Well, that was six-eight months of 2011 that flew past and will not be fondly remembered. See this and this for a rough idea. Yes, ouch, but the recovery is going well  thanks.

Oh, yeah, meant to post this in November so, missed the last few months too. Oops!

Anyhow, we’ve hopefully signed on a new apartment, 23rd floor penthouse, pending approval tomorrow. We headed back to the UK for a week for Kirsty’s birthday bash and to see the respective families. I’m pondering a camera upgrade this year. And I actually managed to get out with the camera today for a walkaround with one of the POTN members.

Lots of other stuff going on too but that can wait for another post upon our return, in the middle to post middle time enjoy a couple of shots from Vancouver:

Processing details for the above are here

Honestly I didn’t know which topic to pick first, and then the weekend before last (yes the images have been sitting there for a week or so) I looked up whilst brewing a cuppa in the kitchen and spotted that the kitchen blinds were not simply white slats of plastic, they were…wait for it… white slots of plastic with….drum role please… a fake wood texture. As it happened the sun started peaking from behind the clouds at this point and provide some nice contrasty light through the slats, along with some shaded areas as some gobo [Note: this is a technical term, I'm not making things up for once!] got in the way.

And so the first topic was selected by nature, Texture.

I decided to test my lenses out at the same time so shot a variety of angles with the 24-105mm, 70-200mm, 30mm and 85mm. I was quite surprised at the amount of barrel distortion of the 30mm Sigma, exaggerated by the horizontal lines and by shooting at minimum focus distance. The other surprising thing… two out of the three final shots were from the 70-200mm at full extension, inside, shooting a shaded object. Generally I wouldn’t have picked the lens up for that but I was testing them all, once again that beauty shows it’s worth and reminds me that I should use it more often.

Anyway, less rambling, more pictures. I usually watermark every image but decided to leave it off of the composite one as I found it broke up the flow of the image too much. Enjoy and look forward to the next topic, not sure what it is yet, I’m sure it’ll jump out at me.

Final Composite:

Single Source Images:

Tada!

The portal page to this blog and, coming later this week/next, the new front end for Project 7.019 is now live. The older version was a bit out of date as Kirstys pictures hadn’t been updated in a while so the link was a tad superfluous. Kirsty now has her own blog dedicated to makeup (Rouge Make Up Artistry) so head over and you can keep up with her work there too.

For those of you that arrive directly to the blog page, bypassing the old entrance, go take a peek, it’s only just over here after all.

Nothing else new at the moment, but if anyone from Vancouver is reading this and they happen to have a used Canon 5D in good condition that they’re selling then let me know!

Until later, hmm, nice cuppa.

One thing I noted when I last went job hunting was that almost all of the advertised jobs requested certifications of some variety – although humorously from an IT perspective some jobs were asking for certs above the level of the work, ie a Level 1 Helpdesk job requiring a Microsoft Certified Systems Administrator (MCSA) cert, but that’s simply the HR department or non IT hirers not understanding job requirements.

Handily my existing employer understands that experience is more important than pieces of electronic paper with names on, hence why I’m working there now, but I may be job hunting again in the near future depending on the work visa situation here in Canada (we should find out by the end of Jan if we can stay or not).

With that thought in mind back in mid 2010 I decided to plan and implement a rolling 24 month IT personal development plan. All well and good, short term 3 month targets, mid-term 9 months and longer 24 month ones too. The short term plans soon got modified as I discovered that the base level certs that many jobs were asking for, namely the CompTIA A+, Network+ and Security+, were going to change slightly from the 1st Jan 2011, from that point on you would have to re-certify every three years through their own CPD program or by sitting the latest exams. So, plans changed, targets for 2010 were then to sit and pass the three aforementioned certifications.

Did it happen?

Yes it did, so I am now officially CompTIA A+, Network+ and Security+ Certified (no men in white coat jokes!) for life. It also means I get to use these fancy graphics (oh er) in any of my personal documents, there’s a 50/50 split in opinions of using logos on CVs/resumes, my current resume has a couple on, might retain them or remove in the next iteration but I think I’ll end up using them in any online version.

Self-study was the game plan so thank you Vancouver Library, Books 24×7. all the folks over at CertForums UK and also Michael over at Boson for accepting me on to their quality testing team – they needed their A+ and Security+ tests tested so having access to them was very helpful.

