John Milito's Amazing Adventures

A Swamp Tour and a 32 Foot Alligator

2013-05-22T00:54:00.000-05:00

We started off the day back on the road towards Slidell, LA.

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Lake Pontchartrain Causeway is the longest continuous bridge over water in the world.

Our first activity of the day was a Honey Island Swamp Tour. The base of operations was located just on the outskirts of Slidell.

The tour was clearly geared toward alligator watching but in between sightings our guide gave us lots of interesting information about the plant life in the swamp. He said that Spanish Moss didn't come from Spain but was named such by the Native Americans who noticed the similarity between the plant and Spaniards' facial hair.

The swamp people houses were another big highlight for me. Many of them were in disrepair and had been abandoned since Hurricane Katrina.

After another crawfish laden meal in Slidell proper, we took yet another last minute detour before returning to New Orleans. I enjoy the quirky-crafty flavors of Abita Brewing Company, so when I saw Abita Springs on the map I was practically obligated to go and check it out.

Well it turns out that the brewery has since moved to nearby Covington (sellouts!) but the brewpub where the magic began is still in operation. They had even crazier beer flavors than the few you can buy in St. Louis. We had one made for springtime that tasted like strawberries.

Speaking of quirky, most definitely the weirdest place we saw on the whole trip was the Abita Mystery House. It was completely packed full of mysteries.

One room was completely filled with odd little moving dioramas that told the story of Louisiana.

This one was my favorite. I would have totally got an A in 7th grade history class with this baby.

When the aliens crash landed right next to a giant bassigator, things really got weird.

Why not make a wall by cementing glass bottles together?

"Devil Dog Bar-B-Que Sign. Both barbecued meats and a firm belief in the existence of hell are staples of Southern culture. Hot, spicy foods can't help but get associated with the Lord of the Underworld. With a fine eye for the Southern scene, set artist Dave Kelsey made this sign to appear with Tom Cruise in the film Interview with a Vampire--The Night Shift Historian"

32 feet. Get it?

Back in New Orleans we headed to the Garden District by trolley.

It's a bit hard to tell from this picture but many a tree and power line were completely drenched in beads from the frequent parades.

We saw a really cool cemetery but it was already closed. Womp womp.

The Garden District was so named because there were only a couple of fancy houses on each block surrounded by large gardens. The short version of the district's story is that the existing Creole inhabitants of New Orleans didn't like the influx of rich Americans and resisted them moving into to the established parts of the city such as the French Quarter. So the rich newbies just built their own neighborhoods in order to properly thumb their rich noses. We took a nice little self guided walking tour of the houses, but strangely enough I thought the fences were the best part.

Corn stalk fence. Never has there been a cooler fence.

I noticed some trees that had a lot of these little resurrection ferns hanging out on them. They can tolerate extremely dry conditions by getting all brown and crinkled and then pop up back to life when it rains.

Precursor to the chain link fence.

Run out of places to put fences? Doubtful.

We shopped around quite a bit for our last dinner in New Orleans. The French Quarter is just so crowded with tourists. The places that looked good had long waits and there were lots of places that didn't look very authentic. I recall vetoing at least one Italian restaurant. We finally found this nice place called Olivier's Creole Restaurant In the French Quarter. I had to fight the urge to order the rabbit. I recall the food being good and the waiter was super nice, which came in handy later. Unbeknownst to us there was a massive group upstairs that had the kitchen at an apparent standstill. I like to think I am pretty patient so the hourish-long wait for our food would not have bothered me incredibly. I was on vacation and in a good mood after all. But the waiter felt bad so he brought us free salads. Then a free appetizer. Then said pretty much just order whatever drinks and dessert you want on the house. More than one hurricane was consumed that night. They washed down the bread pudding nicely.

The nightly craziness on Bourbon Street was fun to watch but I wasn't much in the mood to participate. Especially on a Tuesday. Too much adventurin' to do!

Baton Rouge and New Orleans

2013-03-18T19:56:00.000-05:00

We said goodbye to charming and crawfish inhabited Breaux Bridge and continued along the highway toward New Orleans.

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We hadn't really planned on visiting Baton Rouge (Red Stick), but such is the magic of the road trip; the detours are often as much fun at the final destination. The landmark that piqued my interest was the state capitol building. Far from the played out domed structure, the Louisiana government headquarters looked very modern and reminded me of the Empire State Building.

A couple glass cases full of memorabilia stood in the hallway where Huey Long was assassinated. I of course had to read all about him on Wikipedia and the like. He was a US Senator during the Great Depression and had Presidential ambitions. He was apparently even more populist and leftist than FDR. FDR apparently told one of his aids that one purpose of the Second New Deal was to "steal Long's thunder". Pretty cool.

The whole experience was so unexpectedly cool that we agreed that we should try to visit the capitol building of every state where we have the opportunity.

The view from the top.

Finally we arrived in New Orleans. What a place. Our hotel was in the French Quarter so we headed there first. Bourbon Street during the day felt kind of like when its closing time at a bar and they turn all on the bright lights to get everyone to leave. All the crazy neon signs are without their magic and the bartenders all look very bored. At night though, it was rowdy even in the middle of the week.

Jackson Square, with its hero of the battle of New Orleans Andrew Jackson looking triumphant. St. Louis Cathedral in the back completes the postcard.

The architecture and people watching were interesting enough that we spent most of the day strolling and soaking up the sights.

The Cafe Du Monde was really a required stop and was well worth it. I believe the menu only had two things, coffee and beignets. The beignets were awesome and some plates had so much powdered sugar on them that you couldn't see the doughnuts hiding underneath. I like the idea of a place doing just one thing really well for a really long time. Cafe Du Monde branded coffee and beignet mix cans were probably in every single gift shop in the whole city. I passed though. No way could you make them like that at home.

A little promotional video featured on their website. There's even a mention of Du Monde in Jimmy Buffett's "The Wino and I Know":

Well the coffee is strong
at the Cafe Du Monde,
And the donuts are too hot to touch;
But just like a fool, when those
sweet goodies cool, I ate 'til I ate way too much.

Tabasco, Swamps, and a Whole Lot of Crawfish

2013-03-17T17:53:00.000-05:00

Day 3 of our trip began in the small town of Ruston, Louisiana where Lydia has some family. We quickly got back on the road and headed south.

View Day 3 in a larger map

View Day 3 in a larger map

After about a 3 hour drive things really started to get interesting. Luckily there were several noteworthy places all in a bunch.

Our first big stop was Vermilionville. It was like a restored villiage/cultural experience to learn about Creole and Acadian cultures. Lydia likes these little historical places where there are costumed interpreters. There were only a couple on this particular day though, so I think she was a little disappointed.

This is what North America looked like in 1750. Right above present-day Maine is the New France colony of Acadia. When the British took over many of the Acadians fled or were expelled. They then traveled all the way to present-day Louisiana where the word "Acadian" became "Cajun". I thought that was a pretty interesting story.

There was a little shindig going on which provided nice background music while wandering around the grounds.

This was one of the most interesting features of the plant life in Louisiana. According to Wikipedia we are not certain what is the purpose of Cypress knees that jut upward out of the water, but it could be for oxygen access or tree stability.

There were several little wreaths composed of waxpaper flowers on the graves.

This was definitely the creepiest part of the trip. A wreath made of human hair.

Next we headed over to Avery Island to tour the Tabasco factory.

Lydia signing up for some hotsauce junk mail.

Here's a tiny bit of the tour. I was really more interested in getting a bit of the tour guide's voice on tape. She had a very distinct accent.

Here was a mannequin demonstrating how the peppers are hand picked in the fields. The workers hold up a little red stick, le petit baton rouge, up to the peppers to make certain they are the correct ripe shade of red. And so I learned what the capital Baton Rouge's name means. Learning!

Another fun little fact is that the pepper mix is aged in the oak barrels that are left over from the bourbon making process in Kentucky. I remember that from the Bourbon Trail.

E. A. McIlhenny of Tabasco family fame turned much of Avery Island into a wildlife sanctuary of sorts called Jungle Gardens. It was very scenic, and provided us with our best up close look at some alligators.

There was so much Spanish moss around that we played with it a little. We learned in Vermilionville that the locals used to stuff their pillows with it.

I had seen and heard lots of talk about crawfish, so I had been keeping an eye out for them on menus along the way. Our next stop was Breaux Bridge, which just so happens to call itself the crawfish capital of the world.

The downtown area had lots of those cool New Orleans style balconies.

There was more Cajun music and dancing around in circles at a really cool restaurant called Pont Breaux's.

I thought I was ordering like a few crawfish, but apparently ordered all of them. They look really big but once you twist their little bodies apart there isn't really much meat left. They were really good! There was some sort of a fundraiser going on for the Breaux Bridge Crawfish Festival, which sounds completely awesome. We had the distinct pleasure of seeing the Crawfish King and Queen and their gigantic crowns. I thought they should have to wear big red claw gloves too but no dice on that one.

