2025 The Marriage Trip

Overview

This is a 4 week trip. Primary purpose is to get married / have a travel destination wedding in Italy.

April 13 to May 12 2025, inclusive.

Part 1: Florence

April 13 - 14

We flew Emirates business class in JFK -> MXP.

Food in lounge is quite delicious and Emirates business class lounge is quite spacious. They had everything from checken legs to (small) lamb chops, to desserts of various kinds.

5-6 plates of small food later, we boarded our Emirates business class. This A380 is nice and I spent most of it not sleeping. The lounge was cool but unlike the A380 I flew SFO->DXB, there's no desk setup that makes it feel like a private jet.

The food on the plane was very good, from Chilean Sea Bass to Osso Bucco. Med meats are always kind of Mid Meats, because they are kind of dry. But overall, delicious. For booze, I just had an espresso martini and a Glenmorangie.

A movie and a nap later, we had breakfast. It as a lobster omelette with croissants, breads, and coffee. Good, 3.5/5, wished they had more lobster in the omelette though.

Getting through customs was fast. And by the time we got to luggage claim, all 3 of our luggages were there. I've never retrieved my luggage this quickly. After we speedrun the luggage claim, which took all of 10-20 seconds, we went to our restroom and met our private driver who drove us 4 hours from MXP to Firenze.

We met up with Serena's friends for dinner and ate a lot.

Better than I've eaten in a long time. And it's been a very long time since I've had good, authentic Italian food. From linguini pasta with an amazing sauce to well-balanced, heavy Italian dumplings, to mushroom pasta, to a mountain of Tiramisu, it was all really good.

What's even better is the service: they gave us a bunch of free food on the side, and on top of that they had this really amazing spicy sauce you can slobber all over your food.

On the way to the restaurant, we took the bus but on the way back, there were no more busses so we walked in the rain for about 30 minutes to get back to the hotel.

April 15

Couldn't really sleep due to jetlag. Slept from maybe 5AM to 9:30AM.

Went out to meet Serena's friends to eat lunch at a place called Trattoria Sergio Gozzi. It was really good. We had:

• Beef stew - 2/5 too salty but sauce was good.
• Pork chop - 3/5 average.
• Pastas - 3/5 average. Not al dente enough.
• Liver - 6/5 so juicy, so moist. Just like fois gras.
• House wine - 4/5, more sour than full-bodied. Very nice to cut through the gamey liver and meats.
• Overall: 4/5, the liver + wine really slaps.

I ended up eating the most as usual. Even more than the pregnant woman at the table. Did everyone else eat anorexic amounts, or do I eat too much?

Walked around and took some photos outside the Duomo. We also did some afternoon espresso, which was followed by a quick Merry Go Around stop at the city center.

We walked around a little bit more and then did afternoon tea/coffee in the city center, next to the Merry Go Around. Half of Serena's friends went back home to sleep, another stayed with us to walk around a bit more, including a trip to Cantina del Gelato, which we always visit in Florence.

At around 7PM, we made our way to a restaurant inside Hotel Hermitage. Famous for truffles, maybe? Had:

• Pasta with regular truffle - 1/5, was like pasta boiled in water only. No taste.
• Pasta with winter truffle - 3/5, had some truffle flavor but still bland.
• Osso buco - 4/5 - Good flavor, falls apart nicely.
• Chicken breast with lemon sauce - 4/5 - I really liked the lemon sauce as it was nice and tart, which is nice to eat with meats. The chicken breast itself was moist which is hard to do.
• Chicken breast with truffle - 4/5 - Also moist chicken breast and the truffle adds a little bit to the sauce.
• Beef tartare - 5/5. It also had truffle that I can barely taste but beef tartare always tastes good.
• Slices of beef - 3.5/5. These are like thin slices of raw steak which is nice, and showered with truffle. But the truffle had zero taste compared to the beef tartare.
• Fettucine ragu - 4/5 - Ragu nicely flavored, nice contrast to bland AF truffle dishes.
• Overall - 3/5. Slow-ish service and quite expensive for what it was.

Then we went to Cantina del Gelato again. Their gelato is nice, creamy, and smooth unlike many other places that are maybe too dense, too sweet, or just lacks a je nais se quois.

Walked back home (no rain today, yay) for about 30 mins.

April 16

Slept poorly. Woke at 2AM. Went to sleep at 5AM. Woke up again at 8:30AM. Went to go pick up our rental car near SMN.

We got a car upgrade because of Amex plat, and we landed a blue Renault Australe. It has a range of 1050km (about 680+ miles) which is ridiculous.

After that, we went to eat at Sabatino's, one of Anthony Bourdain's recommendations. They do simple, local, and affordable food. We had:

• Papardelle pasta 5/5 - al dente, creamy and savory.
• Pork liver - 5/5, not as juicy and tender's as yesterday's, but really nice dense flavors and pairs well with their wine and sides.
• Radish and leeks as sides - 5/5 - nice, fresh, and crunchy, it goes really well with the heavy food / pasta that we had. The leeks had a little bit of a spice to it, like eating raw onions, so this made all the food even better.
• Guinea Fowl - I thought this was rabbit due to ChatGPT translation, but it was just a very lean chicken. 3/5. A little dry but not bad overall.
• Boiled chicken with stuffed pistachios - 4/5, good.
• Wine - 5/5. More on the sour side like yesterday's house red, but the way it paired with the rest of the meal was really good. Moreover, it was only 1.5 euros which is the cheapest I've ever paid for wine I think.
• Americano 4/5 - OK.
• Desserts - 3.5/5 - we had a couple of pastries, not too sweet but not so great as to write home about.

Then, we walked to the Florence market and had lampredotto at a place called Da Nerbone. The place is popular due to it being in business since 1873. So we waited in line for 35 minutes before we got our pig stomach plate + panini. It was 5/5 good but including wait time 2/5 -- wouldn't wait just for this.

We walked around a bit more and did window shopping. Once we finished buying absolutely nothing, we went to get a gelato at a new, hip place. They had spicy Mayan chocolate which tastes like a smooth, creamy chocolate gelato at the start but the after taste comes with smoke! 5/5.

Went home and chilled; wanted to lift weights. They only had one of those all-in-one machines and while not ideal, it was also completely broken so I can't lift anything. We instead found a nice terrace to practice our first dance. But the whole terrace was so ridden with bed bugs that we only practiced twice.

Took a shower, chilled for a bit, went out to dinner at Trattoria Osteria Dall'oste. We had:

• T-bone steaks, 5/5 - good cook on it.
• Various parma hams - 4/5 - a bit too salty after eating too much.
• Truffle pasta - 4/5 - much more truffle than yesterday's "truffle" pasta.
• Steak tartare - 5/5. Good with a nicely salted egg yolk.
• Carpaccio - 3.5/5 - good but not that much meat flavors.
• Some rigatoni - 3/5 - good.
• Papardelle - 4/5 - good, nice and creamy.

Too full, went home after.

April 17

Good sleep. Woke up at 6A then slept again until 11:30AM. About 11 hours of sleep.

Met up with Serena's friends and ate lunch.

Went home and chilled. Had a bit of a stomach ache. Had:

• Carbonara - 4/5 - was good and the guanciale was good. Maybe a little tough and not as fatty as the best guanciale.
• Beef tartare - 5/5 - sweet caramelized onions + cheese in the middle of the tartare really put it over the top.
• Overall: 4/5

Went back home and chilled. This is more of a recovery day as we are trying to save energy to do the whole wedding thing.

Went back out for dinner at a famous place called Il Lattini. It was trash. We had the family meal:

• Parma ham and meats which is OK, 3/5.
• Unknown sides were given to us, which were all very salty. 2/5.
• Steak: 1/5 - they insist on cooking it rare but their meat is too lean to cook rare. So it had the same effect as overcooked meat: way too tough and rubbery. My jaw had a harder workout going through this meat than an OF model going through their meat on a shoot. What a waste.
• Dessert: Tiramisu and other stuff, 4/5 but at this point we were all tired and sort of turned off by the food and service (which was very slow).

I had to ask 3 times before I could get fork + knife utensils to eat the steak with. Overall: 1/5. Not sure why the internet hyped it up. This place is the closest in making me hate food.

Part 2: Getting Married / Villa Cini

April 18: The Welcome Dinner

After mysteriously stabbing my finger on a luggage while checking out of our hotel in Florence, we drove to pick up Serena's pregnant friend.

Then, with much restraint, I drove to Villa Cini, the Villa we'll get married at.

Serena went to do her makeup and once everything's settled in, guests started arriving. After I welcomed them to their rooms, it was almost time for the welcome dinner.

We were deciding between indoor and outdoors as there's 20% chance of rain. But it was so nice outside that we risked it and it ended up not raining. And there was even 20 minutes of golden hour photos to be taken.

For the welcome dinner, we had:

• Endless pizza - 5/5, they had everything from pepperoni pizza to truffle pizza to everything else. As they have a very nice mobile pizza oven, everything was baked fresh and delicious.
• Endless gelato - 5/5. Hard to complain about gelato.
• Red wine - 5/5 - actually a bit more full bodied, sweeter, and easy to go down than house wine by a lot. Not bad. People asked us if we tasted the wine before and the question itself is giving us too much credit probably. But I'm glad the wine tastes good.

At the welcome dinner, 2 of Serena's friends revealed they were pregnant (we already knew though). And my friends arrived as well!

Later, I was talking about how I had to drive slow because there's a pregnant woman in my car (referring to Sally's friend). My neighbor mistook this to mean Serena was pregnant, which I'd find out later in a pool game.

After welcome dinner, Serena's family threw a huge and elaborate surprise for her. It consisted of:

• A competition where we have a bunch of people's faces, shredded in strips. And first one to put Serena's face together wins.
• A roundtable about what each family unit on Serena's side thinks she will be when she grows up.
• A roundable about what each family unit on Serena's side likes most about Serena.
• A binder of childhood photos gifted to Serena.
• A gift of a mirror and a jewelry box. The jewelry box is then filled with 3 notes per family unit so Serena can take a look over a long time to see the love her family has for her.

After that's done, they prepared fruits in our bedroom and I went down to play pool by myself a little bit. There were also fruit flies so I put the fruit in the fridge downstairs.

As I was playing a little bit of pool by myself, I heard some talking outside and flashlight outside. Turns out my cousin's family + my brother came over and wanted to play as well. So we played for a bit.

After playing for an hour and only hitting 3 balls in, we gave up and they went up and I went upstairs to sleep.

April 19: Best Day Of My Life

I woke up at around 830AM and went downstairs to pay the baker who dropped off a bunch of croissants. Serena's friend's husband cooked me instant noodles. Toasted the croissants at 100C and ate those toasty croissants.

After breakfast, I went for a swim at the pool. It was somewhat of a mistake because while the weather is 50F and my thinking was that "it won't be that cold when I get out of the water," I neglected to think about just how fucking cold 50F water is, with its immense thermal conductivity. I dove in and almost went numb immediately. I thought that I could generate internal heat to offset the cold, but even after 5 minutes of intense swimming when my heart was sprinting, my skin feels like it was being burned by the cold. I showered after that and we did a photoshoot at 12:45PM with "the boys." They consisted of my cousin, brother, and friend. After the photoshoot, we played some pool until 1:30PM and then did a "first look" photoshoot at 2PM.

After the photoshoot, we got ready for the ceremony.

We did some beautiful ass vows. And we got married. We did a sand ceremony thing where we intertwined ourselves by pouring different colored sands into a bottle. The ceremony was perfect because it was close, intimate group of people. And the weather was perfect, and the flowers were nice and pastel and fresh and perfect. It was raining all week and this was the only day where it was nice and had a good amount of sun, without being too hot.

After the ceremony and photos, it was around 4PM and we did aperitifs. I had:

• Parma Ham: 5/5 - it is as good as any parma ham.
• Fried goods - 5/5 - it is fresh fried and hot.
• Quail egg on toast with truffles - 5/5 because you can read, right?
• Wines - 5/5 - same wine as yesterday.

Right after apertifs, we did an entrance at 6PM to do the reception dinner so that the risotto can come out perfeclty at 6:15PM. I did an improvised toast that was apparently touching because it made Serena cry. And then we had:

• Risotto - 5/5, actually done correctly and boldly al dente. I hate soggy risotto.
• Ravioli with stuffed pork - 5/5: moist, juicy, savory. The amount was only 2 large raviolis and the presentation was meh, but the taste was amazing.
• Florentine steak with sides. The great thing about the steak was that they keep going around with various cooks and you can get as many pieces as you want. The first round was well-done mandatory, so 4.5/5, but I was able to eat a round of "very rare" which is wayyyy better than Il Latini, as it was thinly sliced and smooth--but I was unable to enjoy more round as we were called into doing a Golden Hour photoshoot.
• Dessert was the wedding cake which was very nice and moist. Sweet, but not too sweet.

