snow! But it was even better waking up the next morning to blue skies and a freshly blanketed (and cold!) European city to explore. Christian and I grabbed a Starbucks and headed West! All of Amsterdam is beautiful but especially the Jordaan district always seems to cast a spell...and its the perfect place to lounge next to a quiet canal on a summer day (fingers-crossed for no rain this summer...pretty please?). Christian had to run off early and attend to some business-ish while I continued wandering around the canals. I am a Cali chick afterall--snow is mysterious to me! :) Me and a couple of friends battled the cold and visited Vondelpark, the Central Park of Amsterdam. The entire park looked like a Norman Rockwell painting: people skating, walking and sledding around on the frozen lake, greeting each other with laughter and smiles and all-around good cheer in the air. We couldn't help but take a walk on the lake ourselves. It's not every day ya get to walk under a bridge...I'm just crossing my fingers so I can walk ON the canals one of these days!

(*as I write this, my computer says its currently -8 right now...ah geeez)

2 Friends + 5 Italian Towns

The next stop on our crazy 'best friends in Europe' agenda was Cinque Terre, Italy, without a doubt one of the most beautiful places I've EVER been (so much so that this was my third visit), so I knew Smitty had to see it. The first time I came with Christian and his friends for a day trip from Tuscany and the second time (and the same summer as my first visit!) was when me and one of my best friends Courtney (we basically became friends then planned a trip the next week, more on that later!) spent 2 sun-filled days lounging in the Italian sun and eating gelato for breakfast. En route from Paris, Smit and I flew in to Pisa, grabbed a bottle of wine from the station and hopped on a 45 minute train headed north to La Spezia then on to the first village--Riomaggiore. Cinque Terre means '5 villages' in Italian and is made up of 5 beautiful seaside towns each connected with a hiking path through rocks, hills, vineyards and olive trees. Just before you reach each town, the trail descends just in time for any onlooker to feast their eyes on one of the cute towns ahead. 

The 5 towns--Riomaggiore, Manarola, Corniglia, Verzazza and Montesorro al Mare--sit right on the Mediterranean in the Liguria region of Italy, which is also the home to pesto (is your mouth salivating yet?).  When Smitty and I arrived we immediately grabbed (another) bottle of wine, stuffed veggies and a freshly baked focaccia from a tiny Italian deli and headed straight towards the rocks to watch the sunset from Riomaggiore. At this point, we figured we should probably eat dinner (as opposed to our not-eating-dinner-escapades in Paris 2 nights earlier!) so we escaped into a cozy little place ordering--what else--fresh pasta with pesto...well...and another bottle of wine :). We must have been eating dinner for hours, because by the end we were the last ones in the restaurant and our humble waiter (we named him Petrie) started bringing us limoncello shots....champagne came later. Can you say hospitality? We never finish our evenings without a nightcap so we hopped in the Med for a quick night-time swim! Yet another bottle of wine may have been involved...

The rest of our time in Cinque Terre was spent wandering from village-to-village indulging in endless gelatos, swimming in natural pools in the sea and soaking up the sun. There's a reason why I've been here 3 times, the entire region is absolutely beautiful---delicious food, warm blue water and down-to-earth friendly people who are so proud to be not from Italy but from Liguria. A fourth visit is on the horizon too! I can't wait to show my parents this place in May :).

 

A Finnish-French-Dutch-American weekend in Paris

What would you do if one of your best friends and world-renowned partner in crime said ‘I’m coming to visit you in Europe’? Yes exactly…TOTALLY FREAK OUT! That’s what I did when my friend Smithers said she was flying out solo to not only visit me in Amsterdam but to also spend 3 incredible weeks jetsetting around Europe with me!

Well that was Smitty’s first trip to visit me, then she came out last summer for THREE WHOLE MONTHS and now she’ll be here in 2 weeks for her 3^rd trip in the last 18 months. The fun didn’t stop there, another best friend of ours, Ink, decided to fly out and join us halfway through the summer too—I have the most excellent best friends EVER! Phew…well that crazy summer in Amsterdam with my 2 best friends will have to wait for another time but since ol’ Smithers will be here in just a couple of weeks, I thought posting about our first Euro-trip would be a great way to countdown until she arrives :).

After Smitty bought her plane ticket, she basically had two requests: that she wanted to go to Italy and she designated me to plan a crazy-laughter-filled European adventure—my specialty! Finally the day came and Smitty was here!! She was only in Amsterdam for one day (we saved Amsterdam for her last few days) and then we packed our bags and we were off! First stop: PARIS! Christian wanted a part of the fun so he came along for our le-weekend-Parisian (he likes to show off his French skills which mostly consists of words like fromage, jambon and baguette…but his effort is so cute!).

Once we stepped foot in the City of Lights, we found our way to our hostel in Montmarte, dropped our stuff off and went off to explore. The three of us lunched on French onion soup and crepes while washing it all down with a glass of wine. We then ventured off to—where else?—The Eiffel Tower! The best part about the weekend (well other than the fact that I was not only in Paris with my best friend AND boyfriend at the same time!) was that a French friend, Denis, who Christian and I studied with in Finland met up with us! He also met a girl in Finland, a Finnish girl Emma, who moved back to Paris with him. Well as soon as we got down from the Eiffel, Denis and Emma were waiting for us and, get this, they had a picnic with baguettes, cold cuts and wine spread out on the lawn nearby—AMAZING! We had plans to go to some chic French restaurant for dinner but we had so much fun hanging out under the Eiffel Tower with each other that we didn’t budge until the sun had long set and until ATLEAST 7-8 bottles of wine were emptied. This is where the laughter (and drinking) was nonstop for the rest of the evening. Our nightly festivities meant the 5 of us ended up on a boat whirling around the Seine with views of the Notre Dame and the Louvre lit up at night. We’re still wondering how we were able to still keep barhopping after having had no dinner and endless bottles of wine but we couldn’t be stopped. We not only survived but wished we could do it all over again—that’s what happens when you combine good company with a beautiful city! Fast forward 10 months and the 5 of us ended up cruising around the Greek Islands together!

It was a good thing we saved Pere Lachaise cemetery for the next day because we felt like death…the night before was rough! We wandered up and down the rows of tombs, crypts and mausoleums, enjoying the tranquility of it all. A perfectly sunny day in Paris at the end of high season meant we nearly had the entire place to ourselves. The sun was shining through the leaves and casting a quiet, spooky shadow at every glance. Christian had to catch his train back to Amsterdam, but Smit and I continued to wander in amazement—aaahhh Paris! After paying a visit to the Salvador Dali Museum, we wandered once more through Montmarte admiring artists at work. It was a short weekend but we squeezed in enough laughter and smiles to last much longer. We were off to Italy the next morning, so we grabbed a pizza, a bottle of wine and enjoyed our last glimpse of Paris wining-and-dining under Le Sacre Coeur. Audrey Hepburn was right…Paris is always a good idea!