Hot Springs and Crater of Diamonds State Park

2013-03-16T13:44:00.000-05:00

Lydia and I went on a road trip from March 15-20 that took us to New Orleans through the center of Arkansas on the way down and then back up through Mississippi. There were many stops along the way. The 15th was mostly driving, we made it all the way to Little Rock, AR and stayed the night. The next morning we packed quite a lot into the day.

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The dot to the southwest is Crater of Diamonds State Park.

One of my favorite parts of the whole trip came right at the beginning. I really liked the old bathhouses in Hot Springs, Arkansas. Several of them had been converted into other types of businesses, but a couple of them were still going strong, selling services using the hot spring water. The area was extremely compact and walkable which made it a lot more of an enjoyable experience.

There are even some areas where you can see the water coming out of the ground. I tried to keep it in perspective and be impressed, but I think my interest in geothermal activity has been satisfied by our trip to Iceland.

I tested the spring. It was hot.

Buckstaff is one of the bathhouses still in operation. Lydia was excited about going through the magic water process here, but to my complete and utter disappointment, they were booked. It is a really cool looking building though, I thought. We made a much less fancy reservation just for a Jacuzzi sort of set up at another bathhouse.

The Old Army-Navy hospital was a very cool building as well.

It was the day before St. Patrick's Day. I usually enjoy spending this particular holiday with my friends in St. Louis, but we all have to make sacrifices.

We had a little lunch at Bill Clinton's favorite barbecue, McClard's.

They had a confusing two-entrance setup inside. The ribs were good, and we were able to eat and get back just in time for our reservations at the Quapaw Bathhouse.

The front desk at the Quapaw has a window behind where you could see patrons lounging in the water healing their thirsty ailments.

I was surprised how intense people seemed to be with taking the magic water home with them. Several of the public fountains I saw had people filling up big jugs.

I am embarrassingly interested in finding treasure. I like discovering things at flea markets and garage sales and that sort of thing. At a garage sale I very recently had to fight the urge to buy one of those metal detectors you see old guys waving around at the beach. So I was very excited to finish splashing around in the medicine water and drive to Crater of Diamonds State Park.

I thought the park did a really good job of keeping the finding a diamond dream alive. There were lots of success stories posted near the tool shop, and an erase board kept tally of the number of diamonds that day. There weren't any found on this particular day, but there had been several found the day before. That meant we were due.

This was the tool shop where we rented our mining equipment: a couple of little gardening shovels and some boxes you shake dirt through. Sort of like panning for gold only without the water.

Well it turns out mining with hand tools is not as glamorous as everyone says. The ground was hard and diamonds are very good at finding hiding places. I joked that we had just paid $7 a piece to volunteer for slave labor.

I think we stayed about an hour or two. We didn't find much, but the people watching was well worth the price of admission. Back in the parking lot we saw families pushing wheelbarrows full of buckets and pickaxes. Good luck to them.

We continued all the way into Louisiana, and stayed the night in Ruston, Lousiana.

Eating a Sheep's Head and the Blue Lagoon

2013-01-02T17:27:00.000-06:00

Our last full day in Iceland we kept the rental car one more day and mopped up our shopping errands. Christmas combined with pretty short store opening hours in general meant we hadn't really bought anything to take home yet.

First we went to the mall. Our hope was to avoid the tourist prices that were probably lurking in the tiny little shops by our hotel. Unfortunately most of the mall was imported stuff that wasn't that interesting. The whole point was to buy Icelandic-looking stuff!

66° North is an Icelandic clothing company which had really cool billboards all over town. When we found their store at the mall, though, it was super expensive. One camo jacket that I thought looked cool was $550.

Vínbúðin is the only place one can buy packaged alcohol in the country, and it is state owned. Their hours aren't very long, and there were probably 15-20 waiting for it to open at 11:00. Whether because of this Soviet arrangement or taxes, buying alcohol is ridiculous in Iceland. A 750ml bottle of Captain Morgan cost 5690 Icelandic Krona, or about $44.47. No thanks!

This Duff Beer of Simpsons fame is the only little thing I bought. Apparently the reason this isn't available in the US is that it is unlicensed. It looks like the German company who makes this is getting the soul sued out of them currently.

With our mall trip mostly a fail, we went back to the little shops of downtown Reykjavik.

The typical Icelandic wool sweater pattern is displayed on the two white ones. They were pretty expensive as well. I asked a store clerk at one point where we could find less expensive clothes. I thought surely that locals wouldn't pay these sorts of prices for things. She said that personally she saves up and then goes clothes shopping in the US. God bless America.

After shopping we stopped by one of the several public hot tub places in Reykjavik. It was super cold and windy, so the walk to the hot tubs was uncomfortable, but once inside it was quite nice. They had a heated lap pool as well. There was a water slide but it was a far enough walk from the safety of the heated pools that we couldn't risk it.

It was at this point Lydia started complaining that she hadn't eaten anything repulsive in a few hours. I did my best to fix that problem. Svið is a traditional dish consisting of a sheep's head singed to remove the hair, boiled, and then cut in half. At the BSÍ central bus station cafe, this plus two sides can be had for the low price of 1650 Krona, or about $12.78. What a deal.

Its tongue was still in its mouth.

We had some edible food for dinner later on. This was hashed fish with black bread.

At the end of the day it was time to return our faithful rental car. It was Škoda branded.

Kind of cool battle scene on the hotel lobby wall.

The next morning it was time for us to depart. Our flight was pretty late in the day though, so our tour company took us to the Blue Lagoon first. On the drive we encountered a police car blocking the entire highway. We had to take some side road around the highway, and while driving our tour guide stated that the road was closed because a different bus from our same company had caught fire in the middle of the highway. No one was apparently hurt, and on the bright side he said that they would probably now be able to buy a new bus. Comforting.

The Blue Lagoon is pretty much the biggest tourist trap in Iceland. It's an interesting place, plus it is near the airport which makes it a convenient stop.

At the airport there was some more opportunities for Yule Lad activities. Turns out the airport is tax free even for Icelanders, which meant they were buying alcohol and other luxuries there like crazy.

An Icelandic Roadtrip: Journey to the Center of the Snow

2013-01-01T12:48:00.000-06:00

Lydia tapped out the following on her iPhone during the flight home. I was pretty impressed.

John, being more brave than I, suggested that we rent a car for a few days and explore Iceland on our own. Although I was nervous about driving through ice, snow, and wind (especially after my trip last summer which you can read about here) in a foreign country, he convinced me to adopt a more adventurous spirit and off we went.

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This trip plus the bit of bus touring covered about half of the Ring Road that circles the country.

As a reference, this pretty amusing notice was attached to the rental car's steering wheel.

We began our journey in the dark (luckily it only took us 5 minutes of city driving to realize we had the headlights only partially on) and headed north towards Akureyri.

Akureyri is about 250 miles north of Reykjavik and the country's second largest city with 17,500 inhabitants. As the sun began to rise around 10:30, we decided it was time for our first stop. Looking to our guide book for a little direction, we decided to stop in Borgarnes. This quaint town on the sea is best known for its Settlement Centre featuring information about the history of Iceland and exhibits about one of the Icelandic sagas. It was well worth the stop!

The museum was very modern with interactive exhibits and eccentric artwork. I think the most interesting thing we learned was that at one point in history, the Nordic people were influential all throughout Europe. For example, Normandy, France, aka "northman" was so named because of the large number of Nordic inhabitants.

This picture illustrates the enormous influence of the Nordics on the rest of Europe.

The exhibits about the saga were also cool, but a little difficult to follow due to the confusing Icelandic names. The Icelandic people follow the old Nordic system of naming which you can read about here. Basically, this means that everyone's name sounds the same.

Even the gift shop was cool.

After exploring the museum we ate lunch in the adjoining restaurant. We had the lunch buffet, and it was delicious! John especially liked the broccoli-celery soup. It was unique in that it was quite spicy (I'm not sure I've ever had spicy soup before.) Overall John says the soups in Iceland were impressive. And although I'm not really a big soup eater, I'd have to agree.

A large number of the windows in Iceland had these in them, which I think is an Advent thing?

The rest of the afternoon was spent driving through snowy Iceland. Overall, the drive was pretty uneventful. The drive is probably more interesting in the summer months when you can see the grass, fauna, and lava fields. Unfortunately, the snow made it all look the same.

We did make a stop at a gas station, where we purchased some delicious candy.

Afterwards, we decided to make a quick stop in Skagastrond, the country music capital of Iceland. (Yes, you read that correctly, Iceland has a country music capital.) Unfortunately, the bar was closed, so we took a few pictures and headed out.

The local church looked like a space ship from Battlestar Galactica.

We made it to Akureyri around 6, just in time for dinner. We went to a local restaurant Bautinn, once again suggested by our guidebook. I had some delicious fish, and John had lamb. I didn't realize it at the time, but according to John, the locals sitting behind us had a lively discussion about us as they ate. It's times like these that I wish I spoke Icelandic!

The produce in Iceland often left something to be desired.

Paper towels featuring the Yule Lads from last post.

