Part III: Paris on a Budget

That video was taken at the observation deck of the Eiffel Tower. We did go all the way to the top, but it has a kind of fencing that obstructs photos and video, so this is a clearer viewpoint. It is well worth the extra cost and time to get to the top. You can't put it into words, just do it.

I love this photo because it summarizes the Parisian lifestyle:

Luxembourg Gardens

The weather was unusually warm for the end of September, so the entire city was out in the park, laying out on the grass, playing some sort of hot French strip kickball*, shopping, or just wondering around. See, I did it too:

Paris is a challenge on a budget. Our hotel provided breakfast of crusty bread, croissants, fruit, little cakes, coffee and juice. For lunch we grabbed something cheap and quick, like a ham sandwich on the delicious bread I was eating above. Dinner was out "fancy" meal out at a cafe. We brought our translation guides so we could navigate our way through the menu. The wait staff usually spoke some English or understood us pointing at different items. This was dinner one of our first nights: 

Cafe near our hotel



My pasta with asparagus, cheese plate and Jason's roast beef carpaccio



Delicious salad with poached egg, bacon

Jason's beef at same cafe near Canal St. Martin

Salad, Kir (fruit flavored white wine) and pizza at Monmartre Italian cafe

 Now, what about the beer? For being so close to the possibilities of German and Belgian beers, the cafes we went to did not have much of a selection at all. Leffe was everywhere. I assumed it was German, then found out it was an evil InBev product.

Leffe in St. German cafe (paired with an omelette)

Jason drinks fresh Heineken which is slightly less skunky

Pelforth Blonde at Canal St. Martin cafe                
  

All in all, we played it pretty safe with food. I thought the salads were so fantastic I didn't mind making a meal that way, especially with bread. We splurged on one creme brulee for dessert.


Travel Tips: get a Museum Pass and a Visite Pass. Our travel agent recommended these. They saved time, most importantly. Paris wore me out just waiting in lines for everything. The standing still bothered me more than walking. So the more you can save yourself in waiting, the better. We used the museum pass to skip the line in the Louvre and the Centre de Pompideau. It also would have applied to most any museum and the Arc de Triomphe. See what it includes here. Note that many museums are closed on Tuesdays, so that dictated how we divided our time. The Visite Pass is unlimited use on the metro, bus lines, and even the funicular (tram) that takes you up to Sacre Coeur. It is much simpler to buy it by the day instead of figuring out the machines every time you take the metro. Loved the metro, except when it is a heat wave and you are crowded into an older car that is not air conditioned. Enough said.


*Here you go ladies. You're welcome.

Before

And After. Yes, the loser of whatever this was had to strip.

Snapshots of Europe: Galway & the West Coast

Emo: the saddest gas station in the West

Jason gets fresh with the locals

Galway will always be my favorite Irish city, because I spent from January through June there in the year 2000 on an exchange program between National University of Ireland-Galway and Southern Illinois University-Carbondale. The city was mostly like I remembered it: alive, vital, artsy, diverse, but now I was much older. Almost too old for the party atmosphere that takes over the city at night. How do the girls teeter on their heels on the cobblestone streets? How do they stay warm in the tight minidresses? Why is it so crowded in this bar? Ugh, I'm old(er).

We stayed at Jury's Inn right the heart of the city.The weekend we arrived from Dublin, there was a Culture Night going on, the Oyster Festival, and a Guinness Live, which was free music in bars around the Latin Quarter area. The Culture Night events were free, and offered art gallery openings, poetry readings and performances.

 Highlights:

• Guiness Live weekend, with free music: included a local band at the King's Head called Riptide Movement. (Jason bought their CD) and trad music at the Tigh Coili pub
• Trip up the coast to the Burren, including a bird sanctuary, Ailwee Cafe, and the Cliffs of Moher

live trad music

Great Pub

Riptide Movement

Best Beer Bar Evah!

  

Food and drink highlights:lunch at the Oslo Bar in Salt Hill, a town on Galway Bay. Jason had a strawberry lime cider there that was outstanding. (Ciders are served poured in a glass over ice there. I had wondered why so many lads in the bars had glasses with ice--surely they weren't drinking mixed drinks!) I had the Belfast Blonde and also their house ale. Next to come was their house stout, but it wasn't ready yet. Crikey! I so wanted to try it. I had enough ales and lagers. They are part of a family of related bars that have locations in Galway and Dublin.