I’ve got a few IT, blogging, writing and photography targets set for 2011 – but after a hectic few months doing those previous exams I’m going to leave them for a month or two before attacking the next Microsoft exams to complete my MCSA and MCITP upgrade.

I’ve been slacking, there, admitted, although I dare say that a fair few of you had already noticed this. If you haven’t then congratulations, you’ve got better things to do than trawl the blogosphere and keep up with my (non existent) ramblings.

I’ll be changing the blog layout slightly to create separate photo / IT pages to group the posts by content, so if you want to see my photo work without being bothered by the latest tool to remove crap-ware from your system then you’ll be in luck (or vice versa). I’m looking at developing a different theme as well at some point next year, I can never seem to find a pre-made one that fits what I want, hey, we might end up with a completely different theme for each topic to keep things interesting, although that might be even more confusing to the eye.

What’s that I hear your mind rumbling.. “What photo’s? You haven’t posted any in months!”… er, yeah, you’re right of course, but as part of my targets for 2011 you’ll be looking forward to two shoots a month (I’ve got a large back catalogue to process), possibly a few creative writing pieces if I can get my pen in to gear, and at least one rambling post a week – and they’re just the non IT hobby targets, but that’s for another post.

In the mean time if you want some other entertainment then I can suggest www.photography-on-the.net/forum as a good photo forum and www.certforums.co.uk for all the help and advise you could need for IT certifications.

Lastly I’ll give you my note that excuses me from guaranteeing any posts before the 19th of December! I’m in the final stages of revision for the CompTIA Security+ exam (needs to be done before the end of year to avoid having to re-sit it once every three years) so it’s full steam ahead on that, think I might take one day off this weekend so might process a photo or two, we’ll see!

Until later, Go Canucks Go!

His song is broken now, a mere wisp of mumbled notes carried across the dusty plain, sometimes lifted in to heroic contra-tones when a power seems to take him, less now, less.

Fear. Fear has spread amongst us, the weaker of mind think of fleeing, little do they realise that if it be the Risen who have returned that no matter how far, how wide, how fast they travel, there is but no hope of escaping their will. They triumph, that is all they know, they cannot even comprehend a lack of success, but maybe, maybe, someday that might lead to their downfall. But of that I should not speak, should not even think. Their power may not be here in full, yet who knows how much they may feel now.

Another day, maybe two, and here he’ll be. And then, then we shall see, shall hear the song, the tale of the lost, the damned, the forgotten and the purged. The Risen it be, of that I’m sure, but which clan, which is on top in this age…

And lo, can it be? Is that a song carried on the wings of doom?

The Bringer…is…singing?

A dirge of dread, a lament of the forlorn, surely not the Tale of the Risen?

If it be, it will be. The Risen are known to be fickle with no rhyme or reason to their pickings, one day with a smile life blooms and on another with a frown it withers, tis’ their choice, if it is a choice indeed, with them who knows, but I should not talk anymore lest  they hear.

The speck grows larger, looming over the horizon, the army of tumbleweed following in it’s draught… an age anew beckons…

A speck.

A blur.

A mirage on the horizon.

Who or what could be approaching this deserted place?

Devils can wander a long time in wastelands such as this, be this one, be this a daemon?

Could…could, this even be a Bringer?

A storm has not visited this place in an age.

But it could work.

It could, could…no, it is not even to be thought…

If it a Bringer be then a storm is coming, arriving in the guise of a Devil in the Dust, a Blur in the Mirage, a Fire in the Heart.

…the tumbleweed blows and the speck slowly gains substance…

First of all we’re safely in Canada and searching for work in Vancouver so everything is rolling along as planned.

More importantly though a couple of my rally photos have been used over on www.greystokestages.co.uk for the new makeover of their website. More are to appear soon in the gallery section I believe and if you are around the northern Cumbria area on Sunday 25th July 2010 I’d advise heading over and watching, it’s a great venue in Greystoke Forest.

Booked the return flights half an hour ago, leaving in 12 days and returning in 372 days, and all for the reasonable price of £716 in total.

Now I just need to sort the working gap/career break year insurance and the hostels in Calgary / Vancouver, oh and the Greyhound between C+V. And lastly, lets not forget the camera insurance.

Heard of claims problems with Photoguard, the company I’m currently with, but there are a lack of decent camera insurance companies in the UK, especially those that will insure for world-wide coverage.

