Tag: Travel

FLIGHTS | Long Layover in Lisbon?

Okay, internet. I’m just over a month away from Euro18* and I need your help. Yes, you! Tell me your travel secrets. I have two and a half days to spend in Lisbon, eating all the things and getting all the culture. Where do I start?

Oh man, I can hear you already.

Q: Olivia! You can’t see a city like Lisbon in 2.5 days!

A: Have you met me? Brussels: 24 hours. Vienna: 36 hours. Iceland (a whole country!): 58 hours.

So, we’ve determined that I can in fact get a taste of a city in two and a half days. What I’m counting on you for are recommendations to make sure that I see the real Lisbon, and not the touristy version that’s been adapted for visitors.

Please, leave a comment on any or all of the below questions:

  • Where would you go for good local food? If there isn’t an English menu, consider me intrigued.
  • What’s your favourite activity in the city?
  • What’s a “can’t miss” sight that I need to check out?

My loyal readers (shout out to my three family members), I am back with a vengeance this spring, and can’t wait to let you know all about my travels.

*Refers to my incredible two-week European adventure coming up, not some music festival. But, I get it. We’re heading into Coachella weekend so I can’t fault you for going there.

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FOOD | Poutine for Every Occassion

Don’t worry, I’m not speaking a foreign language in the title of this post. Chances are, unless you’ve travelled to Canada, or can call a Canadian one of your close friends, you have no idea what poutine is. Oh, readers. How my heart aches for you. Actually, my heart aches because I ate too much artery-clogging poutine on my last trip to Montreal, but that’s another issue.

Living abroad, whenever someone asked me about Canadian cuisine I would always have to explain that being such a multicultural country, Canada has very few Canada-unique dishes. One of our claims to fame, is poutine. Poutine is fries, topped with cheese curds (the squeakier the better, in my books), covered in hot gravy. Try explaining this to an Italian. I should have created a separate blog just to record the looks of horror they gave me. To this day, I’m still not sure what gravy is in Italian, but I liked to refer to it as meat juice, or meat sauce. Drooling yet?

While in Montreal a few months ago, during a food tour, we stumbled across a little restaurant in the heart of the Mile End neighbourhood with a queue that would rival the cronut queue in NYC. Wait, are kids still lining up for that?

So, after seeing said line up, we took to Google to find out more about this restaurant. Fabergé had great reviews, and there were rumours of a breakfast poutine. The next morning we got up early and sauntered over, excited to beat the brunch rush. Let’s set the scene. Two clueless Torontonians round the corner only to discover the WORLD’S LONGEST LINE. Truth. You can read about it in the Guinness Book of World Records. Take two: same Torontonians set alarms to arrive at the same restaurant 22 hours later. Conclusion? We got a table for two where I tasted the below breakfast poutine firsthand, and washed it down with a mimosa or three.

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Address: 25 Avenue Fairmount Ouest, Montreal, QC H2T 2L9

Phone: + 1 514 903 6649