Category: life

In Rome, there is a bridge called the Ponte Milvio. Its a charming place where you can see see loads of lamp posts heavily laden with locks.

There seems to be a custom here whereby you take a lock, write your name and your sweetheart’s name, hang it on the lamp post and throw away the key in the Tiber River.

I first knew about this place when I stumbled upon Shelley’s blog and I became really curious about the place. Cart and I were along the way and decided to take a look. We stopped for grattachecca before heading to the bridge.

Click here to watch in youtube

When we reached the bridge, there was a tv crew resting by the benches – I saw them interviewing some couples beforehand.

It was impressive to see the amount of locks on the lamp post. There were some lamp posts which were so overladen with locks, I wondered how the posts were able to hold up!

Cart told me this funny story about how there were so many locks in one particular lamp post that it broke under the weight and fell into the river below. Initially, it was suggested that the locks and lamp post be thrown away, but there were alot of people who got upset about it. Finally the governer decided to keep it in his office as a mark of respect.

For now, according to wikipedia, a website has been created to replace the real locks with a virtual padlock.

Click here to watch in youtube

Cart and I didnt put a lock on. We think our love is eternal even without needing a lock! Or maybe we’re just too cranky, old and jaded 😛

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Later on, Cartcart took me to Ostia, one of the beaches in Northen Rome. It was about 9pm and the sun was starting to set.

Click here to watch in youtube

Its quite a different experience to have the sun set at such a late time since in Singapore, the sun always sets at about 7pm. Cartcart took me to a place called La Rotonda for dinner.

Its a nice place, you enter an African themed area with nice looking decor :

We had a seat facing the sea and in my mind, I was thinking of how romantic is was being here. And for the first time, it struck to me that I was actually on a date with cartcart. Hehehehe!

Perhaps the stop to Ponte Milvio brought out the romance after all 😉

However the food here was just meh. Although we enjoyed our appetizer, I didnt quite like my tonnarelli with lobster. The pasta was too hard and tough to be considered as al dente. And the lobster was tiny! For 21 euros (thats about $42 singapore dollars) one would expect that it would taste good. I felt so bad that I wanted to pay my share for the dinner. It was just unsatisfying.

Gah!

We went back home after dinner and on our way back, cartcart tells me that we may be stopping by his parents place. Last year, I was quite embarassed that I was not fluent enough to converse with them. I wondered how it will go this time.

To be continued

Check out this really hillarious conversation while on our way to the supermarket and listen carefully :

Watch in youtube

Another another lazy day. After having lunch, we decided to to go grocery shopping at a hypermarket, or what cart describes ‘commercial centre’.

There were so much variety of foods there! I had fun just looking at the interesting things there. There were so many kinds of bottles of pasta sauces, it was mind boggling. There were at least 5 refrigerated shelves just for cheese alone. I saw rows of different types of bread but Cartcart told me to be careful as some of the breads may contain strutto.

Cart introduced me to the Chinotto Neri drink which I absolutely adore. It’s such a unique taste, bitter and sweet at the same time. I dont know how to describe it, it may look like but tastes nothing like a cola or root beer.

After a while, we found a shelf which was selling Asian food. This was funny to me as I’ve never seen such peculiar looking food being sold in Singapore before. It was a little dubious to me.

Indonesian satay? Where is the satay?

After the grocery shopping and it was already night time. Cartcart took me to the festa dell’unita for dinner. Cart tells me that the l’Unita is the newspaper of the former communist party which has now merged with the left wing catholics. The festa dell’unita has been a mean to finance the party for dozens of years

I guess if Cartcart didn’t tell me about it, I would have thought that it was an ordinary night market. There were loads of things being sold here from clothes to toys. I even saw the picture frame which I bought for Cartcart in chinatown Singapore two years ago!

Watch in youtube

While we were walking I noticed a stall selling ceramic dolls and I admired the beautiful items there. My eyes gazed at the faerie section and thats when I saw this adorable faerie with green and white stripey socks. It was similar to my avatar while I was in cybertown.