Although we had originally planned to drive back to Reykjavik, it got too late and we decided to stay in Akureyri for the night. After a failed attempt at tasting "Iceland's Best Ice Cream" (they were still closed for Christmas on the 27th!), we had a great time exploring the local night life. We found a bar hosting trivia night, but unfortunately it was in Icelandic, so we just observed. Very fun!

The next morning we woke up early and headed back south. On the way home we planned to stop by Snæfellsjökull, the setting for Jules Vern's Journey to the Center of the Earth. Little did we know, we were in for quite the journey of our own.

As the sun rose early in the morning, we noticed that it was very cloudy. It was weird because the sky and the ground were both so white, that they blended into one. Later, it started to snow. It got pretty real.

For lunch we stopped at Fimm Fiskar in the town of Stykkishólmur. At this point we considered ditching our plan, and driving back to Reykjavik. We asked our waiter about the weather conditions, (keep in mind it's freezing rain outside and had been heavily snowing), and he told us, "today is very nice, just a little rain, tomorrow we are expecting a storm.". I was ready to give-in to the weather, but John insisted that we continue. I believe his exact phrase was "Snæfellsjökull or die!" (editor's note: I think it's clear I didn't say this because there's no way in hell I would try to pronounce that word.)

We read that sheep in the road was going to be a problem in Iceland, but all the sheep and cows were inside for the winter. The only animal left out were the poor horses.

After another hour or two of scary driving, we finally made it. The lava fields in the park were really cool; they made the treacherous drive worth it. On the drive back, we drove along the southern coast of the fjord, and fortunately the snow turned into rain for a little while.

This was the most we saw of Snæfellsjökull due to the fog.

We eventually made it safely back to our hotel in Reykjavik. We tried to go out to dinner that night, but after walking a block in the windy snow, we decided to stay in and order Dominoes. Good choice if you ask me!

We washed down our pizza with some of this Christmasy drink. Egils Malt og Appelsín is half non-alcoholic malt and half orange soda. It was good, but rich enough that half a can was enough for each of us.

Iceland's Golden Circle and the Day We Ate Rotten Shark

2012-12-30T02:41:00.001-06:00

December 26 was our last day full of tour group travels. It was a good thing our week was planned out this way, because December 26 is the second day of Christmas in Iceland. Iceland's opening hours seem to be pretty short in general, but during the holidays nothing was open. It was often a real search just to find a place to eat dinner. Christmas in Iceland was fun to witness though, because they have their very own cast of characters. There's no Santa in Iceland. In his place are 13 awesome Yule Lads, who seem more about tearing society apart than giving out presents. The Lads have names that explain the pranks they play, sort of like the seven dwarves, such as Spoon Licker and Doorway Sniffer.

Sausage Swiper was featured in the Christmas edition of the Reykjavik Grapevine.

One really cool thing going on in the city were these animated projections of the Christmas characters doing their thing. This monster is linked with the Yule Lads. This is the Yule Cat, who is as big as a house and will eat any children that haven't received new clothing before Christmas. And Christmas justice is served.

Anyway, back to the tourin'. Our first stop was a geothermal power plant called Hellisheiðarvirkjun. We passed this place a few times on our way to other locations. We could always tell when it was nearby due to the heavy sulfur smell in the air. I read some very conflicting reports on the tap water quality in Iceland before I arrived. Some said it was fantastic, and others said it smelled terrible. Well it turns out both are true. If I turn the faucet on cold, the water comes out fresh as a mountain stream. If I turn it to hot, the water flows out smelling fresh as a mountain goat fart. The reason apparently is that the two waters come from different sources, with the hot water being heated in the earth.

The museum was full of cool interactive displays about earth quakes and other below-ground occurrences.

A model of the Pearl building we were able to visit on our first day in Reykjavik.

This is Leppalúði and Grýla, the troll parents of the Yule Lads. Grýla eats children who are naughty. Again, this sounds like a totally reasonable punishment. There really aren't that many uneaten children in Iceland.

The partially frozen waterfall Gullfoss puts all previously waterfalls seen by me to shame.

I've souped probably 6 times in Iceland and every one of them has been delicious. This one was lamb and vegetable.

Iceland is the home of Geysir, from which geysers get their name. Geysir's groove has apparently been interrupted by earthquakes, but nearby Strokkur still blasts off every few minutes.

Apologies on this one but I didn't have time to edit. Go to 2:56 if you get tired of us yapping.

The third and final spot that comprises Iceland's tourist awing Golden Circle is Þingvellir, the site of the world's first parliament.

We had a quick hot dog snack at Bæjarins Beztu. They had a picture of Bill Clinton eating here posted. Ordering one with everything gets you mustard, ketchup, rémoulade, and crunchy onions. Freezing my temporarily ungloved hands to eat this was very worth it.

Lebowski Bar was just a few steps from the hotel, and Big Lebowski is a masterpiece, so we went and checked that out.

All of the few bars I've entered in Iceland have had a wheel of fortune set up. You pay a few bucks and then spin the wheel to win drinks. It effectively combines gambling and drinking into one completely harmless omni-vice. The wheel at Lebowski was appropriately labeled, with a losing space marked simply "mark it zero" and one winning space paying out white Russians. It was awesome.

As we all have learned, Lydia is always wanting to eat foods that are in the US prohibited by law and/or common decency. And for her it's just bonus points if that food happens to taste like death. Well, we found a restaurant named Laekjarbrekka that crossed several species off of our dinner checklist all in one meal.

From left to right, according to the menu we have "wind dried fish and crunchy Icelandic seaweed", "hákarl: fermented shark-if you dare", "hot smoked puffin with crowberries and seaweed crisp", and "birch glazed minke whale". This all together was 1450 krona, or about $11.25.

"Don't let the smell bother you"- the waitress.

I had my doubts whether Lydia would want to share her feast, so I ordered something for myself: "cognac cured horse, glazed red beets, and roasted parsnip puré". I thought it would be really funny if the menu read: "horse, radish, horseradish". Pun on a plate.

Well the hákarl was awful as could be predicted. The chemical taste that I'm enjoying is ammonia.

The rest of the zoo animals weren't too bad. The whale and the puffin were pretty well covered with sweetness. The horse was the only thing that we didn't finish. It was super raw and chewy. Not good.

What do you call the horse the people sitting next to you are eating? Your Neeeigh-bor.

Iceland's Southern Coast

2012-12-25T22:06:00.000-06:00

Today started like everyday here is going to start: pitch black. It's kind of cool though, I realized that with the 4 hour days I am going to see every sunrise and sunset for a whole week. We were on another epic bus tour which took us to some sights on the Southern coast of the country.

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We got as far as Vik, a little town with good soup and fish sticks.

The buses all have wifi, which is really cool. One girl was able to use FaceTime to watch a loved one open their Christmas presents. I also really enjoyed using Google maps to check our progress on the road.

I enjoyed the part where our two buses of tourists descended like locusts on unsuspecting businesses.

We've been having skyr about twice a day since we arrived. It's a thicker, more sour sort of yogurt. It's not bad, plus they have cool flavors.

I don't have the time right now to get into what all of these places are, but we saw several waterfalls, lots of mountains, a black sand beach, a museum of sorts, and several volcanoes including Eyjafjallajökull, the one that shut down Atlantic air travel in 2010 which I hereby declare unpronounceable. On that note, the place names are so dense here that it's hard to remember them, so it takes a lot more work to keep track of what is named what.

I got pretty excited about this waterfall.

The ground was noteworthy most of the places we went. Lydia likes chocolate a whole lot, so we worked on classifying the ground with that in mind. This was frozen chocolate doughnut glaze.

Next stop was a glacier. It was big, blue, and cold.

We had found a pretty cool place to take pictures until we were scolded by the tour guide for straying from the group. He had a couple of phrases that he repeated incessantly. One was that we had to stay with the group because we didn't have the equipment to withstand the glacial dangers. Pretty much anywhere Lydia went after that I screamed "No! You don't have the equipment!"

The ice withstood the scientific punch test.

This part was really cool. Our guide said that whenever a volcano erupts it shoots black ash everywhere, which is then trapped in the glacier's ice. This creates a tree ring effect where they can take core samples and find answers to questions and so forth.

The ground here was more of a chocolate cake mix.

They took us to this questionable museum of various Icelandic artifacts. I thought the most interesting part was the eccentric owner, seen here setting the mood before a rendition of "Silent Night" in Icelandic.

There aren't a whole lot of trees in Iceland, which I assume is why they rocked the old sod hut looking houses.

We are on a tour hot streak. Not two hours after the end of this one did we embark on our Northern Lights excursion. Long story short we drove around for 3 hours but not a light was seen. Luckily they will let us keep going on that particular tour until we see some lights. Whether we will want to is to be determined.

It was so bitterly cold and windy today, especially at night, that we spent most of this time sitting in the bus, watching other people see nothing. The trip was still a lot of fun despite the circumstances. Our tour guide was really funny and had lots of stories to keep us entertained. He told us his difficult Icelandic name but said that while we were on this sky watching tour we could call him "Stardust".

Iceland loves hot dogs, and so does this guy. They have fried crunchies and chili ketchup toppings for crying out loud!

