Sweet Potato Soup

MY FIRST FOOD POST 

I love food, I have been travelling for almost 4 years and all my favourite places are based on my appreciation of the food available. You could say I am a food traveler (Gourmet Traveler was taken). As a kid I was always experimenting in the kicthen, wasting all mum's flour, covering dads kitchen in melted chocolate - it's a wonder I never became a chef. I experimented with everything, baking, roasting, soups, salads, wraps, you name it. Adam and I lived in New Zealand for a little over a year and we realised about 8 months in that I hadn't actually cooked the same dish twice, with the exception of burgers, Adam loves burgers.

Instead of being a chef, at 26, I'm still the one out the front, serving the food. I said to someone the other day, I just love to cook, I have to spend at least half an hour in the kitchen everyday, just to feel like me. That really surprised me, I knew I loved to cook, but it's true, I cook something everyday. It's a wonder Adam and I aren't fat. (It's actually all down to being Paleo- more on that later).

Living with mum during uni, I used to (and still do) love it when she has people over for dinner, I would create a little menu and spend all afternoon in the kitchen, and then serve the food and disappear. (or more recently join in the festivities).  In the last few years however, traveling so much it's hard to really get into cooking. One of the jobs we had in New Zealand was so remote, the chefs prepared lunch and dinner everyday and breakfast was toast. So not only was I unable to cook for 3 months, but we were also subjected to whatever food the chef's felt like cooking.

When we are in a situation where I can cook for others I go mad. In a good way. Whether it is a dinner party, a weekend away with friends, or in the case of early last year when Adam's parents joined us in Melbourne for a month, my focus is food. I can spend hours planning menus and working out how much of each product we need to buy and so on. I realised that this is what I should be doing. To quote mum's dad find out what it is that you love to do, and work out how to get paid for it. I am sorry to say, that after 10 years as a waitress, it is not what I love to do. I don't hate it, but I certainly don't love it.

Now, back to the point of this post. I have never written out a recipe before, so here goes.

SWEET POTATO SOUP (Paleo, Vegetarian, good for you etc)

Ingredients 
8 medium sized sweet potatoes (or 4 large) pealed and chopped
1 brown onion
4 garlic cloves crushed
1 stick of fresh ginger grated approx 1.5cm x 1.5 cm
1 cm small red chilli - depending on how much you like chilli
2 tbs coconut oil - or enough to keep the pot wet until all the ingredients are coated
1 tbs tumeric
1 ltr water (approx) you made need to add more water as the sweet potato cooks and the water evaporates.

Method

• Melt coconut oil in a big pot. (Coconut oil comes in solid form- so it needs to be melted and coat the bottom of the pot before adding any other ingredients.) 
• Add diced onion, and brown slightly then add the grated ginger, thinly sliced chilli and crushed garlic. 
• Make sure all ingredients are coated in the oil, then add the tumeric and diced sweet potatoes and coat in oil. 
• Add water and bring to the boil. 
• Turn heat down and simmer until the sweet potato is soft. 

This soup is best blended but Adam prefers chunky soups, so in this case I compromised and mashed the soup using a potato masher, so it's still chunky. (It's so much better smooth though).

Serving suggestion - add a cup of (rinsed) red lentils just before adding the water. Previously I would add lentils but as they are not Paleo - no more lentils. 

More recipes (and adventures) to come :)

Not a boring life (Re:post February 2015)

Yesterday was freezing. When will winter end? 

Adam and I have been running together for a few weeks now, Adams been running for 2 years, he has pushed himself, proven to himself that he can conquer his goals and push his limits and run marathons. 

Recently, he's taken me into his world of running. Percentage wise, I should call it walking. But I do run. The time we spend together weaving our way through the bridleways he uses as a warm up. But its a start for me. I have done more exercise in the last week than I have done in the last 10 years put together.

Anyway, yesterday was freezing, so we set off at a bit of a run to warm ourselves through, it must have been about 2 degrees. I ran consistently more yesterday than I have yet. It was amazing, as a non-runner, I had actually convinced myself that I wasn't a runner, I couldn't be a runner and would never be able to do it, but I did and I can. I felt strong and fast and free.

When we finished our 2km, Adam came home with me, he got his gloves and the iPod. I settled into the couch for an afternoon by the fire. Our house isn't the warmest, so the fire is always appreciated.

