Big moon rising as we drove into Prague

Hazy in the fermenting cellar

"let the beer linger in your eyes for a moment, swirl it around and
take in the aroma, "na zdravi"... And enjoy!"

Did I mention excited??

:D

Someone was VERY excited for the exclusive tasting from the brewers stock!

Hall of the original copper cook tanks...

Meticulously preserved and maintained, these tanks only went out of
production in the last decade....

Trying to crack into the "yeast vault"

Super top secret yeast strand... Under high security, stored in
Pilsen, Prague and London!

Locally grown barley that is cooked three times into a premium mash

Peek into the brand new, super high tech bottling plant

Our resident german was happy to learn that the new top of the line
manufacturing machines were all german made (and the best in the world)!

Ticket to gold (beer that is!)

Ok... So upon arriving at the brewery, us ladies needed a restroom, so
proceeded directly to the restaurant. Road weary (ok, we had only been
driving for lees than 2 hours), we needed some sustenance. A few
beers, and soup and snacks... We were revived, and headed over to the
visitors center to get on a tour.... Only we managed to miss the last
on of the day! Ugh! A little sweet talking, and a quick phone call,
and the agreed to let us catch up. Sigh of releif, only to get yelled
at (with hands waving in the air) by the Czech lady the we only had
euros, not Czech crowns! Oh the injustice!

Long story short, they took our filthy euros... And we gained
admittance to the birthplace of pilsner! :)

Enterance to the castle.... Or rather the pilsner urquell brewery!

After a little creatinw navigation, we found our destination!

Quick photo opp on Pilsen's main square

Czech it out!

Our GPS can't keep up...

Girls night out part 2

Another night in the town with Jana's lovely lady friends in Nurenberg!

More fascinating conversation... And I even received the answer to why
people from holland (or the Netherlands) are called Dutch! Dig back to
comments from girls night our part 1 if you are curious.

Same time, 2 weeks from now ladies? Good fun, let's keep it going.... :)

Off to a refershing start with a couple mojotos!

Hello again Nuremberg!

Back to Jana & Noah's to reset for the next leg.

Bye, bye Hamburg

Sent from the wonder phone...

Upward and onward...

After 4 very relaxing days on the Baltic sea in pletzerhaken, I am
excited for the next chapter of "Oktoberfest 2008".

I finished book 1 last night as I fell asleep. Kinda saw where it was
going (minus a few twists and turns) but overall a fun vacation read.
Especially so because it had such a turn of the century European
flair, putting me in the mood to immerse in old-world arts and culture.

Had a quick visit with Jana's bother this am, and hit the road. He was
suited up, and aching to get his kite in the air, and feet on the
water! I programmed a bit of a round-about route to the airport into
the GPS, and enjoyed the drive. not really knowing how long it would
take... Gave myself plenty of time.

Arrived at the airport in hamburg, returned the car, and had time to
buy a new book and get a bite to eat.

Meeting Jana at the Nuremberg airport on the tail end to rent a car
for the next leg of the journey. We will be going out tonight with her
girlfriends in Nuremberg, then leaving for Pilsen and Prague in the am!

Hope I have time for a little laundry tonight!!!

Short, but sweet!

It was just enough to give me a little taste, and wish I had another
few days to get back out in the water with that pesky kite! But alas,
tomorrow I drive back to Hamburg, and fly back to Nuremberg. I gave a
new found respect for those guys out there on ocean beach being
dragged around In the sand and surf!

Peeled the wetsuit off, all-in-all excited by the experience with the
kite. Grabbed a beer, and sat on the beach for a while watching the
masses kiting back and forth across the water..... A lot of newfound
respect, I thoroughly enjoyed watching everyone ripping it up! Sand
running through my toes, beer in hand, salty hair whipping across my
face, life is good. I am at ease. :)

Learning to fly a kite...

The wind came up this afternoon, and I was able to continue with my
kitesurf lesson... This time, literally getting my feet wet. It was
quite exciting!

I jumped into a wetsuit, we assembled the gear on the beach, and after
a quick explanation of launching and landing the kite, it was up in
the air attached to julia. We walked up the beach while she explained
the basics of flying the kite. ane were I the water. She told me to
grab the handle on the back of her harness... We picked our feet up,
and the kite dragged us offshore for a bit. The water is less than 5
feet deep for at least a 1/4mile out. Once we were out to a shallower
sand bar, we continued to walk into the wind to give ourselves as much
space to practice as possible.

Finally in a place we could both stand, with plenty of space all
around, julia switched the kite over to my harness... And it took me
less than a minute to crash the thing. Oopse. Couple more tries, and I
started to get the hang of keeping it directly overhead (12
o'clock)... And learned to make little movements to 11o'clock,
1o'clock and back again. First instinct is to hold I to the "bar" for
dear life, but in playing with the movements of the kite, it was
really a finesse thing that could be done with a few fingers. After
crashing a few more times, we moved onto dragging ourselves with a
motion of moving the kite horizon to horizon (3o'clock to 9o'clock). I
was a little nervous, but got the hang of it, and then crashed the
kite again.

This is where we ran into difficulties. We needed to move back upwind,
and back onto the sandbar. We had floated quite a bit, and were in an
unusually high tide, making it deeper than usual. Walking in chest
deep water didn't work so well. We tried to drag ourselves in using
the kite... With me driving, and were successful in spurts, but the
kite came down again, in deeper water (harder to launch again)... So
we decided to trade the kite back to julia harness. Doing fine, doing
fine, and crash again... Just when we were trading off the kite line.
Crashed inverted. Crash and burn. We had to take in the lines, and
swim to shore to sort them out.

After a good swim, we sorted the kite and lines out on shore, and
started the walk back up the beach again. Doesn't sound like much, but
a good amount of water walking, adrenalin, head back watching the
kite, swimming... N I was already ticketed out. We decided to to out
for one more round.

All the way up the beach, we were about to head back into the water
for another drag to the sandbar... The kite hit a wind pocket, lost
it's float, and crashed hate to the edge of the beach in a seaweed
bed. In about 10 seconds, the kite lines were tangled up, covered in
heavy seaweed, and my short kitesurfing career came to an end. It
took us about 20+ minutes to get the lines de-weeded, untangled. In
the meantime, the wind came up in full force, and the beach was
instantly full of kites being inflated and launched.