After dinner, at around 8:30PM, we went to practice our first dance in our room for 2 reps. Then, we went back out and Serena did her bouquet throwing, where Serena's sister Lorraine forced it into one of her friends after catching it. By this time, we did our first dance at 9:10PM after waiting for Serena's mom to change her dress, and we executed it PERFECTLY.

This is a miracle because I forget some parts a lot of times, but the warmups help my neural networks to execute the dance moves perfectly.

We literally danced and danced, until more and more people left, as they do.

But unlike most wedding dances where it lasts for maybe 30-90 mins, many stayed until 11:30PM/12AM. One of the main things that helped was the weather. It was more chilly so it enabled people to dance more as their generated heat offsets the cold. Whereas a summer wedding, you'd usually see folks almost pass out after 20 minutes of intense dancing. It was kind of interesting because as Serena's sister and cousin danced, you can see that they got progressively more drunk and would hug and mutter "I love you"s to you. It was strange but flattering.

I got super drunk and bumped into one of Serena's friends and got red wine all over my suit. While the suit is expensive, it kind of doesn't matter because I realize my suit is never really going to be worn again (I work remote, and even if I don't, I'm in tech so the only time I wear suits is at people's wedding and I have other, higher quality, suits already).

Later on, one of Serena's friends picked the Gulu Gulu theme (Hong Kong cartoon from way long ago)--it is one of my favorite childhood cartoons so I danced the shit out of it.

I guess I'm a good dancer because I got compliments about how I'm the best dancer from:

• Our wedding planner's assistant
• My friends
• The DJ
• Most everyone else

More and more left until Serena's last high school friends wanted to leave. Then a blackpink song came on and I pulled one of Serena's high school friends to do one more dance with me. I asked:

Are your friends waiting for you?

And showed me her car keys and said

They can't leave without me

To which I laughed immensely and kept dancing.

At the end, the sole survivors were just Serena and I dancing like we're on ecstasy from 12AM to 12:40AM on the dance floor with the DJ blasting music. This ecstasy of dancing with my wife, with a private DJ, lights shining on us, is one of the highlights of my life.

Overall, I'm very happy and one of my friends told me it's the best wedding she ever went to. And it seems like everyone had a great time without any drama. The food was good and booze was abundant.

This is the best day of my life and I hope I don't forget a single moment of it. Though it'll be hard as I've had a lot to drink.

April 20: Cooking Class

On this day, we had breakfast at the villa. A few chefs came and basically laid out a huge spread of gabagool, coffee, milk, juices, cheeses, smooth scrambled eggs, croissants, and more for us. They also made eggs/omelettes to order. So basically private chefs for breakfast. Really good. Obvious 5/5 because private chefs for breakfast. We ate until around 12:30PM. This is good because we woke up late as I finished journaling last night's entry at 3AM.

After breakfast, we just chilled and did a cooking class from 3PM to 5PM. I thought the cooking class was a "mid" 2/5 because the instructions were mostly in Italian and weren't very clear. The chef would have us make dough but didn't really explain how to incorporate the egg with flour, so the egg spilled everywhere. They kept telling us to roll and flatten out the dough, but with no real standardized way to do it, no pasta maker provided like in other cooking classes, so everyone made varying thickness of pasta (and their QC was not good enough to detect major differences, because it's unlikely the chefs use rolling pins manually to roll out pasta). Each table is taught a completely different technique.

But while Serena and I thought it was mid, other guests seemed to like it and thought it was fun.

Anyway, we eat our own cooking at around 6:30PM and it was terrible--the raviolis we made had dough that was way too thick and so it was quite gross.

The great thing about Serena is her foresight--she already calculated the possibility that we would hate the food we made and so she ordered a light dinner buffet anyways as backup. As a result, we were all able to eat until we were stuffed still.

After dinner, we took rounds saying our "byes" to guests. And both of our throats started to hurt.

Part 3: Mini-Family Trip

We headed out to the Cinque Terre area together with Serena's family as one big group (16) people!

April 21: Sick

Woke up feeling extremely tired with a pounding headache. We then got picked up by Serena's uncle who drove me to the next hotel we will stay at. Serena went with her aunts on a minibus, and there was another minibus to store everyone's (16 people's) luggage.

After around 90 minutes, we took a break at a cafe. We resumed our mini-road trip and another 90 minutes later arrived to Capitolo Riviera.

The place is pretty great. It's literally brand new, as one of Serena's aunt/uncle apparently can stay at new hotels, which is a pretty demanding requirement. This is a 5-star hotel with turndown service. 5/5. The food is excellent as well. I didn't have an appetite at the cafe due to cold chills but the food here was so good that it gave me an appetite again.

Anyways, it's good that the hotel had early check-in for all of us because we just slept right after lunch, and mostly didn't wake up other than to shower, take medicine, and eat some protein bars.

April 22: Strep Throat?

Serena's aunt gave us some medicine the night before and it seemed to work well. Fever and headache completely gone. But my throat felt worse and it burns when I swallow food.

Anyways, being almost all better we went around Cinque Terre and did a cool cliff hike after a boat ride. After the hike was done, we went to town to eat a little bit. Then, we did a quick, 15 minute hike to look at some cliffs and sea, and then took a train ride to a fancy restaurant. We had:

• Scallops - 5/5, cooked perfectly with a nice, delicate and cheesy sauce.
• Small squid pasta - 5/5 - nicely al dente and the small squid was juicy.
• Catch of the day - 4/5 mostly because of price, but the potatos + soft fish was done fairly decently. Not too exciting though.
• Stockfish stew - 4/5 - fish + potatoes in stew style = good.
• Fish ravioli - 5/5 - they had a little sweet sauce on the ravioli which made the savory contrast really interesting.
• Apple tart - 5/5 - really excellent texture juxtapose between the soft apple tart cream and sponge-like cake, and the harder bottom kind of like a slightly softer Graham cracker.

After dinner, we headed back to the hotel and I did a bunch of resesarch on symptoms of:

• Sudden fever
• Sore throat with rashes
• No cough
• No runny nose

Strep? Will take a 'wait and see' approach to see if throat gets even more painful, if so will need to go through the annoying process of trying to get antibiotics prescription from Italian telehealth.

Part 4: Honeymoon

When I think of honeymoon, I think of long vacations that are extra-special because you just got married. But for me it is hard to create that classification because Serena and I have been fortunate enough already to do month-long trips already in the past and we've already experienced many, very extra-special experiences. Though we of course try to enjoy the best of our vacation regardless.

April 23: "Get on the boat" / Portofino 1

We checked out of Capitolo Riviera in the morning after having one final breakfast with Serena's family. We took off at around 12:15PM and arrived at Villa Gelsomino Exclusive House 1PM.

Luckily, we get early check-in!

This isn't a 5-start hotel but the room is quite cute, with an intricately painted ceiling I stared at for a while because it looked interesting. It had various fruits on the 4 different sides of the ceiling, and the center of the ceiling is painted as a sunroof, with vines growing on the sunroof window frame.

The view is incredible, looking out into the village of Santa Margherita Ligure, and the nearby docks/Ligurian Sea.

Ever since we landed, most days has been cloudy. Except this one. The next day was supposed to be a bit cloudy as well, so Serena had the idea to book a private boat tour. This was at about 2:30PM. We scrambled looking for one, and Serena finally found one. By 3:30PM we were on the docks, meeting with the skipper. By 3:45PM we set off to sea.

He showed us everything from:

• A villa that Moussolini used to own, and now is owned by Louis Vuitton.
• A villa that Dolce Gabanna sold to Bill Gates, that he wants to turn into an expensive hotel.
• Various WW2 bunkers.
• More Louis Vuitton Villas.
• Superyachts owned by the Pirelli family (they make tires).
• A speed yacht owned by the guys that made Haribo.
• Various villas owned by people connected with the government. The iconic Louis Vuitton Villa is right next to the villa owned by the riches family in Italy as you enter Portofino by boat. Other words, these neighbors are: the richest family in Italy and the richest family in the world.
• A big villa under construction (right next to Bill Gate's) that's owned by a Russian oligarch. But has since been confiscated until the war ends.
• An iconic D&G castle, where the other Khardasian got married and apparently they also sponsored her dress.
• Stopped by Portofino. This is a small town with overpriced food but mostly is convenient for luxury shopping because Loro, Louis Vuitton, and all other LVMH brands. For me, the best part is getting on a private boat without having to wait in a long line for a public ferry while all others watched in envy. After all, why do things if not for the envy of others?
• Stopped by another place that can't really be gotten to be car, only via walking from Portofino for about an hour and a half, or another nearby town for about 4 hours. It has a big mausoleum and a watch tower, as well as a monastery now-repurposed as restaurants/tourist services.

All in all, it was a really cool and wonderful experience and we headed back.

On the way back, the skipper took a 90-degree turn and just said "Dolphins!" And there were a bunch of dolphins swimming. We caught a few glimpses of a bunch of dolphins swimming around before we headed back.

After we dropped off our stuff at Villa Gelsomino, we headed out to eat. We ordered 5 pastas:

1. Appetizer is codfish with pea cream. 5/5 because the codfish is really soft and fluffy, like a potato. It's almost like they bashed it many times until it became very easy to bite into and fluffy, and reshaped it back into cod-shape.
2. Trofie with half cooked, half raw asparagus. 5/5. My mouth is filled with blisters, so this was one of the few things that can go down smoothly. We ordered this twice.
3. Red prawn spaghetti with tomato. 5/5. Prawn is carpaccio style.
4. Frutti di mare pasta - 3/5 - I don't remember much about this one.
5. Orechietta with guanciale - 5/5. Though it burned my tongue heavily because of the intense salt in the guanciale is literally like salt in my wounds (of which my entire mouth was).

All in all, 5/5 everything tasted really good and I'm sure even the pasta I don't remember tasted great. They put a lot of thought into the execution of every dish which is delightful.

We also went through 3.5 bottles of water because every bite hurt my mouth.

The damage for the 6 plates plus 3.5 bottles of water was about 120 euros.

My hands also started getting painful blisters, so the diagnosis is changed from steph to Hand-Foot-And-Mouth disease. This is much more manageable as it is simply viral and will go away in a week without complications.

But painful.

April 24: Portofino 2

With great pain in my mouth, we ate breakfast at the villa. After, we set sail at around 12:15PM to Portofino.

We walked around a bit and then ate a fancy lunch at around 95 euro per person (3 course). Actually not too bad because the individual items I describe below would have cost much more per person:

1. Amuse Bouche - A small bread bite with avocado on the bottom and shrimp on the top. But these are hard to go wrong, so 5/5.
2. First course: Tuna spaghetti. Tuna made into strands and then twirled together, like a forkful of spaghetti. Dressed generously with a seafood-tasting cream. 5/5, very unique and delicious.
3. Second course: Stuffed very large rigatoni with tomato sauce. They give us giant cotton bibs so we won't splash ourselves with the tomato sauce. This is very thoughtful and nothing I've ever seen before. Tomato is acidic and burned my mouth a lot but well worth it. 5/5
4. Third course: Tiramisu. Nice and creamy. Sweet, but not too sweet. 5/5.

On the sides were various breads. I really liked the poppy-seed heavy bread even though it sliced my mouth (bread is hard). And their focaccia is the best I've ever had. This region invented focaccia and it shows.

Whole experience = 5/5.

We then went shopping. I stopped by Loro but didn't buy anything. While their jackets are cool they are not as functional for me:

• Their windmate bomber is reversable and waterproof and cashmere, which is cool. Except there's no hood so you still get soaked from your head if it rains.
• Their traveler has many pockets and seems to be made for traveling. This sounds cool and functional but there are no zip pockets, so securing items is not so secure after all. Also, while there is a hood, it is a bit flimsy and small, and not very practical for rain.

I don't mind getting a traveler-like jacket if they made it with better pockets and a sturdier hood with perhaps and extended hood, so water won't splash your eyes when it rains.

We did get some water from them though.

Next, we hit up BV and Serena got something. We also got water from them and they had really nice service. They locked the door so other customers couldn't get in while we were shopping, making it a very private shopping experience.