I’m going to have a beer, cheers, here’s to maple syrup!

UPDATE: BUNAC have just confirmed and sent electronic copies of our Work Authorisation Letters. Everything is in place, all we need to do is turn up at the airport! Rock On

Been a while hasn’t it eh ?

I’ve been a bit lax in the photo stakes recently, working again during the day I’ve been hitting the games of an evening instead of processing the vast back catalogue from this last years travelling. But last night I had an urge, an urge to edit, to create, well polish the creation, the images have already been taken but most are still technically RAW data so we could call it creation, hey, it’s all good

I turned back to an image that I took in Pragues Nove Mestro of the statue outside the Church of our Lady of the Snows. Originally I’d converted this to mono but whilst processing it I did make an attempt at a colour version, now I’ve finished that version and I can’t decide between the colour and the mono conversion. I’m leaning towards the mono one as it is more classical and the staue is more contrasty but the background on the colour version pops more.

Kirsty reckons it depends on the room it’s in as to which version works best, I’d have to agree. What do you reckon? Here are both versions, let me know which you prefer!

Click them for larger versions.

Colour:

Mono:

I’m going to have a beer to celebrate, cheers!

A deep fog has settled over the coast of Cumbria in the past few days, quite atmospheric but a bit bleak for taking photos.

We, that being myself, Kirsty, Katrina, Brian, Simonne, Graeme and Mia (for those not in the know that’s my sister-in-law, brother-in-law, niece, brother-in-law and niece) headed to the South Lakes Wild Animal Park for a half day trip… Yes I can hear your minds turning the thought over, tickling along and finally coming up with the question “It’s foggy and not very warm, why are you heading to an outdoors animal park?”.

The answer to that, somewhat obliquely lies with the earthquake in Haiti. The SLWAP have, this weekend, suspended their entry fee in lieu of a donation scheme for the earthquake appeal. A donation to the appeal allows entry without the usual entrance costs. The car park was ram-packed when we arrived at 1pm ish, which hopefully means the appeal should be receiving a fair whack of a donation. If you’re in Cumbria with nothing on tomorrow, that’s Sunday 24th Jan, I’d head over there for a day out whilst donating to a good cause.

I took the camera with me, with the Canon EF 70-200mm f/4.0 L attached and my Kenko Pro 300 DG 1.4x Extender in my pocket, not knowing how close I was likely to get to the animals. I took a good guess that it wouldn’t be too close so range was going to be required, I was right, the extender went on after 5 minutes inside and didn’t come off until the camera was packed away in it’s backpack.

The conditions and lens selection meant that my operating setup was a bit limited, as my tele-photo doesn’t have image stabilisation built in and I wanted to keep the shutter speed above the recommended 1/focal length limit. That would mean that I’d be looking to use, at minimum, a shutter speed of 1/200s. If I was using a full frame camera that is, as my 40D is a APS-C I need to multiple it’s maximum focal length by 1.6, this then gives an “effective” focal length of 320mm. Now add the 1.4x extender in to the mix and that is brought up to 448mm, or a required shutter speed of 1/500s. All of this is to try and avoid camera shake. This varies person to person, I shake a fair bit and so use this rule as a rough guide and try not to dip below it whereas other photographers shake less and can bend it further, my friend Rob could probably get away with 1/300s as he is so stable.

Now that my shutter speed was determined (for reference I did actually bend the rule and used 1/400s for most of the day but with the 40D set to high-speed mode, 6.5fps to capture a few shots to improve my sharpness chances) I looked at setting the aperture and ISO settings. The 70-200 has a f/4 aperture throughout it’s zoom range and the 1.4x extender drops this by one stop, taking it to f/5.6 throughout. So, f/5.6 it was to be, large enough to isolate the subjects, small enough to ensure most of the animals faces are in focus. Last but not least the ISO setting. Now the 40D is good up to about 800 ISO without me worrying too much about noise issues, over that it is a concern that I’ll need to spend more time in post-process cleaning images up, but as long as they are exposed correctly there isn’t too much harm in pushing it if needed. Do whats needed to get the shot! Anyway, enough chatter, the ISO ended up moving between 500 and 1600, mostly in the 500-800 range though. Yes it was that murky, no nice sunlight to let us use 100-400 today.

