Friuli Doc in Udine

Posted on September 25th, 2008 in Food & Drink, Trips & Travel by michele

A trip to Udine during Friuli Doc is…

I couldn’t make it Friday night, so I joined the party on Saturday morning, the party being a mix of friends and soon-to-be-friends that happened to arrive in town on Friday. Well, technically it was already Saturday, traffic-jams had them arriving around 2am. They also happened to drink and play board games till sometime around 6am.

You can therefore imagine how prompt they were in welcoming me on Saturday morning, sometime around 10am. I gave a call to the friend owning the house, as previously agreed, and I could sense she was struggling when she answered. “Did I wake you a up?”. “Er.. No.. Just a bit…”. :-D

It took the best part of 5 hours for everybody to get up, have some breakfast and get ready to go out. And in those hours soon-to-be-friends become friends, we had several breakfasts, chatted a lot, laughed even more.

We therefore went toward the city centre, had aperitivo, and after a not-very-long walk we settled for lunch. The meal was full of laughing, too, as well as frico, polenta, prosciutto di San Daniele, gulash and more… not to mention wine. Lunch ended around 6pm…

So there we were again through streets full of people, food, wine, music… not a bad treat, isn’t it?

Chat, food and wine mixed together several times during the evening and night, with a final stop to the All Black pub on the way home, were some “serious” drinking was due (that’s to say, we had a fine dram of whisky, too ;-) ).

A trip to Udine during Friuli Doc is FUN. :-)

Dachau concentration camp

Posted on August 30th, 2008 in Freedom & Rights, History, Trips & Travel by michele

Travelling opens your mind. It does so by getting you in touch with different places, cultures, peoples.

Some places also get you in touch with past events, and that’s an healthy thing. Knowing history, remembering past errors (and horrors), that should prevent us to fall again on the same, wrong path.

Looking to any daily newscast will tell you that we’re not remembering very well. I personally try to know and remember, and last trip in Central Europe allowed me to visit Dachau concentration camp.

As usual when visiting a place like this, it left me speechless.

A long night with Frico and Aki Kaurismäki

Posted on August 23rd, 2008 in Food & Drink, Music, Movies & TV, Trips & Travel by michele

Just back from a car trip in central Europe, and the last stop has been in Udine, paying visit to a friend.

We were offered a great dinner with local food, especially a long awaited first try at Frico. It’s a local dish made of cooked cheese and potatoes, and it’s just d-e-l-i-c-i-o-u-s… :-P If you want to try it, short of visiting Udine you can try this Frico recipe I found in english, but I cannot guarantee it’s original :-D

After the dinner, another gift from our hosts as we watched Leningrad Cowboys Go America, by Aki Kaurismäki. Surreal characters bring alive the movie, that is deeply enjoyable although many of the scenes are in fact quite dramatic. Poverty and sad human conditions are in fact basic parts of the story.

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