Awesome cider

Blonde with a Blonde

The sister pub in Galway was called the Salt House. And, it was right across the bridge from our hotel! We tried it that night after eating some Thai food. It was crowded, and there was going to be live music. A bluegrass band! We got into a conversation at the bar with one of the bartenders there who was there on his night off. From Mayo. Hates the Guinness. He was only drinking it because it was cheap and went down easy. Yes, there are beer snobs in Ireland, too, folks. He got us to try this and that and had we tried this and look at that. They had 5AM Saint by Brew Dog on tap that I had, plus a special amazing O'Haras Stout he suggested called Leann Follain, Trouble Brewing Stout, and I think Jason had a Belgian or two. They had Brew Dog's Sink the Bismarck in bottles, but it was so expensive. We liked it so much we went back the next night again.

Brew Dog 5AM Saint on tap

• I did end up trying fresh oysters for the first time at a pub called Sonny's. They were served with lemon wedges and tabasco sauce. I actually liked the flavor combo. Jason couldn't hardly look at them.

• fish and chips at McDonnagh's next to our hotel. It's an institution there. You haven't had fish and chips unless they are served takeaway style in a greasy mound that soaks through the paper they serve it in.

Finally, here is a glimpse into Galway's coolest beer bar, the Salt House:

Snapshots of Europe: Dublin

Elwess European Vacation
We left Sept. 19th from St. Louis to Charlotte to Dublin, arriving on the 20th. We stayed at the Academy Plaza (Best Western) off of O'Connell Street. A bit quieter than Temple Bar, but a farther walk across the river, too. We walked so much Jason got blisters from his new Doc Martins and had to get new shoes. He got a cold, too.

Sightseeing highlights:

• "Freshers" week at Trinity College, so the quad was full of a student club fair.
• St. Stephens Green: So beautiful, as I remembered. Swans live in the water, and there was a "swan whisperer" who made a friend with one. Sorta creepy and magical at the same time.
• Literary Pub Crawl: two actors combined performances of Irish plays, poems and stories and added historical and cultural information.  It went around Temple Bar and Trinity College area.
• Not new to me: Trinity College, Book of Kells tour, St. Patrick's Cathedral, National Art Gallery, Dublin Castle, the Changeable Weather
• Sandycove: we took the DART down to the James Joyce Martello Tower Museum that had a 1st edition Ulysses and Joyce's death mask. Not that I needed another Joyce book, but I got Ulysses and Us by Declan Kiberd, an author I was familiar with. I got the official museum stamp in the book (book nerd swoon).

In fact, here is a view from the windy top of the tower:

What was new since I'd been there in 2000: a new bridge over the River Liffey that looked like a harp, gigantic ferris wheel at the O2, an enormous music venue, the fast and efficient tram (Luas) system we had to use to get to the train station for Galway.

Food/beverage highlights:
Porterhouse Brewing: craft brewery with a couple of Dublin locations. We went to the main one in Temple Bar, where i got a coddle with the Wrassler's XXXX Stout and Jason had Geuze Boon and a sampler with their stout, red and a strong ale.
Bull and Castle: a gastropub specializing in local Irish breweries. I had Curim Celtic Wheat with a fisherman's pie and Jason had a sampler with Galway Hooker, O'Hara's Red and a lager.

O'Neill's on the Pub Crawl in Temple Bar

Bull and Castle Gastropub

Kehoe's Pub: First Guinness

On the pub crawl, Duke's Pub I had Kilkenny Irish Red, Trouble Brewing Ale at O'Neill's, Smithwicks at Old Stand and finally Guinness at Davy Byrne's.

Northern Ireland: we took an all day rail/bus tour by Rail Tours Ireland. Dublin to Belfast Train, bus around the northern causeway and back, train back to Dublin that night. It happened to be Arthur Guinness day, where we were supposed to toast a Guinness at 5:50 and we were on an older train with no bar.
Highlights were of course  Giant's Causeway and Carrick-a-Rede Bridge (my 2nd time both places)

Taste of Giant's Causeway:

Didn't remember: how long the damn walk was down to both places. Causeway had a shuttle but  the bridge didn't, and it was uphill, up stairs and then walking. So worth it, though. They are building a huge visitor's center at the causeway set to open in a year or two.

Me on the Carrick-a-Rede bridge

Food highlights: Guinness stew at the Giant's Causeway hotel, Irish Coffee at Bushmill's Distillery

Real Irish Coffee

The Waiting is the Hardest Part

beer going into the bottling bucket mixed with priming sugar

bottles prepped and ready

filling bottles

quality control: sampling the product

Follow up on first batch: Success! No complaints. I made bottlecap labels: 

Brew Day

This brew day is sponsored by Intelligencia Coffee.

It was a long and arduous process. If anything goes wrong, I suspect the yeast. I pitched it and not as much came out of the pack as one might expect. It was activated, obviously. Forget about the original gravity reading, because that got all screwed up. It was taken at the wrong time (Jason!).


