Thursday, August 9, 2007
Day 7 Denver, CO to Avoca, IA
Day 6 Casper, WY to Denver, CO
We wake up after a great nights sleep in a real bed at the Parkway Plaza Hotel and take some much needed showers. It occurs to me that we spent Friday the 13th in a town called Casper - as far as I know there were no ghosts - however my toilet kit did fall off the shelf by itself in the middle of the night. Hmmmmm...... We go downstairs and have a solid breakfast of omelette and pancakes, which we get for free as the front desk woman was feeling friendly. We hit the road for Denver and a return to civilization. The drive is pretty uneventful, minus lots of road work which seems to be the trend on this trip. We pass through a town called Cheyenne which is notable because it seems an alleged murderer is also passing through at the time after killing his wife. Yeehaw. We arrive in Denver around 3pm and meet up with Jacquie, a friend of mine from my trip to Barcelona. Jacquie takes us to meet up with her brother and friends and together we head to the Denver Art Museum. The building is pretty cool looking though very much a Frank Gehry ripoff. Who the hell are you Daniel Libeskind? Anyway they have an exhibit going on that is the personal collection of Vicki and Kent Logan, contemporary stuff that focuses on people and spans the globe. I think it's all pretty awesome, in fact there are few pieces within the exhibit that I don't like. Apparently I am the only one - Marc and Jacquie do not agree. Whatever, y'all just don't appreciate art. After the museum we head to dinner - to a "Mediterranean" restaurant called Soleil. Marc and I are in dire need of something un-fried that does not resemble a hamburger so this place is perfect. Apparently mediterranean means Spanish so we have some decent paella and cava and are completely satisfied. As it is Bastille Day we decide that we need to do something French so we cross the street for some dessert crepes and then head to the liquor store for a bottle of French wine. Jacquie takes us to Washington Park near her house - a really nice place with a little lake with lots of ducks. We sit on a bench for an hour or two drinking our bottle of wine and talking about life and love etc. Very French indeed.
Wednesday, August 8, 2007
ATW You just cant avoid the fish head
I also tried KFC for a couple of quick lunches. It was rather uninteresting but fast, and the food mostly tasted like US fast food, just much smaller portions. I think there were chicken feet on the menu, but I never tried them, but I did try the Chinese version of cole slaw. I'm not sure what was in it, no cabbage for sure, but just gobs of a mayonnaise-like substance. I couldn't force it down if I had to.
ATW Maoming
Saturday, August 4, 2007
ATW Bangkok Adventure (part 2)
ATW Bangkok Adventure (part 1)
I had one full day to explore, so I set off with big ambitions in the late morning. I hopped on a river boat and headed quite a ways up the river. Then I got back on land and started just wandering around. While waiting to cross one of the streets, some random dude started talking to me, and it eventually lead into some story about how the yellow tok-toks (three wheeled buggies) were only 20 baht (about 60 cents) today. The driver would take you to all of the Temples and places that you wanted, and even wait for you. The only catch (I figured out later) was that you had to be taken to various 'Export shops' and at least feign interest in the merchandise (jewelry, clothes, crap). I got three temples (including a 40 foot Buddha), lots of sickening gas fumes, and two shops in my three hours of tok-tok riding. The big upside for the driver was that he got government sponsored gas coupons for taking the tourists around. He really wanted me to spend the day with him going from shop to shop, but I had had enough and was starving (see previous post about the horrid sausage). My last stop was the Grand Palace. I got yelled at as I entered because I was wearing shorts, but even after figuring out that I could rent some pants, I decided to forget the Grand Palace and wander around what appeared to be a religious festival. I assume that's what it was because there were lots of monks with microphones, and people trying to rip the tourists off. After one complete and boring walk around the event, it was now time to head back to the hotel and get cleaned up for the evening adventure. Part one of the full day was at a close.
Tuesday, July 31, 2007
ATW Yummy Thai food
The last major meal was supposed to be at a highly recommended Thai restraint in a slightly seedy part of town. I couldn't find the place, or anything that seemed close, so I stopped into a British Pub and had some of their food. The Thai shrimp soup that I ordered was quite good, Tom Yam Kung. Breakfasts (at the hotel) overall were nothing special, but the very fresh fruits, and especially the orange juice, were great.
