A short tribute to Italian food

So again, I have fallen behind on the blogging.  It's not that I don't want to blog, because I do, and I think about it all of the time.  I think it's mostly because most of the stuff that I do, I don't think anyone would want to hear about.

I wasn't sticking to vegan as stringently as I usually do out of pure laziness and I was tired, my skin was breaking out and my body just wasn't running optimally.  I would justify it with "Oh well I'm not going to be in Italy much longer so I might as well just eat this parmigiano" or "Where else am I going to get real mozzarella di bufala?" I think I was kind of denial that I went vegan for health reasons as well as ethical ones.

It's easy to forget that Italian cuisine isn't all cheese!  Whenever I go to Il Cerbero, a restaurant within walking distance of my house, all bets are off the table, and I'm getting Penne alla Siciliana, which is penne cooked al dente with a sauce of eggplant, tomatoes and mozzarella cheese.  I always feel really terrible (physically and emotionally) afterwards but I still did it.

I decided that I needed to cut that out and this time I got Spaghetti alla Pomodoro which is just spaghetti noodles with a sauce made out of fresh tomatoes and a basil leaf or two.  It was so amazing and just what I needed/wanted.  I've never raved about a plate of spaghetti but this was so perfect.  You could taste how fresh the tomatoes were and the pasta was cooked in salted water and ooooo boy it was delicious.

A bunch of typical Italian dishes are vegan. You can veganize basically any pizza by omitting the cheese. However, I don't think Quattro Formaggi pizza would have quite the same effect.  Whenever I go to Panda Pizza, by my house (Which is honestly at least twice a week because it is my favorite pizza in Naples and the surrounding area and it is also walking distance distance from my house.  If you want to get there, put in the coordinates (40.861719, 14.065153) and it should be on the same side of the road like two mins up the road.  Go there! Get their bruschetta and pizza! You won't be disappointed!) I get bruschetta, their mixed antipasti plate (vegetarian so Peter can eat the cheese) and some variation of pizza marinara.

The best bruschetta I have ever had in my life

Panda's bruschetta is on a different level, one day I'm going to recreate it, or get the balls to ask them for their recipe.  There's definitely a little bit of vinegar in it.  I'm going to figure it out some day.  Their antipasti plate is also great.  My father said that it was a rip-off because it's basically just pizza toppings but that is incorrect because they have grilled and marinated eggplant on it that is to die for.  There's also zeppoline, which is a Neapolitan appetizer that is fried balls of dough and seaweed.

The pizza at Panda is amazing and you might think that as a vegan, you are only limited to Pizza Marinara, which is pizza with tomato sauce, garlic, oregano and a few basil leaves, but you're not.  Sometimes you might want to stick with the classic like I did last night, but in Italy, you can get basically anything on your pizza.  Here are a few things that I have seen people get on their pizza: Rucola, friarielli, french fries, olives, peppers, corn, mushrooms, fresh tomatoes, artichokes, eggplant, zuchinni and the list goes on.  If I'm not getting normal marinara, I like to get it with rucola, peppers and mushrooms.

Pizza marinara

Another one of my non-vegan weaknesses is Subways's Chipotle Southwest sauce. If I'm getting Subway, you better believe I'm getting SW sauce.  Southwest sauce is basically a mixture of ranch/mayo/something mildly spicy/red food coloring. Hold the cheese, but please smother my meal in Southwest sauce, thanks. I realized that this is completely ridiculous  and I need to cut it out. I've found a solution in bringing a bottle of "creamy" vegan salad dressing with me when I eat at Subway. Lately  I've been using Organicville's Non-dairy ranch and  I've been Southwest sauce clean for two sandwiches now.

If you too are trying to kick your Southwest Sauce habit, check out this copy cat recipe here and look at how gross it is.  Recipe Here.