Or they locked us in so we couldn't leave without paying.

What is surprising to me is Portofino is a very wealthy city and there were many people walking around, but not many walked into luxury stores to buy stuff.

Another thing is that the night before, they did a celebration where they burned a bunch of trees to celebrate the saint that protects Portofino island (our tour guide pointed this out yesterday in the private boat tour as we were going ashore Portofino). So on this day, the huge mountain of trees we saw yesterday is now a bunch of hot, fuming ashes.

After some more walking around, we took the ferry home at 5PM.

5:30PM we ate at a pretty nicely priced restaurant. Pastas were in the teens which is very reasonable. We had:

• A big seafood soup, which was good (3.5/5) but hurt my mouth due to bones scraping against my blistered tongue.
• Spaghetti vongole - 5/5 - very generous with the clams and unlike the tart pomodoro sauce in the other spaghetti, this one didn't burn my mouth.
• Spaghetti frutti di mare - 5/5 - hard to critique good seafood with pasta that doesn't cost an arm and a leg.

Walked around a little bit more in golden hour lighting and went back up to the villa and rested.

April 25: Wow. Sanremo 1

Had breakfast at the villa. Enjoyed the beautiful view one last morning and set off at 11AM to a new town!

Drove around 2 hours and 40 minutes to Sanremo to beautiful Royal Sanremo. A true 5-star hotel. When I drove up the front door, 2 doorman opened both Serena and my door simultaneous, as if to pull us out of a car like kidnappings you see in the movie.

But instead, they helped take our luggages and park my car.

The downstairs of the hotel is beautiful. Wood floors with marbel columns, old money vibes. A bunch of luxury beachwear and luxury watches on display (only 1 small datejust rolex though). We had early check-in since + free upgrade since we booked with Amex plat. We dropped off our stuff in our immense hotel room with TWO FULL bathrooms (this is a first). I had a nepresso while waiting for luggage to come.

When they brought the luggage, they actually place the luggage on the luggage holders for us. This is pretty rare, even for 5-star hotels. Once that's done, we went down to the pool area of the hotel, which overlooks the Ligurian Sea. We just beach-bummed there and had a 33-euro burger with fries (4.5/5--fries were crisped really well and the burger was really nicely seasoned, the beef is locally sourced). Kind of small for the price, but we get a $100 credit from Amex Plat so that's generally how it works (food is overpriced but you still get a lot of it for free, so it takes a lot of the sting out of buying food in the hotel).

In our case, we weren't locked into hotel food as there were many affordable restaurants nearby despite the Monaco vibes.

I swam in their pool twice in the course of our 4-hour beach-bumming session. It was quite nice because it cools you off and there's a little nook where there is a large water column with moderate pressure that helps massage your back and any other joints you want to align to the column.

Even their public shower area has a separate makeup room...with a chair and a BLOWDRYER.

All in all it is a really awesome beach resort experience unlike any other. They made showering and drying off really convenient.

Their beach chairs also come with a little solid/adjustable umbrella so if you want to take a nap you won't get sunburned.

The whole thing is just so well thought out that while I don't rate resort beach experiences, it is a 6/5.

The weather was also killer with the beaming sun that made the ocean gleam and the waterfront look lively.

After beach bumming we decided to checkout their free spa before dinner. They have infinite juice/water to drink. There's a big jacuzzi pool where each section has their own different set of jets. There's also an 'emotional' shower where they randomly spray scents and spray you with different temperature water.

Emotional damage.

We also did the steam room which is quite nice. The sauna is only at 60C which is quite cool for a sauna and not very intense at all and was kind of boring.

After a quick shower and change of clothes, we did dinner at 7PM with a deadline to GTFO by 8:30PM. We had:

• A "small" seafood platter even though there were like a couple dozen pieces of seafood. From various types of clams to 2 small scarlett shrimps to 2 regular juicy shrimps. And 4 oysters. 5/5 - really insanely great deal for the value to be honest. I was shocked when they brought it out and was like "wtf this is piccolo? My Italian's not that bad."
• 2 seafood risottos - 4.5/5 - again, extremely generous and tasty. Further enhanced by the fact that my tongue does not hurt as much as the day before. Risotto could be more al dente but overall really good.
• Spaghetti alla carbonara - 5/5 - guanciale is yummy and chopped up into little pieces. The carbonara is extremely generous and is probably 2.5X the portion of a regular plate at any other traditional Trattoria's primi patti.

They also gave us free prosecco and a bunch of bread / bruschetta like snack for free. So 5/5, easy.

We went back to the hotel and I type this up now in the hotel lobby as we listen to live music where they play various songs, from Michael Jackson to "Get Lucky" by Daft Punk.

I went back up to the room to type this: there's also evening turndown service. Very good.

There's no air conditioning though as the hotel is on a central system and the season is currently seat to 'central heat' not 'central AC'.

Hand foot mouth condition update: hand blisters aren't as painful anymore. My tongue still hurts when eating food but only for the first 5 minutes and for hard foods and chocolate. For other foods, they don't seem to sting as much as yesterday where almost everything was like eating glass.

April 26: Small towns are so good. Sanremo 2.

Woke up at around 9A and ate breakfast downstairs. It was really good. It's buffet style but what stands out are the freshly squeezed juice you can make yourself--they have an industrial sized juicer where you can put carrots, celery, or chopped apples into it.

Their scrambled eggs are also very creamy.

I ate plenty of food and desserts.

After breakfast, we went to beach bum again from around 11AM to 4PM. At 1PM, I took a gym break for about 40 minutes and went back to the pool area. We hopped into the water and swam until around 3:45PM. With wet swimware, we laid them out on the sun-tanning chairs to dry. We went back inside to order some burgers and club sandwich. It was expensive, but was very full after working on finishing it for about an hour. At around 5PM, we went to get gelato nearby.

It was false advertising though as though their signs showed flavors like gelato and rum, they didn't really have anything available outside of what is displayed in the gelato buckets you only see at the front of the line.

After our gelato trip, we checked on our swimwear and it was semi-wet. Doesn't matter though as we rotated into the spa area again, just like last night. This time the service was more extensive--they gave us a leather bucket with towels in it so we can set up an area to relax. We chilled until around 6:30PM and went back upstairs to get ready for dinner.

At 7PM we hit up a place called Flippers. They specialize in seafood like every other big restaurant at the seafront.

We had:

• A platter of mini (very mini) scarlett prawns. 3/5. A bit expensive, which is fine as this is an expensive ingredient (in San Sebastian it is like 45 euros for one giant scarlett prawn and Ramiro's in Lisbon is like 16 euros per prawn which is big sized but not giant sized). Still the best part about scarlet prawns are their head juice of which these are too small to have any.
• Spaghetti Langoustine (mini lobsters) with artichokes. The sauce is pretty interesting and the meat is pretty soft and sweet on the lobsters. 4/5. Some artichoke skin is too tough to chew.
• Fettucine vongole e fish roe. This is perfect and the vongole's better than yesterday's even. Generous, yet the clams are much bigger so it is much meatier. Instead of 4 tiny clams where you need to work to get morsels of meat out of, these clams are huge and meaty and juicy. The sauce is also very seafoody and iron-y which tasted amazing. 5/5.
• For dessert we had pistaccio tiramisu. They presented the dessert with a big platter instead of from a menu. The pistaccio flavor felt a bit artificial but the tiramisu itself was excellent as far as texture and balance goes. 2.5/5.

Overall, the restaurant's 5/5 as they also gave free prosecco, free very fluffy bread, and a bruschetta-like snack. They also gave us a bib to eat the pasta so technicallly, 6/5. The restaurant felt very hot though so I hope I am not sick.

After dinner, we briefly walked around town and apparently there's a shopping street here and a huge casino. So we might check it out tomorrow.

We went back to the hotel and walked around a little bit, admiring the light fixtures which are all made with colorful, blown glass. There was live music for about 2 seconds but they went to take a break as soon as we went in, so we went back to our room to chill.

At our room, I realized why I am very warm: it's because I'm sunburnt to fuck. My back and shoulders is red. I had put on sunscreen in the morning, but as I wore a polo already I did not apply sunscreen to my shoulders and back. As such, when I went into the water for about an hour and change, I got roasted.

Hands food mouth condition: Same as yesterday, except fingertips are calloused so it is a bit awkward to play with my phone.

April 27: Just Chill. Sanremo 3.

Woke up. Did breakfast, similar to yesterday.

After breakfast, we went out to the town to walk around (finally). Did a bunch of window shopping. The only thing we bought was at an Asian market (run by the only other Chinese person in this town), and it was 2 instant noodles so we can go back to the hotel and eat lunch.

The hotel didn't have forks, so we just used 2 coffee stirrers as makeshift chopsticks.

After lunch, we went back to the pool area for our usual beach bumming. We didn't go into the water today. Instead, we just took a bunch of pictures and napped. I also watched some Starcraft: Brood War tournament videos.

We then rotated into the spa, per usual. And we hung there until around 6:45PM.

Went back up to the room for a quick shower and headed out to dinner at Quintessenza Restaurant. Dinner was pretty good, we had:

• Seafood platter appetizer. It was quite good as there were various tartares--swordfish, tuna, salmon. And each small pile of tartare had different fruits underneath: blueberries, avocado, berries, respectively. There was also an oyster, some clams, one big prawn and one small scarlet prawn. There was also tuna slices in a cup. Served in some citrus-y sauce and soy sauce. Everything was good but the clam was a bit warm and sus--3.5/5.
• Tomato clam chowder. Unlike normal chowder, this is in a tomato base sauce. And they gave a bib to prevent splash. It was served in a mountain of mussels and clams, as well as toasted bread to soak in the broth. Very filling. 5/5.
• Langoustine Gnocchi. Nice and creamy with soft and pillowy gnocchi. Bits of langoustine adds a little bit of sweetness and variety in texture. 5/5.
• Rabbit Ravioli. The rabbit is similar to grounded turkey as it is more of a lean meat. Balanced out with a nice and creamy sauce and a heavy ravioli stuffed with cheese. 4.5/5.
• Octopus ink pasta with sea urching. It tasted mostly like a squid ink pasta that's seasoned quite well but I didn't detect any sea urchin. 2.5/5.

While they gave free bread and bruschetta, there was no free prosecco. So minus points there. But service was really good, so maybe it's a wash. I would say, overall: 4/5.

April 28: Happy Birthday to My Wife! Piedmont 1.

We woke up early at around 7:30AM, and had a light breakfast as there's a 2 hour and 30 minute trek we gotta take soon.

After a good amount of pooping and packing, with heavy hearts we say goodbye to this wonderful 5-star hotel. They brought out our car quickly and helped us load our luggage.

We sat off and drove to Casa Di Langa and arrived at around 12:40PM. On the way there, there were many 50km/h zones that didn't make sense...until I saw a motorcycle crash in front of us, then it made a lot of sense.

Many locals here love zipping around windy mountain roads dangerously on motorbikes, and doing illegal overtakes. Thus, if the Italian doesn't care about physical harm, they might care about financial harm. That's why they put very low speed limits and speed cameras everywhere.

Anyways, we arrived safely.

We were greeted with hot tea, they unloaded our luggage for us and brought it up to our room.

They also parked the car for us, as they do in 5-star hotels.

Apparently, since we booked this with Amex, we get:

• Late checkout
• Free room upgrade
• Early check-in
• $100 credit for food & beverage
• Free spa for 50 minutes (didn't know this)

So we booked the complimentary spa sessino for 4PM and took a bunch of pictures around the property. The property is very nice, overlooking huge a bunch of hills, and beautiful wineries. Their restaurant has their own greenhouse, and the property is 40+ acres large. They also have various art installations around the property so it is a nice touch.

Our room is amazing because they upgraded us and so we have probably the best view of the property. We overlook the same hills as the main area of the hotel with our balcony.

There is a heated stone in the bathroom so in case you're tired and like a warm butt, you can sit on the stone.

They have Le Labo (fancy brand) for the lotions and soaps, which is cool. Smells luxurious. And, they gave us a bottle of free booze. Ouedis Brut (Enrico Serafino) 2020. About a 25 euro bottle so it isn't the cheapest. The person that showed us the room said that if we wanted to swap out the brut with a iced sparkling wine, we can just call the front desk and they can swap it out for us.

Also, when showing us the property, they said the pool is closed but can open it for us if we want (though it isn't heated). I touched the water and, nah, we won't be swimming in it.

