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Jackson Hole

I’m with Coco

Happy Holidays!

I have been extremely bad about updating my site lately, hopefully I am better in the new year! It has been busy lately with the twins growing bigger each week and work going strong. We also moved from Forest Hills to Brooklyn, so we have lots of new stuff to explore here in Park Slope! Happy Holidays and here’s to a great 2010!

Six Favorite Meals in Europe

So I am just getting around to posting this, but I compiled my six fave meals I ate in Europe here. They range from super cheap to average priced, but all were very memorable and super tasty!

1. Le Petit Prince, Latin Quarter, Paris

This restaurant we ate at with our friends Jason and Allisyn after searching around for a good little French restaurant for a while. We found this one on a tiny little cobblestoned side street in the Latin Quarter and ate at the tables out front on an amazingly beautiful Paris night.
First course: Poached Egg in a Spinach Cream soup with cubes of goat cheese covered in paprika – really really good
Second course: Braised Lamb shank stew type thing with a sauce and vegetables – so good
Dessert, Upside Down Apple Tart with Butter Gelato

2. Chez Juliet, Vielle Ville, Nice

Seafood “Stew” with wine sauce. It wasn’t really a stew but more shrimp, scallops, and fish in a really tasty thick creamy wine sauce with grilled veggies, and fresh baked bread. so yummy

3. Andrea’s Restaurant or something like that, Monterosso al Mare, Cinque Terre

First course: Homemade gnocchi with pesto sauce
Second course: Green Pepper Filet, a steak made with this amazing green peppercorn sauce and little green peppercorns on top. the restaurant was basically run by one guy who waited the tables, cooked the food and everything, he was so nice too. i asked him about what he used and he brought out the jar to me of the like pickled peppercorns he used and told me if it wasn’t his last jar he would have given it to me! I later found a smaller jar of them in a market in Pisa they are called “Pepe Verde”

4. Baggettes from Kayser Boulangerie, Cheese and fruit from little markets, Paris

This night we bought fresh bread and bought cheese and fruit and just sat out on the grass at Champs de Mars and watched the sunset on the Eiffel Tower waited for the lights to come on and then for the lights to twinkle, which they do for the first few minutes of each hour. See video below

5. Some Pizzaria, Vernazza, Cinque Terre

After doing the amazing 2 hour hike from our village to Vernazza, the neighboring one, we found a little pizza place with tables on the harbor.

Starter: Fresh mozzerella bruscetta
Main Course: Fresh wood oven baked pizzas, mine was salami, starla’s was a fresh made pesto pizza, both were ridiculously good.

6. Chez Hanna Falafel, La Marais, Paris

We headed to the Marais to eat at the famous L’as du Falafel that we had read so much about but upon arrival we found it shuttered for some unknown reason. There were two other places right down the street that had long lines down the street so we picked one and waited about 3o min for our falafel.
Falafel consisting of: Pita bread pocket, fresh hummus, some spicy red sauce, falafel, cabbage, other veggies, topped with a creamy white sauce.

VIP Seats

I went to another Mets game today and sat in some awesome seats 7 rows up right on the first base line. I also took a video and figured out how to get it on youtube. So here is a quick video of my awesome seats!

Vacay

We have finalized our trip this year and I am really excited about it. We are heading to Europe at the beginning of October for 10 nights. It can’t come soon enough! Here is our destination lineup:

Paris, France

Nice, France

Monte Carlo, Monoco

Cinque Terra, Italy

Pisa, Italy

Weekend

This past weekend I kept myself quite busy. Friday night I went to the first ever concert at Citi Field with none other than Paul McCartney. The show was amazing probably the best I have seen him. I took advantage of my new iPhone 3GS and recorded some video, but I haven’t figured out how to get the videos on youtube yet so they are still giant. hmmm.

Then Saturday we took our annual trip out to Six Flags Great Adventure in New Jersey. The group was a little bigger than usual this year so it seemed to move a little slower and we didn’t come close to passing our mark of 17 coasters set last year. Still great fun though, the Nitro is one of the best things I have experienced, especially at night. So fun! This was my first trip of my thirties and i was a little sore the next day, I guess it’s all downhill from here right? Next year I am going to figure out a way to hold on to my phone for the ride and record the video of it. That would be fun I think.

The Beatles: Rock Band

I have to say I am more excited about this game coming out than just about anything I can think of. So in honor of not posting in so long I will put up the really really cool looking intro animation.

Fluenz

I have been continuing my French studies since January and am making decent progress I think. I have primarily been using Rosetta Stone and supplementing it with Coffee Break French Podcasts, and a couple books that I bought. But I discovered a new program that I was intrigued enough to buy and use along side the rest. The program is called Fluenz and they have a very different learning approach than Rosetta Stone. They believe adults learn more by being explained the rules and nuances of the foreign languange in your own language instead of just trying to pick up complex concepts and phrasings by associating them with pictures. I must say after completing both programs first levels that while rosetta really drills words and vocabularies in your head, Fluenz teaches you how to build and construct the language far better. I actually haven’t opened Rosetta for a while now and plan on starting Fluenz level 2 tomorrow. There you have it.

Beatletember

I am eagerly anticipating September 9 as it will see the release of two things I have been waiting for for a long time. First is the Beatles official remastered albums, which are long overdue. The audio quality on the current albums is very flat and outdated, just compare them side by side to remastered albums such as the Beatles Let It Be Naked, or the recent Rolling Stones and Bob Dylan albums, and you will find a world of difference. Second is the release of The Beatles Rock Band along with replicas of all of their old instruments including Paul’s Hofner bass (pictured here). I would like to take an entire week off come then to play this, but we’ll see. www.thebeatlesrockband.com