#from what i can only assume is one of 3 indian restaurants in the entire state

[proteus-no]

I have to head into the city for my doctor's appointment and you all know what that means!

[underdarkbaking]

The Best Pie of the Forgotten Realms

Let me tell you, this is probably the hardest I’ve ever worked to come up with a recipe, and the results are… well, you’ll see. Buckle up Wafflefam, it’s a long one. I can’t promise you it will be interesting, but I CAN promise you you’ll learn a lot about edible lichen.

The journey began with collecting what we canonically know about Jarlaxle’s pie: Chris called it a “Luskan fractal helix apple pie”, and its ingredients are common enough that you can find them already in Strix’s shop or in a Waterdhavian market, the two exceptions being Kara-Tur pears and a specific type of white, aquatic lichen that acts as a substitute to cinnamon. We also know that before getting the two secret ingredients, Strix was already working on the pie for about an hour or more; she then needed a performance check to successfully assemble it, and the pie baked “through the night”. Oh, and also, the pie is ultimately poisoned. More on that later.

The first thing I did was figuring out a “real world” counterpart to the secret ingredients, so that I could design the recipe around them rather than trying to cram them in a traditional apple pie.

The choice was easy for the Kara-Tur pears: Kara-Tur first appeared in the Oriental Adventures book for AD&D in 1985, and it doesn’t seem to have changed much since. As far as I can tell, the only mention of Kara-Tur in 5E is a brief paragraph in the Sword Coast Adventurer’s Guide, where it says that “Far to the east […] lie the empires of Shou Lung, Kozakura, Wa, and the other lands of the vast continent of Kara-Tur”. It’s probably a safe bet to assume these are the equivalent of our real-world China, Japan and Korea. So at least that’s easy to search: we need an Asian pear that is not that common in the West. You don’t have to look far to find the ideal candidate, the nashi pear; also called Asian pear, it’s grown almost exclusively in Japan, Nepal and China, and nowhere commercially in Europe or the US, which makes it a rather difficult fruit to find in the West. I also discovered when researching it that it was called “apple-pear” in several languages, so if that’s not a sign that it belongs in the best apple pie of the Realms, I don’t know what is. Now actually getting the nashi pears was kind of a pain, and after visiting several markets and shops and finding a big fat nothing, I gave up and ordered some online. Which, as you can imagine, makes it by far the most expensive ingredients that goes into the pie. I think I paid more for two pears than for all the other ingredients combined, but anyway, I’ll just be happy it fits into the theme of the rare and hard-to-get ingredient.

Let’s get to the white underwater lichen, shall we? Now THIS was a far more complicated treasure chase. At first I thought I could get away with using some kind of algae or seaweed, since there are so many edible ones, but nooo, that’s not what lichen is, you silly goose: it’s an organism made of types of fungi living in symbiosis with bacteria that use photosynthesis (most commonly algae). In other words, lichen is a moss-mushroom. A mossroom. This led me on a many-hours search of what types of lichen were edible, hoping against hope that I could just go and scrap some off of the trees and rocks in the forest nearby (spoiler alert: I couldn’t). I finally settled on three potential candidates for “best cinnamon substitute in pastry”: Umbilicaria, kalpasi, and Iceland moss.

Umbilicaria (pictured above) is also called “rock tripe” in North America. It was a good candidate because, while not strictly aquatic, it does grow better on seaside cliffs and it is harvested in rainy weather. Its colours vary from black to light gray, so, that’s not white, but grayish could be close enough. I ultimately didn’t go with this one for another reason: it’s a delicacy in Japan, where it’s called “iwatake”, and that’s pretty much the only place where I could order some from. And it might seem petty, but I didn’t want the two secret ingredients to come from the same region of the world. There’s no fun in that.

Kalpasi (above) also seemed like a good choice: it’s an Indian spice composed of ground up greyish-brown lichen, used in meat dishes. I liked it because, unlike other types of lichen, this one is supposed to actually taste good, with earthy, almost truffle-like tones. And we all know truffles always make a dish 50% fancier. For those interested, you can sometimes find it in the West in specialized shops, under the names kalpasi or dagad phool.

Coming down to the last one, Iceland moss! Despite its name, it is indeed a lichen and not a moss. I eventually settled on this one, for three reasons:

1)      It’s not always white, but it can be.

2)      It has been used as an unusual ingredient by the inventive chef René Redzepi in his two-Michelin-star restaurant Noma, in Copenhagen, considered one of the best restaurants in the world. The meals are… interesting, to say the least. Anyway, if it’s good enough to warrant two Michelin stars, we might as well use it.

3)      As its name indicates, it grows in Iceland, more specifically on lava slopes. It’s not underwater, but I like the exoticism it brings to the table, in contrast to the other ingredients. Moreover, I don’t know how much of 4E has been retconned over the years, but I like the idea of Jarlaxle stumbling upon a rare type of white lichen on an ancient lava slope in Gauntlgrym just before he accidentally released Maegera (yes, the same one) and caused the eruption that destroyed Neverwinter. It gives a bit of flavor to the lichen, pun intended.

 Here’s a picture of the bag I bought. It’s not the whitest, but it’ll do.

And there we are, the first step is done, we have our secret ingredients. For the more mundane ones, I went as “high-end medieval fantasy cooking” as I could:

-          Waterdeep flour is most likely made in a traditional mill, probably water- or donkey-powered, so the flour I’ll be using comes from an abbey where it is made traditionally by monks who only sell it there. I’m not even joking. It’s an hour and a half away from where I live but I always make sure to pick up a few bags when I’m in the vicinity. It’s the finest flour I have ever seen, and I’m not exaggerating when I say it flows like water. The stuff is mesmerizing. Do you think they make flour in the Spires?

-          The butter is also locally sourced from a dairy just outside my hometown, it’s partly made with the milk of cows I can see from my window. I don’t think the taste is that different from generic/industrial butter, but it’s as fresh as I can get, and I think that’s closer to what would be available in Waterdeep.

-          Nothing much I can do about the powdered sugar, so it’s just store-bought. I could not find any mentions of sugar in official D&D sources, so I’m assuming they get the expensive one from Kara-Tur and they make the regular one from sugar beets, or that they use honey as a sweetener. We’ll just assume Strix gets hers from her Heward’s handy spice pouch, because we only need a small quantity of it.

-          The eggs, on the other hand, come straight up from my grandma’s chickens. There are just 4 of them but their pen is bigger than her house and they eat like kings because the entire extended family feed them all their leftovers. I figure Strix probably raises her chickens the same way, or at least with the same amount of love. Their yolk is a bright yellow that you can’t get from anywhere else, and it makes for a good-looking pastry.

-          Similarly, the apples come from my grandfather’s apple tree. It’s an exceptional tree that produces so much that 2 other varieties have been grafted on its trunk over the years; it now produces three different kinds of apple. We’re obviously a few months after the season though, so I’m using apples from Fall 2018 that were in my freezer. Not the freshest of ingredients, especially compared to the rest, but it’s the most “organic” apples I can get. I don’t think Waterdeep’s orchards use GMOs.

 Now we need to find a way to make all of this into the best apple pie possible. On a sidenote here, I realize I’m not going to come up with the best apple pie ever out of the blue and simply by adding a strange fruit and an even stranger spice. My goal is for the pie to be the best it can be, while making it interesting enough so that a pie critic from the Forgotten Realms would be delighted enough to kiss a trash-tiefling.

First we need to figure out what Strix is doing to get the pie ready while her companions are fighting wererats and fishing treasure chests. I decided to use my tried-and-true crust recipe, which I have already posted here. It’s a bit long to make, as you need to make the dough, let it cool down for at least 30 minutes, and bake it blind for 10 to 15 minutes; that could be what Strix is doing during the hour+ when the others are away. It’s also way more buttery than most pastry recipes, and it’s a bit unusual in its use of powdered sugar, which I feel makes it closer to what the game’s recipe could be, because, well, it’s non-traditional. Given his choice of ingredients, Jarlaxle is obviously more on the disruptive side of baking.

Next, the filling. In my baking experience, I have found that apple pie is always better when the bottom is lined with applesauce: it keeps the crust from overcooking and keeps the apple slices moist for far longer, allowing you to cook the pie for the few minutes more that will turn crunchy apple bits into soft bites of caramelized goodness. The question now was, do I turn the nashi into purée and use that instead of applesauce, or should I use it as a fruit topping like an apple?

At first, I thought my supply of nashi pears would be very limited, so I would have to make them count. But once they showed up at my house, I realized my mistake: one pear weighs 800g (1.76 lb). These are heckin’ chonkers. Here they are, surrounding a normal-sized apple that wasn’t asking for any trouble:

They’re as big as a grapefruit and four times as heavy. And the taste? Oh sweet Lathander, the taste. This is one of the juiciest fruit I’ve ever eaten. It feels like you’re eating a pear, but it tastes like a very sweet apple, with none of the tartness. It’s like a fruit for kids.

So, given that I had so much more fruit than I expected, I could try some experiments; I turned one half of a nashi into purée, and I baked a tray of mini-pies to try a few different combinations of fruit and sauce.

And here’s what I discovered –the nashi loses its taste when it’s cooked. There is absolutely no point in making an apple pie with nashi as a main fruit, because it’s like biting into a bland pear, which is a shame, given how delicious it is in its raw form. However, its juiciness makes it a pretty great ingredient for the purée. As I said, it loses its taste, so it doesn’t overpower the apples, but the texture of the “nashisauce” is everything you want in that kind of pie: it’s smooth, it’s moist, it ties everything together very well. So, I’ll count that as a win!

Now for the lichen. Chris/Jarlaxle said it was to be used as a substitute to cinnamon, so I had a few options: mix it in with the nashisauce, lightly coat the apple slices in it before assembling the pie, or dust the pie just out of the oven with grated lichen. At that point, you’re probably wondering what Iceland moss tastes like, and so was I. So I ate a bit of it. And regretted it immediately.

It is extremely bitter, and tastes like cheap tea. How do you turn that into an ingredient worthy of the best pie in Waterdeep? The first thing I tried was to let it steep in hot water, as if I was actually making tea. I made two cups: one to use the resulting water as a binding agent for the crust (which would imply reducing the amount of egg yolk, but you never know, it could be for the best), and one to see if I could “wash away” some of the bitterness off the lichen.

Well, again, no to both of those, it was just too bitter. But I discovered in the process that if you let the lichen steep in hot water long enough, it falls to the bottom of the cup and you can mush it into a kind of lumpy paste. Working from this, and after many tries, I finally came up with what I think is a good solution: I boiled the lichen in a lot of water with a few spoons of honey until it turned into mush, pressed that into a mold, baked it for half an hour, rolled the resulting paste into a ball with powdered sugar to reduce its stickiness, let it air dry overnight and well into the next day (I sped up the process by leaving it on top of my oven, which is often on in our home), and baked it once more at a very low temperature for almost two hours. The result was a very hard ball of cooked-but-unburnt lichen, honey and sugar, which I could grind into a sand-like powder.

Its only use in that state is to be scattered on top of the pie just out of the oven, which melts the sugar and frees the aroma of the lichen. Now here’s where it gets interesting: it’s sweet and the bitterness is still there, but it’s a good bitterness, like adding dark chocolate to curry or a red wine sauce. It’s not overpowering, it doesn’t overwhelm the apple taste, you don’t get it on every bite so you don’t get bored of it, and overall, it just tastes great. And that’s exactly what we want.

All right, everything seems to be figured out ingredients-wise, time to bake the first test pie! I was wondering what exactly would be the look of a “fractal helix pie”, so I just went with a pie-ception kind of concept and used once again my trusty mini-pie tray to make smaller pies on the main pie.

Also, I used an apple peeler and corer and only cut one side of the resulting product to turn the fruits into apple rings rather than the usual apple slices. I was hoping that it’d look more helix-y if I covered the pie in intertwined rings. Pop that in the oven for 50 minutes, and here we go!

So here are the results; it’s a good pie, all in all. The nashisauce certainly makes a difference for the best, albeit a small one –if you know it’s there, you can barely taste it, but if you don’t know it just feels like “hey, the applesauce did its job remarkably well today”. The lichen is also a welcomed addition on the bites where it is present, but you have to tell your guests that it’s there, otherwise their “Oh yeah, that’s pretty good in a dark chocolate-y kind of way” will turned into a shocked “What in the Nine Hells is that black stuff that tastes like a cursed grapefruit”.

Regarding the looks of the pie, it didn’t quite turn out as I’d hoped. Sure, it’s different, and the mini-pies-on-a-pie where a hit with the guests, but the apple rings had shrunk and broke off each other in several places, making it just a weirdly laid-out apple pie.

All in all, the first full-scale test was a bit disappointing, but not discouraging –the basics were there, and it was better than my usual apple pie. It just needed a little something to push it over the edge.

At this point, I’m thinking that the ingredients are pretty much the best we can realistically get, and I can’t imagine any cooking technique within my abilities that would improve the overall taste. So let’s add more ingredients and see if it does the trick. What can we add that doesn’t betray the lore of DCA and the setting of the Forgotten Realms?

Let’s dive back into the process: Strix has to bake her pies in a traditional bread oven, given that she worked in a bakery when she was a child. Which means her pies cook realistically in less than an hour in a very hot oven that stays around 250°C-275°C (480°F-530°F) all day. We’ve also seen in some episodes that the pies can be made and cooked in 10 minutes to half an hour, so she probably has a bunch of pre-cooked pastry case and keeps her oven above 300°C (570°F) , which is possible although quite insane.

But Chris said that the pie was let to bake overnight. How does that happen? Probably by baking the crust blind in the hot oven, which you typically don’t do for an apple pie, then take it out, let the temperature drop and the fire turn to embers, and finally putting the now assembled pie inside and closing the door so that the fruit slowly cooks and caramelizes. And what happens when you leave something in a semi-closed wood-fired oven for an extended period of time? It gets smoked. Literally. This is something I hadn’t thought of before, but every pastry made by Strix should have a very light woody, smoky aftertaste.

I don’t have access to a traditional baker’s oven (I’ve been planning on building one myself for years but never made the jump because I seriously doubt I could pull it off), but nowadays it’s easy to come by something called liquid smoke, which is exactly what it sounds like. So let’s get back to the mini-pie tray and bake some with different amount of liquid smoke, mixed into the applesauce or baked into the pastry.

And survey says: ooh boy you really don’t need much. If we extrapolate from the taste of the small pies, only about 5 drops should be added to the applesauce, and nothing to the pastry. It should give the pie that subtle smoky taste that hints toward campfire food. Any more and it tastes like the pie has been baked on an unwashed stove where you previously charred pounds of cheap, expired bacon.

Okay, we’re almost there… and then, as I was scraping my brain to find a new ingredient that would stay true to the pie, it hit me. It was staring at me right in the face from the very beginning.

It’s a LUSKAN pie. It’s from basically a pirate city! It needs rum to be complete! Again, there’s two way to go about this: either mix a big tablespoon of rum with the nashisauce, or pour it on the pie at the last moment to flambé it. But let’s be honest, flambé is just for show, and it will be much more flavorful if it bakes with the pie, so, let’s do that.

Also, I went back to Chris’s tweet announcing what the episode would be about, and he used this gif: 

Soooo… Yeah, that’s probably why he called it a “fractal helix” pie. I don’t think I can replicate an ever-moving infinite pastry in real life, but I can certainly try.

Okay, let’s bake a new pie for real! This should be the one. I’m doing everything in one go, as close to DCA as I can:

1-      Preparing the crust and baking it blind, undercooking it a lot, just enough so that there is no risk of the crust losing its integrity under the humidity of the nashisauce, while the rest of the Coven goes on a hunt for lichen and pears. Total time: 1 hour.

2-      Beginning to cook the nashi into purée with half a vanilla pod (in a bit of last-minute inspiration) while peeling half of the apples; I am letting those oxidize for a bit, so that I’ll have two different colors of apple to work with. Time: 5min.

3-      Boiling the Iceland moss with honeyed water and pressing the resulting paste into a mold: 15min.

4-      Thoroughly blending the cooked nashi purée and setting it to cool down on the windowsill while the lichen bakes in the oven: 15 min.

5-      Taking the lichen out of the oven and rolling it into a ball with powdered sugar: 5 min.

6-      Mixing the nashisauce with liquid smoke and rum, peeling the rest of the apples, and finally assembling the pie in a pattern that suggests movement: 45 min. Yeah I went back and forth a lot with the placement and shapes of the apple slices. I’m thinking this is where the performance check comes into action, and I do not have proficiency in that skill.

7-      And now, it has to cook overnight, while the ball of sweet lichen dries out on top of the oven. So what I’m doing is actually baking it at low temperature (175°C/350°F) for over an hour, and then, without ever opening the oven door to keep as much humidity inside as I can, turning it down to the smallest setting for another hour (that would be 100°C/210°F on my oven). Once this is done, I’m still not opening the oven door, and I turn the oven off, letting it cool down with the pie still inside overnight. Also I started it at 7PM, and now it’s a bit before midnight because I took my sweet time, so I’m going to sleep.

The next morning, I’m checking the ball of lichen: it’s not as hard as the first time, mostly because I didn’t let it dry long enough, but I should be able to grate enough of its surface to lightly dust it on the pie. Speaking of the pie, I’m finally opening the oven door, and… it looks perfect.

Or at least, it looks how I wanted it to look: the patterns are there, although some slices have shifted a little, and the two colors of apple give it a style that I absolutely love. I’m definitely using this trick from now on for my normal apple pies. And it’s still a bit warm. I’m taking the pie out and putting the lichen in on a very low setting to dry it out a bit more.

Four hours later, I am serving the pie; I popped it in the hot oven for a brief moment to slightly warm it up, grated a bit of lichen on top of it, and dug in with everyone.

Is it the perfect pie? Probably not. Is it unusual? I mean, kinda, there’s a lot of subtle flavors in there that you don’t necessarily expect. Is it good? Yes, yes it is. The ingredients blend very well together. But more importantly, DID MY MOTHER SAY SHE LOVED IT AND ASK FOR THE RECIPE? DAMN RIGHT SHE DID. And that’s all I need to call it a success.

So here we are folks, this is the end of our Luskan fractal helix pie journey. I had a lot of fun coming up with that one, and I’m looking forward to the next culinary endeavors of the Chicken Foot Coven.

I guess that, as a conclusion, I need to address the biggest question we’re all asking ourselves: is this pie worth making?

If you just want to eat a good apple pie, no, not really. Just make your favourite apple pie, and maybe take some inspiration from this recipe to spice it up a bit. But if you want to try and bake it in the spirit of “let’s make a DCA-inspired pie”, please do. It’s tremendous fun. I loved tracking down and using those exotic ingredients, and the process of turning lichen into sweet sand makes you feel like an alchemist. Plus, it’s an easy recipe, there’s not much that can go wrong. It’s still just an apple pie.

All right, that’s it, we’re done. If you read everything, thank you so much for keeping up with my rambling. Don’t hesitate to ask if you have some questions related to all of that. Otherwise, I’ll see you all next time there is something to bake!

PS: “But what if I want to taste what the critic ACTUALLY ate, poison and all?”

So I did some research, and it seems that most poisons have a bitter taste, which is already present in our pie thanks to the lichen. So, potentially, the pie wouldn’t taste much different. I’d also wager that the Drow poison is tasteless. However, some “classical” poisons are known to have a distinct taste: cyanide supposedly tastes like bitter almonds, and poison hemlock allegedly tastes like mild parsnip. Yes, parsnip, you read that right. I don’t think parsnip will be a good addition to our pie’s flavor profile, but I’m positive that almonds will make it even better. If you’re not allergic.