As I am typing this, there's Chromecast on the TV so I am simultaneously casting Brood War.

After much drinking, we headed out to dinner downstairs at around 7:20PM. Dinner was wonderful. It was a 5-course dinner and it was vegetarian. Normally, I'd treat this as a cardinal sin. However, it was done so well with great attention to detail that I'd have to give it a 5/5. In addition, the rate per person is only 90-euros so it is hard to complain (unlike 11 Madison which costs 4X lolol). The veggies were done very well, and it reminded me of Blue Hill at Stone Barns. I don't remember what all the ingredients are but my favorites are the fava bean + celery + herbs sorbet with a bunch of green stuff dish, and another ravioli dish where they used artichoke and foamed cheese (nice and gamey flavor like goat cheese, but because it is foam it isn't too heavy). The other stuff had many ingredients as well, and I don't remember what they are, so you'll just have to "trust me, bro" that La Faula Restaurant is a 5/5.

We also ordered a 35-euro Rose and since we didn't finish it, Serena asked the waitress to deliver the unfinished Rose to the beautiful lounge where we could finish drinking it. They delivered it, put it on ice, and poured it for us which is great. I watched the faux fireplace (orange light shining on steam so it looks like flames) as I drank.

Once the drinks were finished, we admired the night view at both the premises and the balcony.

All in all, a wonderful property and a wonderful birthday for my wife.

April 29: Private Spa Underneath a 300-Year Old Castle. Piedmont 2.

We woke up and had breakfast buffet. Ate for a couple hours, and it was nice because it's the first time that waiters asked if I wanted a refill for capuccino, twice, totaling 3 cups of cappucino.

After breakfast, we walked around the property a bit which was overwhelmingly green. The way the sun hits the surrounding hills and winery, it's just something that a camera is unable to capture (trust me, I tried many angles, zooms, exposures, etc. but nothing can capture the full vibe).

Went back to the room and just chilled until around 2PM. Then we checked out and made our way to Castello Di Guarene. This place is literally a castle. And was built in ~1700, which makes this place about 300 years old. It's gone through history from being a Unesco site to a castle where a family lived with a priest on site, only to be converted for tourism in 2011.

Old school vibe with glass blown chandeliers, and as the castle sits on a hill, overlooks surrounding hills where you can see rows of vineyards and town life from the room's balcony. At the top of the castle is a beautifully landscaped garden, and has 360-degree views of the all the surrounding hills. Utterly amazing, especially when the weather is good.

All in all, walking around the castle is literally skyrim.

Underneath the castle is an underground escape tunnel, which is repurposed to lead guests into 2 spa areas:

1. A spa area with a heated pool, salt bath, foot massage, and free snacks.
2. Another area with a sauna, jacuzzi, cold room, turkish steam bath, and an emotional shower.

We spent almost 4 hours by ourselves across both spa areas as the castle seems to be mostly vacant. The privacy made it one of the most luxurious spa experiences we've had.

• The jacuzzi is nice because it's body temperature, which acts as a great buffer/reset of body temp if you get too cold or too hot.
• Once we did the jacuzzi, we did the sauna. I laid down for about 15 minutes and got very hot.
• So I hopped into the cold room where there's ice you can grab and rub yourself with to cool yourself down. It's also got stone chairs where you can sit so the cold stone can suck some of the temperature from you.
• After that, I did the emotional shower. There were 3 different modes. The first mode was fine, but because one shower uses so much water, I think they ran out of cold water. Because the 2nd and 3rd mode was scalding AF water only.
• Hopped into the jacuzzi again to reset my temperature.
• And then back to the sauna to dry myself off.
• And then to the cold room again to cool down a little bit.

Then we walked 150 meters across the tunnel to the other spa, where we went into the heated pool. The heated pool has a few sections:

• A jacuzzi session where there are 3 chairs with jets. It is very good. And blew enough air in my trunks to inflate it / make me float.
• The water shooting section where high pressure water shoots out from a hose so you can massage yourself.
• A waterfall section where water falls from some artificial rocks so the gravity-pulled water can help massage your back.

Once we did that for a while, we did the foot massage which is just 2 shallow, long pools with rocks on the bottom. The first pool was nice and warm. And the 2nd pool is cold water. I did hot->cold->cold->hot for a total of 4 pools. The blood flow on my feet definitely got going after.

At this point we've finished playing with everything and got some free food from the snack area. In the snack area was a door leading to a large balcony outside with amazing views of the city. Clock towers, intensely green hills, rustic town houses scattered across the hills.

Once we're done with the spa we got back to our giant room to get ready for dinner. We showered and went to check out the 1st floor, where they had a garden that's so big it reminds me of the Boboli Gardens. The views from the garden's great. And you only get through there by going through a huge main room where the glass-blown chandelier is at least 2 stories tall. Utterly amazing.

We found our way to the dinner room and we both did a land-based pre fixe menu.

• Amuse bouche: A nice ricotta tart that's quite gamey like goat cheese. 5/5.
• Amuse bouche: Ragu of mushrooms, which is a mushroom-based cream with a bunch of mushrooms. Very umame and the flavor was intense. The texture's nice and creamy but not too loose. 5/5.
• 1st course: Baby veal with a variety of sauces. Veal is very lean and so it relied on the sauces. The sauces tasted like canned tuna and other not-very-memorable flavors. It's a bit forced, so 3/5.
• 2nd course: Rabbit/pork/chicken ravioli, served in a wrapped napkin. It is served in this style because this is how miners used to eat these raviolis, and the napkins help them protect the food from the garbage falling from the ceiling above. Nice, intense flavors. Mid presentation but I admire the boldness. The ravioli while beautiful has a bit too thick of a dough. 4/5.
• 3rd course: Guinea fowl 2 ways: breast and thigh. Served with a coffee sauce and a ricotta/parm sauce. And some yummy cheesy veggies. Overall it is nice, as the thick cheese balances nicely with the bitter coffee sauce. And the lean breast balances out with the fatty thigh. Portion could be bigger though and the breast is meh, could have just served 2 thighs. 4/5.
• Palette cleanser: Peach sorbet with crumbles. Very peachy. 5/5.
• Dessert: Ice cream with crumbles, chocolate honeycomb, coffee jelly, and a egg-yolk based foam. Very good. 5/5.

Overall, I'd give this place a 4.2/5. Some hit or misses. But service is very slow (2 hours) for not a lot of dishes, and the portions were small, even for a tasting menu.

After dinner we walked around a bit and ran into a chatty hotel worker. He explained to us the history of the castle and asked us where we are from. He seems disgruntled with working in Europe as "you get punished trying to do more just the same as trying to do less" and want to move elsewhere. But I'd argue this isn't a EU vs. US thing--it's a life thing. Sure, in some small startups or if you start your own business in the US, it can be merit based. But most companies in the US is politics-based and the more you disrupt the status quo, the more trouble you get into, no matter how good your intentions.

And I find it funny that the current meta is:

• Americans want to move to Europe, because "life is less stressful and happier in Europe."
• Europeans want to move to America, because "works sucks in Europe and there are more opportunities in America."

The grass is always greener on the other side, and with the advent of the internet, it seems like we're never satisfied with where we are, even though opportunities to live a good life is more or less democratized across 1st-world countries.

Anyways, we went back to our room and there was evening turndown service.

And they gave us a bunch of snacks.

April 30: 30 Euro Wine Tasting. Alba.

We had breakfast at the hotel and chilled until 11AM. Since this isn't part of Amex FHR, there's no late checkout. So we checked out at 11AM but since check-in at the next place (only 20 minutes away) is at 3PM, we just spent a couple hours taking pictures and videos around the property.

In the big lawn there was someone taking drone footage and turns out he is helping do a promo for the hotel for some TV program. Naturally, we asked him to take photos for us.

After exploring the castle and walking around the property, it was about 1PM. And I went to the gym to work out. The whole setup is kind of suspicious, but they've got water, a leg extension, and a cable machine with a chair, so I was able to do chest, bis, legs, and some abs.

At this point, it was about 1:30PM and we thought we'd try our luck to see if we can have early check-in. And with this, we said goodbye to our last 5-star hotel of this trip.

Back to being a peasant.

Drove about 20 minutes (very slowly, because I never know for unmarked roads if the speed limit is 90 or 30 or 50, and I don't want a ticket) to Foresteria delle Vigne. It says 4-star hotel but there's no real amenities. The plan's just to chill for a day before driving for a couple hours back to Milan to return to the car tomorrow.

When we arrived, the restaurant was about to close (there's only 1 restaurant within walking distance) and it was great. We had:

• Pasta ragu - came out very hot, and the pomodoro sauce is a nice balance between slight tartness and sweetness. 5/5
• Asparagus ravioli - stuffed with creamy cheese which made it very yummy, and the asparagus balances it out with a nice veggie mouthfeel. 5/5
• Chicken thigh - A little dry but thigh is hard to get so dry it becomes hard to eat. The sauce that came with it is good, and the grilled veggies on the side was specatcular. The crunchiness with a slight char smell was surprisingly good with the chicken thigh. 4.5/5.
• Veal shoulder - A little dry again, like most secondis in Italy. But very easy to split with a fork. The potatos on the side were OK. 3.5/5.
• 1 moscato - nice and sweet. Not complex. 5/5.

Totaled 71 euro which wasn't bad.

Once we moved our luggage into our room, we walked around and there was a small hiking trail called "tree of thoughts" nearby. A brief trail, about 20-minutes walk (but optionally can be 60-minutes if you take the long route). The trail is named as such as there are 12 "poignant" quotes about life and wine that you encounter when you walk across the trail; the only thought we both had when we finished the trail is "time to drink."

Anyways, right across the street is a big winery and we did a wine tasting. The wine tasting costs were supposed to be:

• 1 glass of Moscato for 5 euro
• 3-wine flight for 35 euros
• 1 glass of Borolo Riserva for 10 euros

Or about 55 euros, plus the cost of 2 waters.

At the end they only charged us 30 euros because of a discount. What a steep discount!

And the drinks were pretty good as well. There was:

1. An alta langa limited edition which is more on the dry/acidic side, but the acid goes away fast and doesn't linger nor intrude upon your taste buds.
2. Some borolo red that is a little bit more acidic. Grown on more softer soil on the other side of the river, closer to the Guarene region (which was where our last 5-start hotel is located).
3. Some borolo that is very acidic, which is grown on this side of the river from a specific villa.

The borolo is aged about 39 months, and the Riserva is 63 months. Reserves are generally mixed grapes so have a more balanced flavor. At only 10 euros a glass, I wanted to try it out as well. It seems like they just serve whatever Riserva they have open. And luckily since there was a wine tour before us, they had a good (120-euro bottle) opened and they poured me a glass. It was quite balanced and the smell evolves. At the beginning, it smelled very woody, like a piano or old mahogany, or very barrel-wood smell. After about 10 minutes, it smelled more like a normal wine that's more sour. But the taste remained mostly the same, which is quite balanced.

The moscato was sweet.

Wine tasting I'd say 5/5 due to extreme discount and generally good quality drinks.

Went back to the room to chill for a bit until time for dinner at 7:30PM at the same restaurant. The menu's the same. We had:

• Appetizer: Veal tartare -- the meat isn't bland unlike most tartares, but it isn't gamey either. It was the perfect balance between a meaty flavor but not overly aggressive. Complemented with some veggies that are slightly bitter like chicory, it actually tasted really good. 5/5.
• 2 red wines: one is more full-bodied, one had more tannins. Both are good. Maybe 4/5 but hard to critique wine as I just eat it with food. But paired quite well with the food.
• Ragu pasta, still 5/5.
• Ravioli, still 5/5.
• Lasagnetta (small lasagna) that is veggie. Tons of creamy cheese which stole the show. The cheese isn't just salty, it is nice and creamy and fatty and umame. 5/5.
• Gelato for dessert - tasted like a creamier version of McDonald's sundae with caramel sauce on the bottom. The caramel is nice because it's sweet but not too sweet and actually carried a little bit of bitterness which counteracted the sweet vanilla gelato a bit. The caramel texture is also not sticky, and instead was a lot more viscious than what you'd find in a very reduced caramel sauce. This is nice because I hate sticky caramel. 5/5.
• Meringue - Had some berries to go with the meringue including lingonberries. This is nice because the tartness from the lingonberries (along with the lemon cream in the middle of the meringue) really balances out the meringue's natural sugary sweetness. 5/5.
• Paired the 2 desserts with moscato, which is again, 5/5. The moscato is sparkling wine, so before the sweetness, there's a little bit of a tingle from the sparkling.

