Beer for My Horses

I think Belgium could be heaven and its beer the angels. If that is true, then I saw a lot of halos over Labor Day weekend. I went to the beer festival in Brussels, Belgium on Saturday and I had a lot of fun.

Amy and Will

Early Saturday morning, I rode over with Amy and Will and laughed the entire way there. They've been married 12 years and I never have seen a couple who laughs as much as they do, especially at each other. We got there before 11, checked into our hotels, then headed out for lunch, and then on to the beer fest!

St. Bernadus is one of my favorites.

One advantage to arriving early is that we got to try one of the Westvleteren 6 beers (6 is a type, like a blonde or a brown or, if you must, a pilsner). Westvleteren is touted as having the #1 beer in the world. You have to call the Abbey at the designated time, make an appointment to pick up your 1-2 crates of beer, and include your plate number. I have yet to get through calling, but I will eventually.

Anyway, the 6 was okay, but I like other Trappist beers much better. So I tried some :) I tried a lot of beer and all of it was terrific. I tried to sample beers that I hadn't before.

Speaking of sampling, Amy and Z finagled their way into being contestants in the beer tasting. They had three beers--a blonde, a brown, and "special." They had to taste each one and determine which one was which. For their efforts, in addition to downing three extra beers, they received a coupon for a free beer at the fest.

Z and Amy after their blindfolded tasting.

As the afternoon went on, people we knew or other people knew started showing up. I have no idea how many of us there were, but I'd probably guess around 30. They included families and a family with a dog. A family with a dog that likes to drink beer! A dog that likes to drink good beer--Belgian beer! This dog may be the coolest dog in the entire world.

He couldn't get enough. He was begging us like a dog does with food!

Some us left probably around 6 or so and found a place to eat. After that, we headed to Delerium Cafe, which has a crazy number of beers to choose from. Delerium also has their own beer. I tried the Nocturnum, which I really liked a lot.

I think I'd like to go back to Brussels to sample the beers at Delerium and the food of the city without the craze of the fest. It was a long day and a lot of beer, but I had a lot of fun.

Wish you could have been here, Dad.

California Justice

I spent more time outside of Germany last week than I did inside. After being home from Paris for two days, I had to go to the U.K. for work starting Wednesday. I stayed the weekend and visited my good friend Gil, whom I hadn't seen since he left for the UK a year and a half ago.

Gil showed me around his hood in Bury (pronounced Berry) St. Edmunds. We had lunch at one of his favorite pubs, then took me around to the sites. Our first stop was the Greene King brewery (Oh come on, haven't you all learned by now?). They make Old Speckled Hen and one that I tried later and really like called Abbot Ale. Unfortunately, the last tour had started 10 minutes before that and the next one wasn't until Saturday, so we perused the gift shop then on to the old British stuff we went.

My Mecca

We visited St. Mary's church where Mary Tudor, Queen of France, was buried. We also visited the Bury St. Edmunds cathedral and the grounds where the former abbey stood. It was enormous and now is pretty much a park with some parts of the abbey still around the gardens. There are even houses that were made from portions of the old abbey, which apparently go for more that 1 million Great British pounds.

The houses, which used to be part of the Abbey.

Saturday we had breakfast at this restaurant called California kitchen or something like that. I was excited because we could order an American breakfast, which I miss. I had the waffle and it was delicious. Gil had an enormous layered something or other of eggs, cheese, meats, and to make it healthy, tomato. After that, we boarded the train and headed for Cambridge.

Cambridge is a university town (kinda like Yale or Harvard) with an absurd number of tourists on a Saturday. We found our way from the train station and then went to the chapel and the grounds of King's College.

King's College Cathedral and grounds

There are canals that surround Cambridge and you can either be guided on a punt (the boat) or you can rent the boat yourself. They're similar to the gondolas in Venice as there are no paddles, just a huge pole you propel the boat with by putting it against the bed of the canal and pushing off, all while in a standing position. We stood and watched these people try to to do it themselves and I think if we had stood there all day, I'm certain we would have seen someone fall in. We did hear a woman utter, "tell me when we're going to crash," since she clearly couldn't steer the boat very well.


After doing some more wandering, we decided to hit The Eagle Pub and forgo dealing with the crowds. It has a ton of Air Force patches, stickers, and graffiti from WWII, as it's an "RAF pub." There are bunch of AF personnel, both from the USAF and from the Royal AF, who frequent the pub. They had good food and I tried Abbot Ale there. We enjoyed the rest of the afternoon and rainy evening catching up, eating, drinking, and of course making fun of people.

It was a great visit. You can see all of my photos, including some of the funniest pictures I've taken to date for my funny file. I'll host next time, Mr. La Fleur de LEAF!