A Day in Reykjavik

2012-12-24T20:38:00.000-06:00

Well I've just spent my first day in Reykjavik, Iceland. We had some initial drama with the flights over here. A connecting flight from Charlotte to DC was delayed, and long story short resulted in a mass of people jogging to the last flight into Iceland before Icelandair shut down for four days for Christmas. Our luggage arriving with us was also a huge maybe, which would have resulted in us having none of our things for four days, which would have really sucked. Anyway, we are here now with luggage and all's well that ends well.

I couldn't get a ton of hours of sleep in during all of these flights, so it's been a long day. It sounds like the city effectively shuts down for Christmas and is only half open Christmas Eve, so our first mission was to get some groceries. I love a foreign grocery store so much.

This looked like a bag of pickled quail eggs. One different quality of this place was the refrigerated section was an entire room. No lines of refrigerated doors like in the States. It was pretty darn cold in there. We walked through fast.

I have read a decent amount about Icelandic cuisine and I recognized a couple little things that looked good.

Laufabrauð (leaf bread) is a traditional Christmas time food. They are like big fried crackers with patterns in them. We've eaten quite a few already. I guess families will roll these out, cut patterns, and then fry them themselves. Pretty fancy.

They taste good with cheese.

Harðfiskur (hard fish) is pretty much fish jerky. This was another food I knew to look out for ahead of time. I think it's pretty good, but Lydia hates it. Our bus driver/tour guide said he liked me because I had just arrived and was already trying the local food. In Japan this is like something you'd put on a child's birthday cake instead of vanilla frosting. Remember when I had to eat pregnant fish at school lunch? For one of my going away parties I was served fried eel spines with the head still attached. Whatchu know about seafood Iceland?

Lydia wants to love fish jerky. The bus driver suggested that we try it with butter. Challenge accepted.

Well after the grocery store and a badly needed nap we took a bus tour of the area.

The important Reykjavik Summit between Reagan and Gorbachev was held here.

This is where the prime minister's office is. I think it is incredibly awesome how accessible the national government seems to be here. I saw in some tourism ad that the prime minister's phone number is in the phone book.

This is how I feel in the morning before work sometimes.

We ended the day doing some window shopping despite everything being closed.

The last couple days of our time here we are going to rent a car and hit the road. Traffic seems to be civil, but the road rules and signs worry me a bit. For example, what the heck does this mean? Don't drive 30? How about 31? I'm definitely going to need to take a peek at a manual.

Amsterdam and the Surrounding Countryside

2012-12-03T18:06:00.002-06:00

This will be the last time I'll cry about getting my computer stolen and losing all of my pictures. I've borrowed a few from Wikipedia for some help with describing.

I was definitely happy when Clarence suggested we take a little excursion to another country in Europe. While I had just arrived in the UK, he was there finishing up a master’s degree and wanted a vacation of his own. I was happy to accompany him. He had his heart set on a visit to Amsterdam.

Amsterdam is a pretty damn awesome place. One obvious difference on street level is how supremely bike friendly the city is. The bike lane isn't just some faintly painted line on the road that cars ignore, it’s a separate lane with separate curbs and everything. It’s bike friendly to the point of sometimes being pedestrian unfriendly. Because bike riders have dominion over their little roads, they were sometimes pretty aggressive. I had quite a few bike chime/bell things rung at me whilst absentmindedly walking in their lane.

View Amsterdam in a larger map

As you can see from the map, Amsterdam is covered in a web of canals. This is an echo of the city's trading empire past. The traditional buildings had a few unique characteristics of a port town. Many of the buildings leaned towards the water, and had a little hook looking thing at the top. This allowed inhabitants to use a pulley system to load cargo straight from the water into their attic for storage. Sometimes the lean was quite dramatic, and it looked like the buildings were in danger of tipping over.

Of course the lax marijuana rules have a big impact on the city. There were little pot "cafes" everywhere, and every souvenir shop we entered had a little head shop area. We also visited the red light district. It was funny, I've been to some pretty scummy areas in Asia especially, but this red light district was very tourist friendly. There were women advertising themselves in the windows of buildings but there was no nudity. I saw a senior citizen tour group being led down the narrow streets, which reinforced the cartoonishness of the place.

The Amsterdam flag is pretty cool. It's 3 white x's on a black stripe over a red field. I was relieved to learn this because when I saw a sign at our hostel that read something like "we're xxxstrodinary" I was worried that we may have just checked into a brothel.

We made our way over the to Anne Frank House but the line was epicly long and we were not feeling patient. We satisfied our culture fix with a long visit to the comprehensive Van Gogh Museum instead. We visited a tulip market but I resisted the urge to buy anything. We also hit up a cheese shop. It was cool because all of the cheese came in those big wheels. Even the sliced cheese I bought at the supermarket had been carved off of a huge wheel.

I of course went out of my way to sample the local cuisine. While sitting at a little table outside a cafe I ordered bitterballen. They were sort of like meaty hushpuppies. The waitress sensed my weakness and hinted that if I wanted to be like a real Dutch guy then I should order a shot of jenever. That was really all the encouragement that was necessary. It's pretty much like gin.

Another weird thing was the Dutch version of black licorice. A bemused store clerk let us try some for free at a little shop we wandered into. It was incredibly salty and awful. I bought a bag to take home and trick my family and friends into trying. I of course opted for the bag labeled "Dubbel Zoute". Double Salt.

The strangest food that I tried was the pickled herring. I saw several posters with pictures of people eating the herring by holding it by the tail over their heads and eating it that way. I'm not sure what that was about. I also tried some chopped up with onions and pickles on a hotdog bun. I didn't mind the taste but the drawback was the tiny little irremovable bones. They give me flashbacks of gagging in Japan.

View Amsterdam in a larger map

I didn't want to spend all of our short time in Amsterdam, and so we signed up for a little day tour of some of the surrounding areas. It was nice to get out a bit, but the places we were able to see were also intensely touristy. There may be a bit of contradiction in being a tourist who longs for authentic experiences. It's something I always have in the back of my mind while traveling.

Volendam and Marken were both sort of fishing village type areas. One had all of their houses on stilts to avoid the flooding. They both put an emphasis on the traditional clothing, with the tall pointed hats and the wooden clogs, though there are few people who legitimately wear that clothing still living. There was even a visit to a clog maker's shop. Clarence and I wandered away from the gift shops at one point and ended up at a little neighborhood pub sipping teas. Clarence really likes tea.

Zaandam was where a tourist could get their windmill fix. They were pretty cool. I guess the Dutch harnessed wind power this way to drain the water from much of their land, some of which is either under sea level or very close to it.

I met a pretty Quebecois girl named Dominique on the ferry between Volendam and Marken. She works for the Canadian government doing something or other in Ottawa. She was nice and I liked her French accent, so we welcomed her into our crew and had many a mini adventure together. We met up a few hours after the tour was over for dinner and drinks. She said the whole hostel runaround was worth it in order to make friends on her journey. I can't imagine traveling solo for too long of a time. Witnessing beautiful things and having no one to share them with is a really lonely experience.

I needed to charge my phone every night at the hostel after a long day of picture taking and opportunistic free wireless usage. The only power outlet was quite a distance from the ground, so I just plugged it in and lowered the cable to the ground, where the phone rested, safely behind the bunk bed. Worked like a charm. When I was awakened by the sound of the cleaning people working on nearby rooms I was confused. I had definitely set my alarm to avoid any late checkout fees. I reeled my phone up from behind the bed and water dripped out of the case. The floor under my bed was completely covered in water, from the shower drain being blocked or something I don't know.

Our return flight was late in the day and we had several hours to kill, but in my head this trip was over. Many a good time was had and many a euro spent, and I was tired. I was half tempted to go back to the room after checkout and have a nap until the cleaning people kicked me out. I had one last pancake (ham and cheese) under an outdoor cafe umbrella. Clarence and I took turns halfheartedly suggesting places to go, both understanding we were only trying to help waste time. The drugstore, the library, a museum, a store Clarence recalled seeing some cute shoes at days earlier. We hit a Dutch casino for the first time and I messed around on an electronic roulette wheel. I broke even but managed to kill more of those pesky minutes. Clarence couldn't have cared less about the place but became much more interested when he realized that there were free teas available. A fun gambling fact is that European roulette wheels only have one green space (zero) while in the US there's two (zero and double zero). So there are better odds available if you bet on red or black and so forth.

We caught a showing of The Rise of the Planet of the Apes in a really cool theater called the Tuschinksi. It was really a gem of a place, like a less cheesy version of the Chinese Theater. Several signs proudly proclaimed that they were celebrating its 90th anniversary.

It was surprising to me how much Clarence and I's opinions differed on things. At the airport he gathered up his remaining euro change and did his best to spend every last cent on overpriced airport snacks. What the heck was I going to do with my ten dollars worth of change? When I replied that several of the pounds I brought with me were leftovers from my UK trip in high school he was not impressed. I think his view is that this was a vacation and so it should be relaxing. When I'm someplace like Amsterdam I really don't have interest in parks, the beach, or the like. Relaxing is what I do on the couch at home. This was experience time.

Iceland!

