Return to the Scene of the Wine: #braversineurope

Italy is perfect. We're staying in the countryside near Cortona, and we can actually see Cortona from our house. We have a car and have been going all over the place, but our very favorite place to be is at home on the farm. Here is our villa:

The couple who own Margherita Holiday Home, Bernardo and Beatrice, are just the most wonderful people. This is the edge of their house:

They love Tuscany so much, they have a painting of it in the breakfast room. They don't want to have to stop looking at it for one second.

Beatrice gets up and makes an enormous breakfast every morning. No matter how many times I hint at the fact that we don't need so much food, there is still basically an entire new pie on the table every morning. She even makes those jams: fig, plum, pear, and apricot. The woman is amazing.

I'm not kidding. It's so much food. She also makes us fresh eggs from her chickens.

In addition to all the other parts of the farm, they raise donkeys. They realllly love these donkeys. The view below is from our villa:

And here they are, cheesing for a shot:

It's so perfect here.

Bernardo is a trip. He used to work in defense, and he and Beatrice followed their dream to buy an old broken down farm & fix it up for others to enjoy. He has learned everything about farming, and Beatrice became a professional cook and is currently learning everything there is to know about everything.

When we first arrived, there were several days of bad weather. The storms roll in to the Tuscan countryside very quickly and without warning. I loved it:

So far we've been to Cortona, Siena, Arrezo, and Camucia. The trip up the hill to Cortona was exciting, and I was so happy to share this special place with Jesse:

Siena is still gorgeous:

Arezzo doesn't have much to show, but I did have this really nice double espresso (and we picked up our new rental car):

It was market day in Camucia today (Thurs, Oct 3). Beatrice insisted we get a "panino porchetta (pork sandwich)" and gosh, was it worth it. They stuff a pig with delicious herbs and roast it, then slice the meat off and put it on bread.

The porcini mushrooms are here! This weekend we're going to a porcini mushroom festival. We saw zero of them until today, and suddenly they were everywhere, including the market:

Needless to say, we're having an amazing time.

Sunday, Monday, and Tuesday in London were, without exception, exceptional! I am still a tiny bit groggy, and Jesse is sleeping as I type, but we seem to have overcome jet lag enough to have full days and nice evenings without too much of a hitch.

As a former Londoner, I am constantly surprised at how non-overwhelming London is this go around. It's not to say that London is underwhelming; quite the opposite, in fact. London is just as bustling and manic and chaotic as ever, but visiting its streets as a New Yorker has a significantly different feel.

When I arrived in London in June of 2006, I had never lived anywhere with public transportation, let alone a bustling global city during boom economic times. In just a few days back, I've quickly realized that many of the feelings I had for London I was feeling because it was a big city, not because it was particularly Londony. I did know that there were certain parts of London and British culture that I admired and enjoyed, but only now do I find the distinctions effortlessly easy to identify.

Jesse has felt similarly - and feels that this is the first city he's been to where, in his words, "Oh yeah, these people get it. They know what it's like." As a native New Yorker, he has a hard time being in any place that feels as big or as fully-functioning as NYC, but he identified the traits quickly here.

There are a few things that we've noticed, whether I knew them before or not. First, device culture has not taken over this city. Most people have a smart phone, yet very few faces are buried in them. With our heads up and off of our iphones as we're walking around the city, we're finding that people are far more willing to either just be where they are for the moment or to read a book than they are to pull out their devices. It seemed foreign at first, like maybe these people were just cylons, because who could ride the Picadilly line from Heathrow to Covent Garden without playing at least one round of Bejeweled Blitz? or checking their twitter?!

I am actively and Jesse is passively going Facebook-free for the duration of the trip, so we're quite happy to be with people who are not checking their phones every five seconds. We had dinner last night with some friends, and the only time Joe pulled out his iphone was because I was lamenting about being at this awesome pub and not being able to check in. He quickly made a hotspot for me, which was so kind, and of course I checked in, but the whole thing seemed a bit silly. Just be at the pub! Enjoy your time with friends! The whole thing is just so nice, and I look forward to bringing a little bit of it back with me to New York.

It's also fun to just go to places without reading every single review. We've managed to have many excellent meals without reading a single person's opinion about the place. This is a big step for us and is another thing we hope to bring back home with us. Not constantly consulting online maps and reviews, however, did lead to one hilarious multi-hour hunt for lunch, during which we attempted to eat at not one, but two different places that were not pubs, but theatres.

With the exception of the trip from the airport, we've managed to stay off of public transportation completely! We've walked all over Central London (we're staying in Covent Garden), and this morning will be the first trip up the Northern Line to my old 'hood, Hampstead/Belsize Park.

The highlights have been the pubs, the walking, and the catching up with friends. Tonight we're going to see a new musical, The Commitments, which is based on the Roddy Doyle book and film.

Here are a few pics from our first few days in this lovely place:

Look kids, Big Ben!

This graffiti has been on the damage on this wall on the Embankment since I lived here, and I find it oddly comforting. Our walk along the South Bank was the closest yet to a "trip down memory lane."

I quickly re-adopted the morning tea ritual. This is the view out of our hotel, which is much more like a flat, since it's graduate housing at LSE. I can't say enough what a find our accommodation was - central London, very afforable, and very nicely set up with a fridge, kettle, and all the things you need.

Back on the South Bank, we checked out the 40+ year old skateboarding and graffiti spot beneath the SouthBank Centre. We signed a petition because they want to fill it up with boring chain shops, when this is clearly so much better.

Jesse has already tried so many new ciders! This was the best, though - Swedish passionfruit cider!

This is called "aspiration bridge," as it passes between the Royal Opera House and the Royal Ballet School.

We had a nice picnic in St. James' Park. We got Tesco's finest sandwiches, so you know they were good. Jesse approves of how much egg salad is available in London.