[greentreerealm]

The Chipotle Ordering Guide and Masterpost.

So. Throughout my 3 years working with this company, I’ve considered making this... and ya know what. I’m in a mood. And I’ve got the time. Let’s go. 

A. Line Etiquette 1 - Get off your phone. Period. 

2 - Use your words. We’re excellent point-guessers; but please, it’s much easier if you speak. Really. Because that millimeter difference on the other side of the glass means I’m gonna put the wrong thing in your food, and guess what, I’m not gonna be upset when you get mad about it. 

3 - Do. Not. Put. Your. Nasty. Ass. Hands. Over. The. Glass.

4 - Politeness. There is literally zero reason to be in-a-huff, or rude, or nasty, or unreasonable to any of the crew members. Zero. If you’re there for lunch, then most, if not all of those people have been there as early as 7am or 8am. If you’re there for dinner, those folks probably only arrived around 3pm or 4pm but they are also going to be there until 11pm at least. Be patient. 

5 - LISTEN. We literally have a basic “script” of the entire line that we are speaking to each and individual customer. So PAY. ATTENTION. When we ask if you want something, actually take the .0002 seconds to listen to what you’re being asked so we can make your order correctly. 97% of order mistakes/errors are because we ask if the customer wants something, they say one thing and mean something else. Or they’re not paying attention, chatting with the person next to them, on their phone, or just pointing. In all of those cases, the customer has 0 excuse for getting upset. 

6 - Know what you want. - You’ve spent how long in line? Your order should be ready to go by the time you get to the front. **DISCLAIMER** If you’re new, or an infrequent customer, please let the crew know, so we know to take our time and even help explain the menu to you. We’re here to try and make your experience as smooth as possible, and get you in and out quickly and efficiently. And if the line stresses you out, order online. There’s a separate section further down to cover the questions/concerns with that process.

7 - Portions -  Yes the standard portion sizes are the same for all entrees. Most items are offered at 4oz increments (exception being Queso and Vinaigrette). That’s the equivalent to one of those small plastic side-cups we have; or one average-sized spoonful. That’s it. Calm your sh*t. Anything can be double-portioned for free except for meat, queso, and guac. Technically, anything beyond two portions of any item will also cost a dollar for each additional serving. So for those of you who get 4 scoops of rice and 3 scoops of beans, be glad you’re not getting charged an additional $3. 

8 - Non-Entree Orders - If you’re just getting a drink, or chips n’ guac, you don’t need to wait in line. By all means, just go right up to the front and hop in-between orders! You really only need to wait in line if you’re getting an entree.

B. The Tortilla Station. 1 - Meal Options - We have: Burritos, Bowls, Salads, Tacos, Quesadillas, Kids Meals, Nachos, and Quesarritos. 1a - If you’re planning on getting a metric-f*ckton of food, either get a bowl or a double-wrap burrito. Otherwise, the tiny tortillas we have are going to tear. If not once, then 2 or 3 times.  1b - Salads are a bowl with lettuce on the bottom. That lettuce is supposed to replace the rice and beans in a bowl. So don’t be surprised or upset when you order a salad and we then go straight to meats. Also, just fyi, it is the exact. same. lettuce. at the end of the line, it is literally just cut into a different shape. 1c - Tacos come in a set of three, unless you specify a different number. That said, if you get tacos, that means each one gets 1/3 of a portion. Not a full portion of something in each taco.  1d - Quesadillas come as either just cheese, or a meat and a cheese. Some stores MIGHT let you put one more item in it. Most stores enforce the policy that “anything more than just meat and cheese, and you will be charged for a full burrito.” Additionally, we all highly recommend getting any cold or wet sides, on. the side. Otherwise, it is too messy and could literally damage our equipment if that moisture leaks onto the press. Please, just ask for it on the side. That said, most quesadillas with come with 1 or 2 complementary sides, like sour cream or hot salsa. Though, this is not universal. 1e - Kid’s meals are designed for children; but, anyone can order them. If you want something small and less expensive, that’s totally fine. BUT You need to respect and understand the limitations of this menu item. Kid’s meals come in 2 forms: small quesadilla which comes with a side of rice, and a side of beans (or two salsa sides); or build-your-own tacos which comes with 2 taco shells and 3 sides of. the. entire. line. So if you wasted all 3 sides on rice, beans, and meat, that’s it. It’ll be a dollar extra if you want anything from the cold side. Typically, it’s good to balance a meat, and two sides from the salsa side. Or even all 3 from the salsa/cold side. But just know, the kid’s meals do not come with more than that. They are, in fact, for children.  1f - Nachos are a fairly new secret menu item. Basically it’s similar to the way a salad works. Instead of rice and beans, you start with a bag of chips on the bottom of the bowl. You will still be charged for a bag of chips with your order. They’re just at the bottom of the bowl instead of in a bag. And yes, you’re supposed to skip rice and beans with these as well.  1g - If there’s a line, don’t get a f*cking quesarrito.

2 - Rices - We have White Rice and Brown Rice. They. Are. Both. Cilantro. Lime. I do understand our menu panels are not super helpful with that bit. The difference is white rice is cooked with more oil and prepared with more salt. Our brown rice, is a bit healthier. Also, it is not dirty rice. It is not fried rice. It is not refried rice. It is not yellow rice. We literally just asked you “White or brown?”

3 - Beans - We have Black Beans and Pinto Beans. Not Red Beans (Because in different places, “red beans” can be applied to both types). Not refried beans. Not indian beans. Not yellow beans. And no, neither beans have any meat in them, they are both totally veg. 

4 - Fajitas - Sauteed peppers and onions, seasoned with oregano and salt. Free with any entree. Please tell us you want them before we get to meat. And DEFINITELY before getting to salsa.

5 - The Meats - We have: Chicken, Steak, Barbacoa, Carnitas, and Sofritas. The Chorizo was discontinued after the release of Queso. You might find some stores still offering it, as they are trying to clear out what was stored at the distributors; though by now, it’s not likely.  5a - Say it with me slowly: Bar-Buh-Co-Uh. Not barbaCOLA, Not BarBOCA. The Barbacoa is shredded beef. The Carnitas is pulled/shredded pork. And our Sofritas is a brazed/shredded tofu.  5b - The order of least-spicy to most-spicy is as follows: Carnitas - No spice what-so-ever. Sofritas & Chicken - both have light-medium spice respectively. Barbacoa - pretty spicy. Steak - the spiciest meat, though still tamer than our hot salsa. 5c - Double meat costs extra. Corporate policy. And if that standard 4oz portion isn’t good enough for you, then don’t complain about the extra cost. Period. We literally don’t care if “another store gives you more.” Respect our policies, you are a guest. And no, contrary to popular belief, the customer is not always right. 5d - You can get half-n-half of two protein/meat options. But that means you will get 2oz of each. Not a full scoop. If you do this, you will get charged for the more expensive of the two choices. (ex: half-chicken, half-steak = price of a steak bowl).

6 - Queso - It’s new, it’s a bit weird. And quite honestly, when it was first released, they had not solidified the recipe. Stores were getting different variations of the same stuff on a semi-daily basis. Now though, things have seemed to calmed down and they’re sticking to something that actually works pretty well. It is a cheese sauce, with a sofritas base, and incorporates ingredients from our Medium Green and Hot tomatillo salsas. It does cost extra. All restaurants now have a little placard on their line explaining the new costs. Also, the extra costs are listed on a giant menu board above the line.  (personally, I feel the queso tastes best in an entree rather than just on the side)

C. The Salsa Station 1 - Mild, Medium, or Hot? - If you say “no thanks” then we are moving on to Sour Cream and Cheese. So please pay attention. Really. Cannot stress this enough. 1a - Mild is the tomato salsa. Yes, it’s a salsa. Yes there are (usually) some jalepenos in it, so there is still a small kick.  1b - Medium green and the Red hot are the two tomatillo salsas. Consequently, if you ask for the “red salsa” we assume the red hot tomatillo salsa. Do not say “red” if you mean the mild. Yes, it’s technically ‘red’ in color; but semantics is literally everything here.  1c - We technically have 4 salsas. (FOUR?! WHAT?!) Yes. The. Corn. Is. A. Salsa. It has a medium spice; therefore, when we ask “Mild, Medium, or Hot?” it is encompassed in that ‘Medium’ category. 

2 - Sour Cream or Cheese? - First of all, it’s sour cream. SOUR. CREAM. It is not: marshmallow, cream cheese, yogurt, vanilla, mayonnaise, nor cool whip. Like, where do you even think you are? 2b - It’s cheese. It’s just shredded cheese. It’s not noodles. We do not offer noodles at a Mexican Restaurant.  2c - As we do not have spoons for cheese, the standard portion size of 4oz is measured by a ‘three-finger pinch.’ If that’s not enough, please just ask; but understand, technically extra cheese beyond two portions should cost you an additional dollar.

3 - Guacamole / “Guac” - We no longer have to tell you it costs extra. This is because, similar to the Queso, there are now placards on the glass directly in front of you explaining the additional costs. So, the recurring theme: Pay. Attention.  3a - It comes in the same portion size as everything else. 4 ounces. If you want double, then you’re going to pay double. 3b - If you do not order a meat or sofritas, yes it is free. BUT If you order it on your entree and then again on the side, you will be charged for it. Also, while Sofritas is a vegan option, it is still one of our major proteins and does not constitute free guac.  3c - With the rollout of queso and our new “large” side-cups, you can technically order ‘large guac.’ You will then be charged for 2 sides of guac. BUT PLEASE TAKE NOTE: The “Large” side cup offers 6oz. A regular side cup is 4oz. Which means, it’s smarter to just order two sides of guac, and get a full 8oz instead of paying for the novelty of a large side-cup and only getting 6oz.  3d - In Chipotle’s effort to serve non-GMO, fresh, locally-sourced food, we often get cases of avocados that are either under-  or over-ripe. When this happens, the guacamole no longer keeps that bright lime-green color. Often, especially with over-ripe avocados, the inside of the avocados are yellow, or even slightly brown. Even if only a few avocados out of a case are in this condition, in can discolor the entire batch of guac. That said, the color does not affect the taste; nor is it any less fresh than any other day. All guac is made fresh every single morning. The slight browning after it’s been mashed is called “oxidization” it’s the same process that happens to the inside of an apple if it’s exposed to the air for longer than 5 minutes.   

4 - Lettuce - Many stores may not offer this to you directly. Why? Because that shredded lettuce is supposed to be saved for tacos only. That said, by all means, if you want it, order it. It also is served with a ‘three-finger-pinch’; so, don’t get upset if you’re not served an entire fistful of lettuce. And yes, all of it is cut fresh every single morning.  

D. The Cashier (and Their Expo) 1 - Expediter “Expo” - Typically seen during the two peak hours of the day (12pm-1pm and 6pm-7pm), this person stands between salsa and the cashier. Their main responsibility is to communicate your order to the cashier and package your order with all its parts. Their typical spiel is: “Any chips or drinks with your order?” Or "Anything to drink or chips with that today?” Or something similar. THIS. IS. YOUR. MOMENT. Like this is your exact chance to say any and all sides you want with your order. Nothing peeves us more than “No, but can I get a water cup?” or “No thanks, can I get chips and salsa?” Like. WHAT TF DID I JUST ASK YOU?! So again, in our running theme: PAY. ATTENTION.

2 - Chips - All chips are made fresh every morning. They literally go stale after a full day, if they seem “stale” then they were just under-cooked. We cannot/do not serve stale chips. We now have two sizes: Regular (4oz) the same we’ve always had, and Large (6oz). We cannot serve kid’s chips unless it is for a kid’s meal. If some stores do this, they will typically add a $1 charge for the additional side of kid’s chips. 

3 - Drinks - We have Fountain Sodas (Coke Products); bottled Nantucket Nectars, bottled water, and bottled Izze carbonated juices. Most stores offer the following flavors: Pomegranate Cherry, Apple, Pineapple Orange Banana, and Peach Orange Nantucket Nectars; and then Clementine, Blackberry, and Grapefruit Izze’s. Some stores may vary. 

4 - Kid’s Meal Sides - All kid’s meals come with a chips or fruit. The kid’s chips are 2oz. The fruit is typically one of three things: clementine oranges, grapes, or a packet of blueberries. The fruit options change as they become available. Other locations may offer different fruit options.  4b - All kid’s meals also come with one of the following drinks: white milk, chocolate milk, apple juice, or small cup for soda. *THIS IS THE ONLY INSTANCE A WATER CUP MAY BE USED FOR SODA.*

5 - Gift Cards - Yes, we offer gift cards. They’re particularly popular during the holiday season. If you purchase them with a credit/debit card, please confirm that they were fully paid for and activated. Too often, customers in a hurry will walk away before their credit card cleared our computer; and if that transaction declines, they gift an inactive card with $0 balance. Leading to a bad time for everyone. So please, when you purchase gift cards with a credit/debit card, make sure it clears before you leave. This issue doesn’t happen if the cards are paid for with cash. 

E. Dining Room Etiquette 1 - CLEAN. UP. AFTER. YOURSELF. - Pretty self-explanatory. But seriously people. Take your tabasco bottles back to the drink station. Throw your trash away. It’s common sense. Ya’ll people disgusting animals sometimes. 

2 - Tabasco Bottles - These are not available for sale; and, they are most certainly not available for theft!! The reason you can’t seem to find any, is because people decide to pocket them. Daily. Really folks? You’re better than that. 

3 - WATER CUPS - Most times, it’s grown-ass people trying to sneak this. Water cups are for water. only. If we catch you with soda, you can either throw it out and get water, or come up to the register and pay for a soda. If we catch you twice, you will be forced to either pay for a soda or leave the restaurant. If you are a constant repeat offender, we may reserve the right to not serve you. Yes. That’s right. At that point you are a thief; and, have lost the trust of the company. While it is a minor theft, it is stealing nonetheless.  *P.s. you ain’t slick tryna get lemonade in that either. We see you.

4 - Children - If they are well-behaved, beautiful. Wonderful. Enjoy that tiny quesadilla and apple juice box! HOWEVER. If they are screaming, please either tame or remove them. Additionally, our dining room is NOT a jungle-gym. Please keep your children from running all over the place, from climbing onto other guests’ chairs, and if-applicable, from climbing on the window ledges and getting their tiny sticky handprints all over our windows. Thank you.

F. Ordering Online or Via Mobile App 1 - Second Make-Line - Typically, for the lunch and dinner rushes, a separate make-line is opened up for take-out orders only. Though, in the early morning, midday, and after 8pm, this line is closed.

2 - Punctuality - Typically, orders are began roughly 15 minutes before their scheduled pickup time. That way, longer orders can be completed in time for their scheduled pickup time. That said, if you place an order at noon for a 12:15 pickup time, do not arrive at 12:05. Your order will not be ready. Consequently, do not pick it up at 12:45. Your order will be cold. In both situations, the customer does not have the right to complain. 

3 - Extras - Our online and mobile app does fairly well to include extras, half-portions, and any sides for your order. However, if there is something you want included in the order that isn’t listed, you can dedicate a portion of the “name” on the ticket to your extra note. Also, please make sure to include everything in your order so it can be ready. It is always a bit perturbing to make additional sides for orders that should already be completed and ready to hand out. 

4 - Payment - We do offer two options for payment. The more common option is to pre-pay via credit or debit card. There is a second option, to ‘pay-at-pickup’ however; this option is only available if you create an account on the website. So, if you don’t want to be forced to pre-pay with a card, take the extra 2 seconds to make a quick account. It is worth the hassle. 

5 - Phone Orders - We can no longer accept orders over the phone. We no longer receive the fax forms or other sheets to take orders over the phone. Additionally, it wastes too much of an employee’s time to answer the phone, find a spare sheet of paper and writing utensil, and sit down to listen to you scramble over yourself trying to place an order of questionable coherency. This is a fast-paced restaurant, and that person probably has 6 other online orders to make. Place it through the app or website like everyone else. And if you say ‘but i’m driving’ get off your phone. Like seriously. 

6 - Ordering for Multiple People - Do not place an online order for more than 4-6 people. Really. The ticket that prints out is ridiculous and orders can very easily fall prey to being incorrectly prepared. Additionally, if your order is deemed unreasonably long (Typically 20 or more orders) the restaurant has the right to call you and deny the order. At that point, it is considered a catering order and requires 24-hr notice. 

G. Catering Yes, we do it. It requires 24-hr notice. Do not call the store to coordinate it. Call 1.800.Chipotle and they will sort you out. (Also, yes, we know the ‘E’ in Chipotle is an extra digit, it’s no big deal). And please, let us handle everything. There is literally zero need to try and micro-manage your order. Furthermore, make sure that whoever is picking up the order has a large enough vehicle for transportation. The worst is when someone arrives in a 2-door, no-trunk, smartcar-lookin-thing to pick up a catering for 60 people.

So that’s it. Well... most of it anyway. I’m sure there’s more minutia that I didn’t cover; but, quite honestly, that’s just about everything. To my fellow chipotle crew, I salute you. And to all the customers: regulars, newbies, young and old, please, make all our lives easier and pay attention; be kind; and have a great day. 

[sofard]

"I’m not a racist, but...”

A friend of mine once used a fake name on a job application. He had the kind of pedigree that would have all but guaranteed him at least an interview were it his name was of the fairer skinned variety but as it were, he was deep in a several-months-long streak of rejected applications and the skin suit he was blessed with at birth was of the Indian persuasion.

Evidently what inspired his decision to lie about his name was a study published around that time that showed that people with traditionally “black” names were a third less likely to be called back for an interview than those with “white” names and he figured what might be true of the Daquans and Tyrones of the world might be true of the Daneshes and Tanvirs. 

In what proved to be a fortuitous state of affairs for him and a sad state of affairs for humanity, he was right. He landed the interview (and the job) and apparently explaining to your would-be boss that your name is actually Navin Modi and not Nathan Madison is indeed as awkward as one would expect. Upon receiving word of Navin's deceit, his boss was predictably upset but also afraid of the HR nightmare that might ensue should he raise an uproar, and Navin, for his part, was left with the kind of morose self righteousness one feels when our worst suspicions are vindicated. 

This story is worth sharing because it bears on the pernicious subtlety of contemporary racism. Racism with a capital R still exists, but we have mostly silenced it. The tragedy of today is that even in the upper echelons of progressive, liberal, socially-conscious society, there remains the kind of racial biases we assume we have shed. And because calling someone a racist has become more taboo than actually being racist, accusations of “race based decision making,” to put it kindly, are welcomed with a kind of awkward denial the likes of which you might expect if you publicly point out someone’s hair plugs. 

I think the shaming of racism speaks to why there is so much silent disagreement over its prevelance. Political correctness has done too great of a job of shutting out explicit bigotry in the public sphere, and so pointing out its more complicated or subdued manifestations can make you sound like a conspiracy theorist at times. 

We are wired to notice change and ignore the consistent. It is why we miss partners most when they are gone. And because lynchings and residential schools are a thing of the past, we are left bickering over things like whether or not police brutality is indeed discriminatory, each side cherrypicking favourable details from academic papers and criticizing study flaws to make their point.  

There is a scene in Django Unchained where Leonardo Dicaprio’s character, Candie Calvin, owner of Candie-land, a prosperous plantation, threatens to murder his slave (the protagonist’s love interest), Broomhilda, by bludgeoning her with a hammer, unless his unwelcome guests pay him twelve thousand dollars. Regardless of your opinion of the civil war or race politics today, I imagine any viewer, save perhaps psychopaths, was reeling in empathy watching that scene. Even the most bigoted amongst us will find it easy to condemn the racial-slurs-screaming antagonists portrayed in films; those characters who are portrayed with an ugliness on the outside to suit the ugliness inside. 