Also I didn't exactly stick with Northern Brewer's directions. Steeped the grains (Chocolate/Dark crystal) for 30 minutes.








Added dark malt syrup and dark DME.








1st hop addition at 60 minutes (2 oz. Cluster), then at one minute (1 oz. Cascade). Also added Whirlfloc tablet at the last 15 mins.




I used Jason's "cold water" method of chilling the wort along with the ice water bath until cooled about 70 degrees. Aerated with drill attachment.


Here's to a decent, drinkable porter! I don't know what I'm calling it yet...

Update:
We have activity in the airlock! Sunday morning I noticed some bubbling.

Here's how it looked after a few days:

First Brew: Initial Prep

My first extract batch is a kit called St. Paul Porter from Northern Brewer. It came in last week and the yeast is in the fridge awaiting the brew day (TBA). I had my eye on the breakfast stout, since I love Founders' BS, but the reviews were very inconsistant. Thin, watery, etc. The porter sounded like it produced better results overall. Coffee, chocolate notes, how can you go wrong?
What have I done to get ready? Well, I didn't need to order any equipment. I'm using Jason's, before he jumps into another batch of his DIPA. I have watched him and several others from the Columbia Beer Enthustiasts brew, both extract and all-grain. I have been reading How to Brew (also Jason's, but I think I bought it for him). The AHA has many free short instructional videos, too.
What am I not going to do? Drink while brewing. I know that seems counterintuitive, but I'm trying to get the process down for now, and that leaves room for error and sloppy mistakes. The plan is to keep the same recipe going and try to improve on it each time. There will be plenty of time to drink as my reward for all the hard work.
I fully expect to be razzed for using a kit by folks who have moved on past kits, but I listened to a podcast called Brew Strong on the Brewing Network that made me feel okay about it. Everyone needs a gateway beer to get into craft beer, so this is my gateway brew.

St. Paul Porter

OG: 1.052

Wyeast Ringworm Ale

Grain: Simpson's Chocolate and Dark Crystal

Dark Malt syrup, Dark DME

Cluster & Cascade hops

1-2 weeks primary, 2-4 weeks secondary, 1-2 weeks bottle condition

I'll post the results of the actual brew day next!

Cheers.

Stuff White People Like: #128 Camping

http://stuffwhitepeoplelike.com/2009/08/14/128-camping/

"If you find yourself trapped in the middle of the woods without electricity, running water, or a car you would likely describe that situation as a “nightmare” or “a worse case scenario like after plane crash or something.” White people refer to it as “camping.”"

Well, this camping trip was definitely not a worse case scenario without electricity or running water. We stayed at the River Ranch Resort near Noel, which was really the Hilton of campsites. There was a nice store in case your forget anything, like beer, a cooler, supplies, etc. The restaurant offered BBQ, pizza they will deliver to your site, ice cream, and a breakfast buffet. Our group was split into two campsites, the larger one on the "late night loop," and the last 3 of us in the quiet zone, with smaller sites right on the creek/swamp. The bathrooms, not really in walking distance from my site, but closer to the party site, had several unisex bathrooms (with toilet paper aplenty), hot showers (50 cents), and a central sink area with electricity.

I should also mention we were right next to a Tyson Chicken plant, so the sky was lit up with what Sean dubbed the "Eternal Chicken Flame," most likely fanned with chicken fat renderings.

Jason and I headed out about 2:30 after he got off work and we loaded up the car. It was a long and painful drive for us. It rained (nay, poured) all the way to Springfield. We had to drive through the Lake, where the traffic is always awful. At Camdenton, a tricky detour sign lead us astray in the wrong direction. It was almost worth it, because we came upon a facility in the middle of nowhere called "The Glory Hole." There were no windows, nothing to indicate what it was, just a sign saying, "OPEN." Let your imagination take over from there...

Anyway, we reached Noel, MO and the campground about 7:30 and checked in. We set up the new tent and went to find everyone else in our group. About half of them were there, and the rest came later. Oh, and it was sprinkling as we set up camp, I must mention. So there was an attempt to string a tarp up over the common area so we could all hang out and not get wet. Tarp was stretched between 2 trees and a car that was carefully angled to hold the other end over the picnic table. Beers were passed around, faces were made over Jason's high alcohol offerings. Sean showed up later and set up over at our site and came over to join the group. We finally got to bed around 3 or so. We had to meet a quarter to 9 for the float trip. I slept reasonably well due to an air mattress and since it was cool enough to not be humid.

