Cascina Bricchetto Asti

... such as myself. It started with home made grissinni and salami, followed by vittello tonnato: a mayonnaise based dip with capers and tuna served on top of cold slices of veal. I was encouraged to eat as much as I wanted, and dug in with gusto. The main course was beef Agnollotti with sage and Parmesan butter. The pasta so soft and tender that it was by some miracle that it was able to hold in the filling. I helped myself to two huge bowls. As I sat back in my chair, struggling to ...

... produced five kilometers from the city in the town of Biella. Its a light beer, but rich and full of flavour, with a pleasant bitter finish and an extensive history. It has been brewed in the same building since the beginning in 1846. It won international recognition when it took first place at the 1925 London Exhibition, and It was the first Italian beer to be awarded a gold medal at the 'World Beer Championships' in 1997. They claim that the key to ...

... it is perfection in every bite. Our meal is finished with a dense cake made with ricotta and lemon. A shot of a local liquor 'Mistra' is the cherry on top.

"So this is your first time in Italy?" Tanya asks "and therefore, that was your first dinner in Italy" she continues. "Well you just ate pizza in the North, so you're doing it all wrong" she laughs.
She is correct, it is wrong, you should eat pizza in Naples. But it tastes so right.

... persistent one) she was to inform us of our fateful error.
Once Gary has turned the pooper around we were stuck behind a Lexus hampering our progress. So following the Lexus into Chamonix, it stopped, reversed into us, ramming us of the road!
Crushing poop Mini poopers front wing and giving her a squint.
The Lexi Peni swine tried to say that he hadn't inflicted the damage to poor pooper, upon challenging him to look at the red pooper shaped mark on his rear ...

We awoke in Dijon to find everything back at normal size - apart from the mini which seemed
to have shrunk despite the deminishing food mountain in the car. Much amusement was had in
the showers following the remnents of our new towels, Richard thought he had some life
threatening disese, well, thought a vital part of his anatomy due to bleeding, Kev thought
he was growing a new Goatee on his neather regions ...

... to get a piece of the sweet breakfast it was too late to buzz into. In Ross' understandable panic he waved at the bee with his tuna sandwich getting the mushy fish all over the shirt of the gentlemen behind him. It looked like a giant bugor or something.

Onto the the Van Gogh museum (yes Dad I WENT THERE and i have proof). Where we checked out an interesting Avant Gaurd exhibit that enticed me and ross into a somewhat educated and intellectual ...

... and broken Italian and lack of knowledge of the area.

What puzzles me is their Americanization. Why do they wear clothes from Hollister, Abercrombie, American Eagle? Why do they wear pre-worn baggy jeans? Why do they chug coca-cola, use dirty English slang, obsess over obscure American actors and fill their radio station songlists with contemporary American rock, pop and rap? They have so much to be proud of. I realize we have only been ...

Written in my notebook

Clara had an appointment and left quite early. Ricca and us went to his papa's apartment for lunch. The food was great. We had beef steak, risotto with porcini mushroom, white wine, etc. I was already stuffed by the steak. Ricca's brother is very good in pool. It was three or 4 something when we set out for ...

... with the icecream.
In the afternoon we kept walking through different places and taking pictures,
and then we went to Palazzo Reale, a 17th century palace which is the former
Savoy royal residence. Lots of gold in there.. but I was depressed in
there. I wasn't interested at all and I got nothing out of the superb long
and boring Italian ...

... I ran into the 3 girls from my hotel at the Olympic store, so we all went out for supper and then after it was dark we wandered back to Piazza San Carlo and watched the Opening Ceremonies on a big screen on the side of a building. There must have been hundreds of people in the square watching and cheering. Then I saw Canada come in and I left around 9pm, as the ceremony was still an hour and a half to go and I was cold. But it was awesome to be there watching the ceremonies, that ...