Candie Calvin threatening to murder his property, Broomhilda.

These kind of extremes, in film or history books, serve as a sort of healing stone, placating our conscience and forgiving us of the kind of daily prejudices that go unnoticed. This is why it is possible for some to simultaneously hate german nazis from World War II and sympathize with modern white nationals who extol similar rhetoric under the guise of preserving history or cultural identity. 

In this way, art and media pacify our conscience. I am not yelling chink at every Chinese person I see crossing the street and so I am better than the worst portrayed in film, I am conditioned to believe. This is what our understanding of racism today looks like, if you can call it that. The very word evokes such a garish or violent extreme of bigotry that we become blinded to its more detrimental and subtle varieties the way staring into headlights blinds you to the muted glow of the stars. 

People like resolutions. The tearing down of the Berlin wall was a great symbolic end to the cold war. The images of young men and women, sledge hammers in hand, swinging at the graffitied wall bear some kind of cathartic victory over a darker past. There is no physical wall separating races, no monument celebrating racism (though if there were I would be the first person to volunteer its design) we can tear down and so instead we erect one-dimensional symbols of intolerance and make peace with our history by defeating them. 

I once had a conversation about race with a white friend of mine who said sincerely “I wish I took advantage of white privilege” as though it is government-issued token you can cash in opportunistically. “Sorry, I am seeing someone” — “Wait, I have 3 white privilege vouchers” — “Why didn’t you say so? Where should we fuck?" 

There are endless statistics to measure at least the empirical manifestations of racism. White people are less likely to be arrested for the same crime as minorities, more favoured romantically than any other race on dating sites, more likely to be hired with the same resume, more likely to be cast in film roles, more likely to be acquitted for a crime, more likely to be given a loan — the list goes on and on. 

We call this kind of stuff systemic racism. I believe we do so in part because it helps absolve any particular individual from prejudice. It’s more comforting to know that institutions and socioeconomic classes are responsible for prejudice than we are as complicit, voting, individuals. Racism, and other isms, in this way, have evolved from a choice of an individual to a phenomenon as natural as hurricane winds; something to be studied and measured and explained through psychological and socioeconomic theory. 

How privileged a race is on the spectrum of societal tolerance can be measured by the extent to which their improprieties are afforded context. A white woman who murders her cheating husband is understood to be blinded by temporary insanity or moment of passion. We might punish her out of civil duty, but deep down we extend some empathy to the heart stricken widow. Films will be made and books written attempting to explain what compelled an otherwise lovely woman to commit a crime of passion. Psychologists will be interviewed to assess how, perhaps, her father’s frequent trips overseas and the condom she once found in his travel bag plagued her with a mistrust of men throughout adulthood and how that combined with an abusive boyfriend in her past all but guaranteed destiny would bring her to this horrible act. 

Stereotypes are a burden carried by minorities and individuality a luxury afforded to the light skinned. When I go to a restaurant, I make sure to give a nice tip even if the service is terrible. I feel that in social settings I am an ambassador for Middle Eastern people the world over, like I am carrying a lanyard with the words “Iranian Male Corp. Name: Saeid Fard. Ask me about how non threatening I am.” One act of rudeness or impropriety might be generalized to my entire community, I fear, and conversely all the stereotypes of middle eastern men, the chauvinism, homophobia, or proclivity to douse ourselves in a shroud of cologne, are assumptions I have to actively invalidate. 

I recall one corporate training session years ago when conversation of diversity in the workplace came up and the lead administrator, the kind of person who gets off on being offended, asked the group to raise their hands if they have a gay friend. One of my closest friends at the time was gay (which I hate to bring up because invoking friendship with a minority is the go to defence of any bigot), but I declined to raise my hand on grounds of how ugly I found the question to be. I wondered if he would feel as comfortable asking the group if they have a black friend. Did not raising one’s hand imply that one is necessarily homophobic? Needless to say, I was the only one with my hand down. I was hoping this would spark some kind of dialog where I could make the point of how I found his very question insulting and unproductive. Instead he made eye contact with me, lectured us briefly with platitudes about the importance of diverse perspectives, and moved on. That was it. It was a homophobes-anonymous roll call and apparently I was the only member. Perhaps it was my own insecurity, but I imagined him looking up my name on a clipboard later with the words “hates gay people” next to it and a box labeled “verified” which he gleefully checked.

I have spoken to many members of visible minority groups who feel the same way — feel that they must proactively fight against the assumptions made of them. Even “positive” stereotypes are destructive in that they strip us of complexity. Blacks as athletic or asians good at math, are the kinds of expectations that strip  people of the freedom to self actualize. Slavoj Zizek touches on this point in his talk of political correctness and racial cliches. In one binary cultural narrative of the west, natives are cast as stewards of nature living in harmony with the environment, while the white colonialists on the other hand conquered their environment and are now dealing with a rapprochement of sorts. The truth is, of course, more complex. Natives, for instance, employed what would be considered today barbaric hunting practices that brought the buffalo population of North America to near extinction. Giving people the benefit of being fully human requires giving them the dignity to be horrible. 

Modern day racism is the stripping of individuality and complexity. We spend more effort trying to understand why people of European descent do things and yet generalize the behaviours of coloured people to inherent flaws (or virtues) of their race. A white serial killer is a case study in human psychopathy. A brown one is a terrorist. A white drug user is self medicating, or exploring their identity or navigating societal norms. A black drug user is a thug. It’s worth noting now that there is also an undeniable element of social and economic class at play but describing our penchant to strip minorities of individuality cannot only be deconstructed by race. 

When I was in seventh grade I had the misfortune of being granted the nickname Saudi Arabia from my class of mostly east Asian and White children. Kids will be kids and most of them will tease and be teased, but it’s not if but how you are teased during your formative years that defines what talismanic insecurities you will exercise into adulthood. Already different from every student, I became acutely aware of how physically different I was from my peers at the time. Darker, hairier, wide-nosed, the list goes on. Insults and defamations aside, words have a way of mirroring your identity, a literary conduit into the perceptions of others. I was brown (or olive or whatever) and that brownness or oliveness or whatever really seemed to mean something to people. 

Two paths emerge when people are persistently reminded of their differentness from such a young age, they either let that differentness empower them or swallow them whole. We carry our adolescent identities and insecurities to our grave. And it is through those formative experiences and labels that we develop the racial pride and resentments that bias the decision making of even the best of us. 

Our present inability to rid ourselves of this whole messy racism thing is in part due to the fact that we have been trained to care about race in the first place. The moment you devise an arbitrary way to separate people, whether it be race, national boundaries, or gender, the pernicious “ism” won’t be too far behind. Make too much of a fuss about the sexes (as we have for centuries) and sexism will brew and, like a parasite, snake its way into the most fundamental assumptions we make about each other. We have collectively decided that talking of the “positive” elements of our race is permissable but talking of the “negative” is not. The problem is they are two sides of the same coin. The instant you allow a place for value judgments, there will be both good and bad judgments. 

I don’t believe we can ever truly rid the world of racism, but we can make progress to reduce it. And that starts with the inconvenient step of thinking twice when we celebrate our particular race or culture. That is hard, and perhaps controversial, because many would argue that celebrating our race, particularly as minorities, is a step towards empowerment. And that’s true, but empowerment perpetuates the very acknowledgement of race that can stifle progress. 

Our tendency is to cling to identity myths to help give our lives meaning. Race serves as a kind of semi-exclusive club we are born into. Some clubs have better member benefits than others, but better to be a part of a club than a pariah. 

We are tribal, after all. Study after study has shown that when you give groups of children or adults an arbitrary identity, like making some of them team blue and others team red, they will eventually begin to drape themselves in that identity and build real favouritism for their own and resentment for others. We are literally hard wired for it. 

I dream of a day where we have successfully interbred to the point where the human genetic soup becomes some kind of mono race. Then, we can hate each other for entirely novel reasons.

[thebestintoronto]

TORONTO IN A DAY ON A SPENDING PLAN|$100 DIFFICULTY

It was not a surprise to me to listen to that Toronto has actually been called one of the leading destinations to go to in 2019 by NatGeo. There are nearly way too many things to do in Toronto which's why it's one of my favourite places in the world. Toronto is so modern as well as can be extremely budget plan friendly. I like visiting Little Italy in the early morning, Little India in the afternoon and concluding a day of expedition in Korea Town. It's like traveling the entire globe in a day! How many times has someone revealed you exactly how to travel the globe in a day for just $100? Well, Interac tested me to do simply that, and also I assume I did a pretty good work. Right here are the most effective points to do in Toronto with one day and also a budget plan just $100.

HOW TO DO TORONTO IN A DAY ON A BUDGET

Have an Espresso at Sicilian Pathway Café ( Complete price for an espresso and cannoli: $6.50).

Start your day of rest right by having a coffee and cannoli in Little Italy. One of my favourite places to grab these two Italian needs is at Sicilian Walkway COFFEE SHOP. What I like concerning the location is you can close your eyes and also seem like you remain in Italy as you sip on your high quality espresso and also home made cannoli.

Patronize Chandan Fashion in Little India. ( Total expense for bracelets: $5.65).

If you're seeking a sari for that Indian wedding event you've been invited to or you just like Indian jewellery as high as I do, have a look at Chandam Style in Little India. Purchasing can be surprisingly economical if you recognize where to look as well as discovering bargains on attractive products is among my favored points to do in Toronto. There's additionally a secret top floor level where you might be able to find a future bride decked out in a typical sari or a lehenga. I was able to get a set of purple bangles for a wedding celebration I'm mosting likely to this year for only $5. What a steal!

Lunch at Moti Mahal in Little India. ( Overall expense for a vegetarian thali and also mango lassi: $16.95).

Food is my good friend! That makes Indian food my bff! Get your palate prepared for this. For only $10, you can obtain a meat or veggie thali at Moti Mahal. One thali suffices food for 2 people. This Toronto restaurant is popular in Little India. If you ask a neighborhood or any of the neighboring shop owners which conventional Indian dining establishment they suggest in the area, they will certainly most likely steer you towards Moti Mahal.

Find Oriental Presents at Mr. Pen in Korea Town. ( Overall price for gifts: $31.20).

Pikachu magnets, Moomins stickers, popsicle socks, moon-lights, vibrant stationery and even more! Mr. Pen is a cute little store in Korea Community where you can delight in all points little, colourful and also extremely lovable. Want a quirky present for a person (including yourself) that will certainly highlight their inner teenage woman, after that this is the area to find it.

Poop COFFEE SHOP in Korea Community. ( Overall price for a poop sundae: $10.74).

Yes, you check out the heading appropriately. There's a toilet-themed treat bar in Toronto that is everything about poop. At Poop COFFEE SHOP, you remain on bathroom seats, consume from commode bowls and also share a table with a packed worn emoji. That's the within poop ... I mean inside story. You can have an inside story of poop, gelato design! You can purchase whatever from coffees served in a small toilet bowl, to poop waffles dressed in chocolate gelato in the shape of well ... you presumed it. In all seriousness, this location is the spunk.

Mirror Karaoke in Korea Town. ( Total price for 3-hours of karaoke: $25).

One of the most fun and also budget-friendly points to do in Toronto is a little Karaoke. You actually can't plan a browse through to Korea Community and also not indulge. Echo Karaoke has exclusive spaces where you and your friends can rock out to both leading 40 as well as your favourite K-Pop. Or if you resemble me, you can rent an area in the late afternoon by yourself and also vocalize songs from your much-loved musicals. A little privacy can bring out the most effective in us in some cases, however don't think twice to share the experience with friends or even complete strangers!

What do you consider these fun and budget friendly things to do In Toronto? And what would you perform with $100 in the city you're from?

The post “TORONTO IN A DAY ON A SPENDING PLAN|$100 DIFFICULTY” was originally seen on Hopscotch The Globe

Intravenous Hydration Clinic Toronto Ontario - Dr. Amauri Wellness Centre - Dr. Amauri Caversan

[backroadblues]

May 25th, 2017 - La Spezia - Liguria, Italy We got back into the hotel relatively early at 10:00PM. Trent and Caryolyn are a little tired. After we parted ways when Elisa wasn't feeling well, they continued on to Vernazza and then on to Monterosso. They did a lot of walking and window shopping. Nothing "spoke" to Carolyn, insisting that she had to bring it home with her. So they too headed back into La Spezia by around 6:30. Elisa and I had spoken with them about having dinner in Monterosso, the largest of the Cinque Terre towns, so we assumed that is what Trent and Carolyn would do when we split up. At 7:00pm, Elisa and I prepared to go out to get a quick bite to eat at a Chinese or Japanese restaurant. Just as we were about to depart, Trent texted me indicating that they were back at the hotel. So we told them we were planning on going out and they said they would join us and be ready by 7:30pm. We strolled down the main pedestrian corridor of the town of LaSpezia. This is a very nice feature of most towns in Italy and other parts of Europe. As we stroll down we notice there La Spezia is a very diverse city. We see many different nationalities. We see Africans, Moroccans, Indians, Asians and many others - all interacting and conversing in Italian. We see kids playing, not soccer / football, but instead they are playing cricket. Not your typical Italian pass time. The diversity is partly due to the fact that La Spezia is a city of over 100,000 people and it has been a major seaport throughout its long history. Sea ports have long been a melting pot for the different cultures that share the Mediterranean. By 8:15 we find ourselves in a Japanese Sushi/Bento restaurant. After we finish our meal, we discuss the logistics for tomorrows main event. It will be an authentic Italian cooking class. We will be meeting with Chef Sylvia of Osteria del Corte. This restaurant has been praised for over 7 years in a row. They specialize in Ligurian cuisine but also offer a wide range of other Italian cuisines. We are to meet at the Central train station in La Spezia, where someone will be holding a placard with our name on it. We are to be there at 10:00. By 10:15, Alessandro, Sylvia's husband and partner in the restaurant meets us. He leads us on a short walk back to the restaurant. On our way he speaks of the City of La Spezia, how it is he and Sylvia came to open their restaurant, their 4 kids and life in this part of Italy. It was a great way to get to know our hosts for this cooking adventure. When we arrive at the restaurant, we meet Chef Sylvia. She is already busy in the kitchen and has a staff of 4 Sous chefs hard at work. They are making preparations for the days menu. It is now 10:30 and she dispatches us with her husband to go to the local open air market, which is a short walk away. The tells us that the city has had an open air market for centuries. It used to be at another location in the city that was much smaller. He says that La Spezia was a small town of only 7000 residents for hundreds of years, when in the 1870's an Italian Naval base was opened very near the city. Between 1870 and 1879 the city would grow to over 100,000 people. That is when they had to move the market to its present location. The tour of the market is really amazing. There are countless stands with a colorful assortment of fruits, vegetables and flowers. Carolyn cant help but notice the beautiful plums at one fruit stand and she picks one up to show Trent, Elisa and me. She immediately garners the "international eye-roll" from the seller and many other customers. Finally Alessandro explains - "pleeza no toucha da frutta - unlessa you gonna buya eet". Carolyn is now mortified and she promptly puts it back and wipes her fingerprints off of it. Alessandro stops at many stands buying fresh fish, herbs, vegetables and some mortadella. He explains we will use the mortadella in a traditional Ligurian dish - stuffed mussels. Apparently this part of Italy is a huge provider of mussels to Italy and other countries. We make our way out of the market and we really enjoyed the shopping experience. When we get back to the restaurant, Chef Sylvia get aprons for each of us. This is a private cooking class for just the 4 of us. Its a good thing, because the tiny but modern lay equipped kitchen is full to capacity. Our first mission is to take the mortadella and to begin dicing it up into small bits. This is then mixed with parmesan cheese, parsley and eggs. That moisture is set aside - this will be the stuffing for our mussels. Next we must clean the mussels. Chef Sylvia shows us the tiny tendrils that extend from the flat side of the mussel and how we must pull it down toward the front of the mussel and break it free. These tendrils are what the mussels use to attach themselves to the seabeds where they are grown. While we do this, one of the Sous Chefs has filleted some nice young cod fish. Chef takes the fish bones and the fish heads and adds it to a stock pot, adds water and sets it on the stove to boil. We then go on to shelling and deveining the shrimp. Chef Sylvia take the shrimp heads and adds it to the stock pot where she is making the fish stock that will be used when we make our risotto. To the stock she adds some herbs, and salt and lets it boil. Wile the fish stock is boiling, Chef Sylvia shows how to stuff the largest of the mussels which are still alive and raw. We must use a knife (dull) to insert near the base of the mussel on the flat side and slide the knife around the top of the mussel reaching and cutting the animals main mussel that allows us to open the mussel. We then stuff the mortadella, egg and cheese mix liberally into the mussels. Once stuffed, the mussels are layered into a medium sized pot that has a tomato sauce concoction inside. The sauce has been prepared with some tomato paste, herbs of onion, garlic, shallots and onions. The stuffed mussels are pressed into the tomato sauce. There are so many they are layered on top of one another. She then used a small plate to press the mussels into the sauce so that they are covered. She leave the plate on top to act as a lid while she simmers them in the sauce on the stove. As the fish and the stuffed mussels continue to cook, Chef Sylvia show us how to prepare our main course. It is a very simple dish where she takes parchment paper, lays down a bit of olive oil on it. The then lays on the thin cod filets on top of the olive oil, she sprinkles a little salt on them, then covers them with minced fresh tomatoes. She adds more olive oil alone with garlic and parsley. She sprinkles a little more olive oil on them and folds up the parchment paper and seals it tightly. These will be baked in the oven and served as our main course in the parchment paper. We then move on to starting the risotto dishes. She places a lot of butter - 1/3 of a cube of butter - easily 4 tbsps into each of our sauce pans. As the butter begins to melt she adds the garlic and shallots. We brown it a bit and then comes the rice - Carnaroli rice is best for risotto because of its starch. We then brown the rice with shallots and garlic. Before the garlic and parsley can turn brown (and bitter) she adds just enough fish stock to cover it. The steam comes billowing up at us - two people on each side of a very unique double sided stove. The stove top is induction type stove. The entire surface can ace as a heating element when a pot or pan with enough steel on it is placed on it. What is neat about the stove is that the surface remains cool and the heat is entirely transmitted into the pan. This keeps the tiny kitchen relatively cool. - Enough about the stove, as the steam billows up, we must stir. Each time the fish stock begins to boil down we must add a little more fish stock. We do this for 15 to 20 minutes - that's a lot of stirring. Towards the end, she tells us to stir less so that the risotto can begin to firm up. She tasted mine and tells me I'm a good stirrer - I bet she tells all the fat guys that. Then she adds a little salt and the mussels, shrimp and some calamari that the Sous Chef has cleaned and sliced. She adds all the sea food in and we now stir a bit more vigorously so that it can cook in the hot rice. She says we are now done and we will get ready to eat. She show us how to plate the risotto, clean the rim of the dish, garnish it with a flourish of minced parsley. After an hour of cooking with Sylvia we now wash our hands and make our way to the dining room. As we sit down It is now about 12:20 and the restaurant is now also open for lunch to the public. I'm sure Chef Sylvia is happy to have us out of the kitchen because it looks like she will be busy with the streams of people coming into the restaurant. We are seated at a table of distinction, in the center of the nicely decorated restaurant. We sit at our table with our cooking aprons on, which certainly distinguishes us from the other customers in the restaurant. The waiters serve us locally sourced white wines to go with our locally sourced meal. The wine is wonderful - just the right amount of dry to go with the right amount of sweet. It will complement our meal nicely. We are each served the risotto dishes that each of us has prepared. It is fantastic. The rice is perfectly cooked - not too soft and mushy but also not too "al dente". The seafood is so fresh tasting and we all love the risotto dishes we have made. Then comes the huge platters of stuffed mussels. It is a really unique dish. It is unusual to see sea food combined with meat and cheese when in Italy, but this traditional Ligurian dish is enjoyed by all of us. Then comes our main course. We are amazed that such a simple dish can be so good and it is all about the freshness of the ingredients. We are happy to take our time dining enjoying the fact that we had a hand in making this feast and learning from Chef Sylvia along the way. After our large lunch we enjoy a light desert and coffee. We almost feel like Italians. The entire day was such a treat. It is now about 2:00 and we decide to head back to the Hotel and relax a bit. Around 4:00PM we decide to head into a nearby seaside town Porto Venere (Port of Venus). Alessandro, has shared with us that this little seaside town is the hidden gem of the region. He says, "it is a carpet of tourists in all of the Cinque Terre during the high season - the local people will instead go to Porto Venere). Now that all of us have recovered from the amazing lunch we prepared, we decide to take a taxi the 10 miles to get to Porto Venere. It is a good thing because parking here is very difficult and the road very narrow and winding. When we get there, we are blessed with a cool breeze, sparsely populated street, many nice shops with Italian handcrafts. We spend many hours walking the streets and shopping. We get to the old church at the end of the point of land that Porto Venere occupies and we are treated to some of the most amazing views. It is said that Lord Byron was so taken with the beauty here that he dove into the gulf below to swim to one or the neighboring islands. The gulf is now forever know as the Poet's Gulf. The Church was constructed in 1250 - 1279 on top of the remains of a much older Roman church that dates back to 700AD. Parts of the old church remain plainly visible along with the more modern church built in the 13th century. The views from the church are amazing. We make our way back into the little town and do a bit more shipping. We walk along the sidewalks that line the street that runs parallel to the water. We are again surprised at how few people there are here, when we had just spent time in nearby Cinque Terre and its hordes of humanity. By 8:00pm we decide to have a "light dinner" at the Royal Sporting Hotel. The Maitre'd leads us to a lovely outdoor table with an amazing view of the water. We decide to bypass starters and pasta. Some of us have the filet of beef prepared in a green peppercorn cause. Elisa has a gluten free pasta (amazing) along with a bowl of pea soup. We top our meal off with a fantastic Italian Barolo - Pio Cesare 2009. We savor every drop of it along with each bite of our meal. The service at the restaurant is fantastic as was the food and the view. Once again, we declare it one of the best meals we've had on our trip. Our Maitre'd has called a taxi for us to take us back to our hotel in La Spezia and we all decide that the next time we want to come to Liguria, we will bypass Cinque Terre and stay in Porto Venere. After we return to the hotel, we all reflect not he very special day we had here in Italy. The cooking class was very entertaining. It is a little pricey, but I highly recommend the experience to anyone considering a trip to Italy. Hopefully, your restaurant and Chef will be as friendly, entertaining and talented as Chef Sylvia. Another unforgettable highlight of our trip. Tomorrow we will be heading to Lake Como where we will be staying in the small town of Bellagio. We will be staying at the Bellagio Hotel - I here they have an amazing fountain in front of the hotel - oh wait, that's the one in Las Vegas. The one we will be staying at has a beautiful lake in front of us. That's all for now. Ciao!

