Things this winter have been quiet. After my brother left in early January, we had a trip up near Berlin to Magdeburg. After business was done, we went over to Berlin and saw the Brandenburg Gate and the Reichstag. Andi did not realize what the Reichstag was until after we had walked to the top of the dome. BTW, if you ever go, take kids. They let us sneak into a separate line to the top of the Reichstag.
That Saturday we woke up and drove toward Prague. We stopped at Tropical Islands, the world's largest building (by volume). It is an old blimp hangar converted into a water park. It looked spendy and we were not prepared so we kept on the road.
That afternoon we walked around Dresden and saw a famous art museum. They had a famous Raphael painting (with the two little angels at the bottom).
Sunday morning we toured Prague. What a city! Neat buildings and a lot of history. It was only six hours to drive home, but weather was bad so it took longer.
All the previous stuff was in a draft post I never published here, but it apparently got lost. Ooops. So I am not sure if I know what great Czech Republic Beers I had or what I thought of them. Maybe I have pics to dig up? We will see.
Anyway, February was pretty sedate. Everyone but me had a terrible stomach flu at separate times over the past few weeks. We had no big travels planned. One Saturday we went to the grand opening of the new Porsche museum in Stuttgart, one Saturday we went to the Altes Schlosß museum in downtown Stuttgart, another Saturday we went to an old Mill.
The old mill was in the family of a colleague. His grandfather lives and works there still. The building is 350 years old and the mill still works. The "new" milling equipment is 100 years old and they have working stones to mill the grain and a water wheel. The kids got to see chickens and pigs as well. More importantly, the grandfather had his own distillery and we picked up four bottles of the local schnapps. We were also the first Ameris the man had seen since the war. We also stopped at a great little guest house for lunch in this part of the Schwabisch Alps nearly to Ulm.
Yesterday we spent Saturday in Strassbourg, mostly shopping. The French have more American stuff than the Germans it seems. And their prices are a little better as well. We went to the Strassbourg cathedral during the day and took some great photos of the stained glass. We also wandered around a bit in Strassbourg pedestrian areas and saw one bum break a bottle over the head of another in the parking garage.
It has also been snowy here. They say that Stuttgart only had snow a couple of times last year. I think we have seen about four good stick-on-the-ground snows so far. The last one was about half a foot, but recently we have only had slush or ice or rain. A little colder and we could have had a real winter wonderland. The kids have had a great time playing in the snow and sledding, but sadly it looks like that is ending soon.
We also found a kid friendly spa. They have multiple indoor pools with water slides and a good kiddie pool. We have been a few times now and it is always fun. They also offer baby sitting and a real sauna, so maybe we can try that one day...
As for beer, I have been put on a diet. On the positive side, I have lost about 20 lbs. But I have drunk far less beer, maybe one a week. Maybe less. But we did recently buy some interesting looking French beers in .75L bottles with a champagne-like cork. Very odd.
Update: found some pics of beers we found in the Czech republic. All were ok, nothing outstanding.
Gambrinus Svetley
Sladkuv Mestan
Staropramen
BTW, Budweiser traces its origins back to the Czech Republic, from what I read. Crazy.