About 2 hours or so after we got back, we were bored. Not lazy bored, or ungrateful bored, just frustrated. We both have plenty of activities to occupy ourselves with, I sew and love to read, Adam is studying fitness and loves to exercise. 

But we had both hit a wall. Even though yesterday was Thursday, it was our Sunday afternoon. Sunday's offer a chance to reflect on the week and weekend. What have we done, how much have we achieved, are we content, what will the next week bring?

I was comfy on the couch with my handmade quilt and hot water bottle, I picked up my diary, which has been scarcely used in the past 2 and a half years and decided to write for 45 minutes and see what flowed. 

For a long time I have thought about writing my journey into a story, but the task feels too enormous. Where do I start? Day one? Whats day one? The day I left Melbourne? Or before that when I bought my ticket? Or when I was too hungover to go to work and lay on the couch and watch Eat Pray Love? When I was accepted to go on the study tour to Ireland? What will fill the first page or chapter or book even, I've been gone almost 4 years.

As I was writing, I was conscious that I hadn't written much since meeting Adam 2 and a half years ago, so I started writing all our experiences into dot points, I filled 3 pages of the diary with dot points and it made for a wonderful afternoon of reminiscing.

Here's a few.. Maybe these will become blog posts in the coming months? 

• Our first time to Scotland together
• Living in Nice 
• Running away to Czech, and staying with Adam's family for 5 weeks
• Flying to Melbourne
• Living in Bettina and Steves shed for 2 months
• Seeing a whale in Bass Strait
• Moving to New Zealand
• Buying our 1988 Nissan Bluebird
• Living in Rotorua
• Our Cat
• GoRaw at the night market every Thursday
• Zippys Cafe
• Adam planting trees
• Making life changing decisions in the Redwoods in Rotorua
• Packing up everything we own after 11 months into our little car
• Selling our car for a profit
• Furneaux lodge and the orcas
• Adams parents and my mum travelling around Victoria
• The extreme heat in Moravia and the amazing steak.
• Buying a car in Czech and driving the long way (no freeways) to France
• Domiaine de Pine
• The enormous thunder and lightning storm in northern Spain when we were camping in our little compact tent (and hiding in the car for 2 hours til it passed)

I hope these will one day be explained in a book. (The photo above is Adam with our little kitty Gato in Rotorua New Zealand)

Feizor Tea Rooms and our local area (Re:post February 2015)

We live in a small town, I suppose by definition it must be a village. In our town their is a church, which I believe is Church of England. The Parish does a movie night every so often on a Friday, for the locals. There is a small shop and post office in one, they sell fresh local meat; the bacon is probably the best I have ever had, they sell grocery items, free range eggs, local milk and other bits and bobs. Our town also has a pub, which is like all British pubs, nothing really that makes it anything special. There are a few bed and breakfasts. And then there is the hotel we work for, The Traddock.

Our little village is at the gateway to 'the Dales' National Park in Yorkshire. If you walk north from our village, you will first find yourself in Clapham, which is a little bigger, and as well as having the usual pub and post office, they also have a little wool shop. Further north, by car this time and about an hour or two away is the Lake District, which was once home to Beatrix Potter and Peter Rabbit. I think it should be called The District of Hills and Lakes, as the hills are just as, if not more impressive than the lakes. And then of course, a few hour further north and you will come upon Scotland.

Walking or driving east from our village will take you further into the dales. The roads are all lined by stone walls and in many places are only one lane wide. There is Malham Cove and the 3 Peaks, Penn-y-Gent, Whernside and Ingleborough. The 3 Peaks are one of the great attractions of the Dales. It's an 8- 12 hour walk (depending on fitness) and usually the walkers are completely legless by the end of it.

South of our village is a town called Settle. Much bigger then ours. There are banks and supermarkets, many pubs and restaurants, op-shops and bike repair. Libraries and health food outlets, [almost] you name it and they've got it. They even have a shop called Practically Everything.

Now, about an hours walk south east from us, through the fields, past the sheep and over a creek, up a hill and past a run down house, through a small forest, you will come to a very small village/ collection of houses called Feizor. Here you will find a cute little town and a wonderful little tea room called Elaine's Tea Rooms. She sells hot tea and coffee, full English breakfast,  fresh scones with jam and cream, Sunday Roast. There is outdoor seating for summer time, and a cosy indoor fire for the winter. She has beautiful cakes and slices. I find that it is the perfect treat after the walk through the fields and the forest.