[dcarr22-blog]

Day 5 & 6 - Mount Fuji

On Tuesday we said goodbye to Johnny as he had to go back to base and Ely and I took a bus down to Lake Kawaguchiko to see Mount Fuji. The seats on the bus were very narrow, I practically had one butt cheek on top of the other.

Our time in Mount Fuji was unforgettable and we enjoyed every minute of it even with the few kinks we encountered during our stay. We stayed in a hostel that had the most magnificent view of Mount Fuji. It is absolutely breathtaking!

After leaving the bus station, we headed straight to a local restaurant that served Hotou noodles. The food was amazing…the only problem was  Ely made us sit in tatami mats. She had forgotten that I cannot sit "criss cross applesauce" for the life of me. Knowing how much she wanted to experience eating on tatami mats I didn't say anything to her. Instead for an entire hour I was fidgeting on the mats. I felt like a giant stale cookie unable to bend without breaking.

We walked to our hostel after lunch to check in, actually the wrong hostel. Lol My knees were still adjusting themselves so we opted to take a taxi to the right hostel. After settling in, we walked to a local Indian restaurant. The night would have not been complete without one more kink…our taxi driver took us to a hotel instead of our hostel after dinner. Already angry that he drove us to the wrong destination, he became infuriated when we paid him with nothing but coins! Whoops!  

Wednesday we got to ride on the "Pleasure Cruiser" across Lake Kawaguchiko for another spectacular view of Mount Fuji. After this ride Ely and I accidentally ended up inside a little old bakery and before we knew it we were sitting down at a table with our own desert and the best cup of instant coffee. I packed Lactaid pills given that Ely and I are both lactose intolerant  but they must be using legitimate cow milk because they did nothing for me. The size of our desserts and coffee served as reminder that in America we do EVERYTHING BIG! I needed a magnifying glass to find the crust on the slice of cheesecake I was served. After our little snack, we went on to ride cable cars that would led us to the peak of another mountain for another stellar view of Mount Fuji. Man, I have to say I couldn't get tired of staring at this mountain except for the fact that the sun was blinding my big beautiful eyes, my most prized possession.

Now the fun begins...after our ride on the cable cars Ely and I went to have lunch at a restaurant overlooking Lake Kawaguchiko. I, having a bladder the size of a peanut went to use the restroom once we walked in. This would make it the second time in this trip that I would use a squatty... the first time I used a squatty was in Tokyo. During my first experience, I struggled to maintain my balance and height as my legs were dead after walking 25,000 steps. It wasn't until I walked out of the restroom that I realized I was facing the opposite direction when I used the squatty. Hence the reason why there were no railings in sight for me to maintain my balance.

As soon as I walked in to the restroom at the restaurant and saw that It was a squatty I was pumped. I felt like an experienced traveler that knew exactly how to use it. I positioned myself and just as I was forming a victory grin, my left foot slipped under me. You can just imagine the horror that filled my body. This will go on as the day in history when I declared war on squatties.

Late in the afternoon we decided to rent bikes and ride them over to a private Onsen before catching an overnight bus to Kyoto. This was another decision Ely and I made without thoroughly thinking it over. By the time we figured out how to unlock the bikes and how to remove the kickstand, it was already 5 pm. Two foreigners riding bikes in the icy sidewalks while the sun was setting was definitely a sight to see. What was meant to only be a 10 to 15 minute bike ride, turned out to be 45 minutes! I considered going back to the hostel when I saw the Onsen across the street but no way to cross the big highway that divided us.

Ely and I finally made our way to the bike lot next to the main entrance. As I was down on my knees locking my bike, I felt the bike rack tremble and shake--ultimately breaking on one side. I looked over and saw Ely hurling her bike over the rack. For one reason or another, she thought she was Hercules.

After rolling on the floor laughing, we finally made our way in. The entire building was made out of wood. It reminded me of the Hunger Games; everything was spotless, in order and people were dressed in the same exact clothes. We walked in to the women's locker room and once again I found myself contemplating going back to the hostel before experiencing a Japanese Onsen. There were naked Japanese women walking around everywhere so nonchalantly. I all of a sudden became extremely timid about my body, it might have also been the fact that my legs and underarms hadn't seen a razor since I left the states. After undressing and being butt naked, Ely and I made our way to Onsens tightly holding our bath and hand towel. As soon as we stepped into the Onsen area, I felt everyone's eyes on us.

As any true American would do, we broke 3 of the 6 rules posted up on just about every wall. 1.       We took our bath towel with us to the area where all of the Onsens were located 2.       People with tattoos are not admitted to the Onsens (we covered Ely’s tattoo with Band-Aids) 3.       We walked into the locker rooms soaking wet

After the Onsen we headed back to the hostel to return our rented bikes and to mount our backpacks onto our aching backs for the walk to the bus station. This was the end to our enchanting stay in Mount Fuji.  

The bus ride to Kyoto was nine hours long; nine hours of me turning from side to side as Ely slept like an angel. The windows of the bus were covered with drapes so I didn't get to enjoy what I'm assuming would have been beautiful scenery. About 60% of the bus was empty yet Ely and I, the American tourist...bigger than anybody else in the bus were forced to sit next to each other.

[raisbiramosa]

City ‘Princess’ backpacking and Experiencing Pesantren living.

This is probably going to be an extremely poor written post as what i want to do is to capture the exact feelings i had while on the trip, without having to filter and restructure my words. I’m a Singaporean, we have a good command of English but being a unique multi-culural, multi-racial and multi-religious society how we experience things slightly differently. Essentially, we experience base on a mix of english chinese malay indian optics. 

Okay, enough..

Idk how to say nice nice with proper grammar all. Well, actually i can, just that i won’t be able to capture the exact feelings, but i also OCD with not writing properly. Delete this don’t know how many times already. haha

Essentially, I’m 23, i don’t have the basic skill set that is mandated as a muslim. I can’t read the quran and i don’t know much about the deen, the sunah and what not. So i feel like 23, very late to start learning, so i wanted a more expedited learning.. And having been living in Singapore where amongst the muslim families here, learning the religion is practically secondary, optional in fact. Basically we go secular school 5 days a week, and possibly if the parents enrol them, they go religious class once a week. So if now i go do that, once a week, bile nak game.

So i was compelled to check out the pesantren. and so i did. Alhamdullilah with Allah’s grace and permission, i got in contact with people who were able to share and shed some light into this world that is so mysterious to me. To really understand what I’m ranting about here is a bit difficult uh. Cause you have to take into account the singaporean muslims view of religion, some more how the secular kids view madrasah kids. and then got how the media portray the religion..

So yeah, i wanna learn but i have reservations.

Aiyah the story is already all over the place. Essentially i took a 3 days trip, the first day was just to sight see my ancestral seat in Penyengat Island, close to or considered part of Tg Pinang I’m not sure. That’s the place my family used to be kings at, so just went to see see look look.

So i went early in the morning via Tanah Merah ferry terminal to Tg Pinang and on to Penyegat. The moment i stepped off the jetty at Tg Pinang a bazillion prospecting taxis and bikes tourist guide came upon me, reasonably got away from most of them but two were extremely degil, i kept saying no, but still they follow me. They say nvm, we friend friend talk talk first.

Then i was like, okay lor, you want follow, follow lor, i tell you already i no money to pay you. And i really didn’t bring much. So from there, first thing i thought, okay buy sim card for internet. Go buy already then go to another jetty for sampan to Penyengat. Then the guys still following, say need charter the sampan for 250,000 rupiah about 25sgd, then i was inside my head like “What?! i only change 50sgd eh.” Lucky i got read online it should cost no more than 20,000… So i told him that, and he was like “Ohhh.. that one follow the timing schedules, wait for sampan to full then go. that one only the locals use. the 250k is the whole sampan is yours.” Then i was like… again in my head… “Oh.. WTH! assuming this is a regular thing, they’re making tourist pay for entire boat rather than just queue. i mean if you’re told its the premium service is one thing, but this one don’t even give you option one eh. ” And thats not the end, when i decide to take the shared boat, he asked the guy for two tickets.. myself and him. I was taken aback, i thought i’d finally be rid of him.. nope he followed me to the island. But while seating down waiting for the boat, i took the opportunity to explain to him again, the nature of my trip and why i couldn’t afford to pay for his services. 

That I was there to look for a pesantren, i literally just woke up in the morning bought a ticket from Singapore to Tg Pinang, changed what little money i had (50$) and went on my way. I even made it a point to tell him that i didn’t even book a hotel cause i couldn’t afford it, i was planning to stay at the cheapest hostel i could find or at worse seek shelter at the mosque.. And of course he was sceptical, “masa orang singafour nggak bisa ke hotel,” most indonesian has this misconception that Singaporeans are loaded beyond belief. Its not entirely unfounded seeing as the exchange rate is 1$ is to around 10,000 rupiah.. so when Singaporeans head to neighbouring countries they spend lavishly. His tone changed, he even offered to have me stay with him, though he still looked sceptical. I was also sceptical on the offer, so i initially at this point said no.

The boat ride and the entire tour of Penyengat Island was bitter sweet for me. i had always held my royal and noble ancestry in high regard but visiting there, whats left of its legacy. An island no larger than 2km squared with most of its royal palaces in ruins and unmaintained surroundings… I was done with the place in under 3 hours.

We head back to Tg Pinang, the bigger island, main island i suppose. We went for lunch, i was extremely famished, but i didn’t want to eat since i had a tag-along and needed to pay for two when i can barely afford it. Well i could afford it if i eat at one of the warongs or street vendor. But.. i was also scared, cause if i travel with my family, we usually macam paham only want to try the street food, but we’d usually end up at a restaurant. but this time round i can’t afford it. So to a warong we went. i figured okay fine, get a bottled drink and get something that is cooked in a reasonable setting. After we’re done he offered again if i want to stay at his place the night, if so i can drop off my bag at his place and freshen up before we go to the pesantrens… in my head i was like “as if! crazy uh. i barely know you. later i do that, i lose everything or while I’m out someone will ransack my bag looking for valuables.” So i said no, but yeah we went to the pesantren and talk with Ustaz and Uztazah there.. due to age they couldn’t accept me, but recommended another place that might. but that place in 27 km away from the city.. i was like again in my head “oh shit. No thanks” 

Then he ask again, now that we’re done where i want go, I’ve got no where to be, it was around 3pm. i decided to see if his offer to stay at his place was legit, we were on the bike, so i asked him to stop by the side so i could show him my wallet and how much money i really had. He looked and said its fine, lets get back to his place first. Introduced to his family and all. Just stayed there chatting about random things. They were poor. As we chatted the wife was saying she told her husband “Anak singafour, mau kemari, rumah burok ini, bisa nggak dia.” And i told her, better than if i had no shelter at all, right. 

We just continued chatting for hours, and she was telling me of her kids and what not and one particular story got to me.. One of her son’s, the elder was accused of stealing one of his classmate’s new camera. solely, or mostly on the account that he was poor. “Oh you’re poor so it must be you that have stolen it to sell.” Of course he said no, they didn’t believe him even the teachers and all, to the point of having the parents come down so the teachers could interrogate him in their presence but later it was found out it was another student and he was more well to do but wanted to spend more money that his parents didn’t want to give. What got to me was the viciousness, people were willing to accuse and torment. It was eye opening, how the poor or poorer are treated. It disgust me.

Closer to the evening was join by her younger son, a well mannered and well meaning young man of 15 but is bigger than most 18 year olds of Asia. Conversing with him, every choice he makes seems only for one cause, the betterment of himself and his family. Stopped lepaking entirely to concentrate fully on exams, he loves loves loves volleyball and basketball could see it in his eyes when he’s talking about it, stopped that too for exams. Doesn’t smoke to stay as healthy and fit as possible to have the best chance of enlisting in the army. Other times play tournaments to help support himself. 

After chatting for an hour he said he had arranged to play football with some of the other school and kampong kids, its been over a month since he played due to exams. All he had were torn shoes and at that point the mom was with us. She was lamenting how expensive good shoes were, about 600,000 rupiah, and how she was sorry that she couldn’t get her son a new pair and how thankful she was that unlike many other kids, her son always tries his best to make do and not claim beg and insist for new ones. There was a moment between the two of them, the son was embarrass but from his expression was probably trying to relay to his  mom that it was okay and that she didn’t need to say this things. 

Later we went out to a food place nearby he insist that i ate and he wasn’t hungry. Think he was just embarrassed to get anything, when i insisted he got something, all he wanted was juice, and even that he was soooo happy and thankful. It might have been just 15,000 rupiah to me, but apparently its what he gets for a full day of school when his parents can afford it, sometimes none.

We really don’t realise how lucky we have it.

Shower time. haha. the entire family was so concern. they didn’t have a shower head. not even a shower. its a bucket on a pulley, water from a well. yeah, you’ve guessed it, the shower room was built above a well. it was quite an experience, they were also concerned that i use heater at home, and that well water is extremely cold. It wasn’t. it wasn’t as cold as i thought.

i couldn’t really sleep that night, they were extremely kind people, the son vacated his room to me. I protested but they made it seem like they sleep together in the parent’s room all the time. So of i course i had to tease him, a 15 year old still sleeping in the middle of his parents. haha.. but who knows, it must have just been a courtesy to me. Which i am extremely thankful for. The room only had wardrobe, table and a mattress. Well it was a rather thin mattress I’m not used to, and my body was aching from all the walking earlier and not to mentioned the rats sound (eewwwww!!!! rats i cannot. no way hoe sei. ill take on a lion anyway over a rat.)

Morning came. I didn’t want to get anything cause i mentioned my reservation with warong food. But of course the dad insisted, he said he’d get me Nasi Lemak, but he came back with Lontong as Nasi Lemak was sold out. Of course i had to eat it. 

By this point i was feeling really bad about the condition of their place and all. And how even when they have little they wanted to share it out of the goodness of their hearts. i told you i showed the dad my wallet, so seeing i only have so little, he only asked for 100,000, he said he wouldn’t have even taken that if he could but he really needed it to buy certain essentials. But throughout my stay at their place, the food they bought me, the snack and the drinks, by warong standard he must have spent at least 40,000 rupiah on me. I was feeling bad and i wanted to help slightly, with what i could, i only had 40sgd in my wallet, i wanted to give it to the son the get a new pair of shoes but thought better of it, so i gave the dad. Of course, he was like “are you sure,” and also cause i had told him that the 40sgd was for my ferry ticket. which it was… but i could buy the ticket online and charge it to my singapore debit card. And i wanted to do something nice for the kid, so i hid 50,000 rupiah in his school pass, if he finds it soon, he’s on school holiday, can go enjoy, whatever that small amount could get him la. if not, later can use as pocket money lor.

i wanted to leave at around 10am to head over to Batam to check out another pesantren. But while chatting the father insisted i should fist the 27km away pesantren, he said at least i’d have something to compare to. so we went.

i just about broke when i saw the place. i couldn’t do it. It is 27 km away from the city, the road there was horrible, it was 15 km away to the nearest shops, 15km of farmlands and forest greens and only greens . On top of that you still have to go off the beaten path on red soil road. The entire compound was huge but largely due to the fact that they also had some farming. Woah. Just on the path and i was almost certain i couldn’t do it. The school, the dorm, the canteen, the mosque was so far apart. Walking distance but far. There were so many flying bugs and since its farmland i was concern of the rats. The dorm if you could call it that was just a huge hall, when you enrol you’re suppose to bring your own mattress if you wanted to use one or you could just sleep on the floor and bring a cabinet for your things. The only upside here was that, they follow the secular school’s schedule, so while the kids are at school, i was offered one of the hafiz’s service to tutor me one on one. Nope i can’t do it, I’m too city for that. Wah sure die sia.

So i was like “okay nvm, go see the batam one.” Cause the one at Batam is more modern and formal. Its backed by a Qatari Sheikh and came recommended by Singaporeans and other Indonesians i spoke to. As in its renowned that random people i spoke to has heard of it.

