Day 7 Denver, CO to Avoca, IA

We head out from Denver not really sure where we're going, just aiming for somewhere between Omaha and Des Moines. Not a whole lot of excitement just a lot of driving and crappy road food for lunch. We've taken to stopping at truck stops for massage breaks and come to realize that all the truck stops now have wireless internet. Yippee! We arrive in Omaha around 8pm looking for somewhere to have dinner. According to the map, which admittedly isn't very detailed, it looks as though most of the businesses are on the other side of the bridge in an area called Council Bluffs. We stop in a pizza place which is closing and ask the woman working there if there is a restaurant nearby that would be open - "well, there's a Red Lobster and an Applebee's right down the road near the Wal-Mart" not to be a snob but this isn't exactly what we're looking for. We decide to disregard this lady's advice and head back over the bridge into what we later learned is the heart of Omaha. We come across a Cajun Jazz club that looks promising - we go inside and ask them if there's a good pizza place nearby. They direct us to the old market district a few blocks away. Unfortunately the pizza place they recommend is closed, however, there are tons of other restaurants still open just down the street. This little area of Omaha is actually really cool - restaurants and bars line the cobble stone streets and people were actually out eating at 9:30pm on a sunday. We decide on a "contemporary Italian" restaurant called Vivace that looks pretty nice. As an appetizer we are offered a watermelon and strawberry soup with tarragon and champagne that is absolutely delicious. I have some goat cheese pizza and Marc some scallop ravioli while we eavesdrop on the older couple next to us as they get their fortune read. We are very pleasantly surprised with Omaha, but decide to push on a little further so we can make it to Chicago at a decent hour the following day. As soon as we hit the road a huge electrical storm starts. The sky is lighting up every couple of seconds with bolts of lighting. It's really pretty cool looking minus the fact that I'm driving and it's happening right over my shoulder in my blind spot. Marc's bi-minutely exclamations of "Wow, did you see that?" directly in my ear don't really help things for me. Coming to realize that there's not really a whole lot outside of Omaha, Marc gives Young Dave a call for some internet assistance. Dave directs us to a town called Avoca which apparently has some hotels. We pick the first one we come to after getting off the freeway which is run by an Indian couple and smells strongly of curry. Our room smells a bit like cherry cough syrup but we settle into bed anyway. Good times.

Day 6 Casper, WY to Denver, CO

I've been way behind on the blogging - no internet in the French countryside- but now I've got nothing but time.

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.

ATW – You just can’t avoid the fish head

While the previous visit to Maoming had me looking for a convenient place to throw-up several times, I have avoided the odd food dishes for most of this visit. I say this now with only one night left to go, and all bets are off for that last night, but the food has been much more palatable for my whitey tastes. One night I had eel soup (aka snake fish) and it was one of my favorites. It was seasoned, and looked, like gumbo and was supposedly a local dish. We frequented a placed named Mao Jia, and it was explained to me that the food is in the Hunan style, which is were good ole' Chairman Mao called home. It, for me, was clearly the best restaurant in town. The interior reminded me of Californian restaurants - exposed brick and odd, unrelated photographic artwork. The food was excellent, though my final meal, turned interesting. I had held out against the fish head platter suggestions on several previous nights, but when the seven or so dinner plates arrived, one was fish head. It was covered in spices and didn't really look much like a fish head, and fortunately I picked some of the meat on the edge and then filled up on the other six offerings. I only squirmed a little when they turned over the head and started eating all the insides. I had finished eating by that point. One of the other dishes was 'knee joint'. Or at least that's what I'm calling it. It was the lower portion of a busted leg bone, with no meat and just a big ball of fat and cartilage stuck on the end. You were also given a straw to suck out the marrow. I tried one and then moved on, but these were extremely popular among my fellow diners. All other dishes were fairly normal and rather spicy, especially the rabbit meat on skewers.
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

The flight from Bangkok to Guangzhou was uninteresting and quick. The international arrival terminal at Guangzhou is much nicer than the domestic terminal that I flew into last time here, but that was the extent of the excitement at the airport. Thirty minutes on a bus to the bus station, an hour wait, and then four and a half hours on another bus to Maoming rounded out my day. Maoming is still not much of a tourist destination, or at least I can't communicate my desire to see something besides a shopping mall, hotel, or restaurant. It's nice and hot here, but not nearly as steamy as Bangkok.