They have a very small menu (we ate all the mains except a pure veggie one, and all pastas). This is great because small menus means the chefs have practiced the same recipes again and again and with easier logistics + many reps = very great quality flavors, which is what we got. Overall, this restaurant is a 5/5 easily.

May 1: Reunion with Serena's Parents. Milan.

We woke up eating at the same restaurant for breakfast, as it's included with the hotel and the only restaurant within walking distance.

It was very good; great croissants, breads, omelette, and I drank 5 coffees to prepare for the 2 hour drive from Piedemonte to return the car to Milan.

During the drive, we had a rest stop. These "servicio" stops on the freeway is huge; they're like the famous Vegas rest stop which I forget what it's called. Many of these feature a 2-to-3 story high Eataly, which is a huge food mall where you can buy Italian groceries or simply eat. And serviced gas stations. With 50km left in the journey, I filled up my gas. I was expecting to have to pump the gas myself as you would. But as soon as I pulled up, the attendant started filling up my gas and cleaned my window. Jesus. I've never had such a delightful gas experience.

The best I get in the US at a gas station is just the feeling that I won't get shot sometimes.

Anyway, cost about 100 euros for 50+ liters. This Renault AustralE was a good car. It has about 1000km (600 miles) of range. Which lasted the whole journey from:

• SMN Florence, to
• Villa Cini, to
• Capitolo Riviera, to
• Hotel San Remo, to
• Casa Di Langa, to
• Castello di Guarane, to
• Alba, to
• NYX Hotel Milan.

Which totals 913km, or 567 miles, before I had to fill up. And when I filled up, there was still about 100km estimate left in the tank. San Francisco to Las Vegas is 568 miles, so if you had a full tank, you'd only need to fill up once to do a round trip.

Anyway, I returned the car. And we dropped off our bags at our hotel (NYX Hotel). The service there is quite nice and the doorman was very helpful with our luggage.

Excellent hospitality, especially because my expectations for big cities is low.

We went to the Starbucks Reserve Roastery near the Duomo in Milan. There's only a few in the world and we've been to the NY one many times, so we thought we'd do the quintessential American thing which is just go visit a Starbucks in a foreign country. We got the whiskey barrel aged cold brew which tastes the same as NY, the whiskey sour cold brew which tastes like iced lemon tea, and maritozzo which is 5/5 huge and full of cream. We also got some olive bread thing which 3/5. The whiskey barrel aged cold brew is 5/5, smells woody and mahogany. The whiskey sour one 3/5.

It was very hot, so we went to Rinascente to get some AC. Serena's parents met us there as well, after they did a separate itinerary once we split up with everyone after Capitolo Riviera.

The first order of business in reuniting is shopping at a 4PM appointment at the Milan Moncler. After trying out clothes for 2 and a half hours, they got 2 jackets.

At 7PM we went to a restaurant that Serena's parent already went to the night before. It was good. We had:

• Beef tartare - 4/5, tons of olives in it which gave it a unique flavor. No egg yolk though.
• Gourmet Pizza 2.0 - 5/5 - it had a huge barrata with parma ham and 2 types of tomatoes: cherries and sun-dried.
• Meatball with cheese - 2/5. Eh.
• Carbonara - 3.5/5. It was nice and creamy but the guanciale isn't fatty enough. Generous portions though.
• Vongole - 3/5. Clams quite sandy and small. Not a lot of pasta and not that many clams. Kind of a stingy portion.
• Some salad - n/a, I didn't really eat it.
• For desserts we just picked from pictures. I believe it was some coffee panna cotta and something else that's similar. They were 3/5. Just sweet, nothing memorable.

The place was overall 3/5. Good service. OK food. But nothing insanely out of the ordinary. Went back to the hotel after escorting Serena's parents back to theirs. Turned in early since have a long bus ride the next day.

May 2: New Day, New Country. Lyon, France.

I didn't really sleep, probably because I had 5 coffees. But, we got up at around 5:45 AM and then ordered an Uber XL. We caught the Flixbus at 7:25AM and made our way from Milan->Turin->Lyon (only 2 stops). Though it is a 6 hour ride, there was a 10 minute break about 1 hour into the bus ride, and then another 30-minute break at around noon. I thought this was pretty good.

There was a bathroom in the bus, but after someone threw a roll of TP in the toilet, it became unusable as when you flushed the toilet, the greywater would just splash all over you as it'd bounce from the TP.

Anyway, we arrived to town and called another Uber but the Uber driver kept pressuring us to cancel. We only did so once the fee to cancel disappeared.

The next Uber XL is a lot better and got us to our hotel. After all this, it was around 3PM and time to check-in (we got off the bus at around 2:15). The room is very nice and spacious. One coffee table area plus a big work desk area. Big bed. Not bad at all considering we'll stay here for the next 6 days to eat and to use as a staging area in case we want to explore nearby towns.

We walked around the town a bit, and noticed there's a Westfield Mall nearby. We walked around briefly then took the train to the old town area, where we went to a market and had some French empanadas.

They were Mexican. Though it was good so probably 3.5/5.

We also had cannelli and a praline tart, as well as a bugne which was recommended by Chat GPT. The tart had really great texture, but didn't taste like much so 3/5. The cannelli is sweet but not too sweet and chewy like a mochi 4/5. Bugne...2/5, nothing special.

Then, we walked around town a bit until 7PM where we had a reservation at La Vieux Lyon. We had:

• Fois Gras, half cooked. I prefer Spanish Fois where it is cooked and fatty and oily. These are mildly cold so it is not as creamy. I'd say 3.5/5.
• Escargot. The garlic sauce is very nice. Kind of like a very herbacious pesto. I like how they shelled the escargot so you don't have to dirty your hands. 5/5.
• Andouillette, also recommended by ChatGPT: this is intestines in a sausage. They served it with a mild mustard sauce. And fries. Their fries are mostly fried from potato skins, so the texture and flavor is really unique and yummy. 5/5.
• Quenelle, which is a creamed fish. The texture is really nice, like a potato puff, except it's fish. The fish sauce was also quite good. Though while the texture's great, the flavors weren't that bold and just kind of there. I'd say...3.5/5.
• Duck breast. Some pieces were a bit overcooked (medium) and some were nice and bloody (mid-rare where you can taste the duck's gamey flavor more). The sauce is like a minty bernaise sauce. Overall it was good but the inconsistent cook gives it a 4/5.

I'd say overall the place is a 4.5/5. The service is great.

And in fact my expectations and stereotype of the French is that they are snobby and won't bother speaking Anglais. But my the French bitch-slapped my expectations because I'd have nothing but good experiences so far. Everyone's been kind and friendly. And they spoke perfect English.

And even during the 30-minute rest stop (which I didn't know)--when Serena went to the restroom, the driver came up to me with a concerned look:

Eh, 30 minute break.

To which I thanked him and of course obliged to get out of the bus because 30 minutes is a nice break to stretch my legs.

May 3: The Best Store In The World, Captain Wong. Lyon 2.

Woke up. There was a fire alarm in the hallway but it was quite faint. It just said 'fire alarm. evacuate and head downstairs.'

Thank goodness Serena called the front desk and they told us it is a false alarm. Prevented us from getting out of our beds, while we heard our neighbors scrambling downstairs, then back up into the room.

Went to Westfield mall next door and got an expensive AF coffee. It's a bullet coffee, but instead of MCT oil I think they just put coconut oil on espresso.

Then we did a fashion show at C&A but it was a bit too expensive so we passed.

Serena then introduced to me the best store in the world: Primark. They sell shirts for 3.5 euros, and decent quality too. There are a few pieces we want to go back and get a few days later. Overall very good quality.

After Primark, we went to eat lunch at a place called Chez Banoi. We had an appetizer that is kind of like a viet dumpling. It was good, about a 4/5. Then, our mains:

• A beef bun, their fish sauce is in a little glass bottle which made it impossible to dip the noodles into the fish sauce. The beef is kind of just like tritip, and not grilled. Just cooked regularly and a little bit tough but not thinly sliced. Veggies were nice though. Overall, 3/5.
• Their pho had a nice light broth reminiscent of Hanoi. But the beef is overcooked and also the same tritip. Normally it is thinly sliced beef where it's basically bloody raw in the center so when you dip it in the hot broth, it is perfectly cooked. I'd say 2.5/5.

Overall, the viet placed was OK and the service was good. 3/5. We bumped into a family that runs/inherited Harvey Nichols in Hong Kong. They were loud and obnoxious AF. One was in a full Gucci outfit. Another was in Chanel. Another in full Dior. It's like they have an unwritten rule where they have to have a single brand from top to bottom. Very ugly and loud fashion. Screams old money and not self-made.

Anyways, it took them a full 10 minutes to decide where to sit in a very small restaurant, and they had a lot of trouble ordering from the menu so had their translator help them out.

Then, we made our way to Tete D'or (Golden Head) Park. On the way, we stumbled across a seafood shop and we had a dozen oysters + a cup of hot wine. All for 28.50 euros (though I think I'm overcharged here as a dozen is 17 euros + 3.5 euros for the hot wine, so maybe the 8 euros is cover charge or some bullshit).

We made our way to the park and it was overwhelmingly green. When the wind blew across the tree canopies overhead, it sounded exactly like ocean waves. I've never heard trees make that noise before.

Then, we went to the lake and while we originally wanted to do the boat-cycling thing, we could also rent an electric boat for 35 euros for 30 minutes.

So, captain Wong set sail and circumnavigated the lake. I steered us right next to some ducks / ducklings, and some swans up close. We then saw some other ducks but it was too close for Serena's comfort, so I steered away.

The electric boat was very slow and at a few points, it could not propel forward due to headwinds, so max throttle mean stationary or even moving backwards. As there was a 30 minute limit this was worrisome.

But Captain Wong to the rescue. I learned in Fluid Mechanics that the boundary conditions for liquids is 0 velocity at the boundaries. So I rushed the boat to shore and navigated the boat back to the dock to return it, literally just on time.

When we went back to shore, there were some flamingos. So we took some pics of it from afar.

Then, a pelican appeared literally right next to us!

It started flapping its throat pouch like it's a sail being blown by wind. It tucked its wings in and patrolled back and forth as if to say "I own this place." It took some selfies with it.

Ate some overpriced ice cream in the park after because it was hot. And after the park, we headed to old town to walk around for a bit before dinner. We looked for a bunch of shops and found a dessert shop with cannelli again. I also tried a praline brioche (meh, no flavor and brioche was too hard and dense). And a chocolate madeleine. That was pretty good; not too sweet.

Then, we found a bar to sit at--only to realize there's no alcohol served there. So we ordered 2 mocktails for 20 euros and sat there from 5PM to 6:40PM, because there was a huge thunderstorm, so we just waited it out.

We made our way to Les Lyonnaise at 7PM and ate:

• Poached eggs with wine sauce and bread: This was pretty good. The wine sauce is the perfect mixture of sour and distinct wine taste. Very fragrant. Poached eggs were perfect. 4/5.
• Chicken liver with tomato sauce. The liver had no gaminess to it and was too bland. The sauce also didn't really hit me as a special pomodoro sauce. 2/5.
• Fried intestines (looks like a schnizel but doesn't suck) with Lyonnaise potatoes and wine-braised veggies on the side. The intestines had a very intestinal fragrant to it and paired well with the mustard sauce they gave. The potatoes were layered and creamy, the veggies paired very well with the creamy potatoes, and overall the dish was very good. The intestines were a bit hard to cut and a little too chewy. 4.5/5.
• Andouillette again, but with Lyonnaise potatoes and wine-braised veggies. A bit more chewy than yesterday's, but served in the same way. The chewiness gave it a good texture and isn't too chewy. Great dish. 5/5.
• Creme Brulee - nice and creamy, with a glass crust that is so fragile you can break with your tongue. Pleasure to eat and a great texture juxtapose. 5/5.
• Rum cake with cream -- basically it is a soup of rum with a cake and lots of cream on the side. The rum is very strong and bold which the cream can balance. Though overall even the people sitting next to us says the rum is too strong. I'm alcoholic though so 3.5/5.

On the way out I was putting on my weather proof jacket and normally Serena helps me position the second sleeve has my broad shoulders have a hard time reaching the hole. But the owner of the place came out to help me put my jacket on. Because I'm a baby. Overall, the food is slightly better yesterday but since the service is so good and the owner personally came out to thank us for eating there, I'd say a tie at a 4.5/5.