Was expecting to pay 200,000 rupiah for the ferry ride, but it end up costing only 52,000 i think, my A&W cost more. But i was expecting to disembark at Batam Centre, nope, it was at a more local terminal Telaga Punggur Ferry Terminal. Distance from terminal to the pesantren is the same as distance from Batam Centre to pesantren. 

i wasn’t really expecting much. I thought i’d just come in walk around, ask for tuition and lodging fees then leave. But thank God i decided to make contact in SG. Faris > GF > GF cousin > friend. Thank God. Such nice accomadating people. GF Cousin, Uqasyah, the night i texted him i wasn’t really expecting a reply. Cos most people wouldn’t really entertain a random number.. Got a nice surprise when just after midnight, right when i just doze off my phone went off like crazeeeee. 25 messages at once, sape tak terbangun sey gitu, He gave an entire groundwork of what i should expect and made a point over and over again to reiterate the obstacles and challenges i’d face if i so decide to enrol. Thank God for that as well. With all this considerations, i decided i should check out these spaces first before committing. So i did just that on this trip.

oh wells enough flashback. Here i am in a cab, in a foreign land, trying to find the meeting spot I’ve never been to, trying to find some guy i have never laid eyes on. Acquinted thru another guy I’ve never met. Umair. (See, don’t their names just SCREEAAM MADRASAH.) Well done Raja. Of course, my culture what I’m used to, all the pretension and first impression bullshit. Dalam taxi da busy pomade hair all.. then when i almost reach the meeting point he told me he was wearing green long sleeves. I saw him first being in the car and i was on the opposite road. First thoughts, “Woah. Singaporean? He’s adapted. Looks Arab-ish/Indian-ish/Indo-ish. Didn’t know what to think. (sorry hor belum pape da judge)” I knew i like the kid already from the text when he told me he was riding without license. So refreshing. Singaporean madrasah kid that breaks rules. Nice. Cause my idea of budak madrasah macam goody two shoes gitu kan. At least that was the idea in my head. Oh and did i mentioned i was rupiah broke, so he offered to pay first for the cab. In  my head I’m already like “Woah busy gile. belum jumpe belum kenal da nak bagi pinjam duit. ni die da bayar aku chao ke ape ke macam mane die nak claim.” Nasib lepas tu terus go beli makan and tukar duit. bayar balik on the spot. Oh and mase tu die guna english macam aku guna bahase indonesia, teragak agak. Tapi lepas 15 minutes gitu agak da switch on balik switch english die, da okay.  

Got food, bought some drinks and head for the pesantren or Ma’had. Masuk kampong okay not so bad, then there it is again, muddy uneven pebbled road.. i was like “Seriously! Again?! Ape sey, sekola pesantren ni semua road gini pe.” I was shock cause i was expecting a lot for this school as it came highly recommended, and was backed by Qatar (point to note was that, before i reach the place i had thought it was backed by the Qatari government or Qatari royal family, it isn’t its backed by a private businessmen Sheikh.), pictures online looks different (it was angled nicely. hmm..), people spoke of the school as though its the best most modern most up to date facility in all the pesantrens and ma’hads of indonesia. I should realised that these people’s perception and what they’re used to is way different, they lived in Tg Pinang slightly urban but still sort of kampong, i came from metropolis Singapore. Even among Singaporeans I’ve always been ups in the things i like. Not rich or anything like that, but i know quality and i work for it. I get lesser things but better. To put it in perspective, i’d get one more pricey good shirt then two bad ones, but not like extreme extreme one uh. i still lived within my means, and that wasn’t really all that much. 

First stop, the dorms. Here i was extremely crestfallen, the entrance was marked by a makeshift hut. To say i was taken aback is a downplay. I was thinking “Serious uh. the rest area is self made? Made with random wood findings? Ape sey ni. What have i gotten myself into.” Turns out it was nothing of that sort, it was an arts & craft project of sort, the ma’had has international students from all over asia; so as a contribution they make up something in the pesantren with recycle items. Maybe if i enrol, Singapore can contribute an even smooth-ish road? haha. The dorm’s outside is a platform area, sort of like ambin like that, can seat together to mingle. The room was made for six, three double storey beds and three wardrobes shared two each with a single toilet to be shared. it didn’t look too bad, especially considering my reference to a pesantren dorm was one of empty open room that sleeps twenty. The toilet was quite an experience, the water system needed to be switched on at two points outside of the dormitory itself before filtration would start and water would be pumped into the dorm toilet piping. Have to wait for like 40 minutes to fill a five gallon bucket. So they had to collect water, in form of four buckets of five gallons to be shared. Around this time, was asar, so had to take wudhu, thats where i learnt that there were still different opinions whether or not one can wudhu-fy with water that has been collected (having aways had access to water thru piping, i didn’t realise it might be an issue to wudhu-fy when you lack access in other parts of the world).

Also when we’re about to pray, i was wearing ¾ pants and singlet, yes it covers my aurat, but apparently its in poor taste to face Allah without minimally cover to below the knee closer to but above the ankle and to minimally put on a tshirt but preferably a long sleeve top. Of course kena marah sikit. Sorry la, tk tahu.. (Hmm… *thinking* but nvm, wanna learn right. If you’re reading thanks btw).

Wanted to go to the school portion, but wasn’t able to as the pm timeframe is reserved for the muslimahs. Oh wells waited for the next day.

So that day itself, got to talk to quite a few persons from all over asia. Thais, Malaysians, Indonesians, Pinoys, Cambodians. Bebual macam ayam and itik, cause not all can speak english or indonesian, the intermediary language there being arabic, and i obviously don’t speak. Everyone was like “masmuk masmuk. or was it masmuka masmuka” and i was like “ape sia nyamuk nyamuk,” at least sahlan way sahlan tu ku paham la. haha 

towards the later part of the afternoon went to the futsal court with Umair, went by the mosque. had to go thru hutan sey to get there. and the masjid, seriously eh, belum siap (but that seems to be the case for most of it all over Tg Pinang and Batam, entah lah tak plan budget properly ke ape..)

Malam lepak at coffeeshop, mak ai punye pedas nasi goreng die. Dua teh botol tak cukup. Balik gi ma’had lepak ngan Umair and Abg Dzul sampai very late. I would’ve been fine with not sleeping, was suppose to sit in the classes to observe but if i didn’t want to it wouldn't be an issue, but the two of them absolutely have to go to lesson both on last and second last term. I came to get a feel, to hear what they have to say, but in the end aku pulak yg banyak membebel. But okay, speaking to all of them was very nice, no pretension nothing, everyone seem to be interested and genuinely curious. God haven’t had one of those in a while.

Sleeping arrangements. God i still feel bad about that, Umair vacated his bed and opt for the floor. Absolutely grateful that he did, but he shouldn’t have. Wanted to argue, but didn’t know how. Though by morning i was absolutely certain that second night i was gonna grab the floor first. Its not nice you know, you came over to someone’s place practically unannounced and then take over their space. I wouldn’t have liked that, so i was uncomfortable doing that. oh and i would have been more comfortable on the sleeping bag anyways, at least the floor is even, don’t know how y’all do it, i could feel the bed frame’s panels that supported the mattress.

Subuh. Solat timing here i felt was interesting, in SG it’s accurate to the minute, but here seems like they’re slightly more lax, theres a good 15 min gap at least after the prayer timing (according to online) before i’d hear the azan. Maybe cause they don’t have the system or facility in place to be as accurate? i don’t know. oh wells.

Day 2. i only had two sets of proper clothing, and since i hadn’t planned on staying over at the ma’had, i didn’t have extra clothes for account of this extra day, all i had left was 3 quarter and singlet (my sleeping kit). So was planning on skipping the classes and possibly do it the next day, thank God i didn’t, plans changed, the next day became a holiday and i left for home. Umair insisted that i went, going so far as to forced me into his largest thob, seeing as i am huge and he’s not. Oh wells, i did also cause in the moment my head was telling me that all this nonsense of no clothes and whatever other excuses i was coming up with was cause i was afraid and setan was playing on that.

So i went. Well a little background was that i was questioning the short school hours of 8 am to 1200 pm, well needless to say around the second hour i stopped questioning it entirely. God was i drained. Everythng was in arabic, and as one of the Ustaz put it when the entire class was hammering him about my not being able to speak arabic “He needs to learn doesn’t he. What better way then to use the language.” So he insisted on speaking arabic to me and making me guess whatever he was saying or asking and EXPECT an answer, obviously i sat there dumbfounded, then he’ll feed me the answer and expect me to repeat phrase by phrase. God was it an experience. Pening pe kepala.

I don’t know where to put this in this post, but i feel this place is a good place as any. I grew accustomed to speaking english first, so when i need to speak malay in my head it’d be in english and i need to translate before saying it. Soooo… Indonesian has to go thru english to malay to indnesian. First day on the trip my head want to burst already have to speak Indo all the way. Then here i am needing to convert one second english another second Indo then malay then arabic then Indo then english. God was the entire thing overwhelming. by the time the break came at 10.30 i didn’t wanna sit in class anymore, i left for the dorms. IN FACT, when the moment i met Umair by that roadside, i was so so so extremely relieved to be able to speak full paced complete sentences english.

Conclusion:

1) It’s a really beautiful place to pick up arabic, it being the intermediary. You have no choice but to learn and use to be able to communicate.

2) People were awesome, most would give salam and attempt to get to know you, you feel welcomed. Others were recluses, but that might have been cause of the language barrier.

3) No TV, internet rabak, really good place to just study and study. Quite a few all they do is read the scriptures when the have free time, really nothing else to do. Especially for me, bola pun tak main.

Things to be grateful for/Have too long taken for granted:

1) Access to water. Omg, i had to use a well, imagine my appreciation for piping now. Even at a place with piping, have to open tap and filter the water and collect water in bucket. I was was to wash mouth with the water la sia. Eh over here kau step geli nak minum air paip, kat sane tak bole pun sia, kau minum, besok masok hospital.

2) Even and smooth roads. As in without portholes and pebbles and what not. Omg seriously, off road travelling takes on a new meaning. “Ape nak motocross? motocross fun? uh kau try uh hari hari nak kena motocross.” Tak complain lagi lena bayar road tax mahal mahal. go jer.

3) Financial means. At least i know what i can afford. At least i know i’d get a job if i weren’t so choosy. Omg the family i stayed with, allowed me a taste of what it means to really be pushed around. Sigh. I was going crazy in my head and in my heart, especially since i was so powerless to do anything, imagine how they felt. Seriously, thank you Allah that i have always been given the strength to choose, and never in my life was i powerless to choose. 

4) The air, the dust. Omg rashes all over. So itchy!!

5) Cool and cold refrigerated water. Hais sekola takde fridge.

6) My room. haha. My comfy mattress, my power fan, my total darkness when trying to sleep, my alone space. The pesantren in pinang literally an empty room, sleep on the floor. the ma’had’s mattress thinner than my comforter duvet.

Totally don’t know where to put;

1) Omg penat pe cakap dalam bahasa yang tak biasa. Now i have an understanding, kesian pulak all this foreigners yang datang SG, so much things to adapt to.

2) Omg air as in water, seriously leceh pe access dorang.

3) Kena solat atas batu. Adoi. Sini carpet tak cukup tebal je. Ni Masjid taqua baru tukar lagi, so thick. Sedap giler. Haha

4) First day balik, so many thing to be grateful for. Ingat rase sakit semua, ingat ape yang kita dapat lebih dan harus mensyukuri. Ni da hari kedua makin lupa. Hari ketiga.. sigh.. nak tulis ni pon da barely ingat. Anyways it took me three days to type all this down. Kalau bole perasan dari penulisan, yang atas atas lebih in depth. oh wells. what Allah wills will happen, will happen, otherwise no power but his.

Postscript

Sorry if i offended anyone while i was there or thru this post, this is just my honest account. One man’s view. One extremely lucky and pampered view. 

Thank you all that helped me along on this trip one way or another. Faris and GF for helping me make contact to Uqasyah. Uqasyah for getting me in contact with Umair. Umair for the hospitality, inviting me to stay and everything. And for forcing me to go for lessons. Cik Syamsir and family for having me stay in their home while i was in Tg Pinang. Other hospitable and friendly people of the ma’had, sorry i told ya i wasn’t gonna be able to remember names, some that i could Ustaz Fajar, Saifullah, Abg Dzul, Shafiq. Sorry Thai’s, i couldn’t even make up your names when you masmuk me and told me, much less to remember.

Trip blessing.. I've always been told "kalau niat kita baik, insyaAllah, Allah will help you along," never have I felt that more strongly than while i was on this trip.. I had a bad perception of the tour guides due to their reputation, but Allah wills that I found a genuine one that was sincere to help, a protector to not be cheated while I was there and through him allowed me shelter for a night and the experience to be able to really reflect and be grateful to Allah. A kid that managed to show me true heart. A cabby in Batam that was also sincere in his service, wasn't trying to con me of more money on account that I'm a dumb tourist. Genuine in making sure I reach my intended destination, and not just the abstract address I was only able to provide. Genuine niceties from people. People who really want to help. People who go out of their way to ensure your comfort. True experience of how this place is before I commit.

[a-zhomework]

2nd Sem NMIMS Assignments Solution Dec 2018

Must read before purchase You must edit minimum 20 percent for submission, because universities/institute can catch copy case and provide 0 marks. 1. Marketing Management Q1. Mr. Hari has joined as a marketing head in a startup that deals with online sale of Groceries. The online store is named as www.baniyakidukaan.com. The store will start its operation in 4 cities namely Mumbai, Pune, Delhi and Bangalore. The company faces tough competition from various online stores. The company s major focus is to make the items available at lowest possible price. You have been asked to prepare the 7P s of marketing mix for the online store. Q2. M/s Kids Corporation is planning to launch its own brand of Dolls across India. The doll will be named Senorita and it will be available in the price range of 600/- to 1400/- Rupees. The doll will be available in major types of profession like Doctor, Lawyer, Teacher, etc. so that it can even inspire girls to go for these careers in future. Design the Segmentation, Targeting and Positioning strategy for Senorita. Q3. M/s Joy Corporation wants to enter into the production, marketing and distribution of Mobile Phones. The company is a market leader in Washing Machines and Refrigerators. The company wants to penetrate into the ever increasing Mobile Market. It plans to sell mid-range mobile phones where the major competitors are Oppo, Vivo and Xiaomi. a. Explain various steps involved in the new product development of Joy Mobile Phones. b. Explain various marketing strategies that Joy mobile phones should undertake during the time of launch i.e. introduction phase of Joy Mobile Phones.   2. Financial Accounting and  Analysis Question 1: You visited Subway that’s the fast food restaurant to purchase a Combo worth Rs 499. The restaurant paid for the raw material and utilities amounting Rs105 for each sale. In addition to that, the restaurant also paid for certain expenses in cash in total Rs 50 per sale. Discuss how these financial transactions will be recorded by way of journal entry, and also, discuss the various stages of the whole accounting process. (10 Marks) Question 2: The Companies Act 1956 was the first Act which governs the various Companies registered in India. However, in the year 2013, the Act was amended holistically to bring more transparency in terms of accountability, presentation and disclosure aspects in relation to various financial information of a company. However one of your friend is of the opinion that there is only one difference between the two Act , that is , the presentation of financial statements , previously it was governed by Schedule VI and now Schedule III governs it. Now, you are assigned with the task of convincing your friend that there is a huge difference between the two Acts, by briefing him on atleast five other points of differences between the two. (10 Marks) Question 3: The following information pertains to the Income statement of Beta Ltd.

a. Redraft the information in the vertical form of Income statement and also, calculate Earnings After Taxes (EAT) (5 Marks) b. Calculate the gross profit ratio and operating profit ratio. Discuss, how they differ from each other? (5 Marks) 3. Essentials of HRM Q1. Sanskruti Ltd. is an apparel manufacturing company. Lately it was observed that the absenteeism as well as the employee turnover has increased tremendously. An external consulting firm was roped to understand the entire concern. The report presented by the consulting firm specified that the workers are dissatisfied with their job roles as well as they find no career planning and progression which is affecting the overall organisational productivity. Discuss the objectives as well as merits of career planning which can be included to make the employees happy and satisfied in Sanskruti Ltd. Q2. Kadambari Enterprises, which is a family managed business in the area of food manufacturing (Indian Snacks) has grown over the years. The business turnover has now become 500 crore. The organisation never had a concept of performance appraisal, the employees were given raise based on their seniority and relationship with the management. Sneha the new heir of Kadambari Enterprises wants to change the entire outlook and bring in the latest Performance Management System to bring parity and justice for the employees. You have been selected as the head HR and have been asked to present the benefits of appraisal and best PMS for Kadambari Enterprise. Q3. Sameera is a fresh MBA graduate and has joined as a Trainee- Talent Management in Fresoc Ltd. It is her first week at work and she is all geared up for some great learning. To her disappointment she is just handed over some brochures to read. After a fortnight she is assigned some task to work on. Sameera is really confused as she does not have any job clarity and work is being assigned to her randomly. The entire month after joining Fresoc Ltd has been a very demotivating as an outcome she resigned from her services. a. Do you think that the induction of Sameera was wrong? Justify your answer b. What could have been an ideal situation where young talent like Sameera would have been retained? 4. Strategic Management Q1. One of IKEA s key competitors ASDA wants to enter into India into the furniture product category. Conduct a PESTLE analysis for ASDA in India & suggest whether ASDA should enter India or otherwise.   Q2. You have been appointed as a Strategy Consultant to the Burj Al Arab brand wanting to enter India. Which one of Porter s Generic Strategies would you choose to be operational in India & explain the reasons in detail behind your choice of strategy? Once the strategy has been chosen, explain the categories of customers you would target?   Q3. You are the Chairman of General Motors in the US. Your Indian subsidiary GM India has been fast losing market share to Competitor brands which now account for over 90% of the market share. a. What turnaround strategies can you suggest to arrest the decline of revenues & profitability of your company? b. In your opinion, would it be considered appropriate to pursue a Combination Strategy? State your response with appropriate justifications & reasons. 5. Business Statistics Business Statistics Assets Expense Ratio Return 2006 3-Year Return 5-Year Return 904.8 1.51 4.6 10.7 8.1 675.9 1.28 8.5 11.9 7.3 909.7 0.80 13.1 10.4 6.3 52.2 1.50 11.6 10.3 6.4 8411.5 0.63 10.9 12.4 8.0 282.3 1.22 7.1 10.2 8.0 9870.7 0.86 12.3 15.0 7.7 424.8 1.13 12.3 11.0 6.2 15422.9 0.72 14.0 10.2 6.2 497.9 1.36 8.6 12.0 7.3 547.3 1.09 7.5 12.8 7.2 5527.1 0.41 11.2 10.2 6.5 22592.9 0.46 12.3 13.0 8.4 240.8 1.42 4.4 10.3 6.6 2403.4 0.93 8.0 10.1 4.3 233.3 1.33 6.5 9.4 5.4 71.2 0.15 15.4 6.6 5.0 506.9 1.15 11.2 9.3 4.5 221.6 1.12 13.2 8.9 4.7 434.9 1.19 14.2 12.3 7.1 7834.2 0.56 13.7 9.6 5.5 152.1 1.34 12.4 9.6 4.6 815.4 0.73 13.0 8.9 4.5 85.7 0.45 13.2 9.6 4.0 166.1 1.41 3.3 7.8 5.3 47.2 0.74 8.1 10.8 5.7 6955.2 0.87 7.8 10.7 5.8 135.4 1.25 14.6 8.2 5.8 142.0 1.18 9.2 9.7 5.6 601.8 1.00 9.7 7.9 3.8   Q1. For the data on 31 mutual funds given above, conduct the following analysis: i. Determine the measures of central tendency and of dispersion for the five variables. ii. Provide the five-number summary i.e. the minimum, 1st quartile, median, 3rd quartile and maximum value for asset size. Interpret the above results and comment on how the data is distributed. Answer 2: Q2. For the same data on mutual funds given above: i. Is there a strong association between asset size and expense ratio? ii. Create a scatterplot diagram depicting the association between the two variables. iii. Using the regression equation, predict the 5-year return of a fund whose 3-year return was 8%. Q3. Assume there are 400 athletes in a training camp, who are required to attend the morning drill starting at 4 am. The attendance in morning drills is 70%, i.e. on an average, 280 athletes are present. Fifty new athletes are admitted in this batch. a. What is the probability of attendance being at least 70% among the new athletes, thus ensuring the overall attendance does not fall below 70%? (5 Marks) b. The training coach thinks that this probability will increase, if the new batch size is 40 instead of 50 students. Is he right in assuming so? (5 Marks) 6. Business Law Q1. What is the difference between valid, void or voidable contract. Please explain the instances when a contract becomes valid, void or voidable contract. Q2. Please give at least two (2) real life examples on how the recent amendments in Companies Act, 2013 has brought about sweeping changes in corporate scenario of India. Q3. Arun and Smitha are good friends since a long time. Smitha is in need of a house loan with a bank and Arun has agreed to be a be a co-applicant cum guarantor to help Smitha secure the house loan. Smitha after taking possession of the Flat started defaulting payments of the house loan and absconded. In light of the above instance, you are called to advise the bank on the following queries: a. What is the contract between Arun, Smitha and the bank termed as? Identify Arun, Smitha and the bank according to their roles in such contract? (5 Marks) b. Does the bank have any right against Arun? If yes please explain in detail? If, Arun voluntarily offers to pay the loan to the Bank, what are his rights? Please explain in detail? Read the full article

[lavonnecollings-blog]

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Desire A Thriving Service? Concentrate on WORLD!