ATW – Bangkok Adventure (part 2)

Part two of the full day began after some relax time at the hotel pool. I had four goals for the evening: ride the Skytrain, find a new party shirt, find some good Thai food, and find some good beer. Based upon my travel books I could accomplish all four within the same block. How perfect! The only drawback (for me, that is) was that this block was in the middle of Bangkok's red light district, called Patpong. I rode the Skytrain to get to Patpong (goal #1 complete), and wandered through many merchant stalls looking for a good shirt. Tons of illegal DVDs, fake Nike shirts, and just tons of crap were everywhere, but no decent party shirts. So goal #2 was never completed. After wandering up and down streets and being harassed by way too many people and called way too many things, I finally found the street that was supposed to have the good beer and thai food. The Thai food restaurant could not be found, but I found the British Pub, and hoped to be drinking some decent beer soon. Turns out they had Heineken and Tiger on tap and VB in bottles. I settled for a few pints of Tiger and then ate some of their food, which was actually quite good. The pub clientele consisted of just me and four semi-old white dudes, so after an hour of that, I decided to call it a night after only partially completing my goals. I breezed back through the red-light area which was in full party mode by this time and hopped back on the Skytrain and was back to my hotel in no time. A couple more Singhas in the hotel lounge and that was the end of my day. Next stop, southern China.

ATW – Bangkok Adventure (part 1)

A little delay in posting this, but the work in China is wearing me out. The last thing that I want to deal with when I get back to the hotel is the computer. So, it's a week late, but here's a little bit about Bangkok.
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.

ATW – Yummy Thai food

My first big meal in Bangkok was at the Thai restaurant at the Shangri-La Hotel. I normally don't like eating at the hotel, but I was worn out and this place looked good. I wasn't disappointed. The spices in every dish were top-notch. I got the 6 course chef's sampler and each item was a new dish to me, or at least they tasted so different from any Thai dishes that I had had before that they effectively were new. The standouts were Yam Woon Sen, a very spicy noodle salad with pork and shrimp, Tom Kha Koong, a spicy coconut soup with shrimp, and then there was a spicy dipping sauce with the Pla Thod Kratiem Prik, a piece of fried fish. I almost exploded from all the food. The next day I made the mistake of buying a sausage from a little street market. It was all gristle and god-only-knows what kind of meat. One bite and I realized that if I ate the whole thing I'd fall in the river dead. So I did the smart thing for once...I tossed it.
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 – It’s getting a bit humid

I was somewhat accustomed to seeing sand, sand-colored buildings, and
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.

Day 5 Yellowstone to Casper; WY

We decide to split the Yellowstone - Denver trip in two and stay a half day longer in Yellowstone. Thanks to the Road trip USA book that Ginny and Dave so kindly gave us, we took the recommended Uncle Tom's Trail. The trail was more of a staircase, as the book tells us, and went straight down into the Yellowstone Canyon for a view of the falls. I discovered that Marc is afraid of heights but the Canyon was pretty majestic. The falls were very pretty with rainbows all over the place. On our way out of the park we saw several bison along side the roads, at one point there was a group of people gathered by the side of the road but we couldn't see any animals. We get out of the car telling only to be yelled at by a crazy dude on a motorcycle who is like the hells angels version of a hippie. He yells to us that we can't stay just a few minutes because that's no way to see the park, that we need to take the time to appreciate it. Any way, as it turned out the group had gathered to see a bald eagle sitting on a tree down near the river. Woo! We get back in the car and leave Yellowstone through the east, "the most beautiful" exit. It was neat, we passed by the Yellowstone lake which was huge and we saw a wolf in a field! Very exciting. According to the trusty Road Trip USA the best ice cream in all of Wyoming was to be had at yellowstone drug, in a town called Shoshoni. With that goal in mind we wound through the breathtaking scenery that Wyoming had to offer, in all seriousness, it's a lot prettier than I would have imagined, in order to end up in Shoshoni. We arrived in Shoshoni at 7:30 only to be told by the employees of Yellowstone Drug that they were closed, regardless of the fact that there sign said they closed at 8. We begged and pleaded, but to no avail, none of Wyoming's best for us. As Shoshoni seemed to have little else we asked if there was a restaurant that would still be open. The restaurant we were directed to was, um, very authentic. I was offered a salad with "I Talian dressing" in the dialect of the locals. As a main course we had the option between fried fish and fried chicken, I got the fish, Marc the chicken.

