StringGrrl sees the World

StringGirl on Charles Bridge in Prague Prague Castle Charles Bridge

Prague is a beer city. The beer of the city is Pilsner Urquell. Went for a beer with Jan from work, and he introduced me to a Pilsner Urquell served Mliko style . The beer is tapped from vats, not kegs, direct and unpasteurized--cepujeme nejkratsi cestou (apologies for the lack of appropriate accents). In some pubs, like this one, the beer comes direct from brewery via tanker truck and into vats that are visible under the bar. Yes the beer is foamed heavily, and no it is not the sign of a bad pour. Don't worry it is only considered a half beer when the foam is up to the rim like this so you are not paying for the foam. However, the pleasure is in  rapidly imbibing the cool foam, which is where the aroma lives. In fact Jan was a little bit scolding me for pausing to take the picture, lest this perfect "Milk" beer settle into a regular pour. StringGirl is too young to drink.

 StringGirls first visit to the Czech Republic (or for that matter any portion of Eastern Europe) is so far tainted only by less than good weather. It has been raining since our arrival here-sometimes quite heavy. In the photo above she poses in front of the National Museum. Wandering around Prague in the rain does not allow one the ease to pull out the guide book for very many of the pictures. So we are not sure what the building behind signifies, but it looked nice so here it is. This grand church is in the Castle of Prague. High on the hill looking over the river and the old town. StringGirl got a boost from me and the camera had to sit on a rock pylon. One of these days I should consider a tripod (a small one like the Gorilla Tripod ) but until that time. Balancing the camera on a few coins from my pocket to control the angle and a hope that the wind does not knock the thing over will have to do).

The area near Witten am Ruhr, is the home of Coal mining in Germany. Here the seams of high density coal needed for smithy work, as well as general heating, and iron work was found in abundance right at the surface. The Gallery above was dug immediately into the seam and made it straight through this hill. The seam of coal here is seen clearly high  in this rock face just above the gallery shown above. However, After only 50 meters into the gallery that seam was at waist height. To reach the deeper coal, angled shafts like the one marked by this hoist frame. This hoist was used up until the 60's. Producing coal even during the major modern coal work in nearby towns like Dortmund and Essen.

After having been coming to Dortmund for over 8 years only just made it to our first Borussia Dortmund Futbol match at Signal Iduna Park.  StringGirl Poses in her new outfit in front of Signal Iduna Park (the biggest Futbol stadium in Germany).  In here seat in "The Temple" we look to the south wall (the Yellow Wall) with 25,000 fans in the standing area where the die hard BVB fans keep the crowd going all game loong. The Fare in the VIP area. Currywurst, Schinken (ham), and Rosti potatoes. Real Gourmet!

The moat outside the gate to Emperors Palace Still finding photos from the last few trips while trying to get back to the flow of work and school. StringGirl as usual has been very busy. I found these from the Tokyo Trip and upload them. The Emperors Palace was a short walk from the Tokyo Prince Hotel and worth a moderate walk on my last morning in Tokyo. The weather was already pretty warm that day, and sun was up quite early 6:00AM. Joggers were already making their rounds of the 5km loop around the Palace. StringGirl just had a leisurely walk from the hotel, there she passed a few nice little parks. After dodging the surprising number of homeless sleeping everywhere around the parks she did find this nice little garden and pond. For the most part it is impressive that they did make sure to dedicate a fair portion of this very densely populated city to green space. Japanese serenity at garden between Minato Ward and Emperors Palace New meets old in this shrine at the foot o...

Biot is a small village perched high above the Cote D'Azure in France. Located only a few klicks away from Nice and Antibes it was our stop for purely touristic endeavorer before heading off to the Beach in Antibes. Sheri and the Girls stop for a short while in the streets of Biot Biot main street is pedestrian friendly and full of charm View Larger Map Famous for its glasswork we stopped to have a look at some of the local crafts shops to see what we could find. We found some nice Wine Glasses (stemless) as well as many other beautiful items we were afraid to buy and ship. We chose to take the wine glasses home. not our exact glass (ours are green and lavender) but same make and style The city map of Biot shows just how into their local crafts they are. It was tiled mosaic.