Photo: table decorations at Elaine's Tea Rooms in Feizor

Starting new habits (Re:post January 2015)

‘They’ say if you can do something for 30 days, you can form it as a new habit, just stick at it for 30 days and you'll be fine.

Adam and I read an article recently listing 30 odd new tasks to take up. We chose about 10 of them, some we are doing together, others separately.

We have both cut off Facebook all together. We changed each other's passwords, so there is no cheating. We are banned from watching any movies, we don't watch TV anyway.

We are both to write in our diaries every day, and to set a goal for 30 years everyday, for example I decided that I want to fill my diary before I'm 28, 18 months isn't bad considering I filled 2 in less than 12 months last time.

We are both to read a chapter every day. I finished Jane Eyre today, and I'm already searching for another book, something that I can't put down. I did enjoy Jane Eyre. I'm not sure what will be next.

What else is there? Oh, I’m to go for a 30 minute walk every day. I chose a path the other day, it took me 25 minutes to walk it, the following day I ran part of the way and it took me 19 minutes, so tomorrow's challenge is to find a longer path.

I'm to take a photo every day, which is harder than it sounds.

I'm not doing too well at the moment, not really sticking to them very well, we haven't gone on Facebook or watched any movies, but I also haven't walked every day (work doesn't count).

We are both the write each other little notes every day saying one thing we love about the other person. I like this one the most.

The hardest challenge of all is, I'm not allowed to bitch or complain for 30days. I didn't realise how much I did it until I started this challenge. Every day that I bitch or complain I have to start again. So it’s constantly pushed back. I'm determined though, to succeed.

We are also doing a weight loss challenge with work, there's 8 of us involved and whoever loses the highest % of their weight in the 6 weeks wins, we all put in £10. My goal is one stone, approximately 7kgs. In 3 days I've lost 3 pounds, so even if I don't win the challenge, I'm in pretty good steed to reach my goal. We're doing the weight loss challenge to be a part of something more than anything else. It gives us a focus.

Our 30 day challenge is good too. Otherwise it's just work and home and sleep and work and home.

(This was originally posted on the other blog in January 2015, it’s now March and Adam and I came 2^nd and 3^rd respectively in the weight loss challenge. Now we’re Paleo, more on that in a future post)

Runner (Re:post January 2015)

I'm no runner. 

I'm a dawdler. 

I'm a procrastinator. 

A tomorrower. 

I'm the wisher. 

The one who lies in bed at night planner how fast and how far I'll run in the morning, when the alarm goes off at 6am. And when the alarm rings all plans forgotten. 

Until today. Today I became a runner. 

At the symbolic finish line I wanted to jump up and yell "YES!!!!"

I didn't give up half way. I set myself an achievable goal and reached it. 

I even considered extending it part way through. 

I didn't run, I walked. 

And loved it.

This is where I run and walk and jog and love it. 

Day 3 the countdown (Re:post January 2015)

Most people document their travels, "day one, flight landed in London at 835am .. etc.." 

I thought it might be a change of pace to document the time leading up to it, the thought process, decision making and development of ideas and knowledge about the different countries we plan to visit, and then when we're there,  how accurate our expectations actually were.

So... Day 3. We'll call day one the day the decision was made, otherwise it'd be about day 10.

Late on Friday night after a week of constant back and forth, what's right for us, what's the better choice for us? We finally made our decision and 3 days in we are still sticking to it.

Right before the decision was made I said to Adam "this is getting a bit ridiculous, how about we dont talk about it for the next week, how about who ever mentions anything to do with the f word, [FUTURE] before next Wednesday loses."

You know how things go, under a bit of pressure and all the answers are clear. When you flip a coin, the answer is clear to you before it lands.

Adam lost about 5 minutes later. We went to bed and kept talking about it, all the what ifs we could imagine,  all the things we'd been working towards. And the answer was so clear. In situations like there, sometimes it's easier to think about the opposite,  what would I regret more? And bingo, the question disappeared. There was only one answer.

Day 2 wasn't very interesting, Adam worked the day shift, and I did the night lock up which meant that we had a kiss goodbye at 6:30am about 5 minutes to talk at 3pm and a kiss goodnight at 11pm.

Day 3, today.
Today was a little different a little better, we both did the day shift, so we could bounce a few ideas around, we haven't told anyone at work, we don't really want to talk about it yet. But just so you know...
We're going to Asia at the end of the year. For how long? Until the $ £ € ¥ dry up.