ATW - Culinary delights in Cairo

I've had quite the culinary adventure during my short stay in Cairo. Outside of the bland generic breakfast buffet, with some of the worst breakfast sausages I've ever had the misfortune of attempting to eat, the food has been rather tasty. I tried some sushi (never my favorite, but I've had much worse), Indian food (historically not one of my favorites, but it is growing on me and it has been the second most tasty meal here), and a random sandwhich in the basement of a mall while playing 'billiards' in a kiddy game room. The number one meal has been at a fish restaurant (and it served only fish). All of the fresh fish was displayed at the side of the restaurant and you just picked out what you wanted and they either grilled it or fried it for you. I had a a whole fish that looked like a giant perch, but with out all of the little bones. It was grilled with a little lemon and was very tasty. Hip hip hooray for Egyptian fish!
Tomorrow I head off to Thailand, so we'll see if I can find some good food there.

Around the World Kickoff

Leg one of the 2007 around the world journey has been a success. Just 11 hours from SFO to Frankfurt, a 5 hour layover in Frankfurt, and then another 4 hours into Cairo produced an uneventful day. Winner for the most comfortable seats of all time (for economy class) goes to the first flight aboard Luftansa. My knees were numb with pain by the end of it, but my back felt great.
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.

Day 4 Yellowstone National Park

We wake up to the sound of rain on the roof of our tent - good thing we put the rain cover on! Fortunately it only lasts a few minutes. After a short talk with the ranger where he tells us that there's a bear that's been hanging around our campsite for the last week, we head out to the Yellowstone General Store for some breakfast. Unfortunately we arrive after breakfast is over so we get lunch instead. We somehow manage to time it exactly right and walk up to Old Faithful a minute or two before it um.... shoots? blows? erupts? geyses? Anyway, we see it happen - pretty exciting - and then we head out to the trail that our server from the night before suggested, the mystic falls trail. The trail starts just past the midway geyser basin where we see some really pretty turquoise and deep blue sulphur pools. Before setting out on the trail we read the bear warning sign which advises "stand your ground if a bear charges most are false charges" - very comforting. It also suggest playing dead if a bear attacks - so basically you're just screwed. Undaunted we head up the trail which winds up a mountain to where you get a really great view of the park and the falls below. Afterwards we have worked up quite a sweat and decide to head over to firehole river where you can swim in a certain section. The water is surprisingly warm although the area is pretty crowded - perhaps the two are related? We have a nice leisurely swim and then head out of the park to the town of West Yellowstone for some groceries to prepare our meal for the evening. As we have absolutely no cooking utensils our options are limited - we decide on sausage and a bell pepper to cook over the campfire as well as a can of soup with a pull-top that we can cook in the can. The sky keeps threatening to rain so before starting our campfire we ask the ranger if he thinks it will rain. His response "It hasn't rained nothing to spit at in a looong time, we drier now than we were in the fire of 99" Okay then. It sprinkles a little bit but we cook our meal without too much problem - it's surprisingly good for something cooked with absolutely no utensils. Right after we finish up the thunder starts, the sky crackles every now and then with a flash of lightning. The rangers come by and let us know that there's a bear at the other end of the campsite and that if we see it we should let them know. Ten minutes go by and the storm seems to be getting closer, sleeping in he car is looking like a better and better option. More rangers drive by - the bear is now between two tents at the end of the road. We head down in the car to see if we can see anything. No luck, but it starts to rain and the lightning is getting closer, it sounds like it's right on top of us. Maybe we'll just hang out in the car for a bit. We cruise around the park for a little while in the car until the storm passes. A few minutes go by and the rain stops, we get back to our campsite and as Marc steps out of the car our neighbor asks "Deed you ear zer ees a bear een ze campground" Ahhh a Frenchie.