2012-11-28T09:15:00.002-06:00

I've just bought the plane tickets to go to Iceland in late December! I'm pretty excited about it.

Here is my current understanding of what the place will look like.

I've just started one of my favorite parts about going to a strange land: buying the travel guide and learning everything I can. A much more ambitious goal is to learn some Icelandic. The pronunciation is really different from anything I've played with before, so it's a challenge. Icelandic seems to share the unpleasant habit of English vowels being randomly long and short just because. There's a couple new letters, plus a bunch of accented letters. For example "hello" is "góðan dag". It kind of resembles "guten tag" I suppose. Just learning enough about it to say the place names in a taxi is going to take some work.

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Iceland fun fact: Iceland was invaded by Britain then occupied by the US during WWII to keep it from the Germans.

Pleasant Hill Shakers

2012-11-15T00:06:00.000-06:00

The day after the chicken fest we took a different, country road way home. It was a really pleasant drive. I haven't quite put my finger on it, but I like the feel of the countryside in Kentucky much more than that of Illinois. Illinois is so intensely agricultural that the color green is only visible for a few months of the year. The corn and beans turn an ugly yellow when it's time for harvest, and after that the fields are muddy graveyards full of the remains of plants chopped apart by machines. Here there was much more forest and more much nice green grass to be seen from the roads. The tiny bit of yellow that we did see was the random little tobacco field. We stopped off at various places on our way back to Louisville where we were going to spend the night. The coolest place was Pleasant Hill.

The northernmost blue dot there is where Pleasant Hill is located. Just south of that is Danville, where the recent Vice Presidential Debate was held. They had signs up advertising the upcoming event. That was kind of neat and noteworthy.

Pleasant Hill is the site of a defunct religious community called the Shakers. The most notable thing about this group is that men and women are mostly kept apart, there is no marriage, and there are no children born. New converts and adopted orphans were the community's only source of new members. Turns out that's bad for business.

The Shakers put a big emphasis on craftsmanship, similar to the renowned woodworking skills of the Amish. Here you can see the peg rails running along both walls. They had these cool little candle holders that fit onto the pegs to light a room.

This was probably the most interesting food I tried on the whole trip. It came on my mom's sandwich. It was funny because I asked our waitress what it was and she didn't know, and I don't think it was even on the menu. It turned out to be pickled watermelon rind. I don't think I've had a sweet thing pickled before. The sweetness of the fruit and the salty pickle brine combined to make something out of the ordinary.

These bee's wax candles smelled really good.

One thing that stuck with me was some ladies were making apple butter in a big cauldron over a fire. I've had apple butter before, but I guess I didn't realize it was so simple to make. We made pear butter back in St. Louis a few days ago that was delicious. I wonder what other fruits taste better when you put them in a crock pot for 10 hours?

Here a horse was being used to power a sorghum press. Squeezing the sugar cane-like plants produces a sweet liquid.

One of the vendors was selling items made from alpaca fur. I'd never touched one before. They were super soft. It was a quality petting zoo experience. I saw some of these guys running around Machu Picchu, but at the time I was trying to avoid rabies and/or ancient Incan curses.

We stayed our last night in Louisville. We walked around a bit downtown, but I don't feel like there's an awful lot to see just wandering around. St. Louis is much more fun!

Kentucky Fried Road Trip

2012-10-29T12:12:00.002-05:00

I took my mom on a little road trip from Friday, September 28th to October 1st. Our primary mission was to attend the World Fried Chicken Festival in London Kentucky. It made sense because my mom lives on a strict school-lunch diet of tacos, pizza, and fried chicken, and Kentucky is much easier to drive to than Mexico or Italy.

The Chicken Festival was definitely cool, but it wasn't quite what I had been expecting. In St. Louis there are barbecue festivals, and in Springfield they have chili festivals, and what both of those things mean is a bunch of people who are good at making those things compete at who is the best. And I like it because then I get to try food made by professionals from all over the place. I figured that's what the Chicken Festival was going to be like. Going from booth to booth, stuffing my face with awesome fried chicken. Well, it wasn't quite like that. It was more of a county fair type of atmosphere. There were the usual booths all over with people selling stuff, and political groups. There was the section with the carnival rides, and there was a stage for little shows. There was a country singing girl on stage for a while who was really good. Country on the radio makes me want to wretch, but she was playing Johnny Cash, and led me to discover Patsy Cline's "Walkin' After Midnight". I've listened to that song in the car about a hundred times since then. Tangent alert.

Anyway, so there were chicken signs everywhere, and I got this pretty rad paper chicken hat, but the only edible chicken was being made by a church group. I feel like there must be something going on when there's only one group selling chicken at the World Fried Chicken Festival. Seemed very monopolistic to me.

And when you've only got one group making chicken at a damn chicken festival you get: one massive line.

To be fair, it was really really good. And they had this cool world's largest skillet thing that made watching the frying process pretty amusing. There was a guy walking around with a garden rake pulling the chicken in that had floated out of arms reach while frying.

Next we took a quick drive to Cumberland Falls, located in Daniel Boone National Forest. The leaves were just starting to change colors. It was very nice.

Apparently there is an actual thing called a moonbow, created when the moonlight hits the mist from the falls. It sounds pretty awesome.

I like to try local stuff, so of course I had a Diet Ale 8. Once I drank it I realized it had caffeine in it. What sort of a monster puts caffeine in a ginger ale? Why not start putting codeine in there as well? Sneaky soda pharmacists.

The final sight seen for the day was Corbin, Kentucky, home of Harland Sanders' original restaurant.

The place used to be a roadside restaurant and motel. I think the story was that they were going to move the highway which would kill Sanders' business. So he went and sold his secret recipe on the road.

I thought the story here was pretty cool. The sign said that the lady of the house would always check out the rooms at a motel before a family would agree to stay the night. So to smooth out this barrier Sanders made the restaurants bathrooms accessible only through replica of the rooms. Pretty good marketing I thought.

All of this Colonel Sanders fun times reminded me of how he rolls in Japan. Read about how he is dressed up by season and confused with Santa Clause here. Then, read about how the Colonel put a curse on Japanese professional baseball's Hanshin Tigers here.

Acorns For Dinner

2012-08-22T23:54:00.001-05:00

I was strolling around Soulard last night when I had the tragic idea that it would be cool to try to cook some large acorns hanging from an old nearby oak tree. I had just recently seen a painting of Andrew Jackson heroically sharing his acorn dinner with one of his soldiers on some war campaign. In my book the only two criteria for becoming a badass mountain-man are a dislike of shaving (check) and the ability to just eat whatever is growing within arms reach.

So I picked a handful of them, making sure not to get any with visible holes in them, which would indicate bugs.

While consulting a couple of online articles I found on the subject, I hit the acorns with a hammer to split them and remove the shells. That turned out be the easy part.

The thing with acorns is they contain an apparently weapons grade level of tannins in them. The same substance makes wine taste dry. It is also used to tan animal hide into leather. One online source warned that íf I just ate the acorns raw I wouldn't die but may wish I had with: a mouth that tastes and feels like felt, nausea, and a multiple day long case of constipation.

So, not eating them raw. The easiest way was to leach the acorn meat of the substance by putting them in a pot of water and bringing it to a boil. The instructions said to keep them at a boil for 15 minutes, dump the water, and then repeat the process. Each time the water would turn a brownish color, which was kind of cool because it was clear that something was happening. It was a little less cool the second time. After about an hour of moving the acorn meat between two continuously boiling pots of water, the process was decidedly uncool. The water just kept getting dark brown with evil tannins. At this point I was ready to eat them and face the consequences.

I put them in the oven and just baked them as is. They came out looking not bad, and some of the smaller pieces had become satisfyingly crunchy. While all of that boiling had failed to completely remove the tannin taste, it had successfully removed any other taste the acorns may have originally had. Adding salt really just made them taste like salty batteries.

Tannins are the damn devil and I hate them. The End.

Salmon on the Grill

2012-07-23T16:29:00.002-05:00

I made a really good meal a couple of days ago. I've been getting into cooking a bit more lately. This super expensive sockeye salmon was on sale at the supermarket, which is what got me wanting to experiment in the first place. The dish actually called for cooking the fish on the grill (purchase a weber q120 bbq), but apartment living makes that a bit impractical. I just cooked it on the stove. The heart of the recipe was a marinade that consisted of soy sauce, brown sugar, lemon juice, and a few other ingredients (full recipe here). The recipe also wanted me to marinade the fish for two hours, but I didn't have time so cut that corner as well. I realized that the marinade would just roll off of the fish if I just dunked it on, so I poured a bit of it into the pan when I cooked the fish. It cooked down and formed a nice sort of glaze on the fish. It was still really good. I'm starting to feel like I have enough comfort with cooking that I can deviate from recipes and nothing will blow up. I rounded out the meal with some canned diced tomatoes with peppers and a can of black beans mixed together and just heated up on the stove. It turned out pretty awesome.

This is a sponsored blog post.

Eating in Manchester

2012-07-16T20:23:00.001-05:00

As I mentioned, my computer was removed from my apartment by a stranger in a "borrowed forever" sort of arrangement. They did not take the power cord though, which gives me a small amount of satisfaction.

