Pizza Dinner at Andrea's

This night is one of the reasons I moved to Rome.  My friend and colleague Brian, used to live right below the famous Andrea C. of the #1 Tripadvisor activity in Rome Andrea's Cooking Class. Those of you regular blog readers will remember that I first met Andrea when he and I played on the same paintball team way back in September. 

Andrea has just opened a "cultural association" which means he can serve food, but it's not regulated as a restaurant.  From his cute place in Trastevere he runs cooking classes.  Last night, he closed shop and invited a bunch of us over, a mix of Italians and Americans, to eat Bruschetta and homemade pizza.  The night was magical.  Andrea is such a wonderfully funny guy and his love of everyone comes through in his food.

Andrea (left) making bruschetta.  His brother-in-law, Mario, here for a culinary internship on the left.

Stephan H. and Brian B. rolling pizza dough.

Chef Andrea putting toppings on the pizzas

Pizzas kept coming out of the oven...all different flavors and toppings.

Lorenzo and his potato pizza!

Clockwise from top left, Chef Andrea, myself, Stephan and Brian

Lorenzo, Raffaele and Lavinia.  The Italian was FLYING at my end of the table!

 

Two time visitors to Italy, Hans and Teresa.

Waiting for tiramisu for desert

And everyone pitches in to clean up....food, fun and friends...in Italy.  That's what it's all about, right?

Szechenyi Baths

The final weekend of the trip in Budapest was low key and quiet.  On both Saturday and Sunday, I spent the afternoon taking in the waters.  Saturday at the VERY locals, a bit run down Kiraly Bath in Buda, followed by Sunday afternoon at the Szechenyi Baths in City Park in Pest. 

A beautiful building surrounds three outdoor pools.

Water jets (and doesn't it look like the swan is tweaking the nipple of the statue?) to massage your head and back.

The pool in the middle is for lap swimming (caps required) and the semicircular pools on the ends are filled with heated water for soaking!

An entire half of the complex is complete with medicinal baths (the water is tinged green with minerals), jacuzzi, saunas of all different temperatures as well as walking pools.  You can soak in all the different pools for 10 minutes each and be there for over a couple of hours.

Chess anyone?  The baths are totally multi-generational.  I get how it can be a social gathering as its where people bump into each other and meet up with friends.

My final comment on Budapest in comparison to Vienna is that the latter is very "staid" and proper.  Vienna is clean and orderly.  It's like an old married couple.  Budapest, newly free of communists, is still young and a bit wild at the edges.  There are lots of bars in old warehouses (called ruin bars) and some of the buildings are dark and ominous, harkening back to the dark days of Soviet rule.  What bothered me a bit about Budapest is that it seemed to be FULL of American college kids (no minorities at all, by the way) running around.  Is it a party hot spot that I didn't know about?   Or is Budapest a place where lots of study abroad occurs?  I almost heard NO English or saw any American college kids in Vienna.

Budapest

The Mighty Mighty Danube River, with "flat" Pest on the right/East bank.

I just thought this was an interesting combination of old/new, which is a really common theme in former Soviet Bloc countries

St. Stephen's Basilica

Looking west towards Buda at night

Buda Castle

Buda Castle with the Chain Bridge in the forefront

Nagymezo utca...right in the center of things and where our apartment was located.

Memento Park!!!  After the fall of the communists in Hungary, they put all the monuments of Soviet Realist Art in a park outside of town!

Myself and Lenin

Marx and Engels

What are these boots?  Back in 1956 with the Hungarian uprising the first thing they did was take down the statue of Stalin.  All they left were his boots.

After the morning at Memento Park, we spent the afternoon at the "House of Terror", which really should be called the "Museum of Hungarian History during Nazi and Soviet Occupation"

Ballet in the evening (Fille la mal Gardee) where we met and then went to dinner with a couple nice Spanish guys.