#the riso version is like. i tried ok

[ravenxbones]

sort of inspired by @sodajerk ‘s lil mousekat keychain design, i wanted to do something fun and colorful and mousekat has been on the brain for me recently so!! funny animal time :3

eyestrain-y version under the cut!

[mikimeiko]

Sardinia - day 2 - Olbia to Sassari

The ship is almost an hour and a half late. Pro: I got to be on the ferry with daylight, and sea the beautiful Sardinian coast.

Con: the port is pretty far from the Olbia proper and you have to get a bus, but they are not super frequent and I'll just have time to get to the train station before the train to Sassari leaves. I was really hoping to at least walk around Olbia's center, but it's not happening today.

I've only been on the train for half an hour and I've already seen cows, pigs and multiple sheep <3

This northern part of Sardinia is very beautiful and very green (especially compared to Lombardy or Piedmont this time of year, where everything is grey and looking very dead). I am very curious to see if the ride south tomorrow will be the same, or if it will be the characteristic desertlike landscape that you find in the summer.

Sassari is... very uphill XD I never expect cities to not be flat XD

I try the fainé, the local version of Ligurian farinata/Tuscan cecina. It's made with chickpeas, like the other two, but here you can find different ingredients inside (I tried onions and sausage, the onions one was spectacular). Also they give you a small bag of pepper if you want it! I never saw pepper in a paper bag before, only salt and sugar!

There's a tram in Sassari! Which is called metrosassari and runs at least in part on the old narrow gauge railway... Ok, every rail transport in one XD (of course I had to take the tram, and of course I had to go as far as I could on it XD

Gotta stop traveling in Italy alone. It's just... such a stupidly social country (affectionate). I actually felt the same in Portugal: yeah, you can have fun by yourself, but there will be that lingering feeling that this is a place where you do things with people. You go out to eat with people, you have a beer with people, you stroll through the corsi and the piazze with people. It's fine, but I could do without the soft melancholy.

But! The full moon has blessed this trip! I saw her peeking out of the clouds all white and round and I was filled with joy.

There's a Christmas market in one of the piazze (piazza castello/castle square but... there's no castle? It was demolished in the 1800s D:) I got a fregolino (una rivisitazione dell'arancino con la fregola al posto del riso), a deep fried ball of tiny pasta with herbs, cheese and lemon, VERY GOOD. I also wanted to try some sheep meatballs, but when I went back to the stall it was already closed :( the market closed much earlier than I though it would! But anyway I was curious because I never tried them, but I don't even like lamb so... maybe this was for the best XD