And that was that, a few tweaks along the way as light levels fluctuated but we had a good start point. We spent around 3-4 hours wandering around and seeing the sights, I never knew a lions growl was so low and, er, rumbly, is the best word I can use to describe it, like rocks pounding along the bottom of a river. Oh, and tigers can jump. Sorry, JUMP! We were watching them at feeding time and it was an impressive sight to see that much muscle launching itself up a bare tree trunk to grab a hunk of meat from the top, predators indeed.

The most photogenic subjects of the day were the monkeys and baboons though, cheeky chappies and quiet thoughtful thinkers. Shooting at zoos has the inherent problem of wires and unnatural habitats, both of which need avoid when shooting if possible. The unnatural habitats can be fixed in two ways, firstly by framing the subject such that the background is as generic as possible showing no artificial items and secondly by using a wide aperture to through the background out of focus. This second item is also the way of removing wires & fences whilst shooting, it will through them out of focus as well, either blurring them sufficiently to disappear in the image or at least making it easier to remove in post-process. The first and eighth images in the gallery below need a touch of Photoshop afterwards to remove a couple of blurred wires, it was worth it though.

So enjoy. Just a small selection of the best from the day, I did get some shots of the tigers but was unable to remove the man-made surroundings and so they didn’t look natural enough to me.

In plain English this means that we’re back in Cumbria awaiting our Canada Work Visas, we’ve been told that they are currently with the Canadian Embassy in London as of a week ago which means that we should have the visas in the next three to five weeks. In the meantime we’re looking for some very short term work and I’m looking forward to a shed load of photo processing with a couple of local shoots planned for people.

How was the trip back I hear you ask after our outward saga… Well sit down, grab a cuppa and let me begin.

It was a quiet afternoon that we jumped on board the coach, but I’m getting ahead of myself, you want to know about the headache that was the booking of the return tickets. Well sit down, grab a cuppa and let me begin….I think I’ve said that already but hey…

It was a quiet morning that I started to organise our return trip….

Ok – I was intending to write this up in my blog style but since I’ve already written the complaint email, which turned in to a snail mail letter, I’ve decided to post that in place – so enjoy!

As a note it was a quiet trip with a twin seat each to sleep in, nothing odd/amusing happened

REF: Open Return Ticket Validation Complaint

Dear Sir or Madam,

I am writing to complain about my recent experience in attempting to validate a open dated return ticket from Prague to Manchester. I am not usually prone to complaining but I feel that in this instance you need to be aware of the many problems I encountered while attempting what should have been a very short and simple process.

I originally booked our ticket in November to take us from Manchester to Prague on the 13th of December with an open dated return, this was a cheaper and more flexible option than travelling by train or aeroplane but by the end I wish we had booked the aeroplane and paid the extra.

Our problems started when I followed the instructions on our printed ticket to validate our return ticket.

The instructions read “Please ring 0871 7818181 to validate your open return ticket”, so I did, only to be informed by your operative that he could not do anything for me and that I would have to ring the Eurolines office in Prague. He confirmed that the Prague office number printed on the rear of our Eurolines boarding pass holder was correct, this number was 224218680.

On attempting to ring this number I received a “Number Invalid” multiple times, not just a busy tone, an invalid number. By this point I was getting rather exasperated. Following this I called the central Eurolines customer services desk in the Czech Republic and spoke to a gentleman there, he stated that there was nothing Eurolines could do with my ticket over the phone and that I would have to go to a local office. He provided the address of an office in the town of Olomouc where we were located and we traipsed across town to find the office.

It turns out that this office was a generic travel agent called Cedek who could handle Euroline ticket booking. The lady there helped us to the best of her abilities but even after calling the central Eurolines Office in the Czech Republic she could only book our Prague to London ticket stating that she did not have access to the systems required to also book the London to Manchester shuttle. By now I was starting to wonder if this was really happening as it simply seemed unbelievable that so many people couldn’t do so many things. The lady said we would have to ring the UK line again to sort out the shuttle bus.