May 4: Slow, Chill Day. Lyon 3.

I woke up around 9A and hit the hotel gym for a few sets. After I went back and showered, we went out for lunch at an Ethiopian place. Tons of injera and food. They lit incense around that smelled really good. The place is called Gojo, and we had:

• The meat platter, which is a 5/5. It's got various veggies and chicken and the nice, spongy, slightly sour injera pairs really well with the various veggies and chicken.
• Lamb stew, which is a 5/5 and does well with the injera. If I had to eat it by itself, it'd be too salty and more of a 3.5/5.
• Ethiopian coffee which is a 5/5 - very fragrant, but kind of expensive at 3.5 euros for a small cup.

Overall, the place is 4.5/5. Good service, good food.

We wanted to go to some museum, but made a detour at the local market. It was somewhat deserted a couple days ago when we went there, but it was in full swing this Sunday afternoon. We wanted to find some place to do drinks, but it was too crowded and too expensive for a lot of places.

Then, we made our way to the natural history museum because its architecture won a bunch of awards. We have no intention of actually going through the museum because it can't possibly compare to New York's. So we spent a couple hours taking pics and videos of the outside, walked around the lobby a bit, and then went to the cafe for some drinks. There's a big water feature outside of the museum, and 2 ducks went in.

I watched them for a while. And the whole time we were there, the 2 ducks just chilled and frolicked in the water.

Afterwards, we made our way back to the hotel to see what we want for dinner.

It started raining super hard so we canceled reservations for a Lebanese place we wanted to try and instead found some food in the Westville Mall next to us instead.

We had some pad thai--one beef, one duck. The duck is decent, but the pad thai didn't have enough wok hei, so 3/5. The beef was just OK, so 2/5 for that one.

Walked around a bit more to try and wait out the huge rainstorm but it turned out that it'll just keep raining heavily for the rest of the night so we walked back to the hotel.

May 5: Speedrunning Paris + France vs. Italy Comparison. Lyon 4.

Woke up. Went to train station next door at around 7AM. Today's mission: do a day trip to Paris.

Arrived in Paris at around 9:30AM.

Sacre Coeur

First stop is the Sacre Coeur church (John Wick 4 where he does the duel). Walked up the stairs, which was a lot shorter than I thought (the metro exit leading to the church has 144 steps and has caution signs everywhere saying there's 144 steps, and that felt a lot longer).

The front of the church is a huge crowd with concrete floors, so I think the gravel and a lot of the frontage of the church is CGI'd in the actual movie.

The view's great though as it overlooks Paris. But down the front steps of the church is nice greenery with neatly landscaped, symmetric bushes.

Palais Du Royale Jardin

Went to the royale garden next. They have sick treelines that are groomed symmetric to each other. And when you walk underneath it, you have one tree to your left and one to your right the whole way through.

But what makes this landscaping amazing is the symmetric trees cover everything above you, except for a slit, so there's a single slit of skylight across the entire path.

Behind the actual garden was some modern art where there are a bunch of black/white striped poles at different heights. Like the other tourists, I climbed onto one and took photos and videos.

Louvre

Then we made our way to the Louvre and took some photos outside. A lot smaller than I thought. It was OK and kind of underwhelming.

The crowd was overwhelming though.

I liked the garden that is adjacent to the louvre though. The landscaped bushes looks like a bunch of madelines of different heights.

Rue de l'Université

On the way to the eiffel towel, we had lunch at the Rue de l'Université region which is an expensive AF (NY prices) region. We went to a place called the Petit Tonneau (small barrel):

• Pig Ear Crisp: Basically it is like an Andouillette except the inside is fatty pig ears instead of intestines. And the outside is nicely fried and crispy. Presented in a rectangular shape instead of a sausage shape. Very good. Served with mayo and some pickled veggies. 5/5. The crispiness is like a french fry, and the soft, fatty filling is immensely delicious.
• White asparagus, similar to the one we had in Madrid. Served with a very cheesy cream. It was good but too fibrous, compared to the ones we had in Spain. The Spain ones were a lot more soft and fluffy. 3.5/5.
• Dish of the day, which is a chicken breast served with butternut squash puree. The puree was good but the chicken was overcooked. 3/5.
• Veal with vegetables and pilaf rice. The veal is nice and fork tender, served with a yummy cream that goes quite well with the rice. 4/5.

All this is quite expensive and came in at 108 euros, because one water cost 8 euros there. I'd say the food was hit or miss and it was far too expensive at NY prices. Thus it is not really special and I give it 3.5/5.

Bakeries

After lunch, we continued our way to the eiffel tower and stopped by a few bakeries. We hit up the usual cannellis again and that was good.

I tried to venture out and eat French baguette, with a tuna+mayo version. They wouldn't heat it up and the bread is hard and chewy. It is I would say, a bit below average and 1.5/5. My lowest score on this trip yet.

Then we had some pan au chocolat which was really good. 5/5 good. And macarons which we did coconut, pistachio, and lemon. All 5/5. And only 1.5 euro also!

Eiffel

We took some quick photos of the eiffel tower and then started walking towards the shopping district. As we walked towards it, there were some bridges and angles that let us take various angles of the eiffel, so I just kept taking as many photos and videos as I can where appropriate.

Champs-Élysées

We arrived to the shopping district and walked around for a bit. We made a quick stop at the Arc De Triumph but a lot of it was blocked off due to an event, so I only took far-away photos.

I then lost my sunglasses (presumably fell out of my shirt as it often does). But it's only $9 so I can always buy it again. It lasted 10 months with me which is already pretty good.

We looked at a bunch of stores and did a bunch of window shopping. However, the merchandising isn't as attractive as Italian shopping. The brands are a bit more ghetto, and how everything's displayed is a bit less luxurious.

Also there's a shit ton of people unlike at Portofino, which made thing whole thing feel like shopping at the Marrekesh markets as opposed to high fashion street.

If Spanish Steps is a 5/5, this is closer to a 3.5/5.

Pretty, for sure, but I'm not going to wait in line for an hour to go into an LV store when I can go into a similar looking one in NY 2 streets over from my apartment, at any time.

Overall, it's OK but somewhat impractical to shop there so as an actual place to shop it isn't good. But as someone just perusing, it serves it purpose.

Took a train to somewhere else to take a look at department stores.

Printemp (Spring) Department Store + Lafeyette.

This just opened up in NY and you gotta wait hours to get in. But for this one in Paris, you can just go in. It's a big department store with connected sections, like Takashimaya in Tokyo, where one tower is only for male fashion, and the other for female. Walked around, but nothing really popped and nothing special--it was just average. You can pee for free though, so we did that.

Walked to another department store nearby, named Lafeyette. In the center is an intricate dome ceiling with balconies sticking out all around (each balcony is a small shop), and when you look at it from below, it's like an intricate movie theatre where the balconies house seats.

Lafeyette's also got a rooftop and you can overlook Paris, along with a clear view of the Eiffel tower. It was crowded AF so I made a joke about expectations vs. reality. And then after an awkwardly long time (20-30 seconds), some guy loudly said to me:

But isn't expectations and reality the same?

I have no idea what this fucking means so I just smile, nodded, and GTFO'd.

The actual department store had many stores, but again, it was OK and I didn't really see anything that blew my mind.

Dinner

At this point, it was about 5:30PM. Our train back is 7:20PM. So we went to dinner at Lou Cantou.

• We both had onion soup for appetizer. Very good. Very cheesy. And the cheese is quite melted so eating it is very stringy. The soup's also quite yummy. I had a bread that was too hard though. And there's not a lot of caramelized onions. I'd say 3/5.
• Duck confit with roasted nude potatoes. The duck, while confit, is a little bit dry. The potatos were very good though. No sauce. I'd say this was 3.75/5.
• 7-hour slow cooked lamb with some wine sauce and Lyonnaise potatoes. The potatoes were presented in a mille fleur style and complemented the savory lamb very well. Lamb was fork tender. 5/5.

Overall, the service was fast and the meal quite satisfactory. And the whole thing was only 56 euros, which makes this a 4/5 IMO.

Dessert

Before we went on the train, we went to a nearest bakery and got 3 mini cannelli, 1 big cannelli, 1 normal financier, 1 chocolate financier, and 1 mystery financier (just a rectangular tart thing but with sweet cream on top). We had it in the train.

Train Ride Back + THIEVES

It was hard to eat the dessert on the train ride back because the guy in front of me had very offensive BO. I find offensive BO equivalent to assault and it would be nice to be able to stand my ground. Unfortunately, I just used various techniques to taste the pastry without also smelling the BO. This included putting the back of my hand to my nose, putting my shirt over my nose as I was eating, and eating with my mouth and noise inside the bakery's to-go bag.

The AC was turned on and maybe after an hour the guy's body odor went down to 10% of what it was.

With the train ride over, as we were waiting to get out of the train, a lady had her luggage moved (or stolen). This train is a single stop so it's hard to imagine it was stolen. But Serena tells me that people here will just move your shit somewhere random so they can put their luggage in the rack instead of yours. So that's probably what happened, or it was hidden so it could be stolen later.

Back Home And Thoughts

Back home, I'm writing this and I hear some woman next door have sex extremely loudly. For like 15 seconds straight.

Overall, I think Paris is basically New York but with a different skin. The metro is a bit cleaner, but Lyon's is a bit more advanced (takes Apple Pay instead of having to install an app where you fund a transit card). Metro also similar to New York as buskers would come and do some act and then ask everyone for money. But people in New York actually donate whereas the performer got nothing here.

Overall, I like Lyon a bit better as it is newer, cleaner (they have trash cans at every street corner) and quieter. But it is harder to find restaurants that are open at 5:30PM in Lyon though unlike Paris.

So far my impressions of France vs. Italy is that while food-service people are quite nice in France, the people in general are a lot more inconsiderate and rude than Italy. I get bumped a lot more in France than I do in Italy just walking down the street for example. The food is fancier in France, and Paris prices for food is New York prices basically. Both France + Italy tend to overcook their meats. In France, every service person says "bonjour" and people in the streets are much more in your face. In Italy, it really seems like New York in the sense that everyone defaults to minding their own business.

How many steps?!

I walked 29,138 steps on this day.

May 6. Bon Appetit. Lyon 5.

Woke up, went to gym.

I just did side laterals and pulldowns to maintain.

Then went out to McD's to get a large cappuccino. It was expensive at 3.5 euros. But in exchange, we got the passcode to the restroom: 2401.

This is a good thing because the Westville mall here forces you to pay 1 euro to use their restroom. Not only that, you can't just pay 1 euro, you need to buy a ticket with the 1 euro and then scan the ticket on a gate to pee. So in the middle of shopping, I just went back to McD's to piss.

After a little bit more walking, it was 11:40AM and it was about time for lunch. So we took the metro from the Westville mall to Bellecour to eat at the 2 rivers restaurant. We had:

• Half a bottle of wine, it went down easy. 4/5.
• Onion soup for appetizer. It was very cheesy and had more onions than yesterday. Though could use more onions and flavor could be more dense. 3.5/5.
• Local cheese. It was light and went well with the wine. But it was just cheese, so 2.5/5.
• "Silk workers brain" which is a local Lyonnaise dish that is just a cheese dip. It really tasted like tzatziki. Went great with bread. 4/5.
• Liver cake. Per French preparation, this is more on the cold side. Not too memorable. 3/5.
• Beef tartare with fries. It was really good as it was seasoned very nicely with spicy radishes and other herbs inside. 5/5.
• Catch of the day--it was some soft white fish in some sauce. It had pistachio crumbs on the top, and it was extremely delicious. 5/5.
• Creme Brulee--It was good, not great. The cream underneath is good and the top is nice and glassy as you'd expect. But unlike the Creme Brulee at Les Lyonnaise, the crust is more chewy and doesn't not break down as easily. So a bit too thick on the crust. 3.5/5.
• Praline + hazelnut mille fleur--The texture was very nice, but a bit more dense than mille fleur you'd have at say, Lady M. The nuts is a nice touch, but too many nuts which made it a bit harder. Overall though quite nice as it's sweet but not too sweet. 4/5.

Overall, good service and good mains. Appetizers and desserts were OK or better. I'd give this place a 4/5. Was about 100 euros. Not too bad considering.

Then we just walked around a bunch nearby. We did a lot of window shopping. When we were tired, we stopped by a bakery to have madeleines. It was decent but not a huge madeleines fan, so 3/5.

