An Italian Chill

I have beer tastes -- and a beer budget.  My favorite book title is the one that states "Beer is God's way of saying He loves me". Micro brewed, canned, draft but most specially bottled -- it puts a smile on my face each and every time.

Wine is something that I have never really had an affinity for -- I wouldn't know what brand or variety to choose and it all seems so complicated.  Wine gives me a severe inferiority complex and makes me feel unsophisticated and plebeian.

Until I discovered Lambrusco!

An Italian light, frizzy and frothy wine, lambrusco comes primarily from the Emilia-Romagna area and is really considered as a good cheap wine.  A bottle sells for less than P400! 

Most lambrusco are red wines but since I do not like red wines at all, lambrusco bianca is what works for me.

It's sparkling, young and easy on the throat -- I can drink an entire bottle in one afternoon. 

Which is what did on this hot and humid Sunday.  I chilled a bottle in the refrigerator and broke it open in mid afternoon.  

I closed my eyes and imagined myself at the piazza di Spagna, dipping my toes in the cool waters of the fontana della barcaccia!

Pork in the Road -- beyond cyberspace

The FedEx package arrived early this Monday morning and for a brief moment - I couldn't even remember what it was.  Did I order a book from amazon.com?  Wasn't it too early for the 2013 New Yorker Desk Calendar?  

My mind must be going because how could I forget?
I had found this wonderful company on the web called Shared Book and they had a service called blog2print where you can have your blogs printed in book form.
It was a perfect way to fulfill a long held dream -- that of writing a book.
Although in this case, since I would really be "printing" my blog,  I suppose that dream is just semi-fulfilled.

But however I chose to think of it -- it was a great thrill to open the box and see, through the protective plastic shrink wrap -- the title of my blog, now existing not just virtually, in cyberspace, but in the good old fashioned way -- on print and on paper.

No more worries about two years of writing disappearing in the great blogosphere!
The photo of the lechon on the cover, the title of my blog printed in front, my byline on the side ... it gave me taste of what I could actually do -- one of these days, I have to sit down and write my book.

But in the meantime, this single copy of Pork in the Road, all 282 pages of it, will definitely do!

24 hours in Shangri-La

24 hours is not a long time but it's long enough to refresh, recharge, rejuvenate specially if you head off to Shangri La ... in my case, Mactan Shangri La where I spent exactly 24 blissful hours last Friday.

The white sand beach may be man made and the small inlet artificially stocked with tropical fish but it still gives you the feeling that you're by yourself, in a deserted tropical island.  It helped the illusion that the beach was quite empty that hot and sunny summer afternoon.

After a few hours on the beach, I hied off to the infinity pool for a slow swim ... and a long read by the poolside.

In the evening, it was time for a margarita on the rocks -- sipped al fresco,  under the starlit skies.

The next day, just before I took the plane home,  there was just enough time for a relaxing treatment at the very impressive and world class Chi Spa.  

Mactan Shangri La lives up to its name -- why even go abroad when heaven is right here in Cebu?