I Want to Ride My Bicycle

On the 25th of July I took a train that left before the buttcrack of dawn. Dawn wasn't really even thinking of getting up yet and I was already on a train to Paris at 5:22. The purpose of my trip was to see the last stage of the Tour de France. Even though I wasn't very thrilled to be going by myself, I knew I'd be kicking myself if I didn't go and see Lance Armstrong race. I had a friend tell me about a hotel that was close to the Arch de Triumph--I could see it out my window!!
I was only carrying a small backpack, but checked into my hotel and was off to find lunch and to find the starting point of the free walking tour of Paris. I figured if I wandered around by myself, I'd just see the sights I saw 10 years ago with my parents, and that this tour would give me some cool tidbits. I had a crepe with nutella and banana for lunch--oh la la--wandered over to Notre Dame for a bit, then back to the meeting point for the tour.

The tour was about 4 hours long, including about 30 minutes for a food break. It was a general overview of Paris, stopping by some of the common spots, but some not so common too. And the guide told some interesting stories and was pretty entertaining as well. The group consisted of mosty people in their early 20's, who were staying in hostels. That meant I felt old and rich.

The tour ended, luckily, near the Champs Elysees, and even though my feet were killing me (that's the old part) and I was dying for a good meal and a glass or two of wine (that's the rich part), I went ahead and staked out a few places some people told me were good to watch the Tour on Sunday. I found the spots I was told about and ended up walking the entire way up the Champs Elysees to the Arch de Triumph back to my hotel and didn't hitch the Metro, even though I had a day pass (that's the stubborn part I forgot to mention).

I thought about going to this place for dinner that another friend recommended, but I was so exhausted and I was starving that I took the recommendation from the front desk of a place a couple blocks from the hotel that I think was called Chez Fred. The restaurant didn't seem much of anything, but I'm really glad I went. They had a menu in English and the waiter spoke English, which was great for me (now I know what my friends feel like in Germany), but the best thing was that everyone in there was a local. I sat just inside the door at a small table with a view of the chairs set up on sidewalk. I told the waiter what sorts of wine I like (shiraz) and he chose a French wine for me. You paid by the glass and I had two. I had a steak with shallots and fried super garlicy potatoes. Everything was delicious!!
The next morning I was up pretty early, since I went to bed pretty early (old again). I stopped by the Arch, then wandered down the Champs Elysees to see how many people were actually staking out their positions on the race course. I saw a few with chairs right up on the barrier fences, but not too many, so I decided I had enough time to go see the Eiffel Tower.
After that, it was time to find where I was going to stand. At this point, it was probably close to 11 and I knew I was going to need water, which I had, and food if I was going to be standing somwehere all day waiting for the race that probably wasn't going to arrive until around 3. I went checked out the spots I was told about again, but ultimately decided on a position where the cyclist would be heading right at me out of a tunnel, up a small hill, where they would make a left. It was perfect!

I ended up standing there for close to 7 hours, but it was entirely worth it! Luckily, an American woman, who was also by herself and who was a cyclist and huge cycling fan stood next to me. So we made small talk the entire day. It would have been an even longer 7 hours had I not had someone to talk to.

When the peleton (largest group of the racers) hits Paris, they do 8 laps on a circuit. I think they finally came around to where I was standing at about 4:30. Prior to their arrival, all of the sponsors and the team buses and vehicles paraded by. But when the racers came by, it was all I could to not to bounce a little, I was so excited. Never in my life did I think I was going to see the Tour de France.

I took video or photos of every lap, so if you set it on a slide show you won't see the video. They're probably pretty boring for anyone who doesn't follow cycling, but know that it was awesome.

Team Columbia making the chase to the sprinters.Lance is on the left in the dark socks, dark glasses, and the funky-colored bike.

Lance on the left and his teammate and overall Tour de France winner, Alberto Contador, is in the yellow.
Lance finished 3rd overall.

Ready to Run

I just got back from Pamplona, Spain with a group of friends. We left on the 10th and got back late Tuesday night. Pamplona is pure craziness! Kim described it as being like Mardi Gras, but she explained that Mardi Gras is just one streeet--the San Fermin festival in Pamplona is all over the city. The general schedule goes like this: party all night long, watch the bulls run at 8, sleep all day, then do it over again. We're old, though, so we didn't do that.

Maurice, Naymar, Kim, Brian, Jack, me, Dan, Luke

The place we stayed was on the top floor of a building right smack dab in the middle of the action. That meant we got no sleep, because there was singing, drums, yelling, bands, glass breaking, and a variety of other noises the entire night. But boy were those naps we all took after the bull run and in the afternoons delightful.

