Love in my tummy

So much for getting motivation from Daddy's sorbet-resolve. Yours truly went trooping into the land of desserts and sweet nothings once again; but this time, I baked! :)

Ok I had to finish the bottle of peanut butter I bought on a whim a month-and-a-half ago to make the fried peanut butter and banana sandwiches which made Elvis' arteries pop too, but there's never a bad reason to bake right? That, and my craving for soft cookies which has never been fulfilled since visiting Jie in Milan and gobbling down her Sains' cookies meant that soft peanut butter cookies were the way to go!

What I didn't count on was the fact that I had to mix everything by hand and brown sugar doesn't seem to like butter very much. But after all that arm-work,

First batch!

The cookies were softer than I'd have liked them to be. Ah well, nothing a little refrigeration can't solve :)

Mini Dolce e Salato cookies I made after getting tired of big cookies. These are topped with nutella butter icing. I think I hold a torch for things that are sweet and salty at the same time. Think Reese's.

Baking makes a lazy Saturday afternoon in Leuven even more a-okay than it already is. Big chocolate smiles. And hands that smell of cookie dough. Who's complaining? :)

Basel: The non-food entry

Basel for the weekend. By far my shortest trip since coming here; if you don't count the day trips we are akin to make to nearby Belgian cities.

But first, I had my readings to conquer. On a shaky bus with no legroom. Nein gut!

Stayed at the Ramada Messe Hotel, the tallest inhabited building in the whole of Switzerland for now, with its 31 stories of splendour. Haha, we'd do better to take away our ideas of the Westin Stamford now.



Antonio Lupi and Starck pieces; who would complain?


And of course, a sight for sore eyes... DADDY!

First stop: The Rhine River. So gloriously sunny that we ditched our jackets soon after and subsequently never wore them in the day ever again.

Ferry ride across the Rhine. Too sunny for pictures, really.

Second stop: The Rathaus! All done in art noveau style. And of course Daddy had to endure an earful of me rambling on and on about Mucha.

The Münster.

Trawled the streets after that. Basel is good exercise for lumpy people like me; so many uphill streets!

Tram 15 up the hill; but it brought us all around Basel Town, really.

And then we stumbled across a strange sight near Marktplatz; a relay across the center of town, with participants from 8 to 80. Daddy was quite impressed with the speed of some of the serious competitors.

The Rhine by night. One of these buildings at the side is the most pricey hotel in Basel. Beautiful, innit?

On Sunday we went for Mass at the Münster, and a nice cuppa for brunch in front of the Rathaus after that.

A lazy morning to prepare our hearts for great excitement later in the afternoon...!

...The Basel FC-Zurich game!

Which in all honesty was probably the best football I've watched in a live game in Europe. Ironic because this took place in little Switzerland! But I guess Basel was goal-desperate and they had to beat Zurich to advance forward in the league and that made for a smashing good time!

And of course, who doesn't like games between traditional rivals? The more bloodthirsty, the better! ;) We're all smiling here; Uncle Tomas, Toby and meee!

Enter the stars!
Kick-off!
The first tackle down pat.
Freekick to Basel.Tussle!
Freekick to Zurich, which thankfully they didn't get in.

Little boys in red and blue. They were looking around for every spare scrap of paper to crunch into balls and throw down at the crowd.

The third goal for Basel!
Penalty to Basel! All in!

The final score: 4-2 to Basel!

Suffice to say everyone was extremely happy after that! Even people with twisted ankles celebrate!

We all went for a celebratory dinner on the mountains after that and Uncle Tomas insisted on treating everyone. Dad joked that if Basel had lost, he would have declined dinner because everyone would have been extremely glum.

Maple leaves on the mountain.
Horseys!


Castle on a cloud. Almost la! ;D

Sunset.

The match sent our hearts palpitating so much that poor Daddy was completely pooped after that. ZZzzzZz not even CNN could rouse him.

Last day at The Historiches Museum. Interesting, but not my cuppa tea! ;D Macho men like macho knights' armours!

The busk of St. Ursula; the treasure of all treasures in the Basel Cathedral Treasury. I like the busk, but bad lighting is really one of my pet peeves.
Tiny gold statue of David, with work done in the 13th, 15th and 17th centuries; all on the same statue!
Done with the non-food part of the trip. The food log will come next.. And I really am a greedy gobbledy-goop; Daddy can attest to that! ;)
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Three days with Daddy-O and I miss him even more now!

Sniffle.

Room 1101

@ The Messe.

Rosti and risotto. Slippers in the sun. Latte macchiato and watery bircher muesli. RotBlau euphoria at Jakob's Park. Talks on everything and nothing on shaky white tables by the roadside (No actually, on the roadside).

A sunset on the mountain.



Time with Daddy: always precious, always in my heart.

Bacio Grande

Everyone in Bocconi is crazy. No actually, this comment extends only to SMU students on exchange there. (See, I spared Kiat!)

Or maybe it really IS something about the school that makes you go nutso. Something they add into the crappy cabonara they sell in the canteen? Or in the compulsory macchiatos they drink everyday? I mean, this is their wet-floor caution sign afterall... Hiak!

'Mmkay. Behind behind, get in the line.

By default, anyone who visits Milan and is hosted by this brady bunch of looneys will start act like something's not quite right up there. Like for like.

There's the strange girl who revs up her speech with 'Awe-SOME!' Emphasis and pitch, y'all. Oh Dee I love you even though not everything you exalt to be 'Damn cool, damn cool, damn cool!' is all that fabulous.

Sizzling Dee, just sizzling!

And I also love you Dee, because you braved the horrific encounter of the wrinkled old Italian stallion anatomy show with me.

And this is Mir; she owns the most formidable chest this side of town. She allowed Jie and I to cook her boyfriend in a pot of curry on his birthday card, which is just about the coolest thing a girlfriend can do for her significant other, right? Me likey Mir.

Mir and Steph; who now own Ferragamo shoes. And Celest; who now owns a pair of brown H&M slippers. Retailing at 4.90E.

On the second-last of my crazy nights there, we couldn't stop talking about boobies (I think it was sparked off by some jealousy at Mir's well-endowed chest compared to the barely-theres the rest of us plebeians possess). As Jie illustrates,

Though I don't know why her hand continues to be there even after the picture was taken.

A shout-out to my breast friends in Singapore. Sue and Dawn, remember the yank-and-pull?

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Don't know why I only have one decent shot with the one person who held the make-or-break position for my Milan trip, and she MADE it quite possibly the best time I ever had in Italy.

Ode to Loh Jieying, my cushy-tush fellow domestic goddess: Oh! How I adore thee. Oh! How I miss thee. (And the brown Bottega which will never be mine)

Bacio grande.