ATW Its getting a bit humid
dust–covered plants in Egypt, so flying into Bangkok totally shocked the
system. Green, blue, red, yellow – everywhere. But there was a dark
side. To get all those plants and flowers takes massive amounts of heat
and humidity. It took me a half-day to adjust and revert back to Houston
mode, and a few showers and changes of clothes definitely helped me make
it through. I was staying along the river, and so it was easy to pass my
time riding up and down the river and hopping off at various stops and
wandering the streets. The time spent being harassed to buy something,
ride in a tok-tok, or receiving some 'friendly' advice on finding grate
deals was greatly diminished as long as I stayed on the river.
One side-note about the hotel: the fact that every vehicle had to have
it's undercarriage inspected by a neat little mirror on wheels and armed
guards means that I was staying a one super-cool place.
Sunday, July 29, 2007
Day 5 Yellowstone to Casper; WY
Wednesday, July 25, 2007
ATW - Culinary delights in Cairo
Tomorrow I head off to Thailand, so we'll see if I can find some good food there.
Sunday, July 22, 2007
Around the World Kickoff
I ran into a few interesting people along the way. Pop Quiz - What nationality comprises 90% of the people who decide to drink beer at 10 in the morning in Frankfurt? If you said American, then you get a gold star. You get an extra gold star if you also said that 80% of those 90% are active or former military dudes. In between all the talk of guns and crappy desert life, I did discover an excellent new term - "Barley grenade". I think that it shall replace "man soda" as my favorite term for beer.
On the completely different end of the spectrum, I shared a shuttle from the Cairo airport to the hotel with a judge for a three day chef competition going on here in Cairo. He claimed to speak 8 languages, to have lived in 15 different countries, and to be able to fly anywhere for free. He also was wearing a sweet party shirt and had one of those mustaches that's curled up on the ends like the old western movie guys had. I didn't learn any cool terms for beer from him, but maybe we just didn't talk long enough.
Cairo is smoggy and hot as heck. That's about all to report about the firt part of the trip.
Saturday, July 21, 2007
Day 4 Yellowstone National Park
Thursday, July 19, 2007
Day 3, drive to Yellowstone, WY
Day 2 Sisters, Oregon
After a slow start - 10 hours of driving the day before had us pretty beat - we finally got moving and had a late brunch at the Black Butte Lodge. A pretty log-cabin style restaurant overlooking a man-made lake - they seem to be the thing in Sisters, everyone has one. Took the car into Les Schwab tires where they fixed us up for free! The Reeds took us to their hotel, the ponderosa village Best Western where we checked out their brand new suites, really fancy rooms with in room jacuzzi's and pretty awesome looking showers, and I was given a stuffed llama named Tori Amos. Later in the day, Marc and I went up to Suttle lake for a swim and a walk around the area. The water was not icy cold and there were a bunch of cute duckies and various drunkards with their kids swimming.
Day 1 of the Grand Voyage: Cross-country San Francisco to Boston
Marc and I manage to leave Los Altos with no fights and a well packed car - with room to spare even! Marc's French flag draped across the backseat and my senegalese one waving in the AC vent up front. We set out on the road at about 7am for about 9 hours of driving to Sisters, Oregon. I slept for probably the first two hours while Marc drove. Not a whole lot of excitement on the first half of this trip. We stopped and ate lunch in a town called Dunsmuir at the river cafe. The first of many burgers to come. Passed through Shasta which was really pretty but we didn't have time to stop and look around. Upon crossing the Oregon border Marc gets a $242 speeding ticket. Woo! off to a good start. As we get off the freeway and are arriving at our destination of Sisters we hear a thumping - we get out of the car to discover a giant screw in our tire. Awesome - fortunately we're a block away from a tire repair shop, and within spitting distance of marc's family's house. We arrive at the home of the Reed's and are greeted with tasty gin and tonic's (Marc has family that drinks!) and step outside to greet the llamas. Afterwards we head down to the nearest restaurant for some fish tacos and Twilight beer - from the Deschutes Brewery in Bend. While I don't have the refined beer palate that Dave does, I would say it rated tasty!
Sunday, May 6, 2007
LA beach towns
Venice - The canals are still fun to walk through, eventhough there are even more giant monstrosities along the banks. Abbott Kinney Blvd has a huge number of expensive maternity stores, wellness centers, and furniture stores, so it's lost more of it's funkyness. Stroh's Deli is still there, so we grabbed lunch. I had an exotic fried chicken and black forest ham sandwich. Yummy!