Anyways! Changing gears here.  I devoted an entire blog post to my favorite Italian meals because I'm not going to be eating it for much longer.  That is correct, I am leaving the nest for a second time and finally moving out of the house.  Peter and I are moving to Pensacola, Florida.  I've never been so I'm super excited.  I'm going to keep doing UMUC online and then maybe I'll apply to UWF in the spring? I'm not really sure, I just know that I have to get a car and a job and I'm a little scared but a lot excited! If you're in Pensacola and want to rekindle our friendship, message me! Peter will be taking classes so I'll probably be bored until I get a car or a job!

Ciao ciao!
x - Katelyn

ps.  On Thursday I received my Erin Condren life planner and it was the happiest moment of my life and I cried a little bit.  About six hours later, I left it outside of my house on a ledge, never to be seen again.  Probably picked up by our trash guys.  After a few temper tantrums, I got a new one but I probs won't get it for a month.  I was so excited about getting myself organized and I LOST IT. I didn't even have it for more than 24 hours.  I hate myself.  It was so beautiful.  RIP Planner.

If you too would like a planner like mine, click HERE.  I got all of the add ons, like the pens and the pen holder and the thing that holds it closed and now they are all GONE. Kill me.

Weekend in Ischia

So I haven't blogged in a while.  This is because 1) I haven't done anything too interesting since I got back from Budapest, 2) I haven't had a lot of free time and 3) I wrote an entire blog and it didn't save and I was so frustrated by the whole thing that I just couldn't go on.  It took a lot of self control to not throw my laptop across the room.

Anyways, Peter and I spent a week at Tasha and Jason's watching their dogs while they took an anniversary trip to London and Paris.  I took advantage of the free house and kitchen and I made soooo much food.  I was really on a roll.  The only thing is that I didn't really take any good pictures of the food.  I do that every time.  One night I made the Seitan Mushroom stroganoff in the Isa Does It book and then I made tacos.  I taco-seasoned Light Life veggie crumbles and I made guacmole, salsa and the vegan sour cream from the Oh She Glows cookbook and oh my gosh it was so amazing.  I made too much so I ate tacos for breakfast for the next three days.  THEN I made a stir fry with veggies and tofu and udon noodles and it was so good.  I used a wok(!). I need a wok, I can't believe I don't have one.  The pictures don't make anything look appetizing, but I promise you everything was great!

The vegan sour cream was so great.  Just 1 cup of cashews, 1/2 cup of water, two tablespoons of lemon juice, one tablespoon of ACV, one teaspoon of salt and blend.  So good and light and refreshing.  The first time I made it I used orange juice because I had no lemons and it was still pretty good!  At one point I was just using it as dip for tortilla chips.

Now for the best part of the post! This weekend Peter took me to Ischia, and island by Capri on the coast of Naples.  It was supposed to be a surprise but I'm a really good detective and I hate not knowing things so I found out.  Soooooooo romantic.

Saturday morning we took the ferry from Naples where it was RAINING!  It continued to rain off and on until we got to our hotel around 11:30.  We stayed at the Park Hotel and Terme Romantica in Sant'Angelo which is the southernmost part of the island.  Link here. 

It's a hotel with a spa and thermal pools.  I didn't utilize any of the spa facilities because the cheapest thing was a massage for 40 euro.  But our room was really cute.  It was set off from the other rooms.  I called it our "little square".  I'm pretty sure it was the only room standing by itself.  We were pretty tired when we got there so we took what was supposed to be a two hour nap, but when we woke up five hours later, it wasn't raining anymore and it was beautiful.

Prosecco waiting for us in our room!

Our room even had its own little gate

We made reservations for dinner at La Casereccia in Forio.  Their Tripadvisor page is here.  We had to take a bus from our hotel and then walk almost a mile, but we got there eventually.  I was freaking out because our reservations were for eight and we were about fifteen minutes late, but there were maybe two families there.  However, thirty minutes after we got there it was a packed house.

We started with appetizers... like most meals do.  We got bruschetta (obviously) for the first of probably five times this weekend.  The tomatoes were huge and ripe and the portions were pretty large.  Then we got an Antipasti plate which is basically just mixed appetizers.  There were grilled eggplants and zucchini, both of which an employee was grilling all night.  Various pickled vegetables, a fried zucchini flower stuffed with cheese (that was AMAZING...sorry) and potato croquette and more.

