Bolognese Pasta

Sorry for the absence but it's been a busy couple of months. Last month I traveled to Bologna, Italy and was working there for three weeks.  It's called the food capital of Italy and after eating my way through the city, I have to agree. I know know that I can solely live on Italian food and especially pasta. I'm not even joking- I had pasta at least one a day for the entire time I was there. I also had lots of pizza, basically a carb fest month for me.

Bologna's namesake food is lasagna bolognese and is also famous for their tortellini and ragu, a meat sauce. Since I travel around to different businesses and will have to eat at different cafeterias, this one is one of the top. For lunch, Italians typically eat a a number of dishes: primo (pasta), secondi (some kind of meat), and a side dish (typically vegetables). In comparison to my typical lunch of salad and sandwich, the lunches had the power to knock me out for the rest of the afternoon and crave a nap Thankfully, another wonderful Italian tradition, espresso, is the perfect way to get some energy.

One of my main joys here is learning all the different types of pasta there are. Penne, taligettle, tortalini, linguine, capota... who knew there were so many? I guess this post is more about my love of pasta but I'll do a recap soon of Bologna and where I went during the weekends.

Big Sur

My last full day was a road trip to Big Sur. It literally took my breath away with how beautiful it was but I'll let the pictures do the talking...

For lunch we went to the Big Sur Roadhouse, a cajun/creole restaurant. One word that immediately came into mind was quaint. It looked and felt like we were eating in someone's cabin. Very comforting and the food reflected the surrounds, warm and inviting. I had seafood gumbo.

I also got to try the marinated vegetable salad with chicken. 

Lastly affogato! Coffee and ice cream, best combination ever. 

The whole restaurant was decorated in various succulents. Note to self: buy more succulents. 

After lunch, we visited Pfeiffer Beach where apparently the sand is purple. Unfortunately, apparently there was a tropical storm somewhere in the Pacific Ocean and that affected the water/winds somehow. Basically instead of pretty calm beach, we got typhoon winds and flying sand. My pictures make it look pretty but I felt like I had survived a typhoon afterwards. It was an experience!

Surviving a typhoon makes a person hungry. So we headed over to a town called Carmel for warm soup and seafood. Chicken pot pie, baked oysters, crab cakes, and clam chowder rounded out an essential California day. 

San Francisco Sights

My first full day in California, me and the boy went to try paddleboarding for the first time! It was surprisingly harder than I thought. My feet and calves were super sore afterwards and we had to take a nap afterwards

After nap time, we headed over to San Francisco. I took a hyperlapse of the drive back to San Francisco

Initially we wanted to go to the Academy of Sciences but it was so expensive and it was about to close so instead we just walked around the park. 

Next was Land's End!

I was starving so I was super excited for dinner. We drove to B spot to try some Burmese food for the first time. We ordered the lamb curry and tea leaf salad. The lamb was falling apart delicious and perfect for a chilly night. I don't think I've had anything like tea leaf salad before, salty, sour, sweet, crunchy - so good!