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[lenaglittleus]

Wedding Recap #5: Our Honeymoon to Sonoma and Napa

Before you read this check out the last 4 posts:

Part #1: The Welcome Dinner

Part #2: Getting Ready, The First Look + The Ceremony

Part #3: The Reception

Part #4: The Brunch + DIY Details

I think this might be the wedding recap post I’m most excited to share. Our honeymoon to Sonoma and Napa! To be honest, we spent the months leading up to the wedding so stressed about details that we didn’t put any thought into the honeymoon. C and I love to travel, but the thought of planning a wedding and a honeymoon at the same time legit gave me heart palpitations. We had always planned to do a big destination honeymoon full of adventure travel and relaxation. And with New Zealand at the top of our bucket list, we assumed that was where we would go. But in our research pretty much everyone told us to only go to NZ between January and March, which meant waiting almost a year to go on our honeymoon. Given that we were pretty stressed already, this didn’t sound like a terrible idea.

So instead, we decided to spend the week after our wedding in our own backyard, Sonoma and Napa. At first we were calling it a “minimoon” because we didn’t feel like an hour drive to a destination should count as our honeymoon. We were wrong. You don’t have to travel far or do a whole extensive vacation for a honeymoon to count. And now that we’ve done it, we’re not feeling any kind of rush to fly halfway across the world to New Zealand. That’s not to say we won’t go, but it’s unlikely to happen next January…and I’m very okay with that!

Our week in Sonoma and Napa was truly a dream. We’re pretty familiar with wine country and try to spend as many weekends as possible there so getting to spend a whole week there doing the things we love in a place that is comforting and homey ended up being the honeymoon we never knew we needed. It was about as perfect as perfect can come!

So let’s chat about that week…

I knew that right after the wedding C and I would want to get away somewhere nearby where we could disconnect and process the madness. I immediately knew what that place would be. A few years ago C and I spent a night at Farmhouse Inn in Forestville (in Sonoma County) and it was truly magical. We knew we’d make it back at some point. So when we started thinking about what we’d do after the wedding I knew exactly where to book.

Farmhouse is nothing short of spectacular. The rooms are stunning and “farmhouse chic”, there’s a Michelin Star restaurant on property and you’re right in the heart of wine country. It’s the perfect place to hang out all day and relax or use as a launching point for local activities. We did a mixture of both.

They have homemade bath products on site so I took as many baths as I humanly could. C made great use of the pool and hot tub and we both enjoyed the daily wine tastings and local food. Whether it was dinner at the restaurant or breakfast in bed, there truly is nothing wrong with Farmhouse and it will forever hold a special place in our hearts.

Besides hanging out on property, we spent an afternoon hanging out in Sebastopol, antiquing in local towns and did a little bit of wine tasting. We had to stop at SHED in Healdsburg (one of my favorite places) and did the ranch tour at Medlock Ames, an organic winery in Geyserville. We also did a whole lot of nothing and completely checked out from the world. It was amazing.

I’m thinking about sharing a post on my favorite restaurants, shops and wineries in Sonoma so let me know if you’d like to see that!

We would have spent the rest of the week (or honestly, the rest of our lives) at Farmhouse but we would have gone broke, so after a few days we packed up our stuff and headed to Calistoga (in Napa) for a few more nights at Indian Springs.

Now, I’ll be honest, anything that was going to follow Farmhouse was not going to compare so even though it wasn’t Indian Spring’s fault, it was a slight let-down. Truly, the only thing that was a let-down was our room. As a heads up, if you stay at Indian Springs, do NOT book the lodge (well do if you want just okay accommodations). The photos you see online of the lodge are actually all the other rooms. The lodge is not nearly as nice as we expected and while it was totally fine, and clean and perfectly nice, there was nothing cute or romantic about it. I’m being a diva here but thought I’d keep things 100% honest.

Besides our room, our stay at Indian Springs was really nice. It’s a funky place with a huge communal hot spring pool that looks like it’s straight out of a 1950s Pepsi commercial. The spa is also beautiful and a really nice place to relax for the day. I did the mud baths which were a really interesting experience. To be honest, I would have preferred being in the mud bath for the entire hour (rather than the 15 minute start of the circuit), but if you’re looking for a really different spa experience, don’t skip out on it.

Calistoga itself is super cute. Even if you just go to visit for the day, you shouldn’t miss it. It’s small enough to conquer in a few hours although you may need longer if you enjoy antiquing. C and I got some amazing finds in local Calistoga stores and just loved the quaintness of the town. The wine there is, not surprisingly, delicious but we tend to prefer the more relaxed vibe of tasting in Sonoma. We ended up only tasting at one winery called Brian Arden and while the property is beautiful and the wine is great, the cost is just hard to justify. Especially when you can get equally delicious wines 30 minutes away in Sonoma. I think it’s pretty clear that we’re on #TeamSonoma.

But if you do find yourselves in Calistoga make sure you go to: ROAM antique shop, Lovina for brunch (owned by the same people as Zazie in SF), Sam’s Social Club for dinner and Solbar at Solage Calistoga (<– if you can stay here you are winning at life).

At this point we had two more nights left in wine country before we had planned to go back to SF (aka when Bodhi was getting dropped off from summer camp) and we left those open to see how we were feeling. We knew there was a chance we’d want to go home, but there was also a chance we wanted to continue the honeymoon for just a bit longer. In the end we got a little bit of both.

We have close friends who have a house in Guerneville (also in Sonoma) who offered their place to us that week. We ended up taking them up on the offer and spent our last two nights there. It was so nice to have access to a house so we could cook and nest without feeling like we were fully back in society. We also finally got to explore Armstrong Woods, which we’d wanted to do for a long time but always had Bodhi in tow (you can’t have dogs on the trails). Also waking up every morning and picking up fresh biscuits from Big Bottom Market is a lifelong dream of mine that I’d like to make an everyday occasion…there’s a reason they’re Oprah’s favorite!

Otherwise we did a lot more antiquing (we are officially old), watched way too many TV shows and honestly, just rested our brains before heading back into reality. It was perfect.

Sunday morning we packed up our car and drove an hour back home. It’s the honeymoon we never knew we needed and beyond anything we could have hoped for. Feeling eternally grateful for my partner in crime and for the privilege we have to be able to explore these places and call them our backyard.

This is the last and final wedding recap post! I’m so happy to have been able to share this experience with you and know that I have this virtual diary to look back on in the years to come. I’m also happy to be closing this chapter and opening a new one. C and I are so grateful for everyone’s support as we’ve taken this next step…even though married life feels exactly the same! We cannot wait for what the future has to hold. Stay tuned!

Did you do a honeymoon? Were did you go?

The post Wedding Recap #5: Our Honeymoon to Sonoma and Napa appeared first on The Healthy Maven.

from News About Health https://www.thehealthymaven.com/2018/07/our-honeymoon.html

[unchartedtravel-blog1]

40 Things You Should Know About London

By Bobby 

1. They drive on the wrong side of the road.

2. They curse. A lot.

3. They have more of a mixed racial population than I’ve ever seen before! Italians, the Dutch, Germans, Portuguese, Spaniards, the French, Thai, Indians, Chinese, and Japanese. While perusing the roads of London, I think at times I heard more different languages spoken than I heard English!

4. London. Is. Hot. (at least for the 10 days I was there). Londoners don’t really wear shorts – it’s usually the Americans that you see wearing them. As a tourist, from all the walking, you’ll want to dress lightly, but at the same time appropriately. Be careful with layers. Just saying. It’s a hot city.

5. Speaking of which, air conditioning seems to be rare. Your only options for A/C are modern (AND I STRESS THAT) hotels, restaurants and cafes, and museums.

6. Trafalgar Square. It’s pronounced “Truh-FAL-guh” with emphasis on the “FAL”.

7. Traffic is scary. Be careful of the fast cars in narrow streets, the double-decker buses, and bicyclists! My first few days, I was almost hit by double-decker buses 10 times. Traffic is crazy, they drive aggressively, and they drive on the wrong side of the road. Add all those together, and you have a disaster for Americans.

8. When crossing the road, LOOK RIGHT, THEN LEFT. Because of #7.

9. Use the Barclay Bikes. Use them use them use them. They are all throughout the city available for rental with over 500 bike stations. Not only are there plenty of them, but they are very affordable. Just be careful, and make sure you use the bike lanes and understand the traffic laws. It gets quite scary at times when you have cars zooming past you just inches away from your bike.

10. London Bridge is Falling Down. This is not the bridge you are picturing right now. That bridge is actually called “Tower Bridge”. London Bridge is quite plain looking, and is one bridge over from Tower Bridge. Speaking of bridges, you should spend a morning and walk up and down each of the bridges over the River Thames. There are great views of London from these bridges!

11. “Cheers Mate” means “Thanks, friend!” Use it! It will make you feel AWESOME when you use it. I know I did.

12. Gloucester and Leicester. DO NOT SAY “Glau-ses-ter” or “Lay-ses-ter”. It’s pronounced “Gloh-stuh” and “Lee-stuh”. Yes, it’s pronounced like that.

13. YOU CAN DRINK ALCOHOL IN PUBLIC! Yes! It’s true! Meal idea: get a sandwich, beer, and crisps, find the nearest park, or find a place along the Thames, and enjoy your meal there! Be careful though, in the City of Westminster it isn’t allowed. Westminster is inside of London.

14. The zig-zag lines in the road mean something. I’m not sure what they mean, but they mean something. What I do know is that the black cabs are not allowed to pull over on a zig-zag line.

15. Speaking of roads, the traffic lights are different. They change from red to yellow to green to red.

16. The London Tube is the underground rail system in London. It’s an easy system to get used to and if you’re in London for a week, I recommend buying a 6-day Travelers Card to use on the Tube for £35 British Pounds.

17. Be ready to see Maserati, Bentley, BMW, Mercedes, Porsche, Ferrari, and Aston Martin. Those high-end vehicles are a common sight around London. I giggle with glee every time I see one of those beautiful creations driving down the roads.

18. London has a depressing past, and is basically built on top of a massive grave-site. The city was almost destroyed three times. First time was the infamous Great or Bubonic Plague, second time was the Great Fire of London in 1666, and the third was the Blitz, or the Bombings of London by Germany in WWII. Thus you will see a wonderful mix of architectural styles, and at times one on building! Oh, on some of the underground rail routes, you feel the trains take a sharp turn. These are due to the bodies buried compactly together, and the engineers couldn’t remove the bodies for worries of the road and buildings collapsing above the ground. Waaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaat?

19. Double-decker buses are awesome. They’re awesome because they’re a constant reminder that “Hey, I’m in London.”

20. There is no real “British Accent”. You can probably just make one up, and the Brits will just assume you’re from another part of the Kingdom. You’ve got the Australian accent, New Zealand (and Kiwi) accent, South African accent, British-Indian accent, Irish accent, Northern Irish accent, South English, London English, the Queen’s English, RP English, Posh English, Cockney accent, Manchester accent, Coventry accent, Welsh accent, Scottish accent, and so many more. And don’t speak with a posh, or RP accent. It’s usually spoken by the older generation. In fact, QEII uses her own accent called the Queen’s English which is still somewhat posh.

21. British food is…unique. I’d recommend trying out the vast choices of ethnic foods around the city. Indian, Thai, Korean, Chinese, and Italian are always great places to try.

22. Speaking of British food…they like to put sausage in EVERYTHING. Everywhere you go, sausages are on the menu. I guess it’s a good thing if you like sausages for breakfast, but for lunch and dinner as well?

23. Lemonade in the UK. It’s basically Sprite or Schweppes.

24. Museums. London is filled with museums. You’ve got the British Museum (where I spent 4 long hours), Imperial War Museum, Natural History Museum, Tate Modern, Tate Britain, Greenwich Visitor Centre, Tower of London, London Transport Museum, Museum of London, National Gallery, Victoria and Albert Museum, are among the best! But don’t visit all of them – you’ll start to hate the museums, and it will be an expensive vacation if you do visit them all.

25. Castles/Palaces. Being a European city, there are plenty of castles to visit. Some of the more popular castles and palaces are Buckingham Palace, Tower of London, Clarence House, Windsor Castle, Hampton Court Palace, and Kensington Palace. Pick and choose, pick and choose.

26. The Globe Theatre. It’s not the original.

27. Dining in is expensive. However, there are plenty of affordable options when it comes to restaurants in London. Chinatown/SOHO is one place to find those options (just don’t stay there past 9pm). Also, unlike the U.S., servers in London will not do anything for you other than bring your food, beverage, and check. In the U.S., servers can get quite annoying when checking up on you every 5 minutes. I prefer the London way. Just leave me alone and let me dine.

28. I hate the £1 coin, and so will you. British money makes just as little sense as U.S. currency. The 2 pence coin is larger than the 20 pence, 5 pence, ten pence, and 1 pound coin. Also, what is up with the £1 pound coin. In the UK, you’ll weigh 5lbs more with pockets and wallets full of those annoying £1 coins. On the plus side, if you collect each newly design coin, you can make this: http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/en/a/a8/New_British_Coinage_2008.jpg

29. I highly recommend taking a historic tour. Do it. You will not regret it, and it will be well worth the money. At least take a “Ghost Bus” tour: http://www.theghostbustours.com/

30. Houses of Parliament. No matter how many times you’ve seen the Houses of Parliament, Big Ben, St. Paul’s Cathedral, or any other popular attraction in London, it is just as breathtaking as the first time you see them.

31. The River Thames. Not the Thames River. And another pronunciation blunder: it’s “Temz”…silly Brits.

32. The rats own the city at night. And they’re not afraid of humans. I don’t mind a rat, but when they’re in groups, I squeal and flail my arms running away.

33. Tea is like water. The Brits will drink tea even on a hot summer day of 80F.

34. The Queen. The day I arrived in London, she left for Belmoral Castle. And the day I arrived back home in the U.S., she returned back to Buckingham Palace. There went my chance of high-fiving Her Majesty. Anyway, see if you can get a tour of Buckingham Palace, and maybe you’ll spot QEII and can take a selfie!

35. Nothing is FREE in London. Nothing.

36. Bacon. Delicious, crispy, greasy bacon. Unfortunately, bacon as we know it here is not the same in the UK. Over there, “bacon” is what we would call ham in the US. And it’s very salty too.

37. Black Cabs. They’ll rip you off if you’re not careful. Find the right one, get his card, and use his cab to get around the city . Great thing about the Black Cabs, is how spacious they are! They’re like mini limousines! But don’t take a Black Cab. Take the Tube. Or rent a Barclay Bike….or walk.

38. Staying hydrated will cost you! Water in London is more expensive than carbonated drinks. Find ways to refill your bottle for free. (Drinking fountains [be cautious], in a cafe, or at your hotel)

39. The entire city has WIFI!…but you have to pay for it…and it’s really slow. If it says it’s free, then it means it’s terribly slow. Just go find a McDonald’s or Starbucks and you’ll be fine.

40. The United Kingdom has five main train companies. Among them Virgin Trains which is a great choice! I took Virgin Trains from London to Coventry in First Class, and it was great! Snacks, drinks, and a comfortable ride.

[thatfestivallife]

Magnetic Fields reverberated its way on to my radar back when I was in India last year as a load of people I met through working on GOAT festival had been and come back to Goa raving about it… A weekend music festival set not just in a palace, but in a palace in a desert in India, sounded like something I needed to tick off my list and after reading a feature about it in the Transform: Festival Journal this year I decided to work it into my travel plans….

Parties in a Palace & Doofs in the Desert

Magnetic Fields is a three day festival set in a 17th century palace in the middle of the desert in Rajasthan. Now in its fifth year it attracts 3000 revellers and world-class artists from around the globe to Alsisar Mahal, a beautiful palace turned five star hotel, and the desert area that surrounds it. It was started by by Wild City co-founders Sarah and Munbir Chawla but, integrally, exists with the full backing and co-operation of the Prince of the palace himself Abhimanyu Alsisar… who, by the way, is such a dude! He got seriously involved all weekend, we spotted him deep in the rave at 8am on Monday!

Check out an interview with the Rajput of Alsisar here.

That sunrise though…

Magnetic Fields Festival 2017…

I was excited for the festival but pretty jet-lagged still and a little skeptical, as always (turns out I’m a massive festival snob!) It was the first time in longer than I care to admit that I’d been to a festival as a fully paying punter and after a bit of a rocky start – a taxi drive twice as long as we thought it would be, getting lost in the desert and only arriving at 10pm to be told our tent came with no bedding – I was feeling a little worried! Obviously as soon as we were through the gates, in sight of the wristband exchange and feeling the buzz of the festival crowd we soon got over it and got stuck in…

In the desert area glittering up a new pal, wearing Dulcie’s Feathers recycled silk sari kimono.

In many ways Magnetic Fields was exactly as I had imagined… It was very trendy with the crowd being predominantly made up of chic Indian music heads who had travelled from the cities, Delhi, Mumbai and Bangalore, and a smattering of other travellers in the know like ourselves. The stages and site were very slickly produced with a lot of obvious brand partnerships and sponsors which, though I understand the necessity of, is something I usually hate. However within the setting it was surprisingly unobtrusive. Each stage had a brand sponsor, Red Bull, Bira 91, Renault… but props to the Magnetic Fields team because it was done super classily.

With its sponsors, hipster crowd and the fact that the price tag is out of the range of most Indians (we paid the equivalent of about £200 for our final release tickets and the most basic tent package… cheap by European standards but pricy in India) Magnetic Fields could be seen as pretty elitist… However, one of the main things that struck me was how aware and conscious the festival was of its context and setting.