I'm a bruschetta snob now

Antipasti before

Antipasti after

On TripAdvisor, this restaurant is advertised as vegetarian.  It's definitely not vegetarian but it has a plethora of vegetarian options.  Not too many vegan options, but enough to fill up on.  I got gnocchi and Peter got this really amazing pasta in a white sauce.  Every dish was obviously homemade and fresh.  The owner of the restaurant, who was this cute little old man, made his way around the restaurant asking everyone if their food was okay.  Overall I would recommend La Casereccia.  It was adorbs and the food was amazing.  It was worth the .8 mile up-hill walk.

Also, their decor was really cute.  It was rustic/typical Italian, but they had real tomatoes and garlic hanging on the walls and around the tables, I may or may not have made a vampire joke.

They also had this super trendy sign

 After dinner we walked into the town of Forio, which was also where we took the boat into and looked at some shops.  I spent the entire weekend looking for a sun hat.  I never got one because I didn't find one that really spoke to me.  I am very picky about hats.

Then we took the bus back up to our hotel and passed out.  We spoke to our concierge about renting a scooter (eeeeeeeeeeeeep) for the next two days.  My family has a scooter, but it scares the crap out of me-- the way that they weave in and out of traffic and come out of nowhere.  Peter knows how to drive one though.  I was still scared.

When we woke up the next day, we were going to go to the Mortella gardens, but it wasn't super high on my list of priorities and I'd rather just go to the beach.  I've been to Ischia several times before to go to the thermal spas.  I always go to Negombo.  It's a really nice place with thermal pools terraced up the side of the island and they have their own private beach.  I've heard really great things about Poseidon so I thought that this would be a good time to try it out.  They both have their pros and cons, the main con being price but I would say that visiting either Negombo or Poseidon is a must-do for anyone visiting Ischia.  Nothing really beats going back and forth between the extremely hot pool and the ice cold pool.  Apparently it's supposed to improve circulation.  

Oh and did I mention that we went to Poseidon on the scooter?  It was a little traumatic at first but I got used to it.  After we tried out all of the thermal pools (we had to wear swim caps) and finished up at the beach, we headed back to the hotel.  We decided to get dinner near Ischia porto so we could look at shops after.  My phone took us to the highest point of the island on the way.  What is technically a 3 mile journey ended up being 10 miles because of all of the twists in the road.  I didn't get any pictures because taking pictures on a scooter is not a good idea but I wish I did because the views were breathtaking.  Ischia is such a beautiful island.  The water is so blue and the skies were so clear.

We walked around for a bit and ended up eating at La Luna Rossa.  When we walked in, every employee said "Buona sera" to us and it was really sweet.  But after they took our orders everything went to hell.  The tables next to us, even the people that got there twenty minutes after we did got their food and we didn't even get bread! It was really frustrating.  Once I asked for bread I think the waiter realized that he dropped the ball and after that everything was great.  

My phone died so we had no GPS on the way back.  We were both sure that we knew the way but we didn't.  We eventually stopped and asked some Italians who gave us the best directions ever.  He just wrote down which signs to follow.  It was a completely different way from the way that we came but it was a lot easier and it was a huge relief getting back.  Side note: has anyone else noticed that all Italians have exactly the same handwriting?

Pretty sure this beach is Sant'Angelo

When we woke up the next day, we had to check out, so we had to do something that we could bring all of our stuff to.  I personally did not feel like I got enough sun so we decided to hit up the beach at Sant'Angelo.  We ended up using the beach that our hotel had a discounted rate at-- Michaels and for twelve euro we got two chairs, and umbrella and the use of a paddle boat.  I finally got my massage because I paid some Asian lady ten euro to massage me.  She poured so much oil on me that I'm pretty sure I'm still oily but it was a quality massage and I'm glad I didn't drop 50 euro at our hotel for one.  She even got my calves and my feet.  Ooooo boy.