Works work you know, so I spent today on the beaches in Thailand, maybe we'll go to a temple tomorrow.... 8 months til we head off

Snow. (Re:post January 2015)

Snow is such an unknown to me, and so forgotten to Adam. The snow has stuck to the ground, something everyone here dreads and I absolutely love. The snow flakes were enormous on Friday. I wasn't expecting it to fall, not twice in one week. If you were to press your thumb to your index finger and make a circle, that would easily be the size of the falling snow flake, for hours and hours they fell, drifting through the air, so noncommittal, with almost no purpose but to float.

The landscape is completely transformed when the snow sticks. Skeletons of trees, black as night propped up against heavenly white fields. Magical, wonderous.

Standing in the dining room at work, in the restaurant, looking out at the falling flakes is so mesmerising, my mind starts to wander. Suddenly I'm imagining a large industrial sized fan, one they would use on a movie set, and bags and bags of white chicken feathers. Some poor boy is standing by the roof of the hotel, with a ladder propped up against the wall, chucking handfulls of chicken feathers into the blast of the huge fan. I'm imagining it as part of an elaborate play we have to put on for the guests, they book a weekend trip to the Yorkshire Dales and of course they have requested snow, and paid more for the privilege.

If it has to be winter, we might as well have it bitterly cold and a few feet of snow. There is so much wonder in snow. The depression that is brought on by winter, melts away with the falling snow.

A typical Friday night in the hospitality industry (Re:post September 2015)

I expected to write this first blog in slightly different circumstances.  I expected to make a cup of tea and relax into the couch.

Instead, I'm sitting on reception at work. Technically I should have finished 16 minutes ago, I should be all cozy at home, in my jammies. But, I drew the short straw this evening.  I'm on lock up duty for the hotel. There's 3 women sitting in the main lounge,  jab jab jabbering away. Catching up on all their goss.

Dinner was 6 hours ago, and as I'm also on the open shift tomorrow,  I'm not going to make a cup of tea,  as I'll be awake all night. Everything is done all lights are off where they need to be, all candles are blown out, just waiting for these ladies to nip off to bed and I'll be home in 5 minutes.

All down the inside of my right hand is black smudge pen marks, I was on checks tonight, taking everyone's orders. I don't know why or how it gets so smudged.

Obviously I'm incredibly bored, and hungry and tired as I'm giving you details about the pen marks on my hand.

I don't really know what else there is to tell you. If only we'd get a booking and I'd have something interesting to do. I'm actually tempted to run home (in the dark) and get a banana and come back and eat it, but I won't.

I don't know how to tell them to bugger off and go to bed. I don't want to ruin their evening but they're creating a situation where I'm going to be very difficult on the breakfast shift tomorrow morning, and they'll only have themselves to blame.

In 4 minutes I'm going to announce myself.

In 3 minutes..

In 2 minutes I'll cough. Or start turning off the lamps..

I'll blow out all the candles..

In any case, in 15 minutes the doors are going to scare me, as they close automatically at 11:45pm!!

In one minute they'll go to bed..

In 30 seconds..

I can't even turn the computer off coz it'll turn the music off and deep down I do really want them to have a nice time.

Ok here goes...

Candles are blown out - where appropriate.. and they're still chatting..

GO TO BED FOR GOODNESS SAKE

I locked up the back corridor, kitchen and dry store outside, put my coat on, my scarf and sat and waited.

And waited. I don't get paid for this you see.

Finally they got up to go to bed. One of the trio asked me for a brandy, I'm not the greatest with spirits or liquors, but I took a punt, usually I just point to our shelves and they'll say "glen morangie" or bla bla bla.. and I'll get it for them, but tonight out of some stoke of genious I asked if she'd like a convousier, which says cognac.. thankfully she said yes.

It's bed time now.. and thats a typical Friday night.

IT trouble- fixed now

A few months ago I had some trouble logging into my blog account, well more than a year ago. I tried a few times, I couldn't change my password, I couldn't verify my phone number, essentially I couldn't prove I was me.

I got frustrated and gave up.

A few country went by, and so did the months. And I stopped writing. Well, I stopped uploading what I had written, then I stopped writing.

Last August Adam and I settled semi-permanently in a very small village in the Yorkshire Dales National Park in England. Life smoothed itself out quite nicely and I was able to focus on writing again.