I MUST have her. She’s beautiful. And at 16 euros it seemed a good deal.

Unfortunately, she’s also broken from the trip back to Singapore I’d have to get some superglue and hope that she’ll be as good as new.

There is a lovely little restaurant called L’Archetto Due in Trastevere, Rome. It’s a really fun place to be at and you might be pleasantly surprised at what you see there. On Monday, while we were there, the place was extremely lively with people. It was a lovely night atmosphere among all the charming and rustic buildings.

The food there was simply divine. I love practically every pasta that I had. That night I had pasta alla norma which had tomato sauce, fried cubed eggplants, cubed salted ricotta cheese and grated parmigiano reggiano. It was actually really tasty even though the ingredients sounds like a strange combination.

And speaking of strange combinations, Cartcart had pasta al limone. The first time I heard about this pasta, it was very interesting to me as I’ve never seen lemon used in pasta before. It’s made of milk cream and lemon zest. It had a light and refreshing taste and is really yummy.

By the way, Italians have a special way of eating spaghetti :

Watch in youtube

For dessert cart had strufolo which is a folded pizza with warm nutella inside while I had Panna Cotta! I’m totally in love with this now. The caramel tops it off nicely. Mmm! How can a simple dessert taste so good?

The restaurant owner is a mischevious man. Sometimes, every now and then, he’d go to unsuspecting patrons and carries a toy-pizza and pretends to drop it on the patrons. It was really funny to see. And on the night, there was a gentleman with a guitar entertaining the patrons. There were so many happy, smiling faces.

Watch in youtube

After dinner we walked around the area and enjoyed the night air. It’s really lovely to walk around Trastevere during the night as the temperature was nice and cool. It was significantly less crowded during the night but still bustling with activity as you can see people lounging around, chatting with friends.

I enjoyed the night walking hand in hand with cartcart, enjoying each other’s company. It was such a lovely night.

To be continued

A quick introduction:

In October 2004, while exploring Secondlife , Cartcart and I happened to bump into each other. We became friends and then quickly fell in love. I decided to meet him in August 2005 and again in June 2006 while he came to Singapore for the first time in December 2006 .

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I was hesitant to go to Italy this year because of several factors. One of them being my mum discouraging me to go as she believes that the flight money could be better used for our wedding ceremony. I agree with her point of view. But at the same time, I thought that it would be good to give him some form of ‘hand-holding’.

So I chickened out in telling both my parents about my plans until the day before. Which probably isnt the best thing to do as for the past weeks before my flight, I was feeling extremely guilty. When it was time to go, both of them were very concerned but resigned in the fact that I had already made up my mind in going.

Chatting with the cab driver on my way to the airport diverted my thoughts. At length, I reached the airport, checked in and passed through the security check before boarding the 12 hour flight to Amsterdam.

Amazingly this time, the flight was more bearable to me. Perhaps it was because I was more used to it and the fact that each seats on the plane had an entertainment center. The person beside me spent the entire journey playing chess while I watched some amazing movies that I didnt manage to catch. Like Happy Feet, Letters from Iwo Jiwa and Udon.

In time, I was on the transit flight and finally reached Rome in the morning and after what seemed to be an eternity waiting at the baggage carousel and then a baggage check by the curious security guards.

security guard 1 : Come here. Whats in the bag?

Me : My clothes of course

security guard 1 : Open the bag please and let me see your passport. Hmmm …

security guard 2 : Pass me her passport. Hmmm …

Me : …

After the strange baggage check, I entered the arrival hall and finally saw cartcart waiting for me. What a most warming sight. It was worth the 14 hour flight just to see him smile at me. The web just cant compare to seeing a loved one in real life. I miss his comforting hug.

We took the car to get home. As we drove by, I remember the highway, the fields, and the rustic buildings. But when turned into a lane which I did not recognize, I asked him curiously, where we were going. “Its a surprise! You’ll see!” It was when I saw this lane and I grinned.

