happily-ever-after chair

today was a beautiful day! it hit 70F and everyone was out enjoying the sun - shopping and eating gelato. the shops were actually a little too full and while i found some things to try on, i decided to just come back during the week when the fitting rooms would be empty and there would be no lines to pay.

i absolutely love chick lits and my latest read was 'all i ever wanted' by kristan higgins. it was predictably cute and i liked how it took place in the state i grew up in. it's always nice reading about other dysfunctional families and how they end up all right in the end.
i'm just about to start 'the next best thing' and hope it's just as sweet!

fiorio gelato: frutti di bosco and gianduia (sooooooo amazing) on the left & stracciatella (amazing) e caffe (also amazing) on the right. most flavors are amazing and is it really such a bad thing to love gelato???

who wants a bath?

most people have slight aversion to pigeons but i don't mind so much. there's a pair of them outside my apartment and one of them is always hiding inside their hole while the other is outside standing guard. it's actually kind of cute.
anyway, in the past week i've seen 2 dead pigeons! one was on the edge of the street with its head cut off... we blamed a cat for that but the other was in a dirty square in a not so safe part of town right beside a dirty, bloody needle! ugh, i hope it died of natural causes and not because some drugged up creepers thought it would be fun.

on a side note, these little water fountains are everywhere in turin! they come in handy when you're desperately thirsty. anddd there's a bull's head on each one because torino means little bull!

seitan - an italian rarity

i was  on my way to undercolors of benetton when i overheard a couple ask for directions to via torino. okay, before i got on the train to milan, i sketched a rough map of where i wanted to go and via torino was one of them. if i didn't look back to see where the guy pointed, i would never have found natural 8+, a vegetarian cafe! my boyfriend and i went for lunch and got a tofu/spinach salad (which was amazing) AND my new favorite - seitan!

i had no idea what it was before i ate it so i looked it up. it's made with the protein of wheat and tasted to me kind of like eggplant. kind of. i'm not skilled enough to try to whip this up anytime soon but it's a challenge i'm willing to take. i just can't believe i've never heard of it before.

anyway, it turned out to be a gorgeous day! warm and sunny and a good day to visit milan.

bicerin #2

@ piazza castello

last night we were supposed to go to a graduation party buuut we couldn't get into the building so decided to enjoy a bicerin instead!

it was about 11pm when this picture was taken but just as we sat down, a huge group of parents and their kids crowded around the cafe for ice cream. it's always like this on the weekends! if you want to visit the shops, i'd recommend you go during the week or else they're packed on saturday.

it's so different from where i'm from in america, where children have bed times and parents don't go around for a late night walk with strollers. i personally like how it's more relaxed.