Well after a darn good laugh with Mike and Clarence in the southern part of the country, I took a train up to Manchester to visit my good pal Zishan, whom I also met during my days of teaching English in Japan.

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Of course without my damn pictures I don't have much of a reference to remember what the hell I did in Manchester. Blah. I remember food seeming even more of a central topic here than it normally is when I travel. A big reason for that was that I had chosen to travel to see Zishan during the month of Ramadan.

I hadn't thought about it before, but Zishan may be the single Muslim person I know. So Ramadan was an unfolding mystery to me. The rule is that you can't eat(among other satisfying activities) from dawn to dusk. This seemed like it would present a serious problem in some neighborhoods, where the businesses and customers are all observing an entire month of fasting, it seems like owning a convenience store would be pretty slow going. That could be considered a drawback in my Manchester visit timing I suppose, with a lot less activity on the streets, but I think I learned more about a new culture as a result. Good trade I'd say. Now, there were a few situations where I tortured Zishan by eating in front of him, but I did it all in the name of science.

The whole staying inside during the day and only eating at night situation called for plenty of vampire jokes, which Zishan pretended weren't funny but I think we all know the truth. There was a particularly amusing scene in a buffet restaurant where I seemed to be the only non-muslim customer. Everyone just sat and talked, ignoring the food laid out for them. When the clock struck the exact minute that the sun was officially "down", there was a mad rush to the food line. It was fun.

I remember the architecture was much more industrial seeming here than it London. I assume London got the worst of the WWII bombings, so perhaps that's the reason for the difference. There were smaller public disturbances set off in Manchester around the same time as the London riots. I remember seeing a burned out store front or two in the main shopping areas. And there you have it. Manchester.

Burgled!

2012-07-13T16:36:00.002-05:00

Tuesday I had an unwelcome visitor to my apartment. I had several heavy boxes that I was carrying up to my second floor room, and it took quite a bit of time and sweat to get them all inside. I probably made 8 trips up and down. I parked my car on the street as usual, and when I returned to boot up the old compy it was nowhere to be found.

Well I hadn't been locking my door because of the annoyance of doing it over and over with heavy things in my hands. I figured it would be fine because I was in and out so often it would take a ninja to get in and out unseen with my treasures. Well, the ninjas win this round. I spent a good chunk of the day talking to the apartment manager, the police, the crime scene finger printer lady, and my insurance company. It was a real laugh.

There was someone in the hallway during my box carrying, so maybe they were the culprit. I dunno. Good news is that my laptop is the only thing that seems to be missing.

Unfortunately for myself and my loyal reader(s) is a good chunk of photos were on that computer. The last couple of days of last year's Europe excursion are forever lost. Bummer. I guess I'm just going to have to go back sometime and take some more.

An Afternoon at the Fairmount

2012-06-21T16:26:00.000-05:00

I took Lydia to the Fairmount Park Race Track to see the horse races Tuesday. I thought it would be a nice way to actually see a horse, in contrast to the hellish Kentucky Derby. Fairmount Park is pretty much the opposite of Churchhill Downs, in a good way. First off, on Horse Hooky Tuesdays it costs $1.50 to get in. Boom. Smallish (12oz?) draught beers are $1.50 and that covers the fancier stuff too. Blue Moons for me. And the little hot dogs they were selling were a dollar. The betting lines are short, and there's several air-conditioned indoor and outdoor places to sit and watch. The best part was not even one drunken stranger puked on me. I'd say we saw four races, drank beers, ate hotdogs, and toured the damn grounds all in the time it took us to endure the line outside the Derby.

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I thought it was interesting how the mood changed in the different areas of the place. The more run-of-the-mill people present for entertainment were outside by the track's fence and inside sitting on bleachers. Exploring the building overlooking the track revealed those who are a bit more serious. There are lots of tables and even some private conference/meeting room looking places filled with people seriously scouring over a multitude of papers intent on finding betting secrets. Even more serious than that was a room full of little desks all lined up. Each desk had its own little TV with races continuously showing, and the desks were all facing a wall sized screen on one end of the room. It was a bit like a NASA mission control room for gambling addicts.

We lost the first two races, and then won it all back on the third.

Portobello Road

2012-06-11T13:31:00.000-05:00

With Cornwall conquered and Stonehenge thoroughly explored, we had returned to London. We had a rare little bit of time when the three of us, Mike, Clarence, and myself were all free for fun at the same time. It was probably me who suggested Portobello Road. Mostly because that's where the riches of ages are sold.

Mike entertaining himself on the tube.

It rained a little, but the street facing shop doors often led into indoor mazes of antiques and shiny baubles, so it was possible to dodge the rain for the most part.

I was too busy rummaging and haggling to take too many pictures, but this documentary does a good job of explaining what the street market was like.

Eating lunch at this place was probably the best part of the whole day. It was the sort of classic old timey British food that I had been searching for. The menu back there on the window is pretty funny. 1 pie & 1 mash: £2.90. 1 pie & 2 mash £3.80. 2 pie & 1 mash? £4.90. 2 pie & 2 mash: £5.80. 1 pie, 1 mash, AND peas & gravy? Settle down son. That's only available on Friday and Saturday. Peas on a Tuesday!? What are you the Prince of Persia?

With the eels sold out for the day, the decision on what to order was made very simple. I had a pie and mash. There was a green sauce and a brown more gravy like sauce available for the mash. Well I got the green because it was the least familiar. Well I heard the locals calling it "liquor" when they ordered, which was I thought was interesting. Well of course I read more about it later. The story goes that London's rivers were so polluted back in the day that eels were the only fish that could survive in them, so eels became a working class staple. The "liquor" added to the dish is the water used to cook the eel with other ingredients added for flavor. Interesting. I don't recall it tasting fishy or anything.

Clarence with his pie order.

Next stop was Manchester.

The Bourbon Trail Part II: This Time, It's Personal

2012-06-05T17:23:00.001-05:00

We woke up at our crummy motel, and to our surprise, neither of us had been raped even once! So that was good. After a couple of celebratory high fives we had to make a decision: stay in Bourbonland and see more, or take a trip to Kentucky's Creation Museum and very likely witness a life size diorama of Jesus riding a mastodon. Decisions, decisions. The museum ultimately lost due to high cost ($25 per soul) and being about 2 hours out of our way. That place is definitely still on my list though.

We had picked up these cool little passports at Jim Beam's. They had a spot for a stamp from six of the area's bourbon makers. One you got all six, you could mail it in and get a free t-shirt. Challenge accepted.

The six stops on the trail were Jim Beam, Wild Turkey, Heaven Hill, Maker's Mark, Woodford Reserve, and Four Roses. This map, the printable version of the passport, and additional information can be found here. The Creation Museum is all the way up to the west of Covington.

With sacred quest in hand, we hit the road. As you can see from the map, many of the locations are a bit off of the beaten track. Maker's Mark and Woodford Reserve in particular I recall were in the middle of nowhere. The countryside was a sight worth seeing in itself though. The drive was very pleasant most of the time.

Heaven Hill was our first stop of the day. They had a really nice visitor center with a large museum type area. It also had the best tasting experience of all six locations. It was like a mini bourbon tasting class rather than the typical "here drink this and then get out of here" treatment we usually received.

You can see on these rack houses there are black stains on towards the bottom. They mentioned the phenomena at Jim Beam's, just saying that the bourbon aging process was releasing a lot of evaporated alcohol and that it turned the surrounding trees black. Our guide said these telltale black trees were one way the feds would find hidden moonshine stills during prohibition. I had assumed that this was just some sort of a stain. Well our guide at Heaven Hill talked a bit more about it, saying that it is actually a fungus. It's called Baudoinia compniacensis, it eats ethanol, and versions of it grow on stuff everywhere from the cold whiskey stills of Canada to the cognac cellars of... Cognac. According to a really interesting Wired article on the subject, it was only just properly classified a few years ago. Here some Louisville residents are suing the local distillers for causing their cars and houses to be covered in the stuff.

You might think that sort of going on the same tour multiple times would get boring, but for me it was like taking the same class from three different teachers. Each had different parts of the story to tell. By the end I felt like I had a pretty good handle on the process. I wondered how much, if any, coordination there was by the different companies to cover different facets of the experience.

The rack houses are built with these x-beams in the center for stability. Our guide said the buildings are so heavy and flexible that they get hit by tornadoes with little effect. Here you can see a little string hanging down through a hole. The people that operate the warehouse use these to gauge how much the building is leaning while they add or remove barrels.

This little elevator was wood on wood in order to prevent sparks.

The tour ended in this barrel shaped tasting room. We smelled, swirled, tasted, added water, tasted again, and learned a ton.

Here we were talking about the "legs" you seen after swirling the bourbon in its glass. The time it takes for them to fall back down tells your something about the mouthfeel of the bourbon.

The third and last tour we experienced was Maker's Mark. This place was really nice. The buildings were so well kept, and the grounds so scenic, and everything was so consistently branded that the place had a theme-parky sort of feel to it.

