StringGrrl sees the World

Visitors to the US office from our overseas offices lately have been getting treated to one of our favorites in town; The Red Coat Tavern. Located a healthy distance from the office, the Red Coat offers one of the best burgers in town. Burgers there are 1/3-1/2 pound and served with any choices of fine toppings that you might want. My favorite is the "Brasserie Burger", Big Beef Patty (upgrade-able to Piedmont Beef), served with 2 big slabs of bacon, Swiss cheese, Brioche, water cress, and caramelized onions. View Larger Map  Our colleagues from Germany and Switzerland hunkered down for a real American Burger, when we brought them here. With so many options for burgers, they took my advice and the whole table ordered the Brasserie Burger. We shared a basket of fries and a basket of onion rings.  Getting a grip on the big burgers was a new experience for each of them, many of out European colleagues will eat EVERYTHING with fork and...

On a Thursday night, getting to sit in the new multipurpose room at a neighboring middle school and see my daughters choir perform is always great. To have that choir share the stage with such talented singers and dancers as the Imuka Singers is a real treat.

StringGirl and Amber wait in the line to get some Great Tacos Today the works of gastronomy came to us, instead of our normal system of traveling the world. 4 food trucks came by the office building today for a mini rally. The food truck trend is something that many will associate with the Left and Right Coasts and less likely to connect to the "D". In fact the "D" has several food trucks , though maybe not as prominent as when compared to a city like Seattle, Los Angeles, New York or Vancouver. The Girls were in line for the Jacques Taco truck how we found out about this event   Jacques Tacos ,  Concrete Cuisine ,  Franks of Anatra , and  Treat Dreams  all dropped by to feed us and our neighbors. It was a perfect day for it. Sunny and nearly 80 degrees. Folks lined from all the nearby buildings to sample the fare. Concrete Cuisine has gourmet sandwiches and other food We had quite a crowd, with visitors from near and far Jacques T...

Located just a short walk from the Prague center and the heart of the Czech tourist traps is  Lokal , a popular restaurant and pub that we made it a point to visit on this latest trip to Prague. The restaurant stretches the full length of the block long building. Fitting into it a truly impressive number of dinners and drinkers, a quick guess is that there are no fewer than 40 tables for 6-8 people filled every night. Each visit I have never seen the place less than brimming with people, but we have always managed to squeak in a seat (often having a quick seating at the reserved tables for the 45 minutes or so until that party arrives). Zvětšit mapu Amber with just one third of the restaurant in the background Like most restaurants and pubs in Prague smoking is still permitted. The non-smoking area of this pub fills quite easily, so seating in the smoking area is often unavoidable. The menu here is very Czech authentic, portions of meat served with sauce and bread dump...

The silver tubes hangin from the ceiling captured our interest On the way to one of the many pubs serving Pilsner Urquell from giant brewery direct tanks , Jan and I spotted this interesting restaurant. Long silvery tubes hang from the ceiling like so many Lovecraftian tentacles at each table waiting to suck the unsuspecting human cattle ringed round three tables up from their seats to be served to the "old ones" who have inhabited Prague since ages past. From street level Once my feeling of dread past, we risked a longer look in to find that the diners were clearly the humans and not the other way around. Not a grim restaurant blithely "serving human" it is instead a grill it yourself steak house, in the style of a Korean bulgolgi or kalbi. Katr  had a great variety to pick from priced around 180-200 Czech Korunna per 100g portion of fresh meat ($10 or 8EUR). This way you can have several tastes of meat to share with the table. The mixed grill: ...

A two second exposure of the Church atop the Prague Castle Amber tries to hold still for a two second exposure   Using the basic settings of the Canon Powershot Camera that I bought for just over $100 a few years back. I have found that with the help of a small pocket sized tripod and some patience anybody can take some worthwhile night time architecture shots. By using the "Long Shutter" setting and a two second shot timer. I was able to 'compose' these night shots while walking back to the hotel in Prague. 3 seconds on the "Fireworks" setting The Castle is lit up brilliantly at night, and the settling twilight made the castle just pop. However, most of us amateur shutterbugs will struggle to capture anything. Sure shutting off the flash helps, but then the naturally slower shutter and wider aperture make for many shaky shots. Or shots where the unwanted flash lights the foreground too much to see any of the natural beauty and color of the ...

With the Watertower and Old Brewhouse in the background Amber and StringGirl get ready for the tour The brewery bar and restaurant offers the freshest unfiltered unpasteurized beer straight for the oak barrels These kettles are props for the visitor center Hops and Jan await the tour bus Bottling operations allow for 120,000 bottles of beer per hour The old brewhouse, now just for show Behold, 1,000,000 gallons of beer Fresh from the barrel, bottom aged and conditioned beer The famous gate we see on every bottle of beer Hops is right at home in this barrel of Bohemian Hops Our tour guid pses with StringGirl and Amber In the cellar, they only brew this beer for the tour visitors

Ever since we started GeoCaching we have traveled the world snapping our pics with StringGirl and more lately with Amber. But now we are starting to see all the same place over again. The remedy? Set up a new Travel Bug. Hops   Hops is a recent acquisition, joining our travel group when we were last in Germany in the Hallertau region of Bavaria. The beauty of setting up a travel bug is the hope that it will travel from Cache to Cache and hopefully, have some pictures taken in places I don't already know. Amber and Hops The mission for those who bother to try, is to transpotort Hops from Cache to  Cache and have his picture taken infront of prominent features of the nearby area (indoor, outdoor, Bier Gardens and Breweries).

 StringGirl onsite with GC2AWNX - Rohrbach ad Ilm - Waterworks Not far from here work site in Bavaria. Typical that she visits Munich and Pfaffenhofen around this time each year.  Looking down from GZ of the aforementioned cache site. By the way look out for THORNS there are many and they are large! StringGirl at the Cache site GC21WGR :   RIP Haus am Dom

Long exposure shot of the lights Alex makes new friends in the Bier Tent         We meet the nicest drunk people at Oktoberfest