We woke up and got ready for the river. Cooking breakfast ended up being time-consuming, but Sean had a propane grill that sped up the process. We had onion bagels with bacon, sausage, eggs and provolone. Finally met up with the group, and got cooler and wet bags loaded up on the bus. They drove us to the farthest point, so our float lead us back to the campground. It was an 8 mile float on the Elk. Jason and I got set up in our canoe. Sean had a kayak, and everyone else was paired up on canoes.

Teri and I were both newbs to the kayaking. I am proud to say neither of us tipped or were tipped. Laura, who swore she'd done this plenty of time, tipped/got tipped 3 or 4 times before we were even a mile down the river. Some of it was due to clowning around, some of it not anticipating trees or branches in the way and getting out of the way. We really thought their canoe was ruined at one point, cause it got dented on a big log. Nobody wanted to be behind her or tie to her the rest of the trip.

The weather was perfect. Not too hot, especially on the first leg of the float where there was lots of shade. In fact, it started out cloudy, which was nice for us pale Irish types. On top of that, I had a big assed sun hat that covered my entire face/neck, plus 70 SPF on every inch of my body/face. It really didn't seem like a long distance until the end, when it got hot and I got tired. The river was easy, but pretty damn low, and we hit bottom some places. It wasn't even that crowded for a holiday weekend. We hit a bottleneck at one point with all the partyers on rafts just sitting there clogging up the river doing beer bongs. I can't say I felt too bad about hitting some idiot just dangling from a raft in the water not aware of a canoe coming straight for him and me yelling, look out!

The strangest sight (aside from the pair of Asian girls who managed to knock into each and every canoe in the river as they zigged and zagged their way down) was a sign offering "Free hotdogs and drinks." Jason wondered, what's the catch? We soon found out. We went right by it, since we recently ate our ham sandwiches. But, standing scattered in the middle of the river were members of this church trying to stop people and asking if they were "full of Jesus." This happened at two different spots. The second time, the man had literature he was passing out and asked if I needed something to read. I guess he missed the fact I was paddling, so I replied, I have my hands full (but not of Jesus). I guess the ones who did stop were asked to prey for their hotdogs. Don't get me wrong, it's their right to try to recruit people to their flock, but I truly don't think they are going to save many people doing beer bongs and jello shots down the river.

I have no idea when we got back, but it was pretty late in the day. We stopped a lot and ate, people smoked, dawdled, plus Aaron and Sean invented a game with the canoe paddles called "paddle ball." Laura was 2 and 0 on that game. We split into two groups, so at the end it was Jason, me Sean, Aaron and Teri. We left the rest behind (Aaron's sisters, Kelly/Laura, Laura's boyfriend, Kelly's boyfriend, Kayla and Tammy, Tammy's husband), and found out about their drama when we were headed to dinner.

There was a skirmish. The group was stopped to play on a rope swing and some morons created this elaborate scheme to try to steal their canoe. They pretended to tip, so these nice people went to check on them and help, while another malfeasant took the unattended canoe. By the time they realized what was going on, it was too late to grab it. So I guess they all piled into the remaining canoes and went after the youths. They somehow found them. Bob, Kelly's boyfriend, who is a guy you don't want to mess with, confronted the guy holding a paddle. The other guy grabbed the paddle and Bob ended up face down in the rocks, bleeding. So, the police got involved and the dude got arrested and they took Bob and the others back to site so he could get cleaned up. By the time I saw him that night, he had one black eye and one swollen protruding eye socket on the other side. Nasty. Oh, and Kelly chased after them and yelled profanities at them, too.

Anyway, Sean, Jason and I had BBQ at the restaurant for dinner and rejoined the group around the campfire. It was a lot more sedated, since everyone was either, tired, sun burnt, or injured. I think we were in bed around 11. I did not sleep well that night, and we even woke up before the alarm. We packed up and went to inspect the breakfast buffet (not impressive). So, we drove on to Neosho and found a Shoney's with a kickass breakfast buffet. We pretty much drove straight through from there, and since I slept, it seemed like a faster drive. The greatest thing was having Monday to recoup and sleep in. I got caught up on laundry and watched a marathon of the Office. I shouldn't have even unpacked, because I am off to the Lake again tomorrow for a work conference all day Wednesday. So much for getting caught up at work.

Beers had: Jason's Red-Headed Stepchild, Southern Tier Gemini, Avery's The Beast, Bell's Oktoberfest, New Belgium Fat Tire, a Belgian beer I forgot the name of, plus Miller Lite cans (on the river).

"Conversely, any camping trip that ends in death at the hands of nature or requires the use of valuable government resources for a rescue is seen as relatively positive in white culture. This is because both situations might eventually lead to a book deal or documentary film about the experience."

Perhaps Bob should sell the rights to his story, because local resources (police, campsite security) were used and the other guy is lucky he didn't die.