Everyone was wearing white and red. So to fit in, most of us had some combination of the outfit. Brian bought a neckerchief, which we termed gaykerchief, when he refused to wear it after an hour. But he did sport the waist sash. Everyone else wore the neckerchief, unless it was too blasted hot, which it was on Monday.

Honestly there wasn't much to do or see in Pamplona, unless you count the drunk people who had sangria-stained white clothing. We relaxed a lot, strolled the city, took naps, watched the crazy people and any festivities outside our window, and we drank a lot of sangria in the apartment. It was 3 euros for 1.5L.

Kim, me, Naymar

We saw the bulls run every morning, which started at 8. Saturday and Tuesday, we watched it from our balcony, Sunday and Monday from a rented balcony. The boys ran on Monday, then Maurice and Brian ran again on Tuesday. They send 6 bulls and 4-6 heifers down the course. The cows have bells on, they stay together, they're not aggressive, and they run slower. (Girls have wider hips, so of course they don't run as fast!!) They're much bigger than the bulls, which surprised me.

The boys and Jack, who was still sleeping, before they headed down to run.

It was crazy how fast they run. I think I heard that one day while we were there, one bull made the course in the fastest recorded time, like 2 minutes or something. On Sunday two men were really badly injured. One guy was jumping up on the fence to get out of the way, but was hit by the bull's horn, when the bull turned his head because he ran into the wall. The horn went up through the guy's throat/chin. The other man was gored by the bull in the chest and the leg. They had some really graphic footage on t.v. that day. You can watch Sunday's run here on YouTube--I think it's from a t.v. station. One bull gets separated, confused, and doesn't know what to do. He ends up goring a man very seriously--stabbed in the chest and leg.

After the run on Monday, I went to the stadium to watch the young bulls. Everyone gathers in the stadium after the run. They corral the bulls from the run, but then they let loose one at a time a young bull, with capped horns, and he runs around with all the idiots in the ring. I asked the woman who helped us reserve the room and the balcony if bulls are naturally aggressive, because I didn't think they were. She said they weren't and in fact they breed these bulls almost like they do pit bulls in the U.S. to fight. She said the only time the bulls see people are on horseback, so when they see people standing, their instinct is to chase and gore, if they can.

Me at the stadium

On Monday, everyone but Kim and Jack went to a bull fight. I knew I was going to have a hard time with it, but I had to keep telling myself that this is their national sport. They grow up with this and I can't say I was okay with it, but I kind of got it. They use the six bulls, which ran that morning, so we saw 6 bull fights.

The bulls starts out at a disadvantage. They release the bull and they provoke him with their capes (or whatever the official term is) for a few runs. Then they bring out the men on horses, which have armor on their bodies. The job of these men is to take the first two stabs at the bull's neck. Then the bull is provoked again, but this time they put the spike-type things in his back and we saw anywhere from 4-6, depending on how well the fighter did. After that, it's the matador's turn. He taunts the bull with the cape, he takes several runs, and then at some point he decides it's time. He exchanges the sword he has for a different one and he stabs the bull. If he does it well enough, the bull dies within minutes, and it's carried away by a team of horses. However, there were a few times that didn't happen and I had a hard time with that.

I have all of my pictures posted here. I do have to warn you that the pictures of the bull fight are a little hard to look at and some of them show blood. I had a great time with my friends and I'm really glad I went. I'm glad I got to experience it, but I'll never go back again and I won't go to another bull fight either.

My next trip is next weekend. I'm taking an early train to Paris on Saturday, so I can watch the final stage of the Tour de France roll in on Sunday. I'm hoping for some good shots of Lance and my other favorites, like George Hincapie.

Ring of Fire

This has to have been the busiest my social life has been in months. Tongeren for antiques on Sunday, barbecue and Elton John on Tuesday, a going away for two women on Thursday, and a Rhein cruise on Saturday for Independence Day.

Thursday we had a girls night for two women who are leaving to go back to the U.S. We met at Amy's for drinks, then walked downtown to an Indian place. The food was delicious and we had a ball. I had never had Indian food and I really liked it. I definitely will be going back. I haven't laughed that hard since probably the girls trip to Tongeren and it had nothing to do with our waiter's unibrow.

Kim, Booky, Chantel, Amy, Kim

Me, Debbie, Naymar, and Jen

After dinner we wanted to go to an Irish pub for karaoke, but being a Thursday, they didn't have it, so we went to a different bar....where we proceeded to order a drink based on the name--a screw up against the wall. I can't remember if it was a a slow one ;)
It was only a bonus when they showed up as a fun color. In the picture they look green, but I swear they were blue.

On Saturday, I went with a group of people on a Rhein cruise for the Rhein in flames. It includes dinner and we floated down the river and saw several fireworks shows from castles and from the vineyard hills. (You can click on the collage to see the pictures enlarged in another window.)