Milan 2014

My first time in Milan, Italy. Spent 48 hours there.

This picture shows the Duomo, the cathedral, which is the main attraction in Milan.

DAY 1

 We visited the city centre.

There is a big square beneath the Duomo, and you can find big shops all around it!

Like La Rinascente. 

 The square with many many people.

The entrance to the Corso Vittorio Emmanuelle. 

More shops!

Inside the Gallerie.

Uh Hello.

On one side of the Duomo you could see they are working on it, and to 'cover' the works they displayed a huge DKNY advertisement... Italians know how to make money.

We flew in the morning to Milan, then walked from our rooms (not even hotel) to the city center and then back. Took us more than an hour in total but it was worth it!

As you can see I was very tired...

Day 2

My yummy breakfast at BAR BLIX, viale bligny,Milano. Here you have great address. 

The owner was very nice to us, who we, tried to talk good italian (and probably made mistakes)

 Okey, what is a Bahbohh post without food eh?

I'm not showing in the picture, but we had a latte machiatto and an espresso. EACH.

I took a donut out of greed...its pink okey? And my greed led me to be disappointed as it was filled with some ultra sweet strawberry syrup. The muffin was amazing. It had chocolate in the middle all the way through and nuts. Nuts help the brain work.

Why do I want my brain working?

Well, the point of the trip was for me to take a test at the Bocconi University.

This is an aptitude test (very similar to the SAT test, but its only for 90 minutes) which is very recommended if you wish to enter the university.

I believe I did a good job...maybe the maths were not as easy and anyways I had 90 questions in 90 minutes so some questions were left unanswered. 

Anyhow, after the test, some unorganised italian people managed to show us the residences for the students. The residences were alright, but one of them had a fitness+game place and a rooftop, which i'd love to use. After the visit to the University, we were hungry, and needy for food from Milan.

We found the most original place, very well decorated and FULL with italians. That's the place to go.

It is called Amici Miei, located at Viale Bligny,42,Milano.  (passing there? eat there)

It serves typical food from Lombardia, the region were Milan is found.

 We chose the daily menu, the first plate was soup.

We needed to warm up!

This soup had lentils and other legumes. Very tasty.

Second plate. I was already feeling full...and then saw this Cottoletta Milanese overflowing the plate.

Like literally, one third of it is outside the plate. Huge. I skipped the salad and decided to full my stomach with a special plate from Milan. It was so good. I could not stop. But I stopped because I was already eating more than what my stomach allows me to...

We ended our meal with an espresso machiatto. Delicious. 

Did I mention that both plates, a bottle of water and the coffee cost only 10 euros?

Like crazy cheap and enough food to feed me for an entire day.

Later, in the evening, my dad (yes, he is the other person in the 'we' )

wanted to visit a beer bar. But not any beer place, this place, produces its OWN beer.

My dad, as an artisan beer enthusiast decided we should go there have a beer.

We took a bus to arrive there, and then we almost got lost in the neighbourhood.

We finally found the street.

A scent between hops and marihuana came to my nose...

We went inside the Birrificio Lambrate. (another great address)

It was full of people. We found a table with some stools near the counter. On a blackboard there were written the names of the beers available at the moment.

The right one was mine, a blond one, quite light, with a sweet aroma.

The left one was stronger, and had an intense hops smell.

After this, my dad had a second beer and we took two paninis to have some kind of dinner.

I was so full from the previous meal I gave my panino to my dad.

Also, we met a very interesting guy, Manlio, who knew everything about politics,economics and anything related to human culture.

Next day we had breakfast at Bar blix again and then got ready to go to the airport. To which we took the metro and then a 50minute bus ride.

Milan is a beautiful city, it has its sunny days as well as rainy ones.

People are very welcoming and will be delighted to talk to you.

A little tip: learn some italian, they prefer italian to english.

Random picture of the day:

This is the beginning of my candy crush costume!

I made these with felt, fabric glue, fluff, and scissors (also, i used real Smarties for the brown candy)

I cut myself from the Videogame group picture.

I clipped the candy plashes on to an old grey dress and wore red leggings to match the jelly beans.

Okey That's it for today !

I've some posts coming up...as I'm probably going to travel for a few days to France. 

Stay tuned!

