My Trip to Europe
I just want to share with you guys my experience with my recent trip to Europe. Well, this trip is a bit more exciting cause I’m meeting my in-laws for the first time after me & my Amore tied the knot and we had our delayed honeymoon in Paris right after meeting my husbands family. I’ll just point out some comparison between the two places I’ve just visited: Italy (Treviso, Jesolo, & Cortina) & Paris.
ITALY. What can I say, since the first time I went there 2 years ago, I’ve always been wanting to go back there for so many reasons. One of the biggest reason is the FOOD! Authentic Italian food is simply the best. Eating is like a celebration of life. All the little details that we seem to take for granted when we live in a modern and fast paced country is the little things that really impressed me. Italian food is tasty. Amore’s mom prepares the food every dinner for us. She’s the best! She always makes sure she’s got every food & drinks in the table that I love and that I would be interested to try. From the aperitif to the appetizer to the main course to the secondary course, dessert, wine, coffee, and grappa, whoa….simply amazing. She always makes sure she has a pitcher of wine on the fridge for me, and prepares the best gelatto & ‘macedonia’ combination of dessert. She prepares steak with just simple ingredients and it tastes wonderful. Oh, how I love Mama Nicoletta’s cooking! You can taste her motherly love on the food she prepares. Eating out isn’t a problem, wherever you are in Italy, you don’t have to choose which restaurant to go to get good food. Pizza is fantastic everywhere, it’s not like the thick-crust, cheese-filled, calorie-packed pizza that we normally have. It’s so tasty and you can eat it even with just a thin layer of mozarella (the real one) cheese and pomodoro (tomato) for toppings. No tabasco please, it ruins the flavor of real Italian pizza. Pasta, you’ll find the best variety of pasta in Italy (of course it’s where pasta originated!). But in this place, pasta is simply amazing (esp Mama Nico’s ragu pasta!huh). Ragu pasta is the typical pasta we have in the Philly, we call it pasta bolognese. The difference is, the taste. I don’t know why when I tried to cook the same ingredients in the Phils, it still taste different. But Amore said one thing that makes the pasta taste good is the water used in boiling the pasta. Coming from a rice-addict country, I wouldn’t think that’s possible. But yes it’s true. Cause its still safe to drink tap water in Italy. So that means, no chemicals to ruin the taste of pasta. Also the meat tastes different. And of course the way they prepare and cook it, it’s in the Italian blood to make good food. Also snacks isn’t hard to find in Italy, esp in Treviso. Good tramezinni and bruschettini are everywhere with variations on toppings. They dont eat junk like McDo which is why I appreciate them for eating simply prepared food and achieving the best taste. Prosecco (the Italian champagne, which i think is even better than the champagne I tasted in Paris) is drank like water and it’s cheap (not Phil cheap, Euro cheap, hehe!). Gelatto (the Italian ice cream) is the real gelatto. I have one favorite drink that I can drink almost 7-10 glasses everyday that makes me drunk & already sleepy at 6pm. They call it SPRITZ. A mix of prosecco, sparkling water, and Aperol (an alcoholic drink) with a slice of orange. This drink is just addictive! Originated from Veneto, and mostly served there for aperitif. I miss this drink everytime I’m in Shanghai (we don’t have the Aperol here!). Another reason why I simply love Italy is it’s PEOPLE, so warm and accomodating. Whenever I’m with Amore’s friends or I meet somebody new, I feel so accepted and they’re all nice to a foreign stranger like me. Italian’s don’t seem to have this feeling of arrogance, unlike other nationalities I’ve met (they’re famous for their arrogance anyways…you know which nationalities those people are. I prefer not to mention any). Everywhere you go in Italy, people say "ciao", dialect for "hello". Isn’t it a wonderful feeling to go inside a cafe in the morning and always the people you meet say ciao? It really makes my day and makes me want to go to the cafe every morning! FASHION is also another thing about Italians. I LOVE ITALIAN FASHION! The details, the quality, the design, and all. So chic & elegant. OMG, i love to see Italian people so dressed up even when they’re just going to town for coffee. I can tell they’re so picky with clothes, shoes, & accessory. Every Italian has their own sense of fashion and elegance and i love seeing it. Even my Mama Nico is so fashionable that I was so surprised the first time I met her. Her & papa Valerio are driving this cool Benz around town. To match their fashion with their car, Mama wears a cool jeans skirt and an Italian leather boots to match it with. She looked young yet elegant in her outfit, not the trying-so-hard-to-look-young punk. So is Papa Valerio. When we go out for dinner or on any event, she never fails to compliment me on my fashion choice. She’s keeping an eye on it. Because of this, i sometimes feel the need to impress her all the time and it’s not easy. That’s why she’s so proud to introduce me to her amici over dinners & drinks. Of course, another thing i love about Italy is their ARTS & ARCHITECTURES. i don’t need to elaborate further on this. The worlds most famous painting La Gioconda, even if it’s in The Louvre in Paris, is done by an Italian from Florence. On this trip I’ve learned that a lot of works of art in Paris’ palaces, esp in Chateau de Versailles are made by Italian artists. Surprising for me. For these and many more reasons (maybe because my husband is also Italian, hehe!) i simply love Italy and can’t get enough of it.
