Mother’s Day

Super satisfying dinner that brought on the sleep monster. Effort from everybody, CHEERS!

Back!

Extra virgin olive oil infused with chilli is hard to come by in Singapore unlike in Italy, where every other brand carries it and in rectangular tins too. Had 3 brands to choose from at Dufry and picked the only 250ml tin for sis, who had been scouring for it.

The New Zealand Moscato I had eyed at the DFS when flying out was not available, neither was the Italian Moscat d’Asti. Australian ones are pretty good too. Bought the Cloudy Bay because Dear likes Riesling and this name was specially mentioned in the French film I caught on the return flight. This being the 2006 harvest is probably not as highly valued as their late 2005 harvest, evident as the latter was similarly priced in a smaller bottle.
Looking forward to trying it.
Don’t always utilize the liquor allowance but when I do, I almost wanted to grab that bottle of Smirnoff Vodka with gold foil bits in it too.

Spring Trip Day 10: Malpensa

Woke up to this.  Does it not look like the sun’s trying to crack through the sky?

Lobby got a seasonal update?

Spring Trip Day 9: Como to Milan

Woke before our alarms went off for 8am and extended parking before a morning cappuccino and not-much-left breakfast.
Seeing that we were ahead of schedule, we dashed through checkout, driving, a frantic search for parking and ultimately broke into a run-walk in a bid to make the 10.45am 2-hour batello to Bellagio instead of the originally planned 40-minute rapido at 12.25pm. Turned out that neither was happening today. The joke is that we were better prepared for this piece of news 24 hours ago after seeing the public notice on the ferry service website(while still in Florence) and before asking the hotel staff last evening than we are now. (What’s not a joke is running on cobblestone pavement in uncushioned flats.)
It’s understandable for the staff(presumably a Como resident) to not visit the website on a daily basis since it was unlikely to affect them as much. Thankfully the website keeps its information updated, we should have trusted it. Had we been able to travel outside official demonstration hours i.e cruise out before 9am and return after 6pm, we would still have been able to visit Bellagio.
Not much of a pity actually because even if we did, I still wouldn’t be able to partake in para-gliding(bucket list item) on such short notice.
And so, we will be back. Hopefully we can visit some of the other water towns as well.

Annual strike experience. Manhattan and Madrid were our hosts in 2011.

Structures in buoyant hues commonly line lakeside towns.

Why Not for a sit-and-watch.

“Strike, Y U NO happen another day…” says the ciocolatta calda.

There they go and off we went to Milan city centre (where it’s the warmest we’ve been this trip) after a wistful 3-scoop gelato cup.

Spring Trip Day 7: Florence

Nil Hotel‘s super spacious and secure car park. Powerful and free wifi that does not require password – great for catching up on 康熙来了on the (i)Pad. A decent restaurant, bigger rooms and huge compound make up for the lack of convenience facilities (such as a supermarket) near it.
Yeah, kinda miss shopping at the supermarket(of which I am a member) close to Cosmopolitan (with smaller rooms and paid wifi) and dinner at Pizza Man.

Bread and red to distract us from the 25-minute wait for Dear’s chicken dish.

Work days leave little to speak of: drive, work, eat. Pretty much run-of-the-mill. Noticed that road tolls have gone up though.

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Spring Trip Day 6: Madrid to Florence

Originally booked at €50 per night, got a 50% discount after telling the staff we merely needed the room for 2.5 hours to freshen up and rest.

Second time I’m having the kids’ meal – it’s got everything I like.

Dear’s bolognese.

Spring Trip Day 5: Manhattan to Madrid

Woke too early so went back to sleep. Breakfast was egg and cheese on roll(the guy forgot the cheese) from Carve and almost-ruined gourmet coffee from Dean & Deluca(finally!). Terrible staff attempted to serve up a cafe latte with cold milk instead of standard frothed milk. If there’s one thing about America that hasn’t changed, it’s how they still regard themselves rungs higher and way superior than Asians. Blind and ignorant. I wish they worked more conscientiously, talked less, spoke softer, thought less highly of themselves and less lowly of others, respected more and judged less.
After a few hours of work, we checked out, had the hotel store our luggage and headed for lunch at Shake Shack.

Here, there’s always a queue. We saw it the previous night after Rock of Ages and became part of it today. That said, it moves pretty quickly.

Though lunch was nearly over for the working crowd, seats were still not readily available. Those few minutes of eyeing people’s seats and piling inevitable pressure on them whilst they ate made us feel right at home. ;p

Opted for root beer float because their shakes sound too rich. Think peanut butter. And then cheese fries. How not to tip the scales with meals like these and maybe Dunkin Donuts later? Just the thought of it all fills me up.

Dear’s beef and my fried mushroom burger.
IMO, Americans come across as loud, rude, haughty and their food, junk. Fried, sweet and heavy.

On our way to Central Park to while away 2 hours, we passed The Food Emporium where we usually buy our supply of water, Honey Nut Cheerios and dinner with fruits from.

For the fun of it, I checked in at Manhattan Place(home 22 years ago) on Foursquare before a longing sweep of Paramount Hotel.
Four streets down along 8th Avenue is the Port Authority station where we took the bus to Newark airport for US$16 each.
It was with an overnight flight to Madrid that we bade farewell to New York City once again.

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