Posts Tagged ‘Beer’

After our extreme adventure getting to Sofia we were happy to find our hostel and get settled in. We arrived late at night and then took it easy most of the next day. One of those laundry, blogging and recovering kinds of days. We went out for lunch at a kind of Italian-ish restaurant and were completely amused by the constant flow of weddings going on. I’m not sure what it was, but we must have been sitting outside a registry office or something because every ten minutes or so another wedding party would pull up with decorated cars and a big bridal party. They would go inside this shabby building for a few minutes, come back out and leave. This went on the whole time we were eating lunch (and in fact, we saw weddings going on all over the city the whole time we were there).

One of the many weddings we witnessed

It was quite an experience being in Sofia – they use a Cyrillic alphabet, but our map had the street names written in the Roman alphabet, so we couldn’t find ANYTHING.

Pretty useless map if you ask me!

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My brother really came through for us in Amsterdam. Of all of the places we were looking at going we were the least satisfied with hostel options in Amsterdam. They were very expensive and very poorly rated. It’s one thing to pay for quality, and a totally different thing to pay 30 euros each per night for something that gets a really bad rating! So, my very kind brother got in touch with his friends and found us a place to stay! One of his friends lives in Amsterdam with her husband in a nice apartment close to the center of town. She was away while we were there, but her husband, Joel, was amazing and let us stay with him. You can imagine that we were feeling a bit shy about all of this, especially since Joel had not even met my brother, but it turned out so well and we enjoyed both Amsterdam and Joel’s company.

It was an easy train ride from Bonn to Amsterdam, with just one quick change in Cologne. The scenery was nice, and we got to see first-hand just how flat the Netherlands are. Once in Amsterdam we followed Joel’s very detailed directions and had an easy time finding his apartment. We chatted for a little and agreed to meet up for dinner after Justin and I had a few hours to walk around the city and see the sights.

The center of Amsterdam is a really nice size for walking around. We walked for about 3 hours and saw most of the central city. We especially liked seeing all of the canals and houseboats. It is a very pretty city and absolutely chock full of bikes, boats and other unique modes of transportation, like the mini car we saw! Because we were only spending one night in the city we just wanted to take in the atmosphere and get a sense of the place. Amsterdam has a really unique feel to it.

Justin with a mini car

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We left Luxembourg in the morning and had a rather slow train ride to Strasbourg, in France.  I’m not sure if there was something wrong with the train, but about every 20 minutes we would stop for five or ten minutes before continuing on.  And not at a station either, just in the middle of nowhere.  Still, it was pretty countryside and we were not in too much of a hurry.

Once we got to Strasbourg it about noon and we headed straight to the information desk in the train station.  They were very helpful and explained how to get the tram to the hotel we had booked, and what the best transportation options are.  Strasbourg has a really good tram system that runs at most hours of the day and it is possible to get a ticket (for about 5 Euros) that lets up to three people travel on the trams as much as they want for 24 hours.  This was so, so good.  We were able to see so much of the city and had no problems at all getting around.

Our hotel was called Cerise Hotel and was a big success.  Inexpensive, really clean, internet in the rooms (important because we still had a lot of planning we needed to do) and even had a fridge and microwave in the room so that you could eat in a bit.  We took pretty full advantage of that!

Our plan was to do a few hours of planning and work on updating the (very out of date) blog and then to get out and see something of the city in the evening.  Despite having a small setback with our internet not working, the hotel sent someone up immediately to fix it, and we were able to get a few days of plans finalized.  This calmed us down substantially and as we set out to see the city we were feeling so happy and positive!

We took the tram to the central area and then walked around taking it in.

Canal and "Petite France"

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So sorry to be so far behind in our adventures. We’ve had a wonderful time seeing friends and family and haven’t had much time for blogging. But, that does mean that we have lots of wonderful days to post about!

We arrived in Edinburgh after one of the nicest (read: least bumpy) flights ever. There was one slight mishap on the getting to the airport in Madrid. I woke up, in a panic that I had slept through my alarm, roused Justin and very sleepily hustled us out of the hostel, only to find out that my alarm hadn’t even gone off yet! We were about two hours earlier to the airport than we needed to be. But I suppose that’s better than two hours late.

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Hazel decided that for my birthday she would get me a nice night out in Spain – complete with Flamenco Dancing!  This has been something I’ve been really into since I saw a show in Ithaca back in 2005.  So I was stoked!  It turned out to be the perfect evening.  We started out the night at the restaurant “El Buey” – a favorite Hazel found on SpottedByLocals.com, a site that’s half TripAdvisor and half blog with entries by locals from the area.  We love this site!  Anyway, back to our date.  The specialty of the house is cook-it-yourself OX!  They bring 1kg of ox tenderloin sliced thinly (along with patatas fritas of course) and ceramic plates heated to a really high temperature.  Meat goes on plate, and voila!

El Buey

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We enjoyed our beach relaxation time in Paraty so much that we decided to head about 40 minutes south to Trindade, a tiny town known for having really incredible beaches.  And they were perfect.

Justin on the beach in Trindade

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We arrived after dark, but quickly found a hotel and a very tasty meal.  Dad and Justin both tried the Pastel de Choclo (Corn Pie) which is basically a steaming hot bowl of cornmeal pudding/pie with all kinds of meat, egg, and other treats inside.  People often sprinkle a thin layer of sugar on the top.  It is really tasty, but didn’t turn out to be the light dinner they were hoping for!  We also discovered at our meal that there was a very local brewery in the area, and since we liked what we tasted we decided to head there the next day.

Guayacán brewery

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Well it has been a long time since I talked about the various libations that Hazel and I have tried.  Having been to both Argentina and Chile since we left New Zealand, we’ve gained even more of a perspective on how people around the world consume their beer.   Turns out that the pacific coast of the US has a different opinion about beer than most other places in the world!  (Sorry East Coast, Yuengling just doesn’t cut it anymore :) )

In Argentina, we had the realization that there just isn’t much in the way of beer.  The two main players throughout the country were Quilmes, a very light lager whose primary characteristic was that a liter cost US$1.50.  The other choice was Brahma, which costs less than Quilmes.  Neither had much going for them other than that they are cheaper than water around there.  I did enjoy the occasional Brahma (my preferred of the two) but the most interesting beers were found while we travelled around Patagonia.  We went to three Patagonian towns: Ushuaia, El Calafate, and El Chaltén (We also traveled to Chile’s Puerto Natales, but I’m saving that for another post).

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After another full day bus trip we have made it to Puerto Natales, Chile.  The big thing in town (actually 2 hours out of town) is the Torres del Paine National Park and we´ve got some pretty good plans for making the most of it!  The past couple of days we´ve explored the town, met the mascot, had some Cristal and the strangest pizza I´ve ever tried and spent a lot of time preparing for the park.

Town Mascot

Favorite NZ beer so far - in Christchurch

 The next day we continued up the coast and stopped in at Kaikoura – known for its whale watching and sea life.  We didn’t go out on a boat, but we did go on a hike that was full of seals and birds.  There was a Red-Eyed Gull breeding colony along the way and birds just everywhere.  The beach there was pretty unique too.  Really unusual rocks.

Birds

Beach walk at Kaikoura

Baby gull

Really crazy rocks

More birds

 On our way back through town after the hike we noticed a wine bar, so we checked that out.  It had something I’d never seen before, but Justin had in Italy – wine dispensing machines.  They would give you either a small taste, a half glass, or a full glass and just keep track of the prices of what you drank so you could pay at the end.  Pretty nifty!

Cool wine dispenser