We made the trip back across town to our accommodation and I settled in to deal with the UK booking line, it is lucky that I had made a cup of tea before calling. Before I managed to get hold of a customer service representative I was cut off by your automatic handling system three times after spending over a minute on the phone each time with a simply, yet infuriating, message “Busy Message” being played before being cut off. On the fourth attempt I managed to get routed through to a human, Val, who dealt with our problem. This took 20 minutes, yes 20 minutes at 13p per minute. Initially Val told me that Eurolines should have been able to do it, then she double checked the Prague Eurolines number with me before stating that she was not able to validate our tickets and need to speak to her supervisor. 20 minutes later Val had sorted a pair of tickets on a London to Manchester shuttle for us, via another system which appears to have nothing to do with our open return ticket, and after providing an incorrect ticket number and boarding pass number before correcting it at the last minute and giving us a different set of details.

As I hope you can appreciate by the details above we met resistance at every opportunity and feel that what should have been a very simply process was vastly overcomplicated. I find it hard to believe that an international company does not have access from all of it’s offices to a very basic database showing seat availability and providing booking services.

It is probably best if I summarise my concerns as a list of questions:

• Why were we not able to simply validate and book our return tickets from Prague to Manchester on the telephone number provided on the printed tickets? It explicitly states on the ticket that we should ring this number to validate them yet on two phone calls to two different operators they stated they were unable to do so.
• Why were we not able to contact the Eurolines Prague office on the number provided, on the rear of the Eurolines boarding pass holder, to validate our tickets?
• Why could the central Czech Republic Eurolines customer service office not direct us to the correct department on the telephone to validate our return tickets? Instead making us travel and locate a third party travel agent in a local town to do it for them.
• Why was the Eurolines central office, which this lady called, unable to book the London to Manchester shuttle? This was a ticket from Prague to Manchester, not Prague to London, as we were told multiple times by your UK operatives.
• Why did your system cut me off three times while attempting to get through to an operator? It would appear that you have never changed your automated telephone systems internal “Busy Message” – even a modified “Sorry all of our operators are busy – please call back later” would have been better.
• Why did it take 20 minutes for Val, your UK operator, to sort out a London to Manchester shuttle and why did she have to go through a secondary system to book us tickets instead of using our original ones?

The last thing we wanted at the end of our travels was a headache getting our return trip sorted out and yet this is what we experienced. I will highly sceptical about using any National Express or Eurolines service again.

I would like to thank Val in your UK office for eventually sorting out our London to Manchester shuttle and I would also like to thank the un-named lady in the Cedek office in Olomouc for trying her best in sorting our ticket out, these two operators where the only ones to really help us.

Additional Note: I have just attempted to send this complaint via your website only to be met by the following error “We are currently experiencing problems, please try again later”, I could not help but laugh. I have now posted this to you, trusting that the stated address on your website is correct.

I look forward to hearing your comments

Regards

Greg & Kirsty Steer

To cut a long story short I received an email from the editor of DSLR just before we left requesting a hi-res version of the image as it had made it through to the “semi-final” round and they may need to print it in the magazine. I fired a copy off to him thinking “Hey, that’s great, I got past the initially culling stage” and then didn’t think much more about it… until we returned yesterday and I opened the February 2010 (still weird to think it’s 2010!) issue of DSLR and had a browse.

Oh, that’s a nice winning image of round three, thinking it was a shame that I hadn’t heared anything back from the editor on my image. But lo, hiding snugly at the bottom of the next page admist the other Best of the Rest entries was my picture of Rob with my name overlaying it. That brought as smile to the face It’s a great confidence booster to see your image in print, makes me want to go and process some more!

Any how, here’s the image itself. Rob mapping out in his head which route to take down one of the rapids sections of the Guil river, the image doesn’t really do the scale of the river torrent justice but if you take a look at the other images in the Alps-Kayak gallery you’ll get a feel for it.

We’re moving on from Cesky Krumlov tomorrow. We were heading to Brno but after chatting to a few people who have been there it’s not worth the trip so we’re bypassing it and heading straight (haha yeah) to Olomouc instead. I laugh at the straight as the easiest way to get there is an express coach back to Prague and then a train to Olomouc, so we get to ride the Prague metro system again! Yay.

Until I finish that horse post or an Olomouc one, Na zdraví !

Yeah ok, that’s a bit of a fib, of course things happened, it wouldn’t be much of an adventure if they didn’t eh!