Speaking of theme-parky, I was startled when some family portraits started arguing with each other in the house where the tour begins.

"Quart House. The oldest standing retail package whisky in America, circa 1889." Our guide said the building was raised so that the booze could be easily loaded onto a wagon.

Maker's Mark showed a great deal of the actual distilling process, which the others did not reveal.

Bourbon is basically just distilled beer. I don't think I knew that.

Despite what seemed like a big health code violation, I stuck my finger in the big vat of lumpy beer goop and retrieved a big wad of it. It was not delicious. I thought it was cool how warm and bubbly it was from all of the serious fermenting going on inside.

Here's a pretty cool little run through of the Maker's Mark bourbon assembly line. A Maker's Mark label says that it's "hand made", which I'm pretty sure they can claim only because the workers hand dip the bottles into the wax at the end. Another cool little tidbit was that the empty bottles come from the supplier in the same box that the full bottles will be shipped out in. You can see the empty boxes traveling in the background.

Kentucky Champagne

The Maker's Mark gift shop was definitely the coolest. They understood that the dipping part is completely awesome, so they allow tourists to dip their own special labeled bottles. Not only that, but my understanding was the staff would dip anything purchased in the store. There were golf balls, caps, and shot glasses each with a splash of red on them. Pretty cool, but I resisted. A wax dipped necktie is one of those things that seems amazing at the time, but I would probably wonder two weeks later what the heck I was thinking. Sightseeing will do that.

Lydia did a bottle for her daddy.

I thought this was odd. Not only were their prices higher, but they seemed to be proud of that fact. When I asked the cashier he said something completely different, that they had a souvenir license not a liquor license. Government is an interesting force.

The mom of the founder's family came up with the wax dipping, and she experimented on everything in the house.

Four Roses was by far my least favorite of the six. Parking was extremely limited, forcing us to park in this odd lot that seemed to be for employees. We walked in briefly to get our stamp, and didn't get a good vibe from one of the employees doing the tours. I wasn't impressed.

By this time we were concerned about having enough time to collect the rest of our stamps, so it was just as well that this place was sub-par.

We did a similar fly-by of Wild Turkey.

I decided we did have time for turkey-barrel riding though.

The ride to Woodford Reserve was gorgeous. There were grassy hills and horses all over the place. It was pretty much a living Kentucky postcard.

We made it in before close, but I think that the last tour was already over. This was the only place that charged admission to their tours, so we probably would have given this one a pass anyway.

Even their rack houses were fancy stone. They looked kind of like prisons.

Lydia got to try a Hot Brown in Woodford before we began the drive home. I had mine at the Brown Hotel, but I'm a pretty big deal.

The Bourbon Trail

2012-05-24T12:43:00.000-05:00

"If you think fishing takes patience, you've never waited eight years for a bourbon" -Booker Noe

With the trials and tribulations of Kentucky Derby 2012 past, I was hoping for some quality Kentucky sightseeing. I knew that Bourbon Country was nearby, and I really wanted to see what that was all about. I'm really glad we did. It was Sunday, and it took us a while to get our lives together, eat, and get out of Louisville. This was one of those days where you wander around with no purpose and everything just works out. My kind of day.

We were looking for somewhere unique to have lunch, and Lynn's Paradise Cafe fit the bill. It was filled with wacky stuff inside and out. There was a man walking around inside in a horse costume, for example. The wait for a table was like 2 hours though, so our time here was short.

We continued towards Bourbonland hoping to find something to eat with little success. We eventually gave up and ate at a Waffle House. We then drove to one of the closest bourbon operations from Louisville, Jim Beam. Beam was one of the nicer places that we went to. They put a strong emphasis on their history and storytelling.

I could smell the bourbon from the parking lot. It was a really sweet almost caramel or maple syrup sort of smell. Earthy and sweet at the same time.

The first thing one sees are these giant barn looking structures called rack houses. Bourbon has to be aged at least briefly to legally be a bourbon, but the length of time varies drastically. I can't remember exactly, but I think 12 years might have been the oldest I heard of during the trip. The mass market white label Jim Beam is aged 4 years. A bourbon like that will be blended though, so it will probably contain older bourbons, but the label has to read the youngest year in the bottle.

The warehouses were by far the coolest part. Except for the tourist fitted ones, the average warehouse has no electricity and minimal metal to avoid sparks. I saw a couple of pictures of what happens when a place filled with booze catches fire. It's pretty intense. The buildings are spaced a good ways apart so as not to domino each other, as awesome as that would be.

The smell in this place was amazing. It has really changed the way I smell whiskey when I drink it. I used to concentrate on the alcohol burning smell, but now the sweetness of it is really distinct to my nose. A nearby sign had all sorts of fun rack house facts:

Anatomy of a Beam Bourbon aging warehouse. David Beam first adopted this innovative warehouse to work in harmony with the seasons. Built tall like a chimney, so the hot air rises to the top, and fresh air following in the bottom vent. We don't heat our warehouses and we don't cool them either. We give nature that responsibility. As a result, the hot Kentucky summers and cold winters play a big role in aging-and shaping-our whiskies. During the summer, our Bourbon expands and during the winter, it contracts, subtly changing the way those charred whiskey-filled barrels mature. Seven to nine stories tall, these warehouses hold around 20,000 barrels each. That's over a million gallons of Beam whiskey in each structure. Every barrel space has its own aging characteristic, depending upon its position in the warehouse. And the aged whiskey character mirrors that variety. Thus is the opportunity, Beam Bourbon-makers have mastered the "Art of the Cross-Section". "Cross-Sectioning" is a process of selecting barrels from across the house-top to bottom and inside out. Mingling select barrels in the "right" combinations, produces the complex and distinctive flavors that make Beam Bourbons the finest in the world.

Not only are the barrels apparently rolled by hand down these narrows passages, but the barrel has to be rolled perfectly so that the plug is facing upwards.

Our guide said that if a barrel leaks they can't just patch it with whatever because it would come in contact with the bourbon and ruin the magic. They would use an old school method of shoving a slice of cattail into the space between the wooden slats. This would expand and hopefully stop the leak. I had to resist sticking my tongue out when I spotted a leak.

Here was a reproduction of the traditional way of making the bourbon.

Booker Noe, grandson of Jim Beam.

The fact that there was a Jim Beam leather biker jacket, just the right size, on the sale rack in the gift shop seemed to me to be a sign that we shouldn't ignore. The gift shop also featured tastings of various bourbons. I'm pretty much an expert now.

Old stencils used to label the barrels.

Next on our journey was Bardstown, the self proclaimed Bourbon Capital of the World. We stopped by the Oscar Getz Museum of Whiskey to brush up on our history. My favorite part of the museum was the artifacts from Prohibition. What a stupid time in American history.

The federal government was a popular topic during the Beam tour, and it is an important part of the story of bourbon. Prohibition obviously had a large impact, but even present day they said the government is very much involved in their business. I believe the figure tossed out was that 60% of the cost of a bottle of whiskey is taxes applied to liqour before it's even bottled. Because the government gains such a large amount of revenue from this business, they watch it like a hawk and regulate it in numerous ways. The term "bourbon" itself is protected by Congress and enforced internationally through trade agreements. For example a bourbon must be produced in the US. It doesn't have to be made in Kentucky, but something like 95% of it is anyway because Kentucky has magical water and the right grains and whatnot. The law also saws that their can't be any added flavors or colors or anything, which I appreciate. I think I am a convert due to just the American and natural aspects.

This was one of my favorites. If you drink liquor, the troops are going to starve. Why do you hate America?

Oh my favorite part of the Prohibition story was the federal government filling the law with loopholes for its friends. Certain distilleries were allowed to continue operation in order to produce alcohol for medicinal purposes. It was really startling how similar the situation at that time is to our current ridiculous treatment of marijuana. I don't smoke it personally, but I'm sure it will become legal in my lifetime.

Our tour guide spoke about the barrel "char" that Jim Beam used, and said that it differed with different manufacturers. We both agreed they all looked the same.

"Jim Beam Distillery, 1938" It doesn't look much different now.

Downtown Bardstown was decent looking and kinda touristy. By the time we got there everything was closed, but it was still nice for a stroll.

White trash chalices were for sale.

We happened upon the old Kentucky plantation home called Federal Hill that supposedly inspired Kentucky's state song "My Old Kentucky Home" which is sung at the Kentucky Derby. According to Wikipedia this story is BS, but the place is still a state park. Amusingly, it wasn't until 1986 that the song's lyrics were changed from "darkies" to "people".

The home is featured on the reverse of Kentucky's state quarter. The place reminded me of Beecher Hall a bit.

A sort of strange statue of the song's author, Stephen Collins Foster, likely about to be stepped on by a giant.

I insisted that Lydia try the Derby Pie. The only other time I've had it was at last year's Derby.

We ate the pie right out of the pan like a couple of hobos. It was breakfast, and dessert, and probably another meal.

View Kentucky Trip in a larger map To complete the awesome make-it-up-as-we-go nature of the day, we had not reserved any lodging. We decided on this kind of run down little motel near the center of town. I don't think I've ever stayed at a place like that before. It was pretty great.