But I still couldn't log into this account. So I started a new blog. Which was a lot harder than it sounds. Yes, you just log into blogger and create a new blog name. That wasn't hard, it was hard to disconnect with the blog I had and create a new blog with new memories, it was like saying goodbye to the past, a past I really enjoyed, a person I shaped through my travels and journey.

So I tried one more time, and I don't know what I was doing wrong for over a year, but I'm back in.

The next few posts are posts I added to the other blog - from January and February 2015.

~ Photo: Austwick, North Yorkshire, England - our village

Exploring the backstreets of Rome and Barcelona... in March

We are not conventional tourists. We actually, I suppose like most tourists, hate tourists. We try to avoid them wherever possible. We avoid the tourists and all the people geared at providing for the tourists, we rarely buy fridge magnets or postcards, and never souvenirs, our photos are our memories. Having said this however, we recently visited one of the most frequented cities in the world, if not the most popular destination in Europe for tourists. Rome.

So why did we choose Rome? For a little back ground, I seem to have developed a bit of a reputation (from Adam) as being the worst gift giver. For our first Christmas together, we were already living together, so it wasn't supposed to be regarded as a token gift, I got him a shirt. He is not a selfish person, not greedy or in anyway unkind, but he won't let me live it down. It was a French Connection T-shirt by the way, nothing fancy. Anyway, for his birthday I got him a watch, which was supposed to be a surprise, we walked past a jeweler and he'd noticed it, so I went in the following week to get it for his birthday, the following month. The problem was, we only had one key to our apartment, and when he let me in I had a stupid big grin on my face. "What's that, what's in the bag?" "Nothing, it's a secret." How dumb am I? So he ended up with nothing on his birthday but a watch a month early. That Christmas he got nothing, as we were living in Queen Charlotte Sound in New Zealand, and the closest shops were 3 hours away (by boat).

So why Rome, well, I chose Rome as we had never been there, neither of us. The idea started in October last year, Adam had been talking about going to a Man United Football (Soccer) match for a while and I thought, maybe I can buy the tickets and tell him we are going to Manchester for the weekend, and make him get in the taxi to the stadium. Then I remembered that Adam has been talking about visiting Barcelona for months. We almost made it there last year when we were in Andorra, but the engine light came on in our car and we high tailed it to England, and missed out. So, I thought, how can I combine going to a Man United game and Barcelona, and then the penny dropped. We go to a FC Barcelona match. It took about a 2 months to decide the ins and outs. Immediately, as soon as I had the idea, I booked the time off work (we both work in the same hotel, so as much notice as possible is required). 

Originally I thought about taking Adam to Lisbon, I loved Portugal, I have been there a few times to the north, south and in the country side too, and I thought Adam would enjoy Lisbon as much as I did. And then I thought about Madrid, once again I LOVED Madrid, and I knew I could show him around, then I thought, we might be leaving Europe soon, and it'd be nice to go somewhere neither of us had been. Rome. We'd both been to Northern Italy a few times, Venice and Lake Como in particular are our favourites. 

I managed to keep the gift (mostly) a surprise until Christmas day. I'd accidentally logged into his booking.com account when looking at different places to stay in Madrid, Lisbon and Rome, so he knew we were going somewhere but all the different destinations were confusing him. Leading up to Christmas I made a little scrapbook for him, with pictures of all the different places we were going and what we would do their. Eat pizza, drink Sangria, visit the Vatican. 

We spent the weekend before we flew out with Adam's brother in Wales, so by the time it came fly out we were pooped. We dropped his brother off at Manchester airport in the evening on Tuesday night and checked into our budget hotel in anticipation of our early morning flight the next morning. We sat down to dinner at about 7pm, and he called Adam saying they'd been taken off the flight, and they wouldn't fly out til the morning. We hopped they could come to our hotel and we could all have another night together, but the airline had organised somewhere elsewhere. 

The following morning we got up at 3:30am and drove to Adam's brothers hotel to pick them up, their flight was due to leave 5 minutes after ours, and it was nice to see them again. (It could be months til we are all together again). Despite having made the plans almost 6 months in advance, and having 3 months with Adam knowing about the trip also, we were surprisingly unprepared on our arrival to Rome airport. We didn't know which bus to take into the city, nor did we know where we were going in the city center, or how to get there. 