Day 3, drive to Yellowstone, WY

We aim to leave at 6am from the Reed's house but end up sticking around until 7am. On recommendation we hit up the Sisters Coffee Company for some lattes. While my loyalties will always lie with Blue Bottle - this coffee was pretty damn tasty! We take the 20 East, the historical Oregon trail for the majority of the 15 hours of driving we do today. As it turns out everywhere we drive there seems to be road work going on. We cross all of Oregon and Idaho, on our way to Yellowstone National Park. As it turns out Marc has made reservations at the Old Faithful Inn restaurant for 9:30 that night. Aiming to get there with a little bit of daylight in order to set up our tent before dinner, we fail. Fortunately, after cruising through the entrance of Yellowstone and through the park at a cautious but eager 65 mph we bypass Madison, our campground, and manage to make it to Old Faithful Inn just after 9:30. The Old Faithful Inn is a pretty majestic place, a huge log cabin style hotel with cool lighting. We head on in to the restaurant, where someone immediately complements Marc on his Amoeba shirt. Our server, though very friendly seems to be a bit of a tool who can't recommend a wine and tells us that the salad comes pre-made from another company (mmm fresh!). I order a zinfandel with my elk medallions and marc the pinot gris with his trout. The result? I have come to learn that elk is delicious - tastes like steak but super tender, but my wine is really warm. The trout was so-so. Though our server was unable to suggest a wine he was able to suggest a hike and a place to go swimming in Yellowstone - we'll see how that goes! A little worried about finding our campsite and setting up our tent in the dark we head back towards Madison. After a couple of wrong turns we find the entrance and are greeted by an envelope taped to the ranger's station with our name on it - inside we find a carefully marked map and warnings about being attacked by bears and gored by bison. With help of our map, we have no trouble finding the campsite and set up our tent without a hitch.

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!

LA beach towns

Day 2 in LA was all about checking out the 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.

Return to LA

First fun trip back to SoCal since the move. It just took my experience at LAx to remind me why I was eager to escape. Flight time to LA: 55 minutes. Time from landing to car rental: 90 minutes. Such a freakin' waste.
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.

First test of email post

This is just a first test of a post sent through email. If it works,
it'll be cool.

Mont Blanc

These photos reminded me. If you are ever in a place where you see Mont Blanc on the dessert Menu. EAT IT! It's delicious.

Some pictures

At the request of a large percentage of this blog's members, I've posted a few pictures from the Rome experience. There will be more in the future, but here are a few for now. All current and future photos can be found at Stobbrau's gallery pages. Here's a small sample (for more go to this photo gallery):

La Perla

Don't expect to go in here without coming out $500 poorer. Even if you are "too old" to wear lingerie yourself you may end up buying something luxurious for your daughters.

Drinking Beer in Rome

Though Italy is not exactly a beer drinking destination, there were definitely some good, or at least interesting, beer options in Rome. Where might you find these beers, you ask?

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.

Coffee

Cafe Greco: though this place is right in the middle of the tourist hubub in Rome it was probably my favorite place to hangout in Rome. Situated on Via Condotti with all the fancy designer stores - Prada, Dior, Dolce & Gabbana - it is the perfect place to take a break from shopping or checking out historical sites. The burgundy velvety interior with all the artwork on the walls is welcoming and the cappuccinno and hot chocolate are some of the best I've had anywhere. Though it's a bit pricey I think it's worth it - particularly if the waiter brings you little smoked salmon sandwiches to go along with your drink.

Sarah's first post

I will have to second Dave's statement about goblets of Limoncello. Just don't do it.

First Post

Here it is, the wonderful great first attempt at the Bostobb (pronounced like BOSS-TOB, TOB sounds like BOB but with a T to start) travel site. It will be the greatest dork-wad travel site of all time.
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.