I felt like everything had been curated so that modern and historical, global and local could slot alongside each other harmoniously.  Notably there was a photography exhibition from ‘Photographing the Female‘ on display around one of the pool areas that had involved many women from the local area. Additionally there were traditional Rajasthani musicians playing impromptu acoustic sets on the rooftops and around the palace. A special one-off audiovisual show ‘Different Trains 1947‘ was performed on the main stage on Sunday night – it was produced by both Indian and UK artists and historians as part of this year’s UK-India year of culture and dealt with the events of Indian independence in 1947 in this, the 60th anniversary year.

Wrapped up with my gal Nandini & checking out some installations

When it came to the line-up and music programming there was a palpable feeling of excitement surrounding upcoming sets all weekend – acts like Four Tet and Ben UFO that we’ve been able to catch several times in the UK are a treat to a niche crowd in India for whom this is a much rarer opportunity. I wouldn’t say I was headsy in the slightest but I’ve always felt (in a weirdly hypocritical way) that events where people’s reason for coming because they are genuinely madly passionate about the music and a certain scene make for the best vibe and this was very true of Magnetic Fields.

Ben UFO

Reach for the lasers!

Jayda G by Georgiana Clark

Jayda G ft lasers & projection mapping on the palace!

I was there with my festival partner in crime Georgie and musical highlights were plentiful for both of us:

Jayda G was the first set we saw on Friday night and it was great to get warmed up to some disco watched from up on one of the palace balconies – that woman has so much ENERGY! 

The wonderful Sanddunes played a live set on the a rooftop as the sun was setting on Saturday night which was pretty magical, doubly special as I missed her at GOAT due to technical difficulties.

I had a some kind of semi-spiritual moment at Ben UFO‘s set on Saturday night which may have been down to a few too many GnTs but I can’t be sure.

Delhi Sultanate with a bit of reggae in the sunshine at the Desert Oasis stage on Sunday afternoon was perfect and in my opinion the only kinda music that should have been played down there (no-one wants belting techno whilst having their breakfast thanks)

We’d been waiting all weekend for Khruangbin and as one of the only proper live acts I saw, they didn’t disappoint… perfect chilled vibes for a Sunday night.

Khruangbin with some delicious Sunday surfy funky feelings

Number one musical moment for me was 100 % the ‘secret set’ on Monday morning… rolling out of the tent in the sunrise after a little half an hour disco nap to Ben UFO back to back Four Tet shelling out the jungle I’d been waiting all weekend for was probably my biggest festival highlight of the entire year!

As well as music there were other activities to round out that festival experience. There was a wellness area including free activities such as massage workshops and yoga… we probably could have benefited a lot from a bit of this soul nourishing but we didn’t partake in that area this year! There was art, installations and live painting all over the site… not quite the immersive level that we’re spoilt with at festivals in the UK but enough to add some interest when exploring the site and to compliment the gorgeous setting perfectly.

The setting was definitely my favourite aspect of the festival.  The palace was completely free to roam around as we desired, with balconies we could watch the main musical areas from and beds on the roof tops you could laze around in the sun on. From a mosaic tiled restaurant on the top floor where you could chill on sofas and have some dinner to a four floors down in the dungeon where you could sit in a padded out cell and a reasonable priced cocktail bar!

In all Magnetic Fields in succeeded in a few things… stealthily making me enjoy techno (a feat which has only been managed a few times), giving me a great tan, depriving me of sleep, introducing me to some pretty great people from all over the world… and making me want to come back next year!

Read on for my ultimate Magnetic Fields survival guide and top tips if you’re thinking about making the trip yourself… 

Sunday hangovers & a sneaky preview of the new Dulcie’s Feathers reversible silk tie back crop top!

Everything you need to know before going to Magnetic Fields; advice on what to pack, where to stay, how to get there and more…

 Those Festival Facts

Where? Alsisar Mahal, Alsisar, Jhunjhunu, Rajasthan, India. When? Friday afternoon to Monday morning on the second weekend of December. How much? Prices start at 8,500 rs (£100). How many people? 3000 attendees. What’s on? ‘A festival of contemporary music and arts’: 3 days of live and electronic music (electronic dance music, yes but definitely not EDM !) spread across 5 stages in a palace and a desert with a smattering of art, wellness and other attractions.

Top Tips for first time Magnetic Fielders

First time in India? Do your research!

Number one: If you’re coming to India especially for the festival and it’s your first time… do yo research!  One does not simply walk into India…! Magnetic Fields is a little festival bubble so the same Indian cultural norms don’t quite apply there (if there are such things as cultural norms in such a vast and changeable country) but you’re still in a 17th century palace in the middle of a desert in India so I’d definitely reccomend doing a bit of reading up!

You can read my India posts here or for in depth India advice my go to blogs are Hippie in Heels & Global Gallivanting.

The palace as viewed from the Desert Oasis

Get your Magnetic Fields travel plans sorted…

Don’t assume it’s a 3 hour taxi drive from Pushkar just cause the guy in the travel agents says it is. Also don’t assume he actually knows where you’re going just cause he wobbles his head when you tell him. Also don’t follow Google Maps. Don’t worry though, after 7 hours, a large proportion of which is spent in the desert with no signage and no lighting, you will eventually get there…

Basically make some travel plans. The Magnetic Fields website is not hugely helpful on the subject but getting the train from Delhi as they recommend is probably the easiest option!

Luckily when we finally got there the camp site reception was just a short walk from the taxi and checking in was a breeze even though it was quite late.

Where can you stay?

As we all know… camping is intense.. in tents (geddit?) If you can afford it make sure that tent is one of the bedouin variety… unfortunately we opted for the slightly cheaper ‘classic tent’ package.

The ‘classic tent’ area was sneakily hidden away in a cramped shanty town in the corner of the desert site so as to not ruin the aesthetics of the bedouin area and facilities included some awful toilet facilities in stand up nylon tents and bedding consisting of rock hard mats and sleeping bags… that no one told us we could rent until the second day!

In contrast, the bedouin tents (which come in fancy and slightly less fancy varieties) are lussssh! They have real bedding, proper full on bathrooms, the works!

You can bring your own tent and gear too but for us as backpackers that wasn’t that practical & the pitch your own tent price wasn’t that much cheaper either. If you’re feeling extra fancy you can also book your own room in the palace… but that’s kinda cheating so come on.

Cheesy sunrise grins and a lil glimpse at the bedouin tents in the background

Be prepared to face the elements

It’s not exactly Burning Man level of desert survival – but be prepared. It gets COLD, at night and I mean cold – we luckily bought some huge scarves in Pushkar which were lifesavers for us but even those plus a huge hoodie, leather jacket, leggings, boots and a lot of dancing wasn’t enough on those chilly dark mornings! Luckily we didn’t ever really sleep until it was already getting light (or much at all) so we didn’t freeze too much.

We never received the advice newsletter that was sent the day before the festival and only found a link to it when we were already in the taxi so the advice to bring extra warm bedding etc was sadly missed!

In the day time it is hot and gorgeous as always so bring your suncream and shades. Being in the desert also means that it is obviously very dry –  bring plenty of moisturiser for your face and body and carrying lip balm with you is an essential.

What to wear?

There wasn’t a huge amount of exuberant festival fashion about but there were a smattering of quirky characters around. One of my favourite was a gentleman with a large moustache who wore totally pink every single day. Mainly everyone looked very desert chic in monochrome and linen… there was a ‘souk’ with designer clothes stalls so you could buy the look yourself!

My main recommendation would just be layers & layers to take you from the hot sunny days to the cold night or just plenty of costume changes… My Blundstones were indispensable as always, I wore sandals in the day time but there were lots of little spiky burrs in the sand which we kept getting stuck in our feet so boots were better.

This sequin jumpsuit delight was whipped up the day before I flew out by my talented pal Rosie aka Winifred Rose, pom pom earrings as always from Zoe Zedhead! 

No Money No Honey

You have to get your money for drinks and food as special Magnetic Fields currency, this is really easy to do from the various ‘treasuries’ they have dotted around the site. You can swap normal rupees or use your card.

Make sure you don’t leave any boogie bucks in random pockets though cause you will be annoyed when you leave the festival! I’ve got about 500 still, oops…  Also make sure you bring enough real cash as we couldn’t find an ATM that dispensed this and you’ll need it for the taxi back and other things.

New #1 Hangover Cure

Crack open a coconut as soon as you get up in the morning, best way to beat that groggy head. Even better – stick some rum in that coconut for a good old tropical take on hair of the dog 😉

Still would have murdered a bloody Mary had that been an option at the bar!

Eating & drinking in the desert

The food and drink selection was surprisingly excellent – pricey by Indian standards (well my cheapskate backpacker standards) but a little bit cheaper than the UK. A meal was between 300-500 rupees and a spirit and mixer was 300 whilst cocktails in the dungeon were 400 rupees which is only £5.

We ate traditional south Indian dosas at breakfast with tasty iced coffees and re-energised  ourselves with lovely bottled slow juices. In the evenings we gorged on stone-baked pizzas and lush creamy pastas! The only think i would say was missing was anything light – little snacks and salads would have been much appreciated. There are areas to eat within the desert/bedouin tent area and well as in the palace grounds and both have the same stalls.

Water was 100 rupees a bottle rather than the normal 20 which was annoying as it was pretty important to stay hydrated. Also note – the website said minimum drinking age was 25 (!) but I never got asked for I.D and never saw it happen…

Pizza in the palace

Hearing protection is sexy

Ear plugs are always a recommendation of mine but especially at Magnetic Fields… a plus point of having a festival in a desert is a distinct lack of sound restrictions but the downside of this is that tinnitus is for life y’all. Until I finally get round to getting some proper moulded ones I swear by my EarPeace ones – they’re comfy and have filters in so you can hear people talking to you.

I also brought some spare foam ones which it turns out are indispensable for when your tent neighbour decides to start playing psytrance all morning… or the desert stage (handily situated right next to the tent area) decides to do a sound check at half 9 – ouch.

Full power 24 hour!

There is round the clock programming but the chilly nights make you want to retreat back to the fireside or your bed at some point… the only morning I watched the sunrise properly was on the Sunday from the palace rooftop and I’m so glad I stuck it out through the cold and industrial techno because it was breathtaking!

Me and Georgie snugglin in the sunrise, complete with magical bindi sun spot!

Post festival planning for a stress free Monday

If you come with 0 travel plans like us and also 0 desire to sit on a hideous cross country train or bus get a taxi to nearby Jhunjhunu which shouldn’t be more than 1000 rupees and check yourself into a hotel. No one wants a Monday morning festival escape of that proportion…

Have you ever been to Magnetic Fields or any festivals in India? I’d love to know about your experiences or if you have any recommendations!

Read more of my festival posts here.

I must thank my travelling companion Georgiana for taking 80% of these photos – how great are they!?  My camera didn’t come out much, oops!

Desert Magic at Magnetic Fields Festival ’17, Rajasthan, India Magnetic Fields reverberated its way on to my radar back when I was in India last year…

[touristguidebuzz]

Indiana City Is One of the Hottest Short-Term Rental Markets in the U.S.

South Bend, Indiana homeowners advertise rentals to fans coming to town for the Notre Dame-Southern California game in October 2017. Robert Franklin / Associated Press

Skift Take: Rather than dislike short-term rentals, South Bend's tourism officials welcome them. Officials in other cities may want to note how rentals are bringing in far more people to this county, and they are spending their money there on weekends in amounts that seemingly was impossible before.

— Sean O'Neill

After learning in August that her stage 4 colon cancer had resumed its aggressive growth, Notre Dame football fan Megan Hughes and her family wanted to make a final game day memory around their beloved team.

Megan’s family has been avid Notre Dame fans since her grandfather, James Curran, earned two degrees from the school and played on the 1938 team.

They drove in from Maryland to attend the Sept. 30 game against Miami (Ohio), and on that Saturday, the university gave them a pre-game tour of the stadium and locker room, where they solemnly slapped the famous “Play Like a Champion Today” sign at the bottom of the locker room steps.

Making the trip with Megan was her mother, Caroline Hughes, brother, Matt, and Kurtis Michaud, Matt’s friend and fellow Fighting Irish fan. Three weeks before the game, the foursome could have rented two hotel rooms for the weekend at a cost of about $1,000.

Instead, they jumped on the Airbnb website and booked a home in the 1400 block of Cedar Street, within walking distance of the stadium, for about $100 more.

Megan, 42, had assumed they would stay in a hotel like she had on her first three-game visits, but they surprised her with the house when they arrived in town.

“It made it so much more relaxing,” said Megan, who was still feeling the effects of her chemotherapy treatment the day before. “If we were to get a hotel we would have had two rooms and we really wouldn’t have been able to be together as much. We had a living room where we could all sit down together and watch TV or get our plan together for the day. We had a full kitchen where we could make breakfast. They had a fire pit outside and grill where we could make some burgers.”

The home’s proximity to campus also was a huge plus.

“You got to see South Bend more because we could walk to and from,” she said. “You got to know more of the neighborhoods and really see more of South Bend, which I loved. It made it so much more like you were really a part of being there that weekend.”

Such experiences are driving a huge trend in college football towns, including South Bend, as more people opt for short-term rentals.

Part of the same web-based “sharing” or “peer-to-peer” economy that has made Uber a common form of transportation, these rentals are changing the way people spend their leisure time and, on the flip side, creating lucrative ways for homeowners to supplement their incomes.

Rentals on the Rise

A recent study by NerdWallet ranked South Bend as the nation’s third hottest market, behind Ann Arbor, Michigan, and Tuscaloosa, Alabama, for renting out homes during college football games.

Michiana Airbnb hosts booked 4,230 rentals, totaling $825,000, during home football games last year, more than double the 1,946 hosts and $325,000 from 2015, said Airbnb spokesman Ben Breit. That’s just one platform. Competitors include VRBO (Vacation Rentals By Owner), HomeAway, Rent Like a Champion and Gameday Housing.

A few blocks away from that Cedar Street home, just under two miles from the stadium, married couple Jason Hunter and Paige Risser rent out their home on Weber Square, off Corby Boulevard, on some game weekends. Their first experience was during the BYU game in 2012, a year after they bought the house, and they were initially a little leery.

They drove by on that first Saturday and saw an RV in the driveway, and a mutual friend of their guests told them they were combining the football game with a bachelor party.

“He said, hey, you might want to think about getting your security deposit back because I know some of those guys,” Hunter recalled. “We were like, oh my gosh, what have we gotten ourselves into? But when we came back into the house it was in perfect shape. They had cleaned, vacuumed, left it just like we had left it.”

In 2013 they rented it for three games, and in 2014 they did all five home games. That seemed to be too much, between cleaning the house beforehand and finding places to stay with their two teenage children and a dog. This weekend for the Notre Dame-USC game they tent-camped at Warren Dunes.

“It’s not like it’s a huge effort but it’s kind of a pain,” Hunter said. “You have a flow sheet. We’ve done this, we’ve done this. But it’s not like we’re digging ditches.”

Gameday Housing suggests that hosts try to remove as many personal items as possible.

“We take down family photos, all the books on the bedside table,” Risser said. “We call it decluttering. The idea being that you come in and it is like a hotel. They walk into her bedroom and they can tell a teenage girl lives there, but.”

Last year, when the team was 3-9, they had more trouble attracting guests.

They hadn’t planned to rent it for any games this year, but changed their minds after a former repeat customer called and asked them if he could rent for the Georgia and USC games.

Hunter is a teacher at Stanley Clark School, while Risser handles public relations for the Pokagon Band of Potawatomi Indians. Because of their proximity to campus, they charged $3,000 for each of those two weekends, clearing about $2,400 after Gameday Housing’s 20-percent fee.

“It helps pay off debt, it helps pay for Christmas,” Hunter said.

Risser said some of their friends can’t imagine letting strangers sleep in their beds, even though they put out different sheets, blankets, pillows and towels.

“You either really care about that stuff or you really don’t,” she said, “or maybe the money makes you care less about it.”

Suburban Appeal

Not all of the hosts live near campus. Mike and Heather Lee, using Rent Like a Champion, are renting out their Granger subdivision home on game weekends for the fourth consecutive season.

They first heard about it from Mike’s nephew at a Christmas gathering. He had also rented out his Granger home.

“We have this big empty house and it’s just us (along with her 15-year-old daughter, Sequoia, who has the entire basement as her bedroom), so we were like, why not? Let’s try it,” Heather said. “I was a little nervous at first about how people would treat your house.”

They didn’t profit much the first year because of upfront costs, including new mattress sets, bedroom furniture, bed linens and towels.

What they charge depends on interest in the game. They charged $1,800 this weekend for the USC game, and the same price for the Georgia game Sept. 9, and netted $1,500 after Rent Like a Champion takes its cut. They charged only $1,200 for the Miami (Ohio) game.

Guests arrive Friday at 5 p.m. and leave Sunday by noon. Mike and Heather sometimes camp in her vintage travel trailer at KOA Campground in Granger, and Sequoia often stays with a friend.

The house will sleep 16 people, between four bedrooms, couches and the basement. They estimate earning about $5,000 to $6,000 a year.

The Lees said their guests, some of whom come year after year, prefer their location over those near campus. Adults and children can toss a football or Frisbee, or play corn hole, in the large yard. They’re closer to the Grape Road/Main Street restaurants, grocery stores and the Indiana Toll Road.

Local Economic Benefit Claimed

Gameday Housing and Rent Like a Champion were founded in South Bend in 2006 and now operate in college football towns across the nation. Wes Smithe, CEO of Chicago-based Gameday, said the company started up because hotels were “gouging” customers.

Hotel prices in South Bend were up 186 percent Saturday night for the USC game, compared to the prior weekend when Notre Dame didn’t play, according to hotel price comparison platform HotelsCombined.

Despite the increase in short-term rentals, South Bend area hotels have remained busy on game weekends, having averaged 90 percent occupancy in 2014, 2015 and 2016, and 92 percent through this season’s first three home game weekends, according to Visit South Bend Mishawaka, St. Joseph County’s convention and visitors bureau.

The agency tracks and distributes the county’s hotel/motel tax, which generates money to boost local tourism. Short-term rentals aren’t assessed the tax. Rather than merely holding steady, hotel occupancy rates might have increased in recent years if not for the short-term rental trend, said Rob DeCleene, Visit South Bend Mishawaka executive director.

“At the end of the day, the most important thing is these house rentals are bringing in exponentially more people to St. Joseph County who are staying in St. Joseph County and spending their money here,” DeCleene said. “That is the most important benefit of tourism — visitor spending in the local economy. And house rentals are making that even more accessible.”

If hotel occupancy rates haven’t declined and Notre Dame Stadium hasn’t added more seats, it must mean more people are coming to town for the gameday environment without ever entering the stadium. Smithe said that jibes with his company’s experience.

“Anecdotally I know many groups who stay with us will have some members who go for the tailgate only, and then retreat back to the homes with their kids,” Smithe said.

Rachel Marley, a 30-year-old behavior therapist for autistic children, and her boyfriend, Timm Murphy, own the Cedar Street home that Megan Hughes stayed in. She was happy to learn from a Tribune reporter the role her home played in one more Notre Dame football memory for Megan and her family.

“I had no idea,” Marley said when told of Megan’s cancer. “It makes me happy that I was able to provide such a relaxing and significant experience for her.”

Copyright (2017) Associated Press. All rights reserved.

This article was written by Jeff Parrott from The Associated Press and was legally licensed through the NewsCred publisher network. Please direct all licensing questions to legal@newscred.com.