The first hurdle of the day was Plzen’s train station. ‘Not more train stations?’ I hear you groan, yes indeedy. We knew exactly where it was, having arrived not six days ago from Prague, so we managed to walk to it without looking too clueless. The cluelessness stated about two minutes after getting there. I’d checked the train timetables online and had found that we needed the 10:03 which should get us to Ceske Budejovice where we were to change to a bus. Was CB listed on the board for the 10:03 train with termination at Brno? Was it hell. It listed every other stop except CB. We checked the train lines on the map and lo, it could not not go through CB as there is no other line running Plzen -> Brno. Ok, so we’ll buy a ticket and double check then. Sure enough that was the right train and with ticket in hand we turned to head towards the platform. But what was this? The ticket didn’t look right, luckily for once I had bothered to check it. Plzen to Praha? I think not, that’s the wrong bleeding way! Back to the ticket desk and as soon as I’d passed the ticket over the lady realised her mistake, phew, one replacement later and we were set to go.

A couple of hours slipped by as we leisurely chugged along the line to Ceske Budejovice, I say chugged simply to evoke fanciful images of steam trains puffing along, in truth it’s more of a turbine whine as the electrical motors kick in but that wouldn’t sound as evocative. Worried that we would miss the stop we’d re-clothed ourselves (outer coats only people!) and prepped the bags ten minutes before we needed too, but hey, we didn’t miss it.

A quick exit of the train station and we were hunting for the bus station. According to the map and descriptions it was a two minute walk down the road and turn right, so we walked for two minutes and could we see a bus station, could we hell. So we walked back, on the other side of the road to give ourselves a different viewpoint, we also double checked the map to reacquaint ourselves with the road that it was meant to be on. As we walked I noticed a large sign on the roof of the building next to us proclaiming “AutoBus Nadrazi” or Central Bus Station. Fair enough, the roads match up to the map, it’s there. But it was a building. A two storey building. With shops. Where the gibbins was the bus station? A circuit of the building found a set of steps, yes steps, going up with a “Bus” sign plus the appropriate up arrow alongside it. Up? Eh? Ok, we’ll run with this, might just be to get over the shops.

So we went up one flight of stairs. And found a gantry running alongside the roof of the first floor, with a metal grid so it was hell for Kirsty, but we beat the challenge and found… Yes… Another set of steps, with another sign. What? Up over the second floor of shops? This is getting a tad over the top (ha). So we ventured up this set of stairs as well. What did we find at the top you wonder and ask stupefied? You would be right. We found the bus station.

On top of a two storey shopping centre.

Yeah, ok, who would have guessed at that one, no wonder we didn’t see it from the ground!

It does make sense once you’ve found it. They redevelop a large block of shops in the edge of the centre of town and make use of the roof for something useful. Better signs would help the blind travellers though

After the heroic struggle of locating the aforesaid bus station the locating of the bus was a meagre task, completed inside of thirty seconds. A short wait and we were loaded, being glad to be in the first half of the queue which virtually filled the bus. It was only a short journey from CB to CK, eighteen miles or fifty minutes. Yes fifty minutes to do eighteen miles. It stops at a fair few places this bus and by the third stop it was over capacity with no seats, no standing room and a bus driver chatting on this mobile whilst peering through passengers legs to see the road he was turning on to. A nail-biter We’d chosen the bus over the train to get us from CB to CK as the bus station was one and a half kms, or twenty minutes walk, closer to the hostel. Not much I know but when you’re lugging a backpack weighing the same as you along every metre counts, plus the bus was cheaper

The hostel is a delight, cosy with a carved wooden dragon covering, I do mean covering, the main door and our bed in the room has it’s own tent roof with tassels! We plumped for a private double as it was hardly more expensive than the six person dorms but means we can lock the door. The staff are friendly, even down to provided a local map with hand written notes about good restaurants, tea room (with over eighty teas) and other entertainment. But the best thing, except for the bed, is the kettle, finally! We can eat some of the dried packs we brought with us and ease some of that backpack weight. Cous Cous with friend onions and salami for dinner methinks after I’ve finished this.

We did head in to town for a wander while the sun was setting, providing some fantastic warm light to shoot the castle, and it is a castle with high defensible walls, slits and a turret, no crenulations though. The town is great, based in the twin curving bends of the Vltava river, the local architects have built the buildings based around the river bends and so the houses curve around corners, the cobbled streets sweep towards the river and dive down between buildings. I must shoot more of those curves tomorrow.

As for tomorrow we’ve going on an excursion. A riding excursion. No engines involved though, we’re off horse riding. Yip, bumpity bumpity bump. Something I’ve never done before so it should be amusing!

