OK, I don’t live in Europe anymore and haven’t updated this blog in almost 2 months. Things were crazy… I was completely obsessed with my thesis work and had no time for anything, even eating. I managed to eat one meal a day for 2 months and still GAINED weight. Of course, I’m the fat American no matter where I live. Then I was stressed out about moving and trying to slam 4 suitcases’ worth of clothes into 2. (I succeeded by the way). Then the holidays came, and there was no time for blogging.

Now that I’m back in NYC I’ll backtrack and write some posts about my last few weeks in Italy, but starting with my birthday trip to Ireland that I took in November. Here is goes!

Standard Guiness tourist pic

The Italian boy and I went to Ireland for my birthday, since it was on my 30-to-30 bucket list. We went for 4 days and did the “American tour”, which means driving all over like maniacs trying to see as much of the country as possible. We started in Dublin, then drove to Cashel, Kenmare, Killarney, Doolin, and then back to Dublin. We got to see everything we wanted and had really amazing weather- it was sunny for 3 days out of 4!

Watch out Ireland- Suzanne is behing the wheel!

I crossed off a second item on my bucket list by driving on the opposite side of the road. I was behind the wheel for about 5 seconds in Doolin… you can see me trying to shift with my right hand in this pic (force of habit!!) I freaked out though when a car started coming down the other lane and a little boy was walking on my side of the road… someone was definitely about to die, so I made the Italian take over the driving responsibilities. My 5

seconds behind the wheel still counts, right?

Happy birthday to me

Last pic of my 20′s

I turned 30 the last day we were there, when we were just strolling around Dublin. We had seen that most of the parking spaces were free on Sundays, so didn’t think much about parking in a small street off St. Stephen’s Green. After about 2 hours, we returned to find a wonderful present from the city of Dublin- a boot on our rental car! (Or clamp, as they call it in Irish.) I had a small freak out, since we had a flight to catch and who knows how long it would take to remove it. Thankfully, the Irish CSR who answered the phone told me it would take 20 minutes max for the tow truck to arrive. We had parked in a 2 hour max parking zone and had been gone 2 hours, 15 minutes. Ugh. But, we managed to get to the airport on time so it was still a good birthday.

I have a few more travel stories to write about, particularly my Italian robbery by the local mafia. Stay tuned!

I can almost see the pot of gold

I turned 30 this past Sunday and I managed to cross off some bucket list items before the day. I’m pretty busy cranking out my thesis dissertation now, but I’ll post a quick update until I have time to write a post.

I went to Ireland with the Italian to celebrate my Dirty 30s. We had a great time, and I think I saw more rainbows in those 4 days than in my 30 years of existence. The weird thing about them was that you could actually see where the rainbow ENDED. In America, you can never see the end of the rainbow- it usually disappears before it “hits” any part of the landscape. It was pretty neat to see the “end” in Ireland, and no wonder the Irish have legends about pots of gold.

This pic is of the mythical double rainbow, which we saw on our first day! Too bad we didn’t find any leprechauns…

Me and the chef

I turn 30 a week from today! I have managed to accomplish a lot of items on my bucket list, but I don’t think I’ll manage to do everything by next Sunday. But let’s focus on the successes. I’m very behind in this blog and will start with my early birthday present from the Italian boy, a cooking class in Milan!

We went to Teatro 7 to take a cooking class in pork. Kind of random, I know. I thought about taking something with sauces or pasta, but I realized that I can be a pretty good cook with those things when I have a recipe. I wanted to challenge myself and do something totally out of my element. Namely pork. Something I NEVER cook.

Can you tell by my expression I'm not comprehending anything?

I have gotten more confidence in my Italian comprehension, but made the Italian boy come with me to be my translator. Good thing I did, because I completely overestimated my abilities in Italian. It was hard. I was lost. But I learned a valuable lesson- when you need a translator, bring someone who will stay interested in the subject being translated. The Italian boy kept getting bored and when I asked him what was just said, he’d respond “I wasn’t listening.” Fantasico.

Teatro 7 is in an area of Milan that scares me at night, and our class was almost entirely middle-aged men. Not exactly what I expected, but it was pretty fun. The school has a nice kitchen and we were able to eat everything we helped make. The side of the school facing the street is entirely made of glass, so random people passing by would stop to watch and give us a thumbs up on our cooking. At least we made for a good show!

The results

The class was pretty interesting, even if I only knew what was being said 25% of the time. We basically assisted the chef in making 2 different pork dishes. I managed to learn a few things, despite the language barrier, and learned how to use chestnuts in cooking.

So my cooking class in Italy is off my list. Stay tuned to see what else I can accomplish in 7 days time… this is going to be a hectic week!