[rollinbrigittenv8]

Indiana City Is One of the Hottest Short-Term Rental Markets in the U.S.

South Bend, Indiana homeowners advertise rentals to fans coming to town for the Notre Dame-Southern California game in October 2017. Robert Franklin / Associated Press

Skift Take: Rather than dislike short-term rentals, South Bend's tourism officials welcome them. Officials in other cities may want to note how rentals are bringing in far more people to this county, and they are spending their money there on weekends in amounts that seemingly was impossible before.

— Sean O'Neill

After learning in August that her stage 4 colon cancer had resumed its aggressive growth, Notre Dame football fan Megan Hughes and her family wanted to make a final game day memory around their beloved team.

Megan’s family has been avid Notre Dame fans since her grandfather, James Curran, earned two degrees from the school and played on the 1938 team.

They drove in from Maryland to attend the Sept. 30 game against Miami (Ohio), and on that Saturday, the university gave them a pre-game tour of the stadium and locker room, where they solemnly slapped the famous “Play Like a Champion Today” sign at the bottom of the locker room steps.

Making the trip with Megan was her mother, Caroline Hughes, brother, Matt, and Kurtis Michaud, Matt’s friend and fellow Fighting Irish fan. Three weeks before the game, the foursome could have rented two hotel rooms for the weekend at a cost of about $1,000.

Instead, they jumped on the Airbnb website and booked a home in the 1400 block of Cedar Street, within walking distance of the stadium, for about $100 more.

Megan, 42, had assumed they would stay in a hotel like she had on her first three-game visits, but they surprised her with the house when they arrived in town.

“It made it so much more relaxing,” said Megan, who was still feeling the effects of her chemotherapy treatment the day before. “If we were to get a hotel we would have had two rooms and we really wouldn’t have been able to be together as much. We had a living room where we could all sit down together and watch TV or get our plan together for the day. We had a full kitchen where we could make breakfast. They had a fire pit outside and grill where we could make some burgers.”

The home’s proximity to campus also was a huge plus.

“You got to see South Bend more because we could walk to and from,” she said. “You got to know more of the neighborhoods and really see more of South Bend, which I loved. It made it so much more like you were really a part of being there that weekend.”

Such experiences are driving a huge trend in college football towns, including South Bend, as more people opt for short-term rentals.

Part of the same web-based “sharing” or “peer-to-peer” economy that has made Uber a common form of transportation, these rentals are changing the way people spend their leisure time and, on the flip side, creating lucrative ways for homeowners to supplement their incomes.

Rentals on the Rise

A recent study by NerdWallet ranked South Bend as the nation’s third hottest market, behind Ann Arbor, Michigan, and Tuscaloosa, Alabama, for renting out homes during college football games.

Michiana Airbnb hosts booked 4,230 rentals, totaling $825,000, during home football games last year, more than double the 1,946 hosts and $325,000 from 2015, said Airbnb spokesman Ben Breit. That’s just one platform. Competitors include VRBO (Vacation Rentals By Owner), HomeAway, Rent Like a Champion and Gameday Housing.

A few blocks away from that Cedar Street home, just under two miles from the stadium, married couple Jason Hunter and Paige Risser rent out their home on Weber Square, off Corby Boulevard, on some game weekends. Their first experience was during the BYU game in 2012, a year after they bought the house, and they were initially a little leery.

They drove by on that first Saturday and saw an RV in the driveway, and a mutual friend of their guests told them they were combining the football game with a bachelor party.

“He said, hey, you might want to think about getting your security deposit back because I know some of those guys,” Hunter recalled. “We were like, oh my gosh, what have we gotten ourselves into? But when we came back into the house it was in perfect shape. They had cleaned, vacuumed, left it just like we had left it.”

In 2013 they rented it for three games, and in 2014 they did all five home games. That seemed to be too much, between cleaning the house beforehand and finding places to stay with their two teenage children and a dog. This weekend for the Notre Dame-USC game they tent-camped at Warren Dunes.

“It’s not like it’s a huge effort but it’s kind of a pain,” Hunter said. “You have a flow sheet. We’ve done this, we’ve done this. But it’s not like we’re digging ditches.”

Gameday Housing suggests that hosts try to remove as many personal items as possible.

“We take down family photos, all the books on the bedside table,” Risser said. “We call it decluttering. The idea being that you come in and it is like a hotel. They walk into her bedroom and they can tell a teenage girl lives there, but.”

Last year, when the team was 3-9, they had more trouble attracting guests.

They hadn’t planned to rent it for any games this year, but changed their minds after a former repeat customer called and asked them if he could rent for the Georgia and USC games.

Hunter is a teacher at Stanley Clark School, while Risser handles public relations for the Pokagon Band of Potawatomi Indians. Because of their proximity to campus, they charged $3,000 for each of those two weekends, clearing about $2,400 after Gameday Housing’s 20-percent fee.

“It helps pay off debt, it helps pay for Christmas,” Hunter said.

Risser said some of their friends can’t imagine letting strangers sleep in their beds, even though they put out different sheets, blankets, pillows and towels.

“You either really care about that stuff or you really don’t,” she said, “or maybe the money makes you care less about it.”

Suburban Appeal

Not all of the hosts live near campus. Mike and Heather Lee, using Rent Like a Champion, are renting out their Granger subdivision home on game weekends for the fourth consecutive season.

They first heard about it from Mike’s nephew at a Christmas gathering. He had also rented out his Granger home.

“We have this big empty house and it’s just us (along with her 15-year-old daughter, Sequoia, who has the entire basement as her bedroom), so we were like, why not? Let’s try it,” Heather said. “I was a little nervous at first about how people would treat your house.”

They didn’t profit much the first year because of upfront costs, including new mattress sets, bedroom furniture, bed linens and towels.

What they charge depends on interest in the game. They charged $1,800 this weekend for the USC game, and the same price for the Georgia game Sept. 9, and netted $1,500 after Rent Like a Champion takes its cut. They charged only $1,200 for the Miami (Ohio) game.

Guests arrive Friday at 5 p.m. and leave Sunday by noon. Mike and Heather sometimes camp in her vintage travel trailer at KOA Campground in Granger, and Sequoia often stays with a friend.

The house will sleep 16 people, between four bedrooms, couches and the basement. They estimate earning about $5,000 to $6,000 a year.

The Lees said their guests, some of whom come year after year, prefer their location over those near campus. Adults and children can toss a football or Frisbee, or play corn hole, in the large yard. They’re closer to the Grape Road/Main Street restaurants, grocery stores and the Indiana Toll Road.

Local Economic Benefit Claimed

Gameday Housing and Rent Like a Champion were founded in South Bend in 2006 and now operate in college football towns across the nation. Wes Smithe, CEO of Chicago-based Gameday, said the company started up because hotels were “gouging” customers.

Hotel prices in South Bend were up 186 percent Saturday night for the USC game, compared to the prior weekend when Notre Dame didn’t play, according to hotel price comparison platform HotelsCombined.

Despite the increase in short-term rentals, South Bend area hotels have remained busy on game weekends, having averaged 90 percent occupancy in 2014, 2015 and 2016, and 92 percent through this season’s first three home game weekends, according to Visit South Bend Mishawaka, St. Joseph County’s convention and visitors bureau.

The agency tracks and distributes the county’s hotel/motel tax, which generates money to boost local tourism. Short-term rentals aren’t assessed the tax. Rather than merely holding steady, hotel occupancy rates might have increased in recent years if not for the short-term rental trend, said Rob DeCleene, Visit South Bend Mishawaka executive director.

“At the end of the day, the most important thing is these house rentals are bringing in exponentially more people to St. Joseph County who are staying in St. Joseph County and spending their money here,” DeCleene said. “That is the most important benefit of tourism — visitor spending in the local economy. And house rentals are making that even more accessible.”

If hotel occupancy rates haven’t declined and Notre Dame Stadium hasn’t added more seats, it must mean more people are coming to town for the gameday environment without ever entering the stadium. Smithe said that jibes with his company’s experience.

“Anecdotally I know many groups who stay with us will have some members who go for the tailgate only, and then retreat back to the homes with their kids,” Smithe said.

Rachel Marley, a 30-year-old behavior therapist for autistic children, and her boyfriend, Timm Murphy, own the Cedar Street home that Megan Hughes stayed in. She was happy to learn from a Tribune reporter the role her home played in one more Notre Dame football memory for Megan and her family.

“I had no idea,” Marley said when told of Megan’s cancer. “It makes me happy that I was able to provide such a relaxing and significant experience for her.”

Copyright (2017) Associated Press. All rights reserved.

This article was written by Jeff Parrott from The Associated Press and was legally licensed through the NewsCred publisher network. Please direct all licensing questions to legal@newscred.com.

[backroadblues]

May 25th, 2017 - La Spezia - Liguria, Italy We got back into the hotel relatively early at 10:00PM. Trent and Caryolyn are a little tired. After we parted ways when Elisa wasn't feeling well, they continued on to Vernazza and then on to Monterosso. They did a lot of walking and window shopping. Nothing "spoke" to Carolyn, insisting that she had to bring it home with her. So they too headed back into La Spezia by around 6:30. Elisa and I had spoken with them about having dinner in Monterosso, the largest of the Cinque Terre towns, so we assumed that is what Trent and Carolyn would do when we split up. At 7:00pm, Elisa and I prepared to go out to get a quick bite to eat at a Chinese or Japanese restaurant. Just as we were about to depart, Trent texted me indicating that they were back at the hotel. So we told them we were planning on going out and they said they would join us and be ready by 7:30pm. We strolled down the main pedestrian corridor of the town of LaSpezia. This is a very nice feature of most towns in Italy and other parts of Europe. As we stroll down we notice there La Spezia is a very diverse city. We see many different nationalities. We see Africans, Moroccans, Indians, Asians and many others - all interacting and conversing in Italian. We see kids playing, not soccer / football, but instead they are playing cricket. Not your typical Italian pass time. The diversity is partly due to the fact that La Spezia is a city of over 100,000 people and it has been a major seaport throughout its long history. Sea ports have long been a melting pot for the different cultures that share the Mediterranean. By 8:15 we find ourselves in a Japanese Sushi/Bento restaurant. After we finish our meal, we discuss the logistics for tomorrows main event. It will be an authentic Italian cooking class. We will be meeting with Chef Sylvia of Osteria del Corte. This restaurant has been praised for over 7 years in a row. They specialize in Ligurian cuisine but also offer a wide range of other Italian cuisines. We are to meet at the Central train station in La Spezia, where someone will be holding a placard with our name on it. We are to be there at 10:00. By 10:15, Alessandro, Sylvia's husband and partner in the restaurant meets us. He leads us on a short walk back to the restaurant. On our way he speaks of the City of La Spezia, how it is he and Sylvia came to open their restaurant, their 4 kids and life in this part of Italy. It was a great way to get to know our hosts for this cooking adventure. When we arrive at the restaurant, we meet Chef Sylvia. She is already busy in the kitchen and has a staff of 4 Sous chefs hard at work. They are making preparations for the days menu. It is now 10:30 and she dispatches us with her husband to go to the local open air market, which is a short walk away. The tells us that the city has had an open air market for centuries. It used to be at another location in the city that was much smaller. He says that La Spezia was a small town of only 7000 residents for hundreds of years, when in the 1870's an Italian Naval base was opened very near the city. Between 1870 and 1879 the city would grow to over 100,000 people. That is when they had to move the market to its present location. The tour of the market is really amazing. There are countless stands with a colorful assortment of fruits, vegetables and flowers. Carolyn cant help but notice the beautiful plums at one fruit stand and she picks one up to show Trent, Elisa and me. She immediately garners the "international eye-roll" from the seller and many other customers. Finally Alessandro explains - "pleeza no toucha da frutta - unlessa you gonna buya eet". Carolyn is now mortified and she promptly puts it back and wipes her fingerprints off of it. Alessandro stops at many stands buying fresh fish, herbs, vegetables and some mortadella. He explains we will use the mortadella in a traditional Ligurian dish - stuffed mussels. Apparently this part of Italy is a huge provider of mussels to Italy and other countries. We make our way out of the market and we really enjoyed the shopping experience. When we get back to the restaurant, Chef Sylvia get aprons for each of us. This is a private cooking class for just the 4 of us. Its a good thing, because the tiny but modern lay equipped kitchen is full to capacity. Our first mission is to take the mortadella and to begin dicing it up into small bits. This is then mixed with parmesan cheese, parsley and eggs. That moisture is set aside - this will be the stuffing for our mussels. Next we must clean the mussels. Chef Sylvia shows us the tiny tendrils that extend from the flat side of the mussel and how we must pull it down toward the front of the mussel and break it free. These tendrils are what the mussels use to attach themselves to the seabeds where they are grown. While we do this, one of the Sous Chefs has filleted some nice young cod fish. Chef takes the fish bones and the fish heads and adds it to a stock pot, adds water and sets it on the stove to boil. We then go on to shelling and deveining the shrimp. Chef Sylvia take the shrimp heads and adds it to the stock pot where she is making the fish stock that will be used when we make our risotto. To the stock she adds some herbs, and salt and lets it boil. Wile the fish stock is boiling, Chef Sylvia shows how to stuff the largest of the mussels which are still alive and raw. We must use a knife (dull) to insert near the base of the mussel on the flat side and slide the knife around the top of the mussel reaching and cutting the animals main mussel that allows us to open the mussel. We then stuff the mortadella, egg and cheese mix liberally into the mussels. Once stuffed, the mussels are layered into a medium sized pot that has a tomato sauce concoction inside. The sauce has been prepared with some tomato paste, herbs of onion, garlic, shallots and onions. The stuffed mussels are pressed into the tomato sauce. There are so many they are layered on top of one another. She then used a small plate to press the mussels into the sauce so that they are covered. She leave the plate on top to act as a lid while she simmers them in the sauce on the stove. As the fish and the stuffed mussels continue to cook, Chef Sylvia show us how to prepare our main course. It is a very simple dish where she takes parchment paper, lays down a bit of olive oil on it. The then lays on the thin cod filets on top of the olive oil, she sprinkles a little salt on them, then covers them with minced fresh tomatoes. She adds more olive oil alone with garlic and parsley. She sprinkles a little more olive oil on them and folds up the parchment paper and seals it tightly. These will be baked in the oven and served as our main course in the parchment paper. We then move on to starting the risotto dishes. She places a lot of butter - 1/3 of a cube of butter - easily 4 tbsps into each of our sauce pans. As the butter begins to melt she adds the garlic and shallots. We brown it a bit and then comes the rice - Carnaroli rice is best for risotto because of its starch. We then brown the rice with shallots and garlic. Before the garlic and parsley can turn brown (and bitter) she adds just enough fish stock to cover it. The steam comes billowing up at us - two people on each side of a very unique double sided stove. The stove top is induction type stove. The entire surface can ace as a heating element when a pot or pan with enough steel on it is placed on it. What is neat about the stove is that the surface remains cool and the heat is entirely transmitted into the pan. This keeps the tiny kitchen relatively cool. - Enough about the stove, as the steam billows up, we must stir. Each time the fish stock begins to boil down we must add a little more fish stock. We do this for 15 to 20 minutes - that's a lot of stirring. Towards the end, she tells us to stir less so that the risotto can begin to firm up. She tasted mine and tells me I'm a good stirrer - I bet she tells all the fat guys that. Then she adds a little salt and the mussels, shrimp and some calamari that the Sous Chef has cleaned and sliced. She adds all the sea food in and we now stir a bit more vigorously so that it can cook in the hot rice. She says we are now done and we will get ready to eat. She show us how to plate the risotto, clean the rim of the dish, garnish it with a flourish of minced parsley. After an hour of cooking with Sylvia we now wash our hands and make our way to the dining room. As we sit down It is now about 12:20 and the restaurant is now also open for lunch to the public. I'm sure Chef Sylvia is happy to have us out of the kitchen because it looks like she will be busy with the streams of people coming into the restaurant. We are seated at a table of distinction, in the center of the nicely decorated restaurant. We sit at our table with our cooking aprons on, which certainly distinguishes us from the other customers in the restaurant. The waiters serve us locally sourced white wines to go with our locally sourced meal. The wine is wonderful - just the right amount of dry to go with the right amount of sweet. It will complement our meal nicely. We are each served the risotto dishes that each of us has prepared. It is fantastic. The rice is perfectly cooked - not too soft and mushy but also not too "al dente". The seafood is so fresh tasting and we all love the risotto dishes we have made. Then comes the huge platters of stuffed mussels. It is a really unique dish. It is unusual to see sea food combined with meat and cheese when in Italy, but this traditional Ligurian dish is enjoyed by all of us. Then comes our main course. We are amazed that such a simple dish can be so good and it is all about the freshness of the ingredients. We are happy to take our time dining enjoying the fact that we had a hand in making this feast and learning from Chef Sylvia along the way. After our large lunch we enjoy a light desert and coffee. We almost feel like Italians. The entire day was such a treat. It is now about 2:00 and we decide to head back to the Hotel and relax a bit. Around 4:00PM we decide to head into a nearby seaside town Porto Venere (Port of Venus). Alessandro, has shared with us that this little seaside town is the hidden gem of the region. He says, "it is a carpet of tourists in all of the Cinque Terre during the high season - the local people will instead go to Porto Venere). Now that all of us have recovered from the amazing lunch we prepared, we decide to take a taxi the 10 miles to get to Porto Venere. It is a good thing because parking here is very difficult and the road very narrow and winding. When we get there, we are blessed with a cool breeze, sparsely populated street, many nice shops with Italian handcrafts. We spend many hours walking the streets and shopping. We get to the old church at the end of the point of land that Porto Venere occupies and we are treated to some of the most amazing views. It is said that Lord Byron was so taken with the beauty here that he dove into the gulf below to swim to one or the neighboring islands. The gulf is now forever know as the Poet's Gulf. The Church was constructed in 1250 - 1279 on top of the remains of a much older Roman church that dates back to 700AD. Parts of the old church remain plainly visible along with the more modern church built in the 13th century. The views from the church are amazing. We make our way back into the little town and do a bit more shipping. We walk along the sidewalks that line the street that runs parallel to the water. We are again surprised at how few people there are here, when we had just spent time in nearby Cinque Terre and its hordes of humanity. By 8:00pm we decide to have a "light dinner" at the Royal Sporting Hotel. The Maitre'd leads us to a lovely outdoor table with an amazing view of the water. We decide to bypass starters and pasta. Some of us have the filet of beef prepared in a green peppercorn cause. Elisa has a gluten free pasta (amazing) along with a bowl of pea soup. We top our meal off with a fantastic Italian Barolo - Pio Cesare 2009. We savor every drop of it along with each bite of our meal. The service at the restaurant is fantastic as was the food and the view. Once again, we declare it one of the best meals we've had on our trip. Our Maitre'd has called a taxi for us to take us back to our hotel in La Spezia and we all decide that the next time we want to come to Liguria, we will bypass Cinque Terre and stay in Porto Venere. After we return to the hotel, we all reflect not he very special day we had here in Italy. The cooking class was very entertaining. It is a little pricey, but I highly recommend the experience to anyone considering a trip to Italy. Hopefully, your restaurant and Chef will be as friendly, entertaining and talented as Chef Sylvia. Another unforgettable highlight of our trip. Tomorrow we will be heading to Lake Como where we will be staying in the small town of Bellagio. We will be staying at the Bellagio Hotel - I here they have an amazing fountain in front of the hotel - oh wait, that's the one in Las Vegas. The one we will be staying at has a beautiful lake in front of us. That's all for now. Ciao!