As for now it’s dinner time and time to enjoy another bottle of the local brewed beer Eggenburg, brewed here in Krumlov, the day after tomorrow we venture back to CB to see the Budvar brewery, tis a brewery tour of the Czech Republic!

Wait for the horse riding pain report tomorrow!

Na zdraví !

Before they let us loose around the brewing houses we took a quick trip around the packaging warehouse, not operational today unfortunately as it’s a Sunday just after new year, but the bonus was that we could hear the guide. This place packages a lot of beer, a lot. They’ve got two bottle runs and one can run, the bottle runs can handle 60,000 bottles/hour each and the can run 38,000 cans. If we do a little number crunching here we can roughly figure the yearly output assuming: each can/bottle is 500ml, an 8 hour working day and a 255 day working year.

Lets say:

Total Yearly Output = Working Days in a Year * Working Hours in a Day * Production per Hour

And that:

Production per Hour = Bottle Line 1 Capacity + Bottle Line 2 Capacity + Can Line Capacity

Plug in:

Each Bottle Line Capacity = 60,000 bottles @ 500ml each = 30,000 litres
Can Line Capacity = 38,000 cans @ 500ml each = 19,000 litres

So: Production per Hour = 30,000 + 30,000 + 19,000 = 79,000 litres
Then:

Total Yearly Output = 255 * 8 * 79,000 = 161,160,000 litres

That. Is. A. Lot. Of. Beer.

Note: Those numbers are from memory so apologies if they’re wrong Pilsner!

The brewery is greedy, it’s got two brewing houses. Ok ok, technically it only has one brewing house that produces beer but it sounds good. They built a swanky new glass one in 2002 to replace the old one that had been producing since 1927 and the new one is nice, very nice, shiny copper all over the place, hell the old one isn’t bad either! After they had built the new one they converted the old one in to a walk through museum, if you’re ever in Plzen, go see it, there’s a mass load of information but it’s all delivered in style, a 240 degree cinema with a rotating standing section and the largest passenger lift in the Czech Republic lifting you to the top of the brew house. Largest by the way means that it’ll lift 72 people or 7.3 tons of weight, walking into it you think the doors opposite open into a lift and then you realise you’re actually standing in the damn thing already it’s that large, with obligatory glass panelling on the outside side.

While we were touring through the brewing houses we sampled some pure barley and some germinated barley, it was amazing how much sweeter the germinated barley tasted. And then we tasted the hops. I love the smell of them, have done since my Dad used to use them in home brewing years ago, but the taste of them, eek, that’ll be where beers get their bitterness from then.

The best bit was left to the end of the tour, while we were in the old brewery cellars, these are now mostly disused, he he, mostly, just wait, but there are still 9km’s worth of tunnels and cellars under the brewery, that’s ~6miles worth, peering along the darkened sections is eerie as the light fades, you wouldn’t want to get lost down there; at least we didn’t until the guide told us to simply follow the water flowing along the side channels as it all flows naturally to the lowest point, which, handily, is right next to the entrance. Back to that best bit. I did say that the cellars are mostly disused, the bit that is still used, approx two out of a hundred halls, is used to brew some special beer, just for us. They take a portion of beer produced in the main brewing hall, enough to fill two very large barrels (taller than me), and let it’s secondary fermentation occur in the old traditional method in wooden vats and barrels in the old cellars. This produces an unfiltered, unpasteurised beer that is only available to the tour(ists) straight from the barrel and isn’t sold anywhere else. We took the big glasses for our “tasters” What was it like you ask? A rougher version of Pilsner Urquell but exceedingly tasty for it, they even taste test this older method against the newer methods to ensure that the beer produced by the newer method tastes as close as possible to the original methods. Cheers to the old geezer they employed to serve us direct from the barrel, it tasted great!

It was a good hour and a half tour, I’d recommend it to anyone.

Mid-afternoon had happened upon us and it found us with empty bellies, sustenance was required and Kirsty fancied some more local Czech fare. A pub/bar/restaurant, still not sure what they’re meant to be called here, which appeared to also be owned by The Brewery, it was named The Pilsner Urquell Brewery Restaurant after all, provided the venue. A cow and a wild boar provided the meat in a delectable duo of Pilsner Urquell Goulash and Wild Boar with Rosehip and Dumplings – tasty tasty tasty – oh and another drop of the golden nectar itself polished it off

The pub, well call it that, had a translator who either wasn’t paid enough, miss-typed a p for a c or thought it would simply be funny to describe a different dish on the menu as being served with “porn cobs” – oh dear – I had to point it out to the waitress in-case they weren’t aware that they were offering adult entertainment with their food.

