Fratelli la Bufala and Maio cafè with Zarah

Pizza dinner at Fratelli La Bufala Duomo

In the elevator at Rinascente

Chocolat shoes at Rinascente

The Duomo seen from the top terrace of Rinascente

Hot Chocolat time at the terrace of the fancy Maio cafè

My friends Zarah from Stockholm is here visiting. Today I have been working and she has been exploring Milan center.

For dinner she asked for a nice Italian pizza, an original Neapolitan pizza, so where could I better take her than to one of the nice Fratelli la Bufala-restaurants here in Milan. We went to the one in Duomo where I have never been before and had a good meal. I must admit that I prefere the northern Italian pizzas, the big and thin ones, but once in a while it is nice to eat the "real" ones too.

After the pizza we went up on the terrace on the top of Rinascente. We sat outside, had a hot chocolat and cached up on everything what has happened since last we met...

xoxo

Reasons to practise aerobics

My second and last gym day this week. and I went for an hour of aerobics. It was some time ago I did an ordinary aerobics class.

Aerobics, like many other training forms, helps you to keep in shape, get a better health and combat stress. Aerobics unlike many other training forms also helps you to tone your body (more than building it up) and at the same time train your brain in a absolutely great way.

It is obvious that running and fit dance makes you burn more fat, pumping weights at the gym makes you build bigger muscles and pilates makes you more flexible.  But aerobics gives you a little of all this at once.

I love most group training and aerobics has since I was 15 always been a part of my life. The often I manage to go, the better I feel.

Now I gonna go and pick up my Swedish friend Zarah that is coming to do a weekend alla Milanese style. Jippppiii!! :)

xoxo

Dinner at Marcellino Pane e Vino

Marcellino Pane e Vino is kind of an Italian steak house. In other words it is a fine Italian restaurant famous for its meat. I am not a big meat person so I rarely try out these fancy restaurants but Torri instead loves meat and he has been going on since quite a while that he wanted to go to 'Marcellino Pane e Vino' so tonight we finally went.

The place was lovely, really the kind of restaurant design I like. The starter was great but I can't say I liked the meat... It is not for me. But I ate a small piece of the steak and all the mushrooms and vegetables around it. Slightly wast of money to bring me to this kind of restaurants but it was fun anyway :)

xoxo

Body killer

Tuesday is a crap day to go to my gym. There are no courses that I like and also it is the day with most people queuing for the running- and other cardio machines.

But there has always been one course late on the Tuesday schedule that has been catching my eye but I have never had the courage to try it. It is called "Fire freight" and it is the only fitness course having a little symbol saying that it is only recommended for the very well trained people. The name comes from the similarity of the course to firemen training.

Today I tried it.... and I almost died. No just joking, it was very hard but not harder than I could manage to do everything very well until the end. It was quite interesting anyway. We started off running around like a circle one after another and one by one we had to raise our hands and scream our names out loud. Then we had to divide us into groups of two and do lots of different work out exercises together. We run around the room in between almost every exercise.

I enjoyed the course even if I was close to run out of the room when we had to scream our names in the beginning... But the training was great and it was also fun to collaborate in different couples I got to know some new people. I will try to go back!

The pic above is taken from the internet but it fits perfectly my experience at the gym tonight.

xoxo

You need to pay to collect mashrooms in the Italian forests...

In Italy, If you wanna go out a sunny autumn day in the forest and collect some mushrooms you first need to apply and pay for a "mushroom permission card". This cost in between 20-50 Euro. It is really against the Swedish "rights of common" (allemansrätt) which give everyone free rights out in the nature...

I found out as I said that today, a beautiful sunny autumn day, would had been great for a spontaneous mushroom collecting day in the forest but obviously that can not be spontaneous at all in Italy as you need to apply weeks before for the permission, pay the fee and get the card.

I keep wondering where all the money the Italians are paying in high taxes, extremely high costs for traveling on Italian highways and the permission fees that they pay for whatever they wanna do end up?

xoxo

Happy birthday Stephanie!

Pictures from Stephanie's birthday dinner at Arigatò last night.

xoxo

Weekend in London October 2012

Arrived to London at 9am on Friday morning. Went to Annah's place to leave my bag and then together we went out for a 6 hour shopping tour on Oxford Street...

Me in the Victoria Secret store

 In the evening we took Dimi and his brother with us and went to Westminster where we met up with some friends at a English pub.

Me and Annah eating fish and chips

Per and Klara

Annah and the two brothers

Erkan, me and Eva

Erkan, me and Sabino

Westminster by night

After 22 hours awake I got to bed exhausted but happy. When I woke up at Saturday morning I realized I had been dreaming in English. Great feeling! Went for brunch with Kristofer at my old favorite Sunday brunch place "Del Aziz" in Fulham. 

Kristofer and his Moroccan pancakes

Me and my traditional english breakfast, yaam

 After the massive brunch Kris and I went for a walk until I had to get on to my next meeting... A chai latte and muffin date with my ex flatmate Ilinca.

My Starbucks favorite; skinny lemon muffin with a BIG chai latte

Ilinca and I

 And then some more shopping on Oxford street....

The plan for Saturday evening was to go out dancing but as neither Annah and I fancied doing that we decided to go to my old neighborhood Wimbledon for a delicious Thai dinner at Suk Saran.

Sunday and time for another brunch... Met up with Marie Therese, Ida and her little Oscar. I was so happy to meet them and I felt so sad when it was time to say good bye. 

London still got a massive place in my heart and I slightly regretted I only stayed three days as it was so much more things I wanted to do, things to visit and people to see... But well, will save that to the next time that will be soon I hope!

xoxo

Hi London!

Today has been a quite good day.

I have been slightly without energy but at work I felt I manage to do a lot anyway (even if I have lots more waiting for me next week).

At the gym I went running for 10 minutes and then I attended a total body class but didn't push myself to my limits. I know I could had done much more but I feel that what I did was good enough after these days in bed... Going back training to quick after being sick is always a risk so better be on the safe side and take it easy!

Now I just finished my packing as tomorrow I am off to my second home, London! I am just staying for the weekend and I have a quite busy schedule with things I need to do, need to buy and people I will see. I am very much looking forward to meet all my sweet London friends again!

Have a good weekend everyone, I won't blog again until earliest on Monday.
Bye bye!

xoxo

I am a Ferrari without fuel

I haven't been blogging the last couple of days as I have been sick. I got sick after lunch on Monday and wasn't able to move out of bed until yesterday late afternoon when I had to go out to go to the doctor. It was the doctor saying I was a Ferrari without fuel meaning I was in good shape but that I was in a very big need to rest and eat a lot before he wanted me to get back to work or actually doing anything.

Today I have been feeling quite well but totally without energy. I have been at home all day doing more and less nothing. Suddenly reading and watching movies felt to hard, that's how weak I have been.

Now I just got back from 'Big Pizza' where Torri took me to eat a simple pizza just to eat something else than just white rice. It was delicious but I didn't manage to eat very much anyway..

Tomorrow I really hope I will be back to my normal me! Fingers crossed!

xoxo

Sunday evening with Danii

Yesterday was a real busy, but also a very good day. And what could had make it a better end of the day then a dinner with sweetest Danii. I cooked my special spaghetti Bolognese, we talked and watched some Italian X factor.

Very good day but I ate slightly too much. Brunch + lunch + ice cream + big dinner + dessert....

Now I have to get to work!

xoxo