Kentucky Derby 2012

2012-05-17T17:32:00.002-05:00

I went to the Kentucky Derby again this year. I was worried that maybe I would have such a similar experience this year as I did last that maybe I shouldn't even go. That definitely was not a problem.

This year I thought I had gained some hard earned experience that would help me through the trials of the Derby. In the end I think I simply traded those pains in for new ones. For example, Jimbo and I brought nothing in with us last year. We had mobility, sure, but at about hour 5 you are wishing you could trade that in for a nice place to sit. So this year, with my friend Lydia, I decided it would be really awesome to bring lawn chairs. We could use these magnificent tools to lounge and enjoy ourselves and perhaps even lightly mock the chairless as they wearily plodded on by. After being shocked by the prices of drink and food (this year a mint julep was $11) I thought I would also bring a nice sized cooler full of those products chilled in ice. Great.

Our journey began walking out of the stranger's apartment a group of us had rented for the occasion. I knew taxis would be hard to come by, and I figured a random Louisville citizen would offer to pick us up somewhere along the way. That plan worked out great. We even already bought our tickets online (door prices were $50 this year with a $10 discount when bought online). I figured that would help us get in faster somehow.

Well... it turns out that people with chairs and coolers have to wait in a separate line than everyone else. And that line was about 3 hours long. It really really sucked. It was so long that many people were just ditching their coolers and chair by the side of the road to escape its longness. We joked that next year we should just come and collect these things and sell them to people outside the gates. We didn't do that, but we did trade Lydia's chairs for some nice newer ones we liberated.

Long.

It was Cinco de Mayo so I came festive. It rained so bad I almost had to pull over on the highway the night before, so I told Lydia she should wear the rain boots she brought because I remembered that last year many girls wore them, and it got pretty muddy. Well this year very few people wore them and it didn't rain at all. Lydia reminded me of this fact periodically.

One of the bad parts was that the line was so long with so many turns that we weren't exactly sure what was at the end. Well it turns out mayhem was at the end. The line we had been faithfully waiting in devolved into a large mob. We really probably could have cut without any difficulty. Not only that, but the security that was supposed to be the reason why we were in this horrid line in the first place never kicked in. Our bags and cooler and chairs were not checked. We really could have smuggled a motorcycle into that place in pieces.

Our crazy bible beating friends were present again as last year, shouting unpleasant phrases at people into megaphones, assuring us we'd all be in hell soon. I'd just survived a few hours of heat and despair so I figured I could relate a bit better to what they meant.

Once inside cellphone signal had already been completely consumed by the mob. We couldn't get in touch with the other people in our group, so one of us always had to hang back and guard the stuff. The cooler was nice to have but it served as a big heavy anchor that needed to be watched. One guy gave us 2 dollars to keep his drink cold in our cooler, and a girl walked by and threw up on the cooler. So it sort of evened out karma-wise.

Last year we were able to get into the track in the morning, when the heat was lower and the lines were shorter. Not this time. We waited in an unmoving line for bets a while before giving up. One guy on the balcony where the rich people were threw a pile of dollar bills onto the crowd waiting in line below. That easily could have started a riot, but people behaved themselves for the most part. Lydia thought that guy was a douche, but I think she was just sour that she didn't catch any of the dollars.

Groupon had a small presence with a photo booth, passing out horsey hats, and witty signs plastered here and there.

I spent most of the day lounging and watching the human circus unfold before me. I saw not one single horse. There are a couple of races after the actual Derby, at which time most people left. We took that opportunity to bet on a race. We lost.

Made sure to get my mint julep cup.

The aftermath.

In the end it was a fun but pretty trying experience. I'm upset enough about the line situation to write a letter and ask for a refund. I'll update everyone on the response. I think I've seen enough of the Kentucky Derby for a while. Luckily the rest of the trip was a lot more fun.

Another Summary Paper

2012-04-29T01:18:00.000-05:00

Here's another exciting marketing summary paper I wrote for class.

A Summary of “Viewer Preference Segmentation and Viewing Choice Models for Network Television”

In 1990 broadcast television network advertising revenue was approximately $25.5 billion a year, with General Motors alone spending $598.4 million on network ad time (Rust et al. 1992). As such, both television networks and advertisers have a common interest in understanding why people choose to watch television, and why they prefer one program over another. In the pursuit of this understanding, it is useful to group television consumers into segments if possible in order to make decisions based on the shared preferences of large amounts of people. Segments can assist networks and advertisers with the forecasting necessary in deciding who will watch what program. In this way, advertisers can spend their ad dollars more effectively, and networks can maximize profits by designing shows that the most valuable demographics will consistently want to watch.

The purpose of the paper is to design models that can address the following questions accurately:

1) Do identifiable segments exist?

2) How do viewers decide when to start and stop watching television?

3) How do consumers decide which television programs to watch (Rust et al. 1992)?

Previous research on this topic primarily falls into three general types. The first type is “structuring viewing alternatives”, which attempts to group television programs according to their similarities differences. These groups of programs can be defined a priori, without supporting data. They can also be grouped according to scientifically gathered viewer data. Both of these two methods must make the assumption that these homogenous program categories actually exist in the first place. The third method of grouping does not rely on this assumption, but uses multidimensional scaling in order to show the relative differences among different shows (Rust et al. 1992).

The second type of previous research is “segmenting television viewers”, which is similar to the previous type in that viewer segments are often formed a priori from demographic data. Empirically derived segmentation on the other hand assumes that watching a television program gives a certain benefit to the consumer, and that similar programs will provide similar benefits (Rust et al. 1992).

The third type of previous research is “viewing choice models”, which attempts to predict which shows consumers will watch. These models are the most difficult to construct and as a result are much less common than the other two types. One phenomenon that complicates matters and needs to be considered here is “audience flow”, which is the way previous conditions (such as TV on or off, or what the consumer was watching previously) affect consumers’ future choices (Rust et al. 1992).

Rust et al. (1992) contend that their model is superior to previous research because: it combines the three types of existing models into one comprehensive model, it estimates the preference functions in addition to simply identifying them, it is open to the possibility that people’s preferences can be different for reasons other than “simple socio-demographic differences”, and finally that their model includes the decision to watch television in addition to simply deciding which program to watch.

The Rust et. al (1992) model shows the relationship between programs using Nielsen viewer data and multi-dimensional scaling. They are arranged by preference of similar audiences rather than seeming to be similar programs. Sample data was retrieved from 11,501 viewers and tested against the model. The results showed various ways in which the actual data differed from assumptions often made a priori.

Once the characteristics of programs are defined, they can then be matched with the preferences found in viewers. The closer the program is to the preference shown via multi-dimensional scaling, the more likely the viewer will watch. The results showed that this was in fact the case, was statistically significant, and the model produced similar results when applied to another randomly selected section of the data (Rust et al. 1992).

Lastly, the model was used to predict when people will turn their televisions on or off in the first place. It was found that different portions of the populace will watch television at different times. For example, the segment dubbed “Western” was less likely to watch on the weekend.

This model shows advantages over previous research, and provides a valuable tool for analyzing an important body of information.

References

Rust, Roland T., Wagner A. Kamakura, and Mark I. Alpert (1992), “Viewer Preference Segmentation and Viewing Choice Models for Network Television,” Journal of Advertising, 21 (March), 1-18.

Questions

1. In the Rust article, what assumptions did the Rust model make when segmenting television programs? When segmenting television viewers?

2. In what ways would the Rust model apply or not apply if it was used to segment data on webpages in place of television shows?

St. Louis Cardinals Opening Day

2012-04-16T19:54:00.002-05:00

Last Friday was the opening game for the St. Louis Cardinals. I work very close to Busch Stadium, so opening day was part of my life whether I wanted it to be or not. Parking turns into an expensive nightmare on game days, so to begin with I took the train in the morning. It was a nice change of pace.

The day before the game the sidewalk right across the street from the ticket booths turned into a shanty town for scruffy people. I didn't really get how waiting across the street guaranteed them a spot in the actual line. Several of them were huddled around a fire pit thing burning near a bus stop enclosure which I was really unsure is even legal.

On my way to work the next morning a monster line had developed.

Florescent-lit computer screen is the only view I have from my cube, but the office right next to me has a great view of the stadium. It rained a ton before the game started, and I think it was delayed. You can see them rolling up the giant white tarp on the field.

My friends were either going to the game or just going to watch it at the bars in the neighborhood, which is always a fun time. The rain really damped my enthusiasm for stopping by somewhere after work. I had no cell phone signal at all that day either, which I blame on the huge crowds. I ended up skipping that and going out with some friends later in the evening. Hammerstone's in Soulard has bring your own mug night once a week, so I bounced over there instead.

Cavalia, a Cirque du Solei wannabe, is in town. I walk by the huge circus tent every day on the way to work.

St. Louis War Propaganda

2012-04-14T16:49:00.000-05:00

"I can't pronounce your queer foreign name, young'un. Nor your dog's either."

This is amusing war propaganda courtesy of the Missouri State History Museum.