Nutella, Wine, Pizza and more Wine...

Paris was a fresh breath, it was home and when I more or less fell down on my chair after ordering my Starbucks in half French, half English (something that soon became way to usual that evening) it felt like all the times before. Relaxing and calming.

    I don’t know if it was good or bad luck that we ended up walking from the Tour Eiffel to Amalfi in the Duplex-area, but Italian pizza and wine did not hurt. After having the waiter call me the “baby” and “dolly” for the entire evening, saying “I love you” in Norwegian and ending it all by giving me a lollypop we went laughing back to metro where a puppet-man entertained us half the way back to Montmartre ( I may upload the vid later!) where a lovely man sold us Crepe Nutella and Warm Wine.

   Paris’ food and people are way too easy to enjoy and already when we arrived at the metro station a very cute French guy, came over to carry my suitcase down the stairs. Why would I ever wanna leave here?

-Mari Clémentine

I'm moving to Italy!

So about my big adventure of 13/14: Still in school and still young the world is full of possibilities and there are lots of things on my “100 things to do before I die” list and I’m not usually sharing to much of my personal life, but this 13/14 I see as one great trip. I’m going on exchange to Italy, my neighbors will be Leonardo da Vinci and Michelangelo, haha… I haven’t gotten a host family, so I don’t know what city, hopefully somewhere near Rome. Or Tuscany. Or the sea...
   . I don’t know anything. I know about 20 Italian words and none of them will get me far on my own in a foreign country, with classes in a language that I don’t know. So it’s time to start an Italian course and a new blog. I will still tell you about the cities and the country here, but if you want to follow the life of an exchange student, visit: www.destinationit.blogspot.com (you can go just by clicking the link in the sidebar!) And check into my new life in beautiful Italy in September. I will launch the site properly later, just thought you all should know about it J

-Mari Clémentine

Favorite Destinations 2013: Rome (part I)

I know you've seen the picture before, but it is my definition of Rome: Worlds collide.

Italy was burning under my feet, stunning 38 degrees in the shadow. Rome was taking a siesta or maybe a holiday, people were running away to the coast not far away from the dear Italian capital. I was standing on a corner watching the life and fountains at Piazza del Popolo, happy that I finally had arrived in Italy, that I had gotten a shower, that I had found the hotel after three wrong turns, that we had gotten our room after a problem with the booking.

   Rome was… unique. Italians were one of a kind. On our way to Rome we had flown over the Alps, gotten on a full train, been helped off, seen a couple of places looking like a garbage dump. We had also seen clothes drying on the terraces. We had seen people in their gardens eating strawberries and drinking wine. And a man showering outside. Italy was laidback, and beautiful already.

     Piazza del Popolo ended up a usual stop on our way down Via del Corso to our usual restaurant Antica Roma. How could any place in this world be greater to live, surrounded by religion, art and culture? Wine, pasta, icecream and beautiful people crowding the streets. I was about to fall in love.

-Mari Clémentine

Pasta Divina - Brussels

                                                  

Picture from TripAdvisor

So this post is really just me telling you all one more time that you should go to Pasta Divina, it's located in Rue de la Montaigne not far from Grand Place, and it's a quiet area. This italian restaurant is not big, but very cozy and has wonderful food. It's some of the best pasta I've ever tasted. Go there! The "mom" is in the kitchen cooking and the "dad" and "daughter" works as waiters. 5 stars!

Mari Clémentine

Much to do about nothing – Brussels

Seriously. Today I’ve done about nothing. We’ve been shopping for the first time in Brussels and we’ve been jumping from café to café eating macaroons and drinking coffee. Shopping. Shopping. Chocolate. It wasn’t until this evening the real fun started.

    We were just going out for dinner at a place called Pasta Divina, I had seen it the other day and really wanted some real Pasta Carbonara when we took a wrong turn and ended up in the middle of a couple of restaurant-streets. We were more or less attacked by waiters wanting us to sit down, but the worst, funniest thing ever happened when we had nearly made it out and a man suddenly blocked our way holding his arms out. I, of course, ran right into them, getting a long hug and kisses on the cheek and goodness knows, but he wanted one more and all togheter I think we spent 10 minutes hugging, another one showed up offering us free drinks and then free everything, but I had set my mind on Pasta Divina and that is where we ended up. Thank goodness, because the pasta was divine. It’s a quiet place located in Rue de la Montaigne, ran by an Italian family with the mother in the kitchen. Lovely.

   Heading home I found bongo-drums, a street artist and a slightly drunk man, nice enough wanting to show off his political knowledge about the European Union. He also was black, against immigrants to Europe and called himself Tom Jones – enough entertainment for the night for sure.

    Point being: Go out after six o’clock and you’ll find yourself in a dreamland of entertainment if you come open minded and is up for anything. Let the city catch you,

Mari Clémentine.

A writer in Scotland

“Oh, good luck with ye book! Mari, was it?” I smiled at the old lady from Glasgow that I had been talking to half the tour.

We got an early start for once as we had to check out from our hotel, but then the Elephant House was just around the corner and I was ready for my morning tea. I’m not sure if I love the place because Rowling is said to have been writing at the café, or because of the amazing view of the castle. Okay, definitely the castle. We headed for the castle after tea and shortbread, but were kept by souvenir shops – we had to find a birthday gift for my dad – and in the end The Writers Museum. 
       

    “That tour departs in just 15 minutes,” I said to my mom and pointed at a sign outside the door. “Book Lovers tour”, Sir Walter Scott, J. M. Barrie, Arthur Connan Doyle, J.K. Rowling and so on. In the end I ran to get some money and paid the tour to Allan, a wonderful guide/writer that took us (a group of what? 8?) around Edinburgh talking literature for more than the 90 minutes we were promised.

   Among our fellow tourists was an old pair from Glasgow, an Australian couple, I think the woman was an editor, and to other women, one of them from Brazil. And that is what you’ll know her as: Miss Brazil.  

   

    “I find it easier. Italian.”
“The Italians pronounce the word, just like she said” said Miss Brazil. It was by coincidence we had ended up eating lunch together. She was going to the castle, we were going to the castle, none of us ever got there, all three were hungry so we invited the nice lady to eat lunch with us at some Italian place our guide recommended us.

     “I’m a pizza person,” I said and looked down on what looked like bread with tomatosauce on it. “In Brazil they make real pizza. If you ever come to Sao Paolo you must tell me and I will show you were to go!” I smiled as we exchanged contact information. New country, new people, new destinations.

Mari Clémentine