Thai Sweet Potato Stew

I am completely wiped out after this weekend.  Boyfriend and I spent the weekend moving into a new apartment.  That might not sound unusual or especially tiring, except for the fact that we moved from the second floor of our building up to the fourth floor.  We did this move over the course of three days.

Day One: Wait, before I get into the details of the moving process I should tell you this - I packed almost nothing prior to our move-in date of February 4th.  The morning of day one, we were scheduled to get the keys to our new "penthouse" apartment at 10 o'clock.  Not wanting to move on an empty stomach, we did what every moving day person does, we went to Dunkin' Donuts.  We filled up on egg and cheese sandwiches and hot beverages.  Movers need protein!

Upon receiving the keys, we signed our new lease and went up to our new place.  We knew we were moving into an apartment with a slightly different bed/bath layout, but we weren't quite ready for what we saw when we entered the room.  The main living area was the exact reverse of our apartment downstairs.  This is going to hurt my brain for weeks.

Moving day one was fine, with the exception of our harrowing journey with the couch into the elevator, everything went smoothly.  We moved our clothes from the old closet to the new, smaller closet.  The bedroom set went from our old, weirdly shaped bedroom to our new, normally laid out one.  The couch and TV did make it upstairs without being broken or leaving too many marks on the walls.  It was a good move.

We did not have that soup for dinner.  Oh no, no.  We had Chinese food from the take-out place down the street.  The Thai sweet potato soup that you see above was made last week and enjoyed by one and only one person in the apartment, me.  Someone doesn't like sweet potatoes.  Someone is a weirdo.

Poffertjes: Cheese Pancakes

Here we are at last, we've finally made it to Amsterdam.  It's been a long journey through the continent (and you even got to sit out our time in Austria and the long drive across Germany!) and The Netherlands is our country of exit.  After our time in Venice, boyfriend and I headed through Innsbruck and on to Munich.  The Munich airport had a plethora of automatic transmission cars and we were on our way, on the autobahn!

Through Germany we travelled, stopping at castles and small towns, and into Holland, with its speed limit, boo.  We drove our tiny little rental car into the heart of Amsterdam and checked into our super cool hotel.  The front desk held a dish of stroopwafels, delicious little caramel-filled wafers, which we stole many of during our short stay there.

Boyfriend and I weren't really sure what to expect in Amsterdam, but we were both pleasantly surprised.  It's a beautiful city, cross-hatched by canals and green with parks.  We passed by more museums than we could possibly visit with a whole week in town.  We enjoyed a fragrant walk through the flower market and bought my mom some "blue" tulips (they turned out to be pink when they came up in the spring).  We finished up our evening with a table full of Indian food and a late-night stroll through the red-light district.  The very next morning we headed off to Schipol airport and back to the United States, with my new cookbooks in tow.

Mmmm, so gouda...

Ravioli di taleggio con salsa alle spugnole

After our journey through Paris and our trials in getting a rental car, we made our way through Switzerland into Italy via train.  We decided that it would be a bad idea to try and learn how to drive a manual transmission car and drive it through the Swiss alps.  This was the best decision of our entire trip.  While we ended up missing out on a day in Interlocken, we gained so much more time by travelling by train. 

Rather than focussing on maps and driving directions, we took our time on the rails to learn about our next destination, play games and talk with fellow travellers.  We travelled through the mountains, skirted lakes and pulled into Venice, from our window seats.

After we checked our luggage at the baggage drop, we made our way through the winding streets of Venice.  A pair of American tourists gave us their vaparetto passes (their friends gave us a second pair, which we passed along to a couple on their honeymoon), which allowed us access to the Venice boat busses. 

We rode the vaparetto along the grand canal and under the Rialto bridge, passed by gondolas and ancient churches.  As the grand canal opened up into the lagoon boyfriend turned to me and "This is completely surreal."  Even though we had seen so many famous landmarks, climbed an unbelievable amount of stairs and taken hundreds of photos, this was truely a surreal moment.

Of all the days we spent travelling across the continent, I remember that day in Venice so vividly.  Our walk around Piazza San Marco, the amazing mushroom tortellini from a hidden bistro and the hazelnut gelato we ate while watching a crazy house dog, all combined for a perfect day in such a unique city.  It would have been a perfect day, had our hotel not given away our room and sent us to the Hotel Marco Polo.


At least it has one redeeming quality, it's PINK!



Brining memories home with mushroom ravioli