On the train back to Scotland ...

I can't believe it's been a week since the Contiki tour finished. For that matter, I can't believe I've been away for over six months!! In five days I will be getting on a plane home!

I had an amazing time with Ruth in Paris! Here are a few pictures:

Me and Ruth in Paris

Repetto is a fancy Ballet shop. I bought new shoes and a gorgeous dancing bag!

Can't wait to try out my new shoes for reals! 

This Chocolate Eclair had chocolate cream in it!!

Pretty Paris just before sunset!

 After Paris I spent a few days in London shopping and seeing shows. I saw this musical called Looserville. I'd seen posters on the tube saying "If you like Greese/The IT Crowd/The Big Bang Theory/etc. you'll like this". It was fun, but not fantastic. The beginning was really great and funny. But then they kept telling the same jokes over and over and over and over again. I might do a review of it sometime ... but that might turn into a rant about how not all "Geeks" are obsessed with - or have even watched - Star Trek, especially the original series.
I also went to see The Perks of Being a Wallflower which was much better than I expected it to be. Still not fantastic, though.

Now I'm on the train back to Scotland. It's 5 hours of really boring so I made Monkey Moo a Facebook page. When I get back to Stirling I will add picks of all the new clothes I bought her. Check it out guys coz she's adorable!!

Til next time
xoxo

The Amazing Pasta Dinner in Venice and The Saga of the Apples!

One of our optional extras on tour was a dinner in Venice. I don't think any of us were fully prepared for the pasta epic we would be served ...

The first course was a plate of meat, a plate of veg and a plate of crispy, deep fried seafood.

First Course

 Then they turned of the lights and presented us with a plate of risotto with a shell that was on fire. There was a carbonara as well, but I didn't get a picture of it. It was the nicest dish of the whole meal.

Second Course

 At this point they realised that I really shouldn't have been eating any of the food because it all had wheat and milk so they started bringing me my own plates of pasta. When they brought the plate for the rest of the table the waiter would say to me, "Not for you, not for you."

Fourth Course

They brought me a plate of (I assume) gluten free pasta as well, but I'd been eating all the food anyway because it was so tasty.
A few days earlier, in the Rhine Valley, all the gluten and lactose free people had been given an apple for dessert instead of the cake or whatever everyone else had. I can't eat apples because they're high in fructose, so I'd felt a little bad. It had become a bit of a running joke with the group that they hadn't known what to give the special diet people, so they ran into the garden and pulled some apples off the tree (that's the story someone made up, anyway).
Back in Venice, after all our plates were cleared we were speculating on what might be for dessert. I made a comment that I hoped I didn't get an apple again because I'd feel bad not being able to eat it.
About a minute later the waiter brought this out ...

Dessert (for me, anyway!)

Us Special Diet people got apple desserts a couple more times on the trip. I was very excited in Florence to get an orange! It didn't taste great, but it wasn't an apple!!

CAKE!! And some other stuff that has happened since I last posted ...

Okay, so i suck at blogging. That's pretty obvious. I have a few draft posts that I haven't finished for various reasons. Mostly, I got bored of them so I figured you all would too.
Some possibly interesting things that have happened in the last month (sort of in chronological order):
I went to Glasgow
I saw The Little Shop of Horrors at the Pitlochry Theatre
We got a stove/oven thing in the staff accommodation so we can cook real food rather than fast food and microwave food
I cooked rice in the microwave (several times, now) and it didn't fail!!
My boss has started calling me Matilda because of Waltzing Matilda ... (I'm worried that I'll actually start answering to it by the end of the summer!!)
My mum sent me some rice bread which has been awesome and yummy
Baileys is possibly my new favourite alcohol and Nora (the other waitress) and I discovered that it is amazing on vanilla ice cream
I found the most amazing chocolate cake

Which brings me to CAKE!!!
Tomorrow is my day off. I always try to do something nice, like go out for lunch, go to another town or city. This week I've saved up heaps of the money I set aside to spend on food, etc. because I decided to stop buying junk food and eat nice, healthy, fructose and lactose free meals (for those who don't know, I'm fructose and lactose intolerant).
I decided to go to one of the cafe/restaurants that I really like for dinner. Partly for fun and partly because they have free wi-fi and I bought LA Noire from Steam this morning because it was 75% off and the internet on my phone is way too slow to download 12GB (turns out the free wifi is too ...)
Anyway, I got crumbed calamari to start which was really nice and tender and not too oily or anything.   Then I had lasagna because almost everything else on the menu was fish, and I didn't feel like more seafood. There was nothing particularly special about it. It was yummy, though.
Then the waitress plonked the dessert menu in front of me. I looked through it and debated whether I wanted more wheat and sugar and dairy and all that stuff that I've been avoiding for the past week. Since I had gone out as a special treat and all, I convinced myself to try the chocolate cake. It had a really tasty name ... something to do with chocolate fudge something. I got Baileys and milk, too, because the tasty name of the cake sounded like it would go well with Baileys.

It does taste as amazing as it looks.
I'm sure you all know that I am a complete snob about my baking. My cupcakes are the nicest in the world and so id my chocolate fudge mousse cake.

This cake was equal to or better than my chocolate cake.

It was warm and fudgey and creamy and melty. It had warm sauce in the middle that was rich, but sweet enough to balance the richness of the cake.
I actually wanted it with cream, but I think she heard me wrong. i'm glad, though. it was proper ice cream. It was really creamy and had real vanilla bean! It tasted just like the first ice cream I made, but only my parents had that. For the rest of you, it was sort of like the other vanilla ice cream I make, except creamier and with more vanilla flavour. IT WAS SO NICE!!!!! And it did go really well with the Baileys.
As you can imagine, after all that high fructose and lactose food, I have a TERRIBLE stomach ache ... But it was SO worth it!!
Anyway, that is Cake. And now I must sleep to recover from cake.
I will possibly post again at some point ... We shall see ...
xoxo