It was a pretty lazy and relaxing day. We made lunch together and then I passed him the newspaper from where I was interviewed on Secondlife Relationships. We lounged around home and I saw the changes that he’s done. After I slept away my jetlag, cartcart took me out for a quiet dinner out at at restaurant called Il Cortile. I read somewhere that to never say no when someone asks you out for dinner in Italy. Mainly because of the really good food!

When we reached the place, there was a large range of food that you can choose from at the main table. There were those which I recognized, fritata with zucchini, potatoes with rosemary, roasted bell peppers, stuffed aubergine, all sorts of insalata and others. There was another table full of desserts. Tiramisu! Chocolate cake! Panna Cotta!

Yumness!

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The next day, I joined cartcart with a couple of his friends. We drove to an area in Trastevere. We met Fabrizio first. He has been friends with cartcart since they were 8. I knew him beforehand from Secondlife and our chats on msn. He walked towards us and I was stunned momentarily when he kissed my face left and right. It was something that I wasnt used to. But its an Italian culture to do so between friends.

We went to an ice cream shop and I looked at the colourful ice cream being displayed and we decided to have an aperitif and gelato. I sat there completely mesmerized by cartcart’s and Fabrizio’s conversation. The Italian language really sounds melodic to me.

Fabrizio started to talk to me in Italian. I could understand parts of his sentences but I wasnt fluent enough to converse with him. I tried to use the phrase book that I carried with me but the conversation changed when Fabrizio and cart decided to ask me about Malay words instead! 🙂

Fabrizio had to leave soonafter. Cart and I decided to have a walk around the area before meeting up with his other friends. I liked walking around the area. Everthing seemed so peaceful and idyllic. There were people lounging around relaxedly. The temperature was noticably cooler than in Singapore.

We passed by a shoe shop and my eyes noticed an attractive pair of shoes. I looked closer.

Gah! 146? is about $300 Singapore dollars! This wasnt even branded shoes even.*dies*

We came across a stand where magazines and newspapers were being sold. Cart wanted to buy the Secondlife Guide book. We were quite lucky as the stand was still operating at 8.30pm while most stands would have closed by 7.30pm.

We sat down on the bench and flipped though the book. It was the Italian version. I’ve seen the original version back in Singapore but it was nice to read together with cartcart as we recognized some of the residents whom were featured in the book.

It wasnt long after that we saw Paolo and then Luigi soonafter. Paolo was another person whom I knew beforehand from Secondlife, while Luigi taught mathematics in a university.

We headed to a place called La camiceria. We ordered a variety of food. From appetizers such as Mozarella cheese with artichoke and ricotta cheese with honey.

To Funghi Pizza and Camicia Pizza. I’ve left the fork and the knife as a size comparison. Yes! This is the size of a personal pizza! The Camicia Pizza was interesting to me. In Italian, camicia means shirt. Cart tells me that the cherry tomatoes on top was supposed to be the buttons. The camicia pizza was supposed to be a play with the calzone pizza as in Italian, calzone means pants. Personally for me, calzone pizza resembles a giant sized epok-epok .

We ended with desserts of sbriciolata and tortino ai cioccolato. I listened to the conversation. I was tickled to hear to Paolo and Luigi speaking in english. They tend to add extra vowels in their words and sentences, giving it a rather adorable effect.

Cartcart also tells me of a Roman culture whereby people may sound rude, but it was for the spirit of fun. I listened while the three of them poked fun at each other, some moments being over the top.

Another thing that I observed was that the Italians had a slower pace of life when I noticed the topics that they talked about. They were more attentive to the things that I’d normally take for granted. One example – I remember cartcart and Fabrizio standing next to a tree, looking up and pointing for at least 10 minutes. I found out later that they had found a bird nest and were trying to find the birds. I dont know of any Singaporeans personally who did that! 😛

Paolo offered to take us to his home to see his cats and I said yes! I loved cats. When we went over, I was amazed to see three grown men being enthralled and completely entertained by two kittens.

It was an interesting night.

Here’s a short clip of the day :

To be continued