New Year New Food + Super Easy Lunch

First food post of the year!

With pictures I forgot to upload on the London post and a special recipe (that is super easy and combines all basic nutrients)

London

 First of all I thought I'd talk about YO! sushi.

I had never been in a moving tray sushi restaurant. I loved the experience.

You pay at the end according to the plates you ate (depending on their color).

In the picture: Wakame salad (this one was so spicy what..)

Salmon sushi (my favourite btw)

Colorful Mochi (amazing.just perfect)

What I love about this 'fast food' (and all the healthy fast foods of London) is that they...display the calories on the menu/label. Since I like to count them and be aware of what i'm eating this is perfect!

All throughout my stay in London, I ordered at breakfast 'Americano' Coffee. no milk. some or no sugar.

Flying back home...

 Ok now this IS GOOD STUFF.

These...are biscuits,dipped in syrup (sugar water and honey!) and decorated with nuts.

In greek we call them Melomakarona, and we make them only on Christmas.

To make them, you need simple ingredients and an experienced cook (like your mama). 

My sister made this dark chocolate PRESENT with a mould. cool no?

Also some more chocolates...

She told me these ones had pistachios inside *.*

 Our Christmas tree (yay presents !)

My sister and I, decided to collect ingredients all over the kitchen and we came up with this.

Rice noodles cooked with carrots, bacon, green onions and cashew nuts.

At a restaurant... my sister ordered this chicken+bacon sandwich.

My salad came in a huge pot. Big as a sink I swear.

Ingredients I could identify: 

Spinach leaves , Potatoes, Tomato, egg (yes its egg,not cheese), lardon strips and a mysterious white sauce. It was too good...

Leftover pasta 1 cup + 1 smoked salmon fillet left in the pack + some random white sauce and dill.

1 KILO. Now they are doing it right!

After we squeezed our brains in an exam, my friend and I made this Spanish salad.

-Garbanzos(the whole pack,throw away the liquid or use it for plants or something)

-Tomatoes (we used 1 for us 2)

-Eggs (again, we used 1)

-Canned Tuna (keep or throw away the oil, you choose. we used just 1 small can)

-Black olives (as many as you desire)

-olive oil + vinegar(if you like) and salt.

The basics never fail....until you burn the garlic..which I successfully did.

Ok let me explain.

I had the fun idea to do TORTILLA on TORTILLA.

(because I didn't have bread at home lol)

I grew some olive oil in a small pan and then an egg (not well beaten as you can see) 

then I added some ham and cheese to it.

 The Super Easy Lunch Recipe

see? its easy, simple and has no calories!

Ok no, this is too stupid.

The real recipe is inspired by the previous picture...

let's get started! STEP 1: put some oil in a small pan, beat an egg in a bowl adding salt and pepper and put it in the pan.

Wait till its looks solid and cooked.

 STEP 2: Toast a slice of bread.

STEP 3: Toast on plate and add olive oil to it (or spread butter if you prefer)

 STEP 4: Add the omelette. Done!

To complete the menu, I cut some cucumber to which I added oil and salt.

The dessert is a piece of carrot cake my mom made the other day.

To drink? I chose water.

Believe it or not, this simple at first lunch got me filled for hours.

It has the carbs from the bread, the fat from the olive oil/butter, proteins from the egg, vitamins and minerals from the cucumber and everything yummy you can expect from a carrot cake.

I hope you enjoyed this post.

I am quite hungry now, I'm going to see what's cooking in the kitchen...

London 2014

(my sister in the Taxi)

We arrived early in the morning to City Airport.

The funny accent of the taxi driver welcomed us.

DAY 1: Typical London Picture 

The Big Ben (theory. ahahha sorry)

London Eye

The Taxi looked like this, there were many of these...

On the Victoria Street we found Topshop. We stopped to admire the pieces of art like this bag...

I tried on a crop top but I did not purchase it as it was way too overpriced for a simple white piece of fabric.

LATER on... travellers got hungry.

We randomly popped into Itsu, one of the 100000 healthy fast food restaurants in London.

There is also EAT (where we had breakfast once) , Pret a manger and many more.

(I hope the concept also expands to the rest of Europe!)

Visiting a Palace? who cares, lets take a cute pic of us!

(yes, my hair is slightly red now)

DAY 2: Jurassic Park???