We arrived at the hotel at 1:30pm, after a few errors. To start with we LOOKED LIKE TOURISTS. Big rucksack for one, and completely lost looks on our faces doing laps of the termini, do we get a regional train? a local train? a bus? A lady, who actually looked like train station staff, approached us, asking if we needed help, and she couldn't have been more right, about a second after we smiled, relaxed and said YES! a police man came over and started yelling at her to leave us alone, or something else in Italian. Yes, she looked like train station staff, but by that stage she also looked like a cartoon pizza we were so hungry. 

Still with no idea where we were going, we decided to go outside, reassess. We found a bus INFO sign and headed straight over. There was a lovely man standing right nearby who approached us, I think he was selling tickets for a tour bus company. We showed him where we were going, and he said "oh, no" and completely defeated, wanting to give up, he said "it's not a very nice area." I had a flashback to Casablanca where James and I got a taxi at the train station and the driver said "ohh no no you don't want to stay there, I'll take you somewhere much nicer." (Big commision for him, duped for us). Anyway, he gave us directions, "Take bus 50 - 6 stops" I heard, take bus number 56. But we found bus number 50, and counted 6 stops.

As soon as we got off we immediately realised we either went way to far, not not far enough! It was soon apparent that we went to far. So we asked a lady at the bus stop if she could help us, we misunderstood her, as she told us where to go in Italian, and the the grumpy removalist men just waving their arms, and finally findng someone who spoke a little English telling us to walk "immer wieder gerade aus." It's a joke Adam and I have, we always seem to get lost somewhere and the answer is always just keep going straight ahead. 

When we were in France, in June last year, the first time our car broke down, we found a small garage just outside Montpillier, and the mechanic told us about a Ford mechanic in a small town about a 15 minute drive away, and we got lost, the directions were fine, but our interpretation of the directions was hopeless, finally we found a lady in the street, and asked her if she knew where we had to go. She didn't speak English unfortunately so I tried my broken German and she said "immer wieder gerade aus."  

We got to the hotel in Rome, just over half an hour before the room would be ready. We were hot, sweaty, tired and oh so unbelievably hungry. On our enormous walk to the hotel, we passed a cute little pizza restaurant. So we left our bags with the receptionist and followed our noses to the pizza. We were a long way away from the tourists. And as our first meal in Rome, and considering how hunger we were we basically ordered one of everything. At 2pm we went to the counter and paid, 6 euros. For both of us, including a bottle of water. Essentially a whole pizza each and a drink to share, for 6 euros. Not to mention the best tasting pizza in the world, if not the universe.

That afternoon, after a much needed 2 hour nap, we bought another bus ticket, with complete directions this time and headed for the “real Rome.” The bus we took, the number 81 this time turned out to be tourist bus at local prices. The bus passes the coliseum, Piazza Venezia, and terminates at the Vatican. We got off the bus at Piazza Venezia and just started walking. After about 5 minutes we saw a sign for the Pantheon, and kept walking in that direction. Before we made it to the Pantheon it started raining and within 30 seconds street vendors were everywhere selling umbrellas. We lasted about half an hour, “no no, we are ok, thank you” and then the rain came, and we gave in. We bought a small black one, we only had 5 euros on us, and we cuddled under it. The man wanted 10 euros! For an umbrella, “tell him he’s dreaming” (from The Castle).  We had no choice though, we only had 5 euros. He gave in and we tried to walk side-by-side-on-an-angle-under-the-tiny-octagon-of-umbrella-squashed.

Just after 5 we found a bus stop that said the 81 stopped their, and we thought it was about time we headed home. We waited at the bus stop for about 45minutes, watching the same buses come and go 3 or 4 times. WHERE ARE WE?  So we started walking (somewhere). The rain eased up, a little, and we kept exploring the side streets, back streets and alleyways.

NOTE: for all you tourists haters like us, visit Rome in the rain, they all disappear, hide away, they just leave! Later that night we saw the Vatican lit up beautifully, almost completely empty.

We spent Thursday in much the same fashion, exploring, wondering, wandering and getting lost. We found a patisserie, and learnt how to order coffee and croissants in Rome.  The most amazing coffee as well. 4 euros for 2 cappuccinos and 2 orange glazed croissants. We were somewhere in between the Pantheon and Piazza Navona. Before stumbling on this little gem, we saw the same coffees and croissants by the Pantheon for over 10 euros, each. So it’s not the product, it’s where you go to get it.

