Cool Pic of the Day

I was taking pictures of Alex to document her sunbathing on a 100F day when a grasshopper swooped in.

Mad Men Season Six Explained

Here’s a smart explanation of the Vietnam symbolism used in the recently concluded sixth season. 

There are potential spoilers if you haven’t seen the finally and definite spoilers if you’ve never seen the show.

 

Walkabout 2013 Day 18: One Last Day in Prague

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No more beer fests or absinthe binges.  Just a day of walking around and soaking in the sites – the rainy rainy sites.  Today’s highlights include a trip to the National Museum and the Communism Museum which, ironically, is located in the same building as a casino.

And so ends my postings for Walkabout 2013.  I hope everyone enjoyed them as much as I enjoyed providing them.  But that seems doubtful since this was the greatest vacation/walkabout I’ve ever experienced.

Drinking Prague: Absinthe Time

We like to call it “Saturday Night in Prague”
-- JT

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A bar so nice, we went their twice.
So here’s my theory about how absinthe makes you crazy.  I’m not buying it.  Not because it didn’t make me crazy, but because I genuinely think you have to already be crazy to like this shit.  Van Gogh would have cut off his ear if he had been drinking Mike’s Hard Lemonade.  So stop blaming the absinthe.
But thanks to our fine Bartendrix, Natalie (aka The Fake Arya Stark), I did grow to appreciate absinthe to a limited extent.
On our second trip to Absinthe Time, three of us ordered unusual drinks.  JT accidently ordered a drink that had a bug chaser.  So that’s the bug in the pictures people are playing with.
I ordered a Witches Brew that was easily the most horrible drink I’ve ever had.  But the presentation was spectacular and I wanted to video it.  So I ordered one.

Before drinking, you’re supposed to inhale the vapors produced by the fire for an added buzz.  But by this time, I was sufficiently buzzed to not register a difference.
It turned out The Fake Mila Kunis, who made it the night before and not our beloved Natalie, didn’t know what she was doing.  This night, the Witches Brew was lovely.
And Jason ordered some shot where you have to snort a line of fine sugar first.

Absinthe Time == Good Times

Eating Prague: U Fleků

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Oh, U Fleků, what’s happened to you?  Or maybe it’s what’s happened to me.  Four years after my first visit you seem so touristy and brightly lit.  And please believe us when we say we don’t want any shots.  And what are those other shots?  In the good old days four years ago there was just one shot, Becherovka.  Oh well,  the pork knuckle was still great and the beer flowing.

San Marino Panorama

This didn’t turn out as well as I had hoped.  I panned way too fast.  Maybe someday I’ll slow it down and repost.  But for now, enjoy the view of Italy from high atop San Marino.

Walkabout 2013 Day 17: Prague Beer Fest Part Dva

Day 17 was so epic it’s going to take at least three blog postings.  So stay tuned.

The first posting will consist of more beer fest hijinks followed by a tram ride back to the hotel where we encountered a band of locals heading to a football game and who led us in cheer.  “Let’s go Praha” or some such.  Many liters of beer had been poured down my face at this point.  So specifics are cloudy to mostly cloudy.

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Area Man Looks Forward to Album Release

Walkabout 2013 Day 16: Plzen and Castle Karlštejn

We take a break from the beer fest for a road trip to the birthplace of Pilsner beer, Plzen, and then on to a castle.  On a sadder note, both meals today were very unspectacular and thus not worth blogging about. 

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Don’t Get Discouraged During Disgorging

Disgorging is the process of removing yeast sediment from a champagne bottle.  It didn’t occur to me to video* one of the many examples of manual disgorging until we were at Champagne Daniel Etienne.  Unfortunately, his first attempt failed. 

So he tried again.

 

* My new camera has HD video capabilities that I had forgotten about.

Eating Prague: U Pravdu

Yuuuupppp,  more beer.

It’s been a long day of drinking.

Garlic soup in a bread bowl

Sausage with fresh grated horseradish.

Duck

Goose