A (hungry) Singaporean girl in Italy

What's a Singaporean girl to do if she misses local food back home so much?

She will go to the lengths of spending bloody 7 sing dollars on a bottle of chilli sauce (read: tiny) from a chinese restaurant, 5 sing dollars on a bag of green beans (read: small) and 5 sing dollars on a bottle of oyster sauce (read: pathetic). Afterwhich, try frying noodles chinese style with italian mee and voila, you get char kway teow (actually taglietella), char peng (actually risotto) and chay been hoon (italian capellini). I guess they call it fusion?

Molto Freddo. Croak.

I'm freezing my ass off in Italy.

It has been exceptionally cold here since the start of this week. It's not helping when you have a temperamental heater at home. In Italian, to say that it's very cold, we say 'molto freddo'. My boyfriend thinks that 'freddo' sounds like the name of a pet frog. So cute.

A different piece of Italy

Naples - the 3rd largest city in Italy after Rome and Milan, is like no other.

Experience chaos, trash, pizzas for one euro, excellent gelato, loud Chinese restaurants, crazy traffic, fumes, horns, crowds, you get the picture. Apparently Naples, like Sicily, has heavy Mafia influences and can be pretty dangerous. Apart from losing a pair of sunglasses, I am back in one piece.

Now, everywhere else just seems boring.

Naples - birth place of the wildly popular pizza!

I (heart) Capri!!!

I am living a dream...

I made my first trip out of Siena over the weekend and my, was Capri bellissima! The place where celebrities head to for holidays, gorgeous beaches, the town where Jay-Z and Mariah Carey record their albums, fine sand, excellent weather, delightful cuisine...mamma mia!

Capri is one and a half hours away from Naples but all worth the visit. A tad expensive compared to the rest of Italy (it's a celebrity hotspot afterall) but what's that compared to friggin' gorgeous scenery? It was even worth falling on my face while catching the boat!

In fact, we had so much fun that we arrived in Rome late, missing the train to Siena. Thank god for Ariph who put us up at his place. And I missed class for the first time.

Check out this link for more pics in Naples and Capri! Ciao Ciao!
http://picasaweb.google.co.uk/eileenleeyl/NapoliAndCapri

Italian Vampires

This sounds pretty loserish, but I finally went out after spending each day visiting the eeevil supermarket and deciding what to cook.

I just realised that I am staying at a pretty happening neighbourhood, afterall I stay like really near the Piazza, like 3 minutes. The gals came over to my apartment to freshen up and we went out all decked out ready to paint the town red at about ten-nish, and the streets were deserted. After roaming for about half an hour in the freezing weather, trust me wearing just stockings with a dress - not a good idea, we decided on a bar at the Piazza. And all of a sudden, at about midnight, the whole of Siena was out to party. It was so packed it felt like a New Year's eve party, no joke. One of my friends, Gizam was joking that Italians are like vampires, coming out at midnight.

But these vampires genuinely looked like they were having fun, decked out to the nines (the Italians have such good dress sense my god).

I am going to Naples this weekend. Yay, I am starting to have a life!

Blackout!

Anyone who has experienced staying alone would understand how tramatic a sudden blackout can get. Particularly when you are in the shower. No, that didn't happen to me but bad enough. While I was cooking, the lights went out 'Boom'! And there goes my cooking, electrical supply, fridge, music etc etc. It was pitch dark. So thank god for Francesco, my neighbour who speaks a little English who can speak to Maria, my landlady who speaks ZERO English. So yes, dinner gone kaput, so it's down to yogurt and chips. How sad is that.

I so need a room mate.

Chubbina

One of the cutest, chubbiest babies I have ever seen - Victoria Magherini.

I (heart) Siena

So yeah, I have set foot in Siena! It's gorgeous! It's small, very old, very quaint, very boho, and strangely hip. There are a lot of crazy people like me who have put aside things back home to come here to study and live. I've met Brazilians, Canadians, Germans, Thais, Polish and Turkish at the school so it's kinda cool just like the movie 'Spanish Apartment'.



Spring has arrived early. The weather is terrific, chilly but the sun is out. Great for doing...nothing. The area where I stay is very near Piazza Del Campo, as depicted in the picture, and I have discovered some pretty neat shops. There is a shop selling vintage, a gorgeous bakery 'Nannini' with freshly made biscotti and cakes and lovely supermarkets with yummy yummy food (I am there everyday), nothing like you've seen in S'pore.


The Italians here are very warm. The almost 50 people I have enquired for directions have all been very helpful. Apart from the little setback in which my laptop screen is screwed, I love where I am now.


Everyone should visit Italy at least once in their lifetime!