So much about Italy, let me tell you more about Paris. Paris in comparison to those cities or towns I’ve been to in Italy, is a big city and it’s multicultural. A huge percentage of the population are Asian, African, & Indian immigrants. I had so much expectation from Paris simply because it’s Paris. It’s one of the most visited cities in the world. Rich in arts & culture. My Brit officemate once told me that he’s disappointed with Paris and that i shouldnt expect too much from it. Never had I thought i would have the chance to see Paris for real. I dont know if i had the same experience or the same level of satisfaction with other people who’s been to Paris . But let me tell you about my experience.
Of course, France is known for it’s good food & wine. First thing me & my husband was looking forward to is the FOOD! We heard a lot of Italians complain about French food. But I want to try it for myself. Cheese for sure is good. But finding good normal proper meal is quite difficult for us. We found our first meal in Paris in a small brasserie just 5 minute walk away from our hotel. My Amore ordered a strange menu (most restaurants dont have English menu) he doesnt even know what it is. Since part of our trip was an adventure (we dont much about Paris), he risked his lunch. I got myself steak to play safe (i know how steak tastes like of course). It’s surprising for me that most meals served in Paris comes with French Fries & a disgusting salad (full of cream sauce). When our meal arrived, we’re both surprised to fnd out that we both ordered a same piece of meat but with different names, mine cooked rare & his well-done, with the same side dishes. The steak isnt tasty, the meat so hard, & I cant eat the salad. I can cook better food than that. But we didnt dissappoint ourselves with our first meal. We thought maybe we just have to find the right restaurants. For sure somewhere in Champs Elysees we will find one. Champs Elysees is a famous historical hi-way of Paris and now its packed with big shops & brasseries. When we hit Champs, we tried but failed again. Cant elaborate further. So the meal after that we hit the Moroccan restaurant which is pretty satisfactory to our taste. It’s pretty cheap too but satisfying. Our biggest dissatisfaction was on our first morning in Paris. After the disappointing meals, we were so excited to have breakfast cause for sure nothing can go wrong with a French croissant. It’s French! But the problem now is we have nowhere to get food in the morning! F*ck! We left the hotel to hit patisseries to get a taste of real French croissant but what the h*ll! We’ve been to almost all the patisseries around our area but they dont have food in the morning. What do they eat for breakfast? I dont have any idea! I see men drinking beer and liquor in the patisseries in the morning. What the F***? Beer? Beer? Beer? Sh*t! I was starving but, tsk, tsk! So we decided to have just a cup of espresso. Espresso isnt good, full stop. The next morning we just decided to eat our the hotel where they serve not-so-good croissants and brewed coffee (not really what i imagined a French breakfast would be).
One night we decided to see the beauty of the Eiffel tower on her glittering lights. To make the experience breathtaking, we decided to get the view over dinner to a nearby fine-dining restaurant. There’s only one restaurant along Palais de Chaillot that has a view to the tower. So we had our "romantic-Paris" dinner there. It’s fine dining! I was thinking "at last, i will have a taste of the real French cuisine, haha!". But wait, they serve the same thing, meat, creamy salad, & French fries. It’s ridiculous! Where can I find those things I see in the TV??? Same dining experience, costly but not gastronomically satisfying. It’s disappointing. I thought it’s like Italy, where street food in the country is even better than those fine-dining Italian food outside the country. Where the best food is kept and the second best are being exported to give the world a taste of Italian cuisine. I realized Paris is just like any other big cities, of course if you go to 5-star restaurants you get the most satisfactory food, pay more to get more. Uh-uh…no, no. Not impressive. Just because it’s Paris doesnt make it extraordinary when it comes to food. I can have good French food in Shanghai and spend the same costly experience I get in Paris. I dont have to go to Paris to do that. But I wanted the experience. That was our last night so it was too late to find a better, or rather, best of the best restaurant in town. Our food experience was dissatisfying. Well, maybe i’ll try in Shanghai, good, fine-dining French cuisine. Maybe I’ll find satisfaction, huh!
FASHION, French fashion is elegant but I love the strong look of its Italian counterpart. Well, people have different tastes in fashion so you can judge by yourself.
The PEOPLE?.
The only thing that impressed me about Paris is Paris itself. The city is so beautiful. It’s ARTS & ARCHITECTURE are amazing. With contributions from Italian artists of course. One has to see it to experience the feeling. There’s too many things to see in Paris that a week isn’t enough to see it all. So if you plan a trip there, you have to prepare yourself to a lot of walking. If you want to see everything and deeply appreciate the arts, stay longer than 2 weeks. This will give you enough time to go around every museum, every palais, and every jardin and enough time to drain your energy with all the walking. For sure you dont wanna walk more.
They say it’s a romantic city, the place looks romantic but the feeling isn’t because there’s too many tourists everyhere that even in climbing up to the Eiffel Tower you have to wait on a very long queue. (I wonder how Tom Cruise proposed to Katie Holmes on the top of the tower. For sure they have to close the vicinity). Every place you have to go into, you have to wait on a queue. Of course this is a must knowing that Paris is so famous among tourists around the world. But this scene doesnt give me a feeling of romanticity. It’s quite annoying. I dont have patience for this. I easily get irritated when i wait too long.
Judging from my experience, I can say, it’s a nice place to visit but not a good place to live. Not where I want to be. I am happy where I am now knowing that the charm of the city considered to be the most beautiful in the world didn’t work on me as how i thought it would. This experience makes me appreciate Shanghai even more.
Everyone who visits the same place definitely have a unique experience on their travel. That would depend on their interests and on their priorities. Don’t base your travel plan according to what you learn from other people. See it and experience it yourself. NOthing is more satifying than feeding our curiousity.