More pizza, more Peroni, pizza again, some pasta, and another slice of pizza, and another pint of Peroni and 24 hours go by and suddenly we’re having pizza for every meal, even snacking on pizza in between meals. To the point where on Friday night, our last night in Rome, I put a ban pizza. (Worst mistake of my life). Adam ordered tripe, not knowing what it was, and boy was that a dish I’ll be happy to never see again. It smelt horrible, he tired it, I couldn’t. He shared my meal instead.

Barcelona was by far our favourite. This time, I spent the flight over looking for our hotel on the map, we had bus directions in our booking confirmation. So essentially we were set. Apart from getting a little lost in Plaza Catalunya, and missing the stop by one street, we checked in very comfortably. The stayed at WOW Hostel, in a private room. Everything about the place was wow, the street, the building, the view, everything.

We had burgers for lunch at a local café, then got sucked into a very pretentious restaurant for dinner, completely snubbed by the wait staff, everyone except Martin, from Bulgaria, he was lovely, and should have been working elsewhere.

And then the Piece de resistance, the FC Barcelona match. The reason for the trip, for the holiday, for Rome and Barcelona. Sunday the 8^th of March. FC Barcelona v Rayo Vallecano. I tried to get us tickets to FC Barcelona v Real Madrid – but at 30 times the price, I settled for a team neither of us had heard of. We both thought it was Valencia, and had to check the tickets a few times to know for sure.

We walked to the stadium, and within about 10minutes we were completely swallowed by fellow fans, there were people everywhere. We decided to stop, about half way and have a coffee and croissant, this time filled with chocolate mousse. I have never had so many croissants in such a short period of time, and man was it awesome. We found our way through the crowd to gate 2, entrance 80 something and tier a million. Yes, I got us tickets right at the very top of the stadium, I figure we’ll see more that way. Our seats were on the corner near the goal but facing the whole grounds, so we weren’t shaking our heads back and forth to watch the ball we could see everything very clearly. And we had perfect sunshine raining down on us.

It’s the only way I feel comfortable with 87,000 people, seated! The atmosphere was spectacular and Adam was like a kid at Christmas. Barcelona won 6-1 so we saw a lot of goals. Although we missed the first one, at 6 minutes in we weren’t expecting anyone to score, and a lady had arrived late, she distracted us, and the rest of the people in the row, trying to find her seat, and we were concentrating on her instead of the field. She was not very popular after that. We had hot dogs of course.

We spent the afternoon by the beach, watching the people running, and cycling. The “beach” vendors selling sarongs and pre made mojitos. We walked along the promenade trying to find a spot outside to get a pitcher of Sangria, but as it was a glorious sunny day, and Sunday, everywhere was packed.

I cooked dinner that night, and we collapsed into bed at about 8pm, thoroughly spent. We decided to spend our last full day at Mt Tibidabo which overlooks Barcelona. Sitting in armchairs, beer/wine in hand, overlooking the city and out to sea was just bliss. We sat in the sunshine for hours, it was really refreshing not having anywhere to be, or anything to do.

We checked out of the hotel on Tuesday morning, and headed into town again. We stored our bag in a locker near Plaza Catalunya, and headed out by foot once more. We think, without knowing for sure as we got lost so many time, but we think we must have walked about 70km in our week away. On our last day, we finally enjoyed Sangria by the beach, and were serenaded by beach musician. When I went to pay I saw the “jug” they used to pour the sangria from, I wish I hadn’t. Before heading to the airport, we also tried Paella for the first time, I don’t know if we got it from the wrong place, but I had better in New Zealand.

I used to work at the night market in our local town, and the lady in the stall opposite ours sold paella and it was just magic. Unfortunately the one we had tasted a little under-loved.

We arrived at the airport at 5pm, not being able to check in until after 6pm. We sat on one of the benches and just waited for our last hours of sunshine to pass. Just after 6 Adam asked where his wallet was. We looked, and looked, through all our bags, the rucksack everywhere. Then we realised it was still in the drawer at the hotel, and then it dawned on us. We didn’t just leave his wallet, we left my Australian passport, both our diaries- mine I’d had for 2 years, carrying it from country to country. We also left Adams running watch, and all our books.

By the time we had realised, it was too late to go back into Barcelona, retrieve the items and make it back to the airport for the 7:30 check in. So we had to hope and pray that the hotel would post it to us. It has been a week now. On Thursday they said they would send it to us, but we now haven’t heard from them since Friday. So fingers toes and everything crossed that they will.