More dead dinosaurs eh

Natural History Museum.

The dinosaurs look amazing, totally recommend you to visit them.

Also I do NOT recommend their cafeteria, it was very dirty and crowded...

DAY 3: My marriage to Leonardo Di Caprio.

Or Johnny Depp??

Yes, its the Madame Tussauds Museum...wax figures can look so alive...

Charlie Chaplin here

Can I be the next Bond girl?

Oh by the way, Justin is my 3rd husband.

Hey Amy!

IN THE EVENING... we went to Starbucks (because my sister wanted so much to visit this place,because of the paper cup pictures on instagram haha)

Ok so the coffee was...watered american coffee or milk with some coffee essence and other aromas.

Acceptable. The pastries shown in the picture where really yummy!

The service was okey but the bathroom...NO PAPER!. Ok I used tissues i had with me...and now wash the hands with..NO SOAP!. I was not carrying soap eh so I went to the guys bathroom to wash my hands there. Ofc there was soap as guys are not popular for washing their hands (sorry its true) and apart from the soap there was a guy peeing. I did not even look eh but I politely excused myself and then left.

By the way this was my coffee haha. Very warm <3

DAY 4: Hyde Park, by the lake.

And the swan swam.

Where was this? Oxford Circus?

Anyways I love how there is the sign of ''WAIT'' it caught my attention.

Also what was really different for me was the left side driving. (well, I saw that already in Thailand, but I still can't get used to it!)

Huge Screens.

The next building to this one was the ''Ripley's Believe it or Not'' Museum.

This place is all about...weird stuff and rare things from all over the world!

Here I am on a table and...wait, where are my legs??

(ok the angle of the picture is not good as you can see the walls do not join...brr)

Real size Ferrari out of knit. Now that is what I call lots of free time.

This man can look normal from far away but... please notice the eyes!

I wonder how his vision would be like..or maybe he saw normally but there is a fake iris.

Creepy.

Torture time brrr.

(by the way here you see my washed-red-color hair, which I re-did after coming back from London)

When you combine food with art you create...something above art.

This was my favourite section of the museum. Artists take food and create landscapes!

Spot the potatoes, the salmon...

And the toilet paper dresses ahah 

These would be PERFECT for when you go to a public toilet with no paper (ex: Starbucks eh)

So you just cut a piece of your dress et voila!

They told me to drink milk to grow up. I drank it. Did not work very well.

But for this guy and his family it did and omg life would be so hard for them no? Like fitting in airplanes, at work, at a restaurant, a special sized home... #shortPower!

Blacklight? My sister's sweater is amazing (but she is more)

DAY 5: Harrods says hello.

What is a Bahbohh Travel post without some food porn?

Here we were at Harrods, having lunch at the 5th floor if i'm correct.

This is a chicken+red pepper sandwich if i'm not wrong.

(I see what you did there!)

Smoked salmon salad. Did I mention I am obsessed with smoked salmon? Well I love salmon in all its shapes aha. 

My not-so-attractive soup.

It had beans and ham yum yum.

London Eye!

(I wear glasses to see from far)

The view.

As it got higher...

At first I thought I'd be scared of the height, as I tend to be scared of heights (but even more of depths!) But to my surprise it was a very relaxing trip with no stress at all! It went really slow.

WE TOOK THE TUBE many times. Basically everyday, but we also used the buses that took us to a bus station near the hotel.

This is the Liberty megastore! There were more, like Selfridges (we did some shopping there!) and John Lewis. 

First day of sale at Harrods. Crazy.

WHAT ABOUT THE HOTEL?

Well, surprisingly I did not take pictures of the hotel room...I was too busy jumping on the bed with my sister, drinking tea or having a shower.

We stayed at HOTEL ANDAZ at LIVERPOOL STREET in CITY.

it is a 5 star boutique hotel.

I don't usually go to 5 star hotels (usually means never ahha)

So I found it extremely comfortable. It has EVERYTHING (if you ask for it)

It also had a health club which we did not visit as we were busy exploring the city.

Our rooms were Standard and were connected with an internal door 

(which doubled the size of the room)

The best thing about it (from a traveller's point of view) is that it was only 200metres from the bus+train+underground station.

Overall, London was amazing.