Yesterday we spent another snowy day wandering around Mariankse Lazni, a spring and spa town with lots of springs. All of the outside ones were frozen at this time of year but the main one was housed in a heated room with the option of tasting waters straight from the spring itself, via taps and a purchasable drinking vessel, lets not forget capitalism here. We are now the proud owners of a cute little blue porcelain, mini jar type object, with the handle being hollow and acting as a straw. The spring water itself was odd, odd in a good way, it tasted as if it was carbonated but it wasn’t, just very heavy on the minerals, maybe I should have drunk some more

We’re off again tomorrow, leaving Plzen behind, heading to Cesky Krumlov for a few days. It’s apparently one of the prettiest towns in the Republic and we’ve got a nice hostel sorted out with laundry facilities, wahey, wi-fi and more importantly a kettle. Yes a kettle! We can finally use those dried meals we brought with us. A day trip is planned out to Ceske Budejovice where the Budwesier Budvar brewery is based, hoho Afterwards we’re heading onto Brno, Czechs second city in South Moravia and onwards to Olomouc in North Moravia. This time when I’m asking for tickets I’m not going to ask for “Dvuh Telc do <<insert destination>>” as after receiving lots of odd looks I rechecked our phrase book only to find that Telc is a place and was an example, here was me thinking it was the word for ticket!

Remember: Telc does ! = ticket

Na zdravÌ !

Welcome to 2010

Magic thumbnail to the left, click it and Kirstys head appears!
We had a great evening in Plzen watching the city fireworks, a fabulous view over the city from our room meant we had an entire three hours worth of exploding lights covering the skyline. The major ones from the city square were amazing at midnight, the biggest display I’ve seen right in front of me. It was topped off by the Pilsner Urquell brewery firing their own fireworks off just after the main ones had finished, giving us a personal display, at least it felt like it as they were exploding at our eye level approx one hundred and fifty metres away, fan-bluddy-tastic! Thank you Pilsner Urquell

With all those fireworks filling the sky the outfall of smoke covered the city in waves and along with the natural mist it made for a beautiful setting for the following fireworks. One minute you could barely see the city and then just as the smoke cleared more fireworks went off, more smoke, rinse n repeat, great!

We enjoyed one bottle of sparkly last night and we’re enjoying another this morning with a lazy day ahead.

Here’s to 2010 a new decade starts!

Cheers Everyone! Na zdravÌ !

Urk.

Let me reiterate.

Urk Urk.

And for good measure.

U R K.

If you like drinking lavender with subtle tones of pine and sable whilst have your throat burned then you’ll love it. If you’re like us then you’ll want to mix it with lemonade. To put it in context: Jaegermeister is the pitbull of herbal liqueurs, this stuff is most definitely the camp cousin with a sharp tongue. To avoid having it to look forward to another evening, Kirsty made sure the contents of the bottle disappeared with large doses of lemonade, it was only a smallish bottle, and is currently sleeping it off. She’s got until housekeeping turn up and we head in to town.

On a tangential note the breakfast spread here at the Angelo is damn good. Self serve everything from fruits to hams and cheese to cereals to make-your-own-toast to breads to cooked bacon, sausage and eggs. Coffee awaits you on the table in posh thermos flasks, just because they’re shiny silver with a thumb release flip top doesn’t rank them above being labelled a thermos flash. And the selection of teas, well, too many too list but I tried the Wild Cherry this morning, tasty, something different each day I reckon.

It also snowed heavily again from late afternoon yesterday, meaning that we had to have a snow fight on the way to the chinese, it’s required! The locals seemed to think we were nuts though. Oh and I won the mini-snowman-on-a-park-bench competition, three solid body balls of snow with facial features vs Kirstys, er, snowman mash would be the best description

I think I hear house keeping stealthily approaching. They’ve stilled the vacuum cleaner and dampened the clinking glasses but appear to have forgotten the trolley wheels, I’d best prepare for the onslaught.

Until later.

Na zdravÌ !