We walked around a bit more and then stopped at another bakery to have croissant + pain au chocolat. Both were good, but I prefer pain au chocolat more as it has more flavor. Serena preferred croissant more because of the flavor.

While we were eating a crazy guy kept harassing the store, and then patrons (us included). It was annoying but he went away eventually.

After eating, we walked more and then eventually visited the Printemps in Lyon as well.

Then we kept walking and walking and realized despite a whole day of walking, there's still tons of shops to visit.

Eventually, we ran out of time and it was time for dinner at Les Infidèles. We had:

• A glass of red wine. Very easy to go down, a little on the sweeter side. 5/5.
• Amuse bouche: Some roasted and/or fermented garlic (or onion) with marshmellow. The roasted crumbs of garlic/onion tasted like old-school Calbee's hot & spicy chips. Not the new style where it's no longer spicy and too sweet. It's like a fragrant, spicy crumb on a s'more. 5/5.
• Appetizer: Arancini. It was quite good. Nice and crunchy on the outside, with a nice tomato sauce. 4.5/5.
• Appetizer 2: Soft boiled egg with guanciale. Both are good ingredients and are good but nothing special. 3.5/5.
• Angus with mustard sauce. Cooked rare. And this is a great rare. Nice and juicy and moist. It also came with a side which is noodles with some pickled veggies. It also was in a sweet potato puree. Despite Serena saying that the sauce is too salty, I think it was actually kind of perfect. 5/5.
• Cod with lentils, coffee cream, and small bits of popcorn on the top. The texture, slight bitterness from the coffee and popcorn really complements the slight sweetness of the lentils and the softness of the cod. 5/5.
• Dessert 1: Pear cake, which was nice and hot. And on the side was some cream and pear confit. The hot cake and the cold side paired nicely. And the mild sweetness of the cake and the more intense sweetness of the confit also paired nicely. 5/5.
• Dessert 2: Paris-Seoul, which is kind of a mini-brioche with cream sandwiched in the middle, and hazelnuts on top. They poured a bunch of pandan sauce which created a large green pool. The brioche soaks up the pandan sauce so you can get a more intense, sweet taste. Overall, very creative and I love pandan, so 5/5 again.

Overall, service was great and fast and this is an easy 5/5. And the best part: we both had 3 things with sides, and a wine. It was only 65 euros.

Number steps: 22,615.

May 7. The Cheapest Shoppers AKA Our Last Day in Lyon. Lyon 6.

Woke up and went to get a cafe au latte at McD's. Then, we went to do some shopping at Primark. Wanted to get a sesame street PJ but they wouldn't let us because the top was L and bottom was XS. Waiting in the line took forever. But it is cheap though.

Then, we went to lunch at Restaurant Bergamote. It's Michelin-recommended apparently, and we had:

• Amuse Bouche - Pea soup with peas and mint. Very nice. Very refreshing 5/5.
• Appetizer 1: House-made Pâté en Croûte (meat pie in pastry crust). Very nice, because it was cold and creamy/meaty on the inside, yet the crust is kind of like a tart's crust. Nice and crumbly 5/5.
• Appetizer 2: Lean fish from Corsica, gravlax-style, creamy green peas, horseradish cream, mint oil. Kind of like hamachi sashimi. The horseradish is very light so wasn't intrusive at all. The mint was very fragrant and made the fish pop 5/5.
• Main 1: "Rockfish, bouillabaisse siphon, potato, artichoke and saffron, rouille sauce." I don't really know what all this means but it's 3 cuts of nice, soft, white fish that's a slightly different cook. And came with 3 raviolis that was like a very moist dumpling. There was many ingredients and it all came together very well. 5/5.
• Main 2: "Lamb shoulder slow-roasted overnight, crispy lamb chop, asparagus, garlic-roasted carrot purée, olive earth, house-fermented tomato condiment." Fork tender lamb that's slightly gamey (which I love) and the sauce is also nice and umame. The puree is what you'd expect, and the veggies on the side was cooked quite deliciously and paired with the heavy meat quite well. 5/5
• Dessert 1: "Easter Chocolate: Guanaja chocolate and porcini ganache, soft chocolate biscuit, salted butter caramel bavarois, caramelized cocoa nibs, porcini cream." This was nice and sweet with many textures. Crumbs on the top. Nice and soft in the middle. Some saltiness from the caramel to balance out the sweetness. 5/5.
• Dessert 2: "Sunny Leaf by Leaf: Almond espuma, rosemary sorbet, buckwheat crisp, rosemary in various textures, and almond." This is quite light as there was a white, light foam of almond. While very light tasting, it comes to life with rosemary extract oil which kind of makes the whole thing smell like refreshing, sweet, herbacious soap. The sorbet's nice and cool which also adds to the herbaciousness / freshness of the dessert. Wow. 5/5.

Overall, it is a 5/5 on pure taste alone. And the best part, only 39*2 = 78 euros.

As it's our last day in Lyon, we went to a pharmacy and Serena got a lot of cream. Apparently they are 1/3rd the price vs. US. After that, we hit up the same bakery we ate at a few days ago, at Bakery Albon. We bought the following to eat back at the hotel:

• Croissant, 3.5/5. It is objectively a great croissant but I only care about croissants so much.
• Pain au chocolat - 4/5. What you'd expect from this dessert. The crust can be a bit lighter though.
• Madeleines - this was thinner than others, so there was more surface area. Pretty good but like croissants, I don't care that much about this dessert, 3.5/5.
• Cannelli again, 5/5.
• Lemon meringue tart - nice and sour lemony tart, with slightly sweet meringue to balance it out. 5/5.

Then, we just chilled at the hotel and went back out for dinner at 7PM, at La Vieux Lyon again (same restaurant as the first night). But before that, we stopped by Primark again because they refill stock constantly. I got a very comfy oversized shirt for 16 euros in green, and wanted one in beige. But they were out in the morning. When I went again, they had it in stock so I nabbed it. Anyway, at La Vieux Lyon, we had:

• A "pot" of wine (42cl), red. Paired well with the heavy food I have below, so 5/5.
• Onion soup: This is done correctly. Nice and soft bread with intense onion flavors in the soup. And the cheesy is melty as FUCK. Finally, I can give a French Onion Soup in France a 5/5.
• Escargot -- such a great deal as other restaurants offer 6, but there's 12 here. And it is the same review as last time, except I'm a lot more skilled at extracting every last drop of the herbacious oils in the mini escargot bowls by using minimal crumbs of bread. 5/5.
• Bone marrow -- very good. The bread is a bit too big and there's places in NY where the bread is more rectangular shaped so it's easier for you to scrape the bone marrow on it. Also, the bone marrow is a full cylinder type, as opposed to a long, half-cyclinder (that you can just spoon the marrow with). There's not a ton of marrow, but then again it's 1/3rd the cost of NY equivalent. Though not a ton of marrow, I liked how they gave you a mini-bucket of sea salt you can sprinkle on the marrow as you spread it on their toasted bread to really bring it alive. Due to it being only 12 euros, 5/5.
• Andouillette again. Again, 5/5.
• Steak frites. I asked for rare but the cut didn't really support it. It was a bit chewy as a result. Should have asked for medium rare. But the steaks were spectacular. 4/5.
• Creme Brulee. Nice and delicate top that isn't too thick or chewy. The waiter torched it right in front of us. Good. 5/5.

Overall, this is probably my favorite place in Lyon. Easy 5/5. Service is good even though the place is very cramped and the bathroom is also cramped. Everything about was 102 euros.

On this day, we walked 15K steps.

May 8. Turin, The Final City. Turin 1.

Woke up and caught the 8:05AM bus from Lyon to Turin. This is our "final city" as we'll be going back to the US in 3 days. "Final" in quotes as we'll depart from MXP so technically Milan is the last city but we'll only go directly to MXP from Turin.

At around 12:30PM, we arrived and dropped our bags off at Hotel Roma, which is a hotel next to the train station (makes it easy to travel to Turin).

We went for lunch at a place called Scannabue which translates to cutting the throat of an ox due to their meat-heavy menu. We had their sharing menu which had:

• Cow heart and liver -- very moist and juicy like Spanish fois, had small dallops of punchy, spicy vinegar you can dip, 5/5.
• 'Grilled "Cardoncelli" mushroom, smoked milk and sage olive oil. This was very mushroomy and the broth underneath is also intensely mushroomy. The smoked milk is just small dallops of cream and gave it a slight, smokey aroma. 5/5.
• Brown Trout Ceviche, Quinoa, Chillies, Onion and Coriander Oil. This is interesting, as it's like any other ceviche, except not sour, and with quinoa. I'd say, 4/5.
• Boiled Meat Croquettes and Green Bath. I don't really remember this that much so maybe 2.5/5.
• Risotto with Parmesan cheese, Bone Marrow and Gravy. This is pretty good. Al dente enough, though I prefer it more al dente. The bone marrow gave it a fatty layer on the top but didn't taste like much. Most of the flavor came from the cheese and gravy. I'd say 4.5/5.
• Grilled Duck breast with Foie Gras, Cardoncelli Mushrooms and Carrots. This duck is cooked very nicely and the mushrooms were very intensely fragrant. The carrots had a little sweetness to balance out the heavy dish. The foie is cold (French style) and was nice to mix/spread on the slices of perfectly cooked duck breast. 5/5.
• Tiramisu. This was well-executed and 5/5.

All of this, including half liter of red wine was 97.5 euros. Overall an easy 5/5. Very tasty food and fast service. Very full.

After lunch, we walked around everywhere, including:

• Around both sides of the Po river.
• A nearby park.
• The outside of the museum of cinema, which is apparently a big icon here.
• Wandered our way through various shops until we stumbled back to our hotel at around 6PM.

We ate dinner at a place called Osteria Nuova. We again did the tasting menu which had:

• An assortment of appetizers, including veal with tuna, tartare, and other things I don't remember. There were a total of 5 things. I think the most outstanding was the tartare and the other things were OK. 3.5/5.
• "Herbal pudding" which is just like Chinese steamed egg, except more overcooked. And the bottom is anchovy sauce which gave it more of a savory flavor. 3/5.
• Ragu pasta made with 30+ egg yolks. This is a 4.5/5 as it was nice and savory, the pasta's hot, though IMHO not al dente enough.
• Beef cheek in wine sauce. This is good but maybe over-seasoned on the salt. I can see this being a bit better with a red wine though to balance out the saltiness. Very tender and perfectly executed meat. 4/5.
• Onion with sausage. This was OK and nothing outstanding. 3/5.
• Dessert 1: Chocolate mille fleur, which is basically tiramisu where instead of the cake/breading, they have slices of dark chocolate. It's a bit heavy but pretty decent. 4.5/5.
• Dessert 2: Some dark chocolate fudge which I liked because it was not too sweet. Had some crumbs of nuts on the top. 4.5/5.

Overall, the food was good but not great. The service is also average. I'd give this place a 3.5/5.

Was too full to eat dinner afterwards, so went back to the hotel. We counted our steps and even though this was a shorter day as we had to transit for 4 hours, we managed to fit in 18K steps.

May 9: 30,000 Steps. Turin 2.

Woke up and did the free hotel breakfast. It was OK. I drank a bunch of cappuccino.

We spent most of the day walking. We walked a ton from one plaza to another, and then from shop to shop until it was tie for lunch. We went back to Scannabue since it was so good. We had:

• The same cow liver + heart as yesterday, still 5/5.
• Beef tartare with a light mayo sauce. Nice. 5/5.
• Thin-sliced beef tongue with tomato sauce. It was OK because the tongue didn't have much flavor, was too thin, and the tomato was too salty. 3/5.
• Pasta ragu, similar to the one we had yesterday and in Foresteria delle Vigne. They gave us some cheese on top though which was quite good. Nice and al dente with good ragu. 5/5.
• Squid ink pasta with seafood. 5/5.
• Faro salad, served with asparagus, tiny onion bulbs, and pickled onion slices. Surprisingly tasty and veggie. 4.5/5.
• Chicken and cow intestine stew. Came with various things like cow liver/kidneys, chicken liver/kidneys, the comb of chickens (the fleshy, red outgrowth on top of a chicken's head -- quite spongy and soft). Very unique. 4.5/5.
• Apple tart with ice cream. The apple is amazing and retained most of its natural flavors without too much sugar. 5/5.

Overall 5/5 as per usual.

Then, we walked a bunch more and I realized we were at 22K steps about an hour before dinner. I proposed we walk at least 30K steps as it is very rare we are able to do that.

