Homemade Marshmallows

One struggle that I continue to have living here in London is trying to find replacements for my favorite American food items.  I should clarify "favorite" - by that I mean things that I didn't think twice about when living in the US but are now rare/coveted/must-have items as finding a leprechaun is easier than finding them in London.

Example - graham crackers.

Triscuits.

Nutty Buddy Bars.

You get the point.

And Marshmallows.

tweet, tweet

HHEELLOOOOOO WORLD!

I did it.

I finally bit the bullet.

Be my friend! And tweet along with me!

@trvlngcupcake

An Afternoon in Montalcino

You might remember from our previous trip to Italy that we spent the last portion of our trip in Montalcino, in Tuscany.  This last weekend during our trip to Italy we were technically staying in Montepulciano, another part of Tuscany, but we were within an hours journey of Montalcino. We fell in love with that area during our last trip and wanted to pay a visit to our favorite winery, Ciacci Piccolomini, and stock up on some Rosso and Brunello wine (mostly because the case that we had bought a mere 6 months earlier was completely depleted. Oops.)

We took our time driving through the Tuscan countryside, meandering through small towns and vineyards. One thing I have learned about traveling through Italy is that if you aren't on the A1 Autostrada, you are likely to be on a small, country road.  The countryside was greener than our last visit - flowers were in bloom and the farm fields were bursting with new life.

It took us longer than we thought to make it to the vineyard and as we drove through the tiny town to make that last turn to reach it, we were stopped short by an elderly man wearing a neon orange vest.

"La strada e chiusa"

Halong Bay

Before I can tell you about Ha Long Bay I need to tell you a little bit about our struggle with British television.

Stay with me, I swear it'll make sense in a minute.

From the first day that we got to London we have struggled to find good, quality tv shows of the British variety. Maybe it's us or maybe it's them (must be them), but we just don't understand British tv shows. This topic could be a post - a series of posts actually - of its own but I won't bore you now.  I'll save that for another day.  One of the few British shows that we have taken a liking to (read: can tolerate for longer than fifteen minutes...too harsh?) is Top Gear.  If you have BBC America you might have seen it.  We saw their special on Vietnam Motorbiking within a few months of living in London, and that show planted the seed of making Vietnam our honeymoon destination.

See, told you it would make sense.

And yes, we based the location of our honeymoon from a car show.  Stranger things have happened.

Poggio Piglia

A few months ago I was cleaning out my afternoon flood of flash-sale emails when I decided to take a look at what Jetsetter had to offer. Out of all of the flash-sale emails I get (and that seems to be a lot lately), Jetsetter is always the most intriguing.  Slashed rates at fabulous hotels all over the world? 

Yeah, that usually peaks my interest.

A nice surprise

When I woke up this morning I looked at the weather and saw this...




Freezing fog?
Yuck.

And then I went outside and found such a nice surprise...




That doesn't look like fog to me!

My fingers are still freezing as I type this, but I'll take what I can get!

- Posted using BlogPress from my iPhone

Hanoi Highlights

The last destination on our Vietnam trip was the country's capital - Hanoi. We (sadly) left the peace and quiet of Hoi An and took a commuter flight up to Hanoi for our final four days in this amazing country.

Our first full day there we went on a tour of Hanoi and saw pretty much the whole city.  Our hotel was in the Old Quarter, which made for a lively and colorful stay. The quarter is jam packed with people, scooters (obviously), restaurants and shops.

Some of the highlights from Hanoi?

Going to see Ho Chi Minhs Mausoleum...

thats a big building for one little guy

Birthday Cake

On Friday I celebrated my 29th birthday.

It was the kick off to the last 365 days of my twenties. Saying that out loud makes me a little nauseous.

I thought it was only appropriate to bake a cake - you have to treat 29 with respect after all.

Birthday Flowers and Project 52

This weeks Project 52 assignment was "Window Light". Normally I would scoff at this assignment - do they really expect me to get some decent light when I live in the cloudiest place on earth??

Ok, maybe not THE cloudiest place on earth (I think thats somewhere up in North Scotland), but close.

But if you have been in London at all over the last five weeks or so you would know that I would have be making false complaints. The sun has been out nearly every day - there has been an abundance of sunshine over the past month since I have been back...it's starting to freak me out!

The next part was finding something interesting to photograph in said sunlight.  Dogs, cats, kids? Nope, nope, nope.

And then it was my birthday. And my husband brought home the biggest bouquet of flowers I have ever seen.

Insta-scone-matic

I made some scones last night

They had grapefruit in them...
and honey...
and yogurt...

Ugly Cookies

I bet your mom always told you never to judge a book by its cover.

She was right, you shouldn't.

I do, but don't do as I do, do as I say.

With me?

Cupcake Class Fail

Let me tell you a little story, about a little girl.

This little girl (really not so little considering she is about to turn 29) loves cupcakes.

She loves to make them, eat them, decorate them, eat them some more.

One day the little girl saw an offer on Groupon - Cupcake Decorating Class.

"HOORAY!" the little girl thought, "now I can finally learn how to decorate cupcakes so they don't look like a 5 year old frosted them". And so, she bought the deal.

Fast forward two months and the big day was finally here! The little girl was excited and a little nervous (and probably a little hung over since it was early on a Saturday morning).

Hook, line and sinker

While we were traveling around Vietnam we noticed a reoccurring event - we would be on our way to somewhere fabulous and suddenly our driver/tour guide would pull over and we would be stopping at a "local" or "authentic" or "the best" shop, specializing in some sort of handmade goods. After showing us how the item was made we would be brought to a shop to take home some of these special treasures.

It happened during our boat trip down the Mekong Delta (remember that candy making place? Guess who walked away with a whole bag full of treats...)