Peter got viciously attacked by the paddle boat when we jumped in and I immediately got back into the boat because no matter how clear the water is.... something could be down there.  

this is my helmet

After a few hours in the sun, we had to head back to Naples (sad) so we rode the scooter down to the port in Forio.  Our hotel had arranged something with the scooter company where we were supposed to drop the scooter off at a bar called La Cambusa.  We had no other details.  We were like, "So we just walk into this bar and find someone to hand the keys for this scooter to?"  The answer was yes.  I literally just said, "Scooter?" and some guy said "Yes." and took the keys from me.  As far as I know, it was the right scooter man.

Getting on that boat back to Naples was kind of sad because I had so much fun in Ischia.  Just me and Peter and an island and absolutely no one and nothing to talk to or do or anything.  Living an hour away from an island paradise is something that I'm going to miss when I go back to the states.

Ciao ciao!
x - Katelyn

Budapest - part 3

Although I am thoroughly a dog person, I love cats.  Unfortunately, I am allergic to them in the worst way.  I also feel like they can sense that I am allergic to them and they go out of their way to make me miserable.  Cats are a little evil and I respect that.  I remember being kept awake at night by my friend's cat in middle school because he was stroking my face with his tail.  I didn't know what to do, so I just let him. 

Over the years my allergies have gotten progressively better, so I felt confident enough to visit the Cat Cafe in Budapest.  You can visit their website, HERE.  It's all in Hungarian by the way. It's right across the street from St. Stephen's Basilica.  You can sit with a cat on your lap and drink a cat-puccino.  I didn't get one but I heard that they were great. 

 They were all very sleepy. 

This one was my favorite.  He/she was HUGE.

Like my father, you might be asking yourself whether a cafe full of cats is sanitary.  They were really on the ball with keeping the cats away from the food.  There was a clear plastic section completely sealed off where the food was kept and prepared.  It's a great place for any cat lover to visit. 

There was even a kitten!

After the cat cafe, Peter, Jackie, Kevin and I strolled around and decided to look for a piercing place because we're super cool rebels.  Actually I just have a dermal where the top fell off and my skin grew over it so I wanted to get that taken care of, Jackie just wanted something pierced and Kevin wanted to get his ear pierced.  We ended up at 7th Ink near the Opera metro stop.  They don't have an official website but if you google search them everything will come up.  It was clean and the guy who did the piercings did an amazing job on my dermal. 

If you've ever seen my dermal, the little top that screws on had fallen off and my skin had grown over it, so it was essentially inside my skin.  He had to open me up, take out the implant and then put a new one in by making the smallest hole possible.  I had prepared myself for extreme pain and I was breathing heavily and sweating but by the time it was over, I had experienced little to none discomfort.  I don't know the guy's name, but he had giant spikes under his lips, so if you go, ask for that guy!

Sorry about the awkward close up but the one on the right is new!

Jackie ended up getting her nose pierced.  I'd never seen anyone get pierced so that was an experience.  It looked painful!  Kevin's earring went well too and then Peter decided to get his done too! We are all so cool. 

Champ

I think Peter was secretly scared

After that we spent the evening it the Szechenyi thermal baths!  I've been to the thermal baths in Ischia a few times so I kind of knew what to expect but it was amazing! The buildings that they are housed in are beautiful but there are also outside pools.  You can get more info about the baths from their website HERE.

I loved going between the hot and cold baths.  I really shouldn't have been in the water with my new piercing but I risked it and I haven't seen any adverse effects. 

I didn't get any pics during the actual baths because I didn't want to have my phone out, but I got all of these afterwards.  The inside baths close at 7 and the outside baths close at nine.  Afterwards my aches and pains from walking around were reduced, which I'm pretty sure is the whole point.   