Santa Monica - We made a brief foray down Main Street. It has a few new buildings with a few new stores, but nothing worth mentioning. We stopped at the Library Ale House for an adult beverage, and it was good. We then hopped on The Big Blue Bus and got out of there.
Redondo Beach - We never spent much time down here before, but we cruised down the PCH to meet a bunch of pregnant people for dinner. It was fun, but all those pregnant peeps are scary.
Hermosa Beach - We ended the night with a walk around the pier. The pier itself has been renovated recently, so it's pleasant. The party joints around the pier were rockin' but we're too old for that stuff.
Saturday, May 5, 2007
Return to LA
So far the old hood is pretty much the same. Some things are cleaned up a bit. The parking lot at the Venice pier is getting a new restroom. Yippee!
Hinano's still makes one of the best burgers in the world, and it's still as divey as ever.
I drove by our old apartment and house and both are still standing.
We also checked out the new hip downtown Culver City. Ford's Filling Station proved to have excellent California cuisine, good service, and a more subtle LA crowd. There was even a small selection of craft beer on tap which included Firestone Double Barrel and a very Sierra-ish Ford's Pale Ale. After dinner we stopped by Vinum Populus to play with their cool wine dispensing apparatus. Plug your card in, push a button, out comes your wine, and then drink and repeat. Fun!
That was day 1, more to come later.
Thursday, May 3, 2007
First test of email post
it'll be cool.
Friday, January 26, 2007
Mont Blanc
Some pictures
La Perla
Friday, January 5, 2007
Drinking Beer in Rome
Well, I was able to locate one good beer store. Named somthing like, "Oasi della Birra - Palombi", it's located in the Testaccio area of Rome. (Piazza Testaccio 38/41 - Roma - Tel: 06/5746122). It's hours are roughly: 8-13:30, 17-19:30 for the store, and 19:30-1:00 for the pub. That's right, in addition to being an "enoteca" (wine bar & shop) it also becomes a pub in the evening, featuring probably the widest available beer selection in the country (about 500, though they were out of many when I was there). The pub is downstairs and is rather cozy and crowded.
I had planned on visiting a few other potential beer establishments, but they either didn't exist, or the addresses I grabbed off of the web were wrong. I however, didn't really miss them as decent Belgian beer, especially Hoegaarden, was actually quite common in the little wine shops around the city.
One place that we stumbled upon that was a pleasant surprise was L'Antica Birreria Peroni on Via di San Marcello, 19 (00187 Roma - 06 6795310). The Peroni is really fresh, they serve it in glasses up to 1 Liter in size, and they have an assortment of styles. They also serve what looks like good sausage and other light food. If you've ever had Peroni, and wished it was something different, definitely check this place out.
I didn't try as many beers as I hoped to try, but when you have great wine options and other things to satiate the taste buds it is difficult to seek out beer. So here is a list of the beers that I sampled while in Rome (for a larger list of beers that I have sampled, check out this):
- Grafite - Birra Integrale Scura - porter-like possibly a stout, though much lighter. Good roasted flavor, almost coffee-like
- La Tabachera - ambrata doppio malto - Amarcord Birra Artigianale - decent amber ale
- La Tabachera - rosso doppio malto - Amarcord Birra Artigianale - red ale that needed more hops
- La Biere du Demon - 12% - Actually a French beer - very alcoholic almost wine like , no hops, very thin body
- Devil's Kiss - red ale, slight hops (more than most beers here)
- Floreffe - biere de Abbaye double - good solid Belgian double, rather malty
- G. Menabrea a Figli - This amber beer was very inconsistent in the bottle. The first I had was not that good, but the second was much better.
One last note, I found a brewpub, but it wasn't open during the day that I was there. It was a 20 minute subway ride from the Pyramide Station down to the coast. Named Birrificio B.O.A. (Birrificio Ostiense Artigianale) it is at Pzza. Dei Ravennati, 1, 00121 OSTIA LIDO (Roma), Tel: 06.5640138. It looks like a very US-styled brewpub with several beers and lots of food. It's right next to the beach and attached to an hotel and about a 5 minute walk from the central subway station in Ostia Lido. If I'm ever back in Rome, I'll check it out when it's open.
Thursday, January 4, 2007
Coffee
Sarah's first post
First Post
The first and most important lesson that can be learned from this blog, is that no matter what you do, when you have to catch an early morning plane from Rome to the US on the 1st of January, DO NOT, I repeat, DO NOT, drink a gobblet full of Lemoncello at Midnight. It is a very bad idea, unless you like torture.