Archive for the ‘Travel’ Category
Wednesday, September 1st, 2010
Hey, you guys know what’s awesome? Green stuff, outside. Miss the east coast this time of year.
This past week I’ve been picking through A History of Venice by John Julius Norwich. It’s a big, thick book detailing the history of the Venetian Republic, from its beginning as a refuge in “these marshy, malarial wastes” until their surrender to Napoleon. Some guy on Goodreads didn’t like the book, saying, “[V]ery little thought was given to try and make the history pop. [...] Maybe I expect more from my histories, but this was written so dryly it could have come from the Gobi.” Which is exactly the opposite of what I would say. Reading the book is like sitting down for a story with your historian friend the Viscount Norwich, maybe with some good Scotch.
A dry history might just tell you that in 565 the Byzantine general Narses was relieved of his duty, and that as a way of taking revenge on the Emperor he encouraged the Lombard king to invade Italy. But your friend the Viscount takes a sip of his Scotch and tells you why the general should never have been dismissed: “Eunuchs, as everybody knows, are dangerous people to cross.”
Further, a dry history would probably not call the 864 Patriarch of Aquileia a “rascally primate,” or describe the tenure of Pope John XII as “the nadir of the papal pornocracy.”
Probably the most famous tourist attraction in Venice is St. Mark’s Basilica. Wikipedia provides a dry history of this building’s importance: “In 828, the new city’s prestige was raised by the liberation of the relics of St. Mark the Evangelist from Alexandria, which were placed in the new basilica.” After the jump I’ll transcribe Norwich’s livelier version of the “liberation.”
This weekend I went with Ruth, Lars, Teiko, Noel (who is visiting Ruth’s lab for the summer), and The Disgruntled Chemist to the Stone brewery in Escondido. The set-up there is really great. They have a lush (for southern California, anyway) beer garden, where you can get one of their delicious beers, take it outside, and enjoy it on the grass. They do free tours, where you can learn about the beer-making process, see some huge tanks and a bottling line that’s been in a movie, and hang out in a massive beer fridge. Somewhere in that room are the brewer’s few remaining bottles of Stone Vertical Epic 02/02/02, which they say goes for $800 on eBay.
At the end of the tour you get to try four of their delicious ales (the pale ale, the smoked porter, the IPA, and Arrogant Bastard). Because we asked questions, Steve and I were rewarded* with a taste of the XI Anniversary Ale as well. I had had the first four before, and they were as good as always. I thought the anniversary ale was awesome.
Here’s us, in the company store, during the tasting. As I’m sure you expect, there wasn’t anything wrong with the camera here, the beer just made Teiko a bit fuzzy.
I also had the Vertical Epic 07/07/07, which was outstanding, and the Chipotle Pepper Porter, which was pretty tasty.
The rest of our pictures are here, and TDC’s notes on the beers are here.
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*Yeah, they rewarded us with booze for asking questions. Clearly they don’t get many graduate students on their tours.
Ruth and I took advantage of the long weekend provided by Martin Luther King, Jr. day and drove up to visit her brother Leon, who is in the CS PhD program at Berkeley. In the process, I learned something incredible: there are parts of California which are really interesting an entertaining. Who knew?
While there, we saw pretty good sketch comedy at The Dark Room, toured Scharffen Berger (our favorite chocolate maker), ate outstanding tapas, walked around several used book stores, and generally made ourselves sad that we live in Orange County.
The best part, however, was the tour of Sonoma County wine country. More on that after the jump.