There were a bunch of old men in Speedos playing chess in the water.  It was adorbs.  It was a really great experience and I'm very thankful that the Therriault/Swisshelm family took me there!!

ciao ciao - Katelyn

Budapest - part 2

On Wednesday I did something I never thought I'd do... I drove a Segway. It's really easy to make fun of people on Segways saying that they look dorky or lame. "Why don't you just walk or ride a bike?" You say. Well let me tell you why... Because Segways are awesome. Segways are the two wheeled magical unicorn transportation of the future. A Segway is checking its balance 100 times a minute. A Segway zooms by pedestrians on the sidewalk. A Segway effortlessly goes uphill while the losers walking and riding bikes are huffing and puffing. Ever since riding on a Segway I think to myself or say out loud at least once an hour, "Man, I wish I had a Segway." In short, Segways are far superior to any other mode of transportation. Moving on.

I took a bunch of pictures. Excuse the quality because, remember... They were taken from a Segway.

 Not only are Segways awesome, but I also look really great riding them.

So does Peter, obviously.  

These pics were taken before and during my trip over the bridge to the other side.  The weather was perfect, I got a bit of a sunburn but it wasn't too bad.  Zooming by people on a Segway is the ultimate level of satisfaction.

Our tour guide said a few interesting things about Budapest.  The thing that stands out the most in my mind was how everything is similar to Disneyland, how it looks old but it's actually just pretending to look old.  Things were destroyed in wars and floods and they rebuilt everything within the last 100 years.  The Gothic-looking church pictured above was built for the World Fair like the Eiffel Tower was built in Paris. After he said that, every time I looked at a building I had to question its authenticity.  Regardless, Budapest is a beautiful city.  It is clean, the Hungarians are kind and helpful and all around it is just an amazing place.

Our Segway guide took us off-roading through Margaret Island where we were going through grass and over rocks and stuff.  He said he even takes it up to the mountains! Segways can handle all terrain. Segways are all terrain vehicles.

Wow Kevin is so cool

The largest parliament building in continental Europe

One thing about Hungary that just perplexes me is the language.  When I see it written, I would think that it sounds something like Turkish, but it has a sound all its own.  I have tremendous respect for anyone that speaks both English and Hungarian.  Or Hungarian and any other language for that matter.  I don't even want to think about verb conjugation in Hungarian.  Ooooooo boy. 

I passed a vegan place while on a beer bike (a tale for the next post) called Nice Rice and it wasn't featured on Happy Cow, which I thought interesting, so I'm going to look into that.  I got a veggie burger at a bistro in Budapest thinking that it was going to be grains and vegetables... nope.  What I was served was basically a burger made out of cheese and I'm pretty sure egg.  I just think it's kind of cruelly funny.  I still ate it though because it was delicious.  I put onion rings, this tomato dip that it was served with and some sun dried tomatoes on top of the burger along with a lot of ketchup.  Hungarians do not share the love of ketchup with Americans.  You always have to ask for ketchup and when you do, you get a tiny amount.  I'm not complaining though because I was able to fully appreciate the flavor of my food without the ketchup, but it really just comes down to the fact that I love ketchup.  Sorry that I'm not sorry. 

I have two more blog posts coming about Budapest and Eger.  We just did SO MUCH that I wouldn't be able to fit it all in one post! So there's more to come!

ciao ciao - Katelyn

Budapest part 1

I'm currently blogging from Budapest, Hungary.  But this isn't any ordinary vacation.  I'm here for Peter's sister, Anne's wedding.  I got here on Saturday and I leave on Sunday.  I was lucky enough to have visited Budapest before with my family, but I didn't appreciate, so this is Round Two and I'm loving it. 

Let's start with the prospect of being vegan in Hungary.  There is basically nothing.  About 95% of the dishes feature meat heavily and if they don't the main component of the meal is grilled cheese.  Other than that, there is the celery in my Bloody Mary and a variety of pickled vegetables.  I'm a little ashamed to admit it, but I caved and I commenced vegetarian mode.  I'm with about half of Peter's entire extended family so it's not like I can be like, can we please go somewhere that serves vegan food.  Yes, I could have ordered the grilled veggies without the grilled cheese on top, but I'm on vacation and I decided to go a little crazy.  Peter ate most of the cheese though.  He's basically vegetarian now, which I'm really proud of/psyched about.   