Anyway, right before dinner I had about 29K steps. For dinner we ate at a place called Pastificio Defilippis. In the middle of the day, we had walked over there to book a 7:30PM dinner, to which they said "see you tonight." But our name was not on the books. I realized they probably put our name on the wrong date/page. So I told them that and asked them to look at different page. And they thought it was our mistake for booking the wrong date when it was them that put it in the wrong page. Anyway, off to a bad start. We had:

• Tuna tartare + avocado for appetizer. It is what you'd expect it to taste like. But a bit too much avocado for the amount of fish. Preferred more fish. 4/5.
• Ravioli with various stuffed meats and a cream sauce. Was a bit too salty. 3.5/5.
• Carbonara with guanciale. Very salty, guanciale too lean. 2.5/5.
• Calamarata (like a rigatoni) with clams and mussels. This was good. The sauce was nice and light. 5/5.
• Rotelle pasta (looks like a bike wheel) with tomato sauce and cubed fish. Fish was a bit hard I thought and a bit too salty. 3/5.

The service was mid with a bad start. The food was not that good except for 1 dish. 2/5 overall.

To finish off the 30K step quest, we walked to a gelato place called Gelateria La Romana. Long line, but we had:

• Mango -- tasted like the dried mango snack. Except creamy. Very good. 5/5.
• Bluberry + elderberry -- was good, like a regular blueberry ice cream. 4/5.
• Hazelnut with spongecake and various other ingredients. I liked this one because it was like a less-sweet tiramisu with the spongecake. 5/5.
• Honey yogurt with nuts. Not a lot of nuts, not a lot of honey. 2/5.

Overall it was a 4/5 gelato place. Many good and creamy flavors.

By the time I walked back, as I am typing this up, I did 31,519 steps. A new record with Serena! My PR is 42K steps in NY back in 2015 when I kept getting lost and I would literally just walk from morning to midnight.

May 10: How Many Calories? Yes. THE LAST DAY. Turin 3.

Today's our last day as tomorrow we'll head straight to MXP from Turin in the morning, so there's not any 'vacationing' to be had there and just a travel day.

As we walked 31K steps yesterday, we told ourselves to take it chill today.

We had minimal breakfast at the hotel and then went out to have a cappuccino and a ginseng espresso. The latter was a bit too sweet. Then, we walked around a bit:

• Zara Men
• Rinascente to pee
• Open air vintage market

Then we had lunch at Baleno Idea di Mare. We had:

• Their white wine, which is pretty good as they served it on ice. And the whole bottle was 18 euros only. I couldn't finish though. 5/5
• Some amuse bouche, it was a small octopus with some sesame seeds and green sauce. Very refreshing. 5/5.
• A raw seafood taster which had 2 big, juicy prawns. A fresh oyster. Tuna tartare. Very fresh and good. 5/5.
• Appetizer: Hard shell taco which is filled with tuna tartare, and had a bunch of acidic, pickled onion slices. Really nice. 5/5.
• Primi Patti: Smoked pasta. With smoked cream and raw, smoked prawns. So good. The prawns were like little sweet nuggets in the pasta. Pasta's super hot and al dente. And they presented it with this glass dome thing where it was all smoked up. Like you sometimes see in smoked whiskey drinks. Except it was for pasta. SMOKED. PASTA. 5/5.
• Secondi: Super soft fish with a crispy skin (so crispy it was like a potato chip). With some green sauce in the middle and zucchini with sun dried tomatoes and yummy dallops of cheese. 5/5.
• Dessert: Milky yogurt with crumbs of rice/grains. Topped with acidic raspberries, blueberries, and blackberries. 5/5.

Yeah this is an easy 5/5. 137 euros for 2 tasting menus, a bottle of wine, and a raw seafood taster. Not bad at all.

Walked around a bit and then went to McDonald's to piss. Unfortunately, even at McDonald's you gotta buy something to take a piss. So we got the cheapest item: a macaron that costs 0.90 euros. It was ass. 1/5.

We then walked around the river for a bit. Then walked back to town and then got a JellyCat love lock. Was about 35 euros.

Then, we went to get some milky ice cream at Biraghi. We got an XL where the cup is almost as big as my head (much larger than a pint), and a thing of just whipped cream. 5/5.

Walked a bunch and then went to Eataly to take a piss. Then, went back to the hotel at around 6PM to chill.

We then went to a steakhouse called Bifro ot eat steak. When you book on their website, an Italian number pops up but my esim doesn't support it. So I just DM'd them on Instagram. They responded within 2 minutes and made the reservation there. I used ChatGPT to write in Italian and to translate their Italian. Anyway, we had:

• Amuse bouche which is just bread and a dallop of herbal butter. Pretty decent. 4/5.
• Appetizer: Beef tongue, with some sliced cherry tomatoes in a pool of seasoned vinegar/olive oil on the side. It was very good and for only 15 euros, very generous portions (especially for an appetizer). We normally get 2 appetizers but the waiter said 1 is enough. He recommended us get some form of appetizer as the steak takes half an hour to cook, but it actually only took 15 minutes. Good underpromise, over-deliver. 5/5.
• Side 1: Shishito peppers that are as long as my hands. These are normally small which is still good, but these paired really well to offset the fattiness of the beef that's about to come. 5/5.
• Side 2: Fennel salad which olive oil and vinegar. It is just shaved fennels for the salad, but it was nice and light which helped with the heavy ass beef I'm about to describe as well. 4/5.
• Swedish Wagyu, 1.3kg of tbone. Unlike American Wagyu, this wagyu actually had tons of marbling and for the 1st time, I just asked them to cook it however the chef wants it, which is rare in this case. Extremely heavy, each bite is like eating a delicious steak that is doused in butter/bone marrow. The fat ends of the steak is caramelized, so there's a sweet/slightly bitter aftertaste that makes it taste like a candied meat. Normally, when I eat wagyu it is in the context of hotpot where you'd eat a slice or 2. But this is the first time ever I've eaten this much at once. This is by far the heaviest/fattiest meat in this quantity I have ever eaten. And the most yummy steak as well (at least a tie with 4 Charles). But it comes at a price. And that price is 260 euros (20 euros per 100g).

Overall it is expensive but when you think about it, not so much vs the US. Only thing is we were hoping to eat Fassona as that breed of cow is sort of Turin's local treasure. And the symbol of the city. The service was really good and in particular I liked:

• Their setting the expectation that the steak would cook in 30 minutes, but delivered it in 15.
• Waiter explained the menu in detail, gave recommendations, and onboarded us well in general.
• Once I ordered the meat, another waiter came over to re-confirm this is what I wanted. He showed me the raw meat, told me its weight, and then told me how much it would cost, and if that was OK. This is really good because an additional touch point like this reduces buyer regret.

This is by far the most expensive meal we had in this trip at 300 euros, but to be fair most of it is from the wagyu. The sides and everything else was extremely reasonable (if not cheap) in cost. Water was 3 euros which is more expensive than the cheaper restaurants out there, but not nearly as expensive as the 7-8 euros in San Remo/Portofino. This place is a comfortable 5/5. A fitting final meal.

Interesting note: like Audemars Piguet, they lock the doors to the steakhouse. And unlock it when you go in and out. As if people will rob the place of steak.

But after that, we walked to this gelato place next to our hotel which is a chain called GROM. We got:

• Mango - Nice smooth mango, reminescent of yesterday's mango. But this one is not as smooth in texture. 4.5/5.
• Lemon - Very nice to have this acid after a heavy meal. 5/5.
• Coconut - nice and creamy. Coconuty. 5/5.

May 11. Arrivederci! + Conclusion

Woke up and went to the cafe downstairs and did 2 cappuccino. Afterwards, we to get free breakfast. I just got the usual scrambled eggs.

Went back to our room and packed the rest of the stuff and took the train from Turin->Milan, and then transferred to an express train to MXP. The whole journey took about 2 hours.

Then, at around 12PM, we went through MXP security, walked around the shops a bit, and then settled in at the Emirates lounge. Just ate and drank Coke Zero for a little bit until 4PM boarding.

This Emirates business experience was OK. Half the stewardesses seem less engaged. Though still in general 10X better than United. But was made "meh" by the fact that there were a bunch of kids there that wouldn't STFU.

IMO, kids shouldn't be allowed in business class as it'll just spoil them.

Anyways, we landed at T4 and the process was smoother than ever. Normally, when I land nowadays, it's always chaotic and you need to line up and talk to the Border Patrol guard and it'll take 30 minutes even if you're Global Entry. But this time around, it was like back in the old days where you do your face scan, they call your name as you pass, and that's it.

We also tried to take the cab instead of Uber this time, as Uber was $150 while taxi was only $90 when I already include tip. It actually could have been about $80 as I get a 10% permanent discount signing up for Curb--but the code disappeared right when I wanted to pay. Next time, I should just try to prepay with the code.

Guy drove like maniac. Went to the shoulder to cut through all the cars.

Anyways, we got home safe.

As I type this, it is 9PM EST, and we started at 9:40AM CEST (or 3:40AM EST), so the whole journey took about 17 hours.

Conclusion

4 weeks is a good-length trip. I have a habit spreadsheet and its scores were:

98.04%, 98.04%, 96.71%, and 98.04% for 4 habits YTD. 100% would mean I achieved it every day. However, as I been gone for 4 weeks and didn't want to grind during vacation (though argubaly one of the habits I could have kept up is simply stretching which does not take long and that was just laziness). Now, the scores are:

76.34%, 76.34%, 75.30%, 76.34%.

And it is well worth it. Much better than the alternative which is to grind and miss the joy of my own wedding.

I always thought I might want to live in EU long term but I think not anymore. While cheaper and 'less stress' (though that is subjective), EU really sucks because:

• People are really loud and too social for me.
• Everyone smokes. Moreso in France than Italy. But still, almost anywhere you go is just 24/7 2nd hand smoke.
• In France, people bump into you alot. Not trying to pick-pocket you (though they can be), they are just too lazy to move out of the way.
• Their water bottles fucking suck and it's insane. The cap can't be unscrewed completely and if you force it you will cut yourself. As the cap can't be unscrewed, it'll always awkwardly push against you when you drink it. The cap is also extremely thin, so you can't reliably screw the cap back on and can spill water everywhere.
• There are too many kids walking around, especially in France, which I dislike. Kids get away with too damn much and so even as a stranger to someone else's kid, it's an asymmetric relationship. Imagine a 2-year old walks up to you and kicks you right in your shin. What are you going to do? Punch the little shit in the mouth? Exactly, you can't do shit and that's bullshit. I don't owe someone else's kid anything. But social norms say that if someone else's kid is being a piece of shit (which they normally are), you can't do anything. I can tolerate some of this bullshit but in the EU there's kids everywhere so it's more of this bullshit you need to tolerate.

Still, for a short-term vacation these negatives are outweighed by the positives which is mainly good food and a more chill lifestyle. Long-term though, those are all dealbreakers.

Lessons Learned

• When we got on the boat on April 23rd, that was completely spontaneous. And on April 24th, it was a bit cloudier and windier. It would have not been great to get on the boat the next day. It goes to show that if an opportunity arises, you must always be ready and capitalize on it immediately.
• You can / should just ask people to do things. It might seem odd or unreasonable to ask staff to deliver an unfinished, cheap bottle of wine to the main lobby in front of the bar so we can finish drinking it. But you never know if you don't ask. And in so asking, we saved ourselves a lot of alcohol money and still was able to enjoy the vibe of the Casa Di Langa lounge without paying an extra dime.
• To have high quality, keep logistics simple and your 'menu' small. In other words, focus.
• Responding fast = much higher close rates. I reached out to the Bifro steakhouse on instagram, and if they didn't respond so quickly, we would have booked other dinner options probably within the next 20 minutes.
• Onboarding well differentiates the product. The steakhouse's thorough onboarding made me feel as a customer, that this place is very fancy. They also offered to take our coats. But if you look at the architecture of the place, it isn't anything that fancy. But the services provided make it more so. Also locking the doors to the steakhouse was interesting.
• Many touchpoints to remind the customer what they're getting = less churn. The steakhouse re-confirmed with me what steak I was getting, and told me how much weight it is (which is enough for me to calculate the price), and showed me the price explicitly to make sure that is what I wanted. I don't see many people backing out at this stage and wanting a cheaper piece of meat, but the voluntary self re-affirmation makes it less likely for buyer regret due to commitment/consistency bias.

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