Grilled vegetables and mozzarella

However, when I'm not eating out with Peter's family, I explore my vegan options.  I bought the HappyCow app for my phone and I've looked around at what's nearby.  Today Peter and I ate lunch at Thai Wok, which is my favorite kind of place.  Where you basically build your meal by choosing the base (I chose rice noodles), your add-ons (I chose tofu and mixed vegetables) and your sauce (I chose pad thai sauce, which I made sure did not have fish sauce in it).   If you go there, make sure that you ask for no eggs in your noodles because I made that mistake.  It wasn't listed in the description, but it was in there... I considered sending it back but I didn't.  I also got the Pad Tea and it was phenomenal.  

But this blog post isn't about how I screwed up at being vegan, it's about my trip to Budapest!  The first night we had a traditional Hungarian meal (I had the grilled veggies which I showed above) and then Peter, his sister Jackie, his brother Kevin, cousin Ian and I went out to explore Budapest.  We ended up riding a giant ferris wheel which is very similar to the London eye, just smaller. 

Then on Sunday we all slept in and then met up at the Hard Rock where I had my first Bloody Mary ever.  Something about tomato juice just always turned me off, but it was so so tasty.  I had a normal one and a spicy one and ooooooo boy I will be having more of those in the future!!

Then we went and ate lunch and walked down this long street with people selling old things and things that they have made.  I am trying to be fiscally conservative on this trip so I didn't buy nything but a few things caught my eye, like this one Soviet Union-era hat and a flask and some "energy crystals", but let's be honest I do not need an energy crystal.  We also found this random old car show with a bunch of cars and motorcycles.  Peter was super excited about it. 

1998 Lotus (I have no idea the significance of this)

Then Peter and I walked along the water, where I was STUNG BY A BEE.  It hurt so terribly.  This was only the second time that I was stung by a bee and I'm not going to lie, I cried.  THEN Peter and I stumbled upon a beer festival, where we killed about two hours waiting for dinner.  It's crazy being in a city where there are so many things to do!

Then we met up with everyone for dinner in a boat/restaurant on the water.  Peter and I communally ate a Greek salad, stuffed shells, gnocchi in a parmesan cream sauce with porcini mushrooms and spinach and this thing that was basically lasagna but instead of noodles, there were potatoes.  The view was so beautiful and by the end of dinner I was no longer terrified by all of Peter's relatives. 

Then we went back to the hotel for sleeeeeps.  This morning we slept in again.  Peter and I ate at Thai Wok and then met up with everyone.  It's his brother's birthday, so we went and did this cool Trap thing where they basically lock you in a room for an hour and you have to solve a series of riddles and use random props in the room to get out.  The guide (for us it was Robert) can see you and hear you to help you if you need a hint or an idea.  We definitely utilized Robert but I think we did a pretty good job getting out of it.  We finished right before our hour was up.  We were in the medieval room.  There was also an Egyptian room that looked preeeetty cool.  You can learn more about the Trap thing HERE.  I would definitely recommend it to anyone visiting Budapest.  It's only an hour and it's really fun!

So far I am LOVING Budapest.  If I was here by myself I would probably try harder to find vegan options, but it's not my priority.  But I'm having the time of my life right now.  I've been keeping up with the World Cup religiously and I am super duper excited to watch Team USA play tomorrow night!! Italy is out but it's whatever.  I think this is the year for a non-European team to win but it will probably end up being Germany or The Netherlands. 

I'll post more as the trip goes on!!

ciao ciao! - Katelyn

My past two weeks

Wow! So I haven't blogged in a while! I've thought about it nearly every day, but I haven't had time to just sit down and write without being rude to other people.  I haven't been up to much, just doing a lot of dog sitting and house sitting, working and babysitting.  Sometimes I'm like, "Why am I so tired? I don't do anything!" and then I think about how I actually do have a lot of stuff going on.

This last week, I house/dog sat for my friend Tasha and her husband Jason while they did a whirlwind tour of Italy.  I got the pleasure of taking care of their two dogs, Amy and Penny.  It was nice because she lives close to where I work and I had a house and a kitchen all to myself! I made a bunch of stuff! I did stuffed peppers, mac and cheese with eggplant and caramelized onions, pasta with vegan sausage, seitan and my favorite/easiest recipe that I've changed so much that I don't even remember the original recipe.

Amy and Penny

Roasted Balsamic Green Beans and Mushrooms

1 lb of green beans
8 oz of mushrooms
1/4 cup of balsamic vinegar
2 tbsp olive oil
2 cloves of garlic, minced
1 tbsp nutritional yeast
salt and pepper to taste

Preheat the oven to 450 F.  Wash the green beans and trim the ends and place in a gallon Zip-lock bag.  Make sure the mushrooms are clean and free of dirt and then slice those and put in the same bag.

Place all of the remaining ingredients in a small bowl and whisk together,  and then pour into the Zip-lock bag.  Shake it up and let it marinate for a bit, at least 30 mins.  Then dump it on a baking sheet and let it roast for about 30 minutes!

 So easy and so good.  The mushrooms are my favorite part. 

I served that as a side with The Minimalist Baker's Caramelized Onion Mac and Cheese (recipe here) which was phenomenal.  I never realized how much I liked caramelized onions and that you could make a cheese sauce out of eggplants! Like whaaaaaaat? Who came up with that? I added a little white wine when I was caramelizing the onions but other than that I followed the recipe exactly.  I was going to post a picture of it but I didn't get any good ones.  There's one on my Instagram. 

Next, I made a far more photogenic food... quinoa stuffed peppers.  I used THIS recipe.  I seasoned the the vegetables like nobody's business and I added baby spinach to the mix.  I steamed the peppers a little bit too long so they were kind of floppy but it was overall a success.

I accidentally deleted like all of the pictures of them on my phone, so I had to copy this one from my instagram.

One day I'm going to get a nice camera so that my food actually looks appetizing.  The peppers were so good and they didn't take a very long time and they're so darn cute!

In other news, it is my favorite time... World Cup time.  I am not even a huge sports fan, but you know what I am a fan of? Winning.  You know what else I'm a fan of? America.  I'm also an Italy fan because duh I live here and you can't live here and not cheer for Italy, that is just dangerous and irresponsible.  Someone will hit you with their car.

For the Italy vs. England game, Peter, my sister and I and a few other friends went down to the port in Pozzuoli and watched the game in an Irish pub.  There were some Englishmen there too, it was pretty fun.  After every shot on the goal and basically just consistently throughout the game there were horns honking and people yelling.  Thank gawd Italy won or who knows what the atmosphere would have been like.  I was in Rome when Italy lost to Spain for the Confederations Cup and it was just a bad time.

Pozzuoli after the game, I tried to get the fireworks but I just missed them

 However, I am first and foremost a fan of Team USA and I watched them win last night against Ghana!  Tim Howard is a god.  I feel like they kind of played like crap but we got it done when we needed to.  Also I feel terrible for Jozy Altidore but it is what it is. 

Also... I am expecting like eight packages in the mail!  I still haven't gotten my dress for Peter's sister's wedding and I'm kind of freaking out.  I tracked it and it's been in New Jersey for like three weeks.  Get it together New Jersey.  I don't want to get another one because I am already emotionally attached to this one and I know it will look so good on me. 

Woo hooooo mail!

 I did get one package yesterday though and it's from probably my favorite online retailer-- Sephora.  I got the new contour kit form Make Up For Ever and I like it so far, but the highlighting powder isn't light enough for me so that's laaaaaame.  I have another highlighter in my room somewhere but I have no clue where.  I got my favorite mascara ever, Benefit's They're Real.  I get the small tube because I don't use it that often.  And then I got a bunch of samples which is my favorite.  I like the Glamglow eye treatment, this is like the third time I chose it as my sample haha. 

I'm taking two college classes now trying to get my GPA up to make up for the years that I blew off so I'm about to go do a bunch of homework.  Kill me.

Ciao ciao - Katelyn