I’ve been thinking that with my posting becoming more and more sporadic, I’d end up beginning each one with an apology for not writing for a while, and ending it with a promise to do better in the future. I don’t want this thing to degenerate into that. I'll post when inspiration hits,or whenever else I feel like it. So as a way to rid myself of this near-paralyzing, though self-inflicted guilt, I vow that I will not make any promises and I will offer no apologies.
I’m sorry but it has to be that way... I swear.
OK, where were we? I think last time I stopped by I was talking about the Netherlands. Here is a photo of our hero in the Netherlands (or should that be the villain in the nether regions?).
Do you think this seems to be turning into a familiar pose?
About one and one-half weeks ago I broke in my new smoker. Truth be told, it was probably more of an official trial than a true breaking in. But it came through in the clutch. Here it is smoking away …
Here is a piece of pork loin that I smoked in it that day …
Someone call Gib, and tell him I’m ready to resume the chief smoker job!
I also smoked a boneless pork shoulder and shredded that for barbeque. The meat turned out very good, but the sauce I made was just OK. I invited some friends over and they seemed to like it.
Last week I was out of town again. I stayed in a small walled city named Amberg. I didn’t get any photos of the place because I was dark both when we left in the morning and returned in the evening. It is a nice town. We were there for three nights and found three really good places to eat (two of which were breweries). I think Amberg has six breweries in the area, but I’m not sure how many are in the walled part of town.
On the way back to Wiesbaden we stopped in Nürnberg for lunch and a little look around. We ate in this place called the Nassauer Keller. It was in the cellar (Keller) of this really old building. The ceiling and walls were completely made of stones.
We were thinking that it was probably a coal cellar at one point. And the entrance must have been the coal chute. I haven’t seen steps this steep since I lived in the apartment at 6th and St. Catherine in Louisville. Only the ceiling was so low in this stairway that you were forced to hunch over for the whole trip.
Here our hero emerges …
The Nassauer Keller is directly across from this cozy little chapel …
I took some other photos, but the sun was so bright that the contrast is pretty bad on them. The river (maybe it’s a canal) runs right through Nürnberg.
We also checked out a couple of other churches and I took some pictures of some nice ornamental entryways on some government building. Apparently Nürnberg was pretty much destroyed during allied bombings, but they have rebuilt it pretty well. I found a website that compares pictures from 1945 with similar shots in 1998. It’s located HERE. Pretty interesting.
I received a bit of bad news last week while in Grafenwöhr (near Amberg). They told us that our trip to Italy this week was cancelled. We were supposed to go to Vicenza for about 4 days, and planned to spend the following three day weekend sightseeing in Vicenza and Venice. It will happen sometime in the coming months, but I may have something else going at that time and not be able to go.
The good news is that four of us are taking off Friday and heading to the city of Bilboa in the Basque region of northern Spain. They have a Guggenheim Museum there that was designed by Frank Gehry (can you tell I’m going with a couple of architects?). Hope the weather cooperates. It should be a nice trip.
I’ll be heading back to Destin, Florida in early March for a weeklong class. After that, I’ll come right back to Germany. I think I’m going to Armenia for a couple of days in April.
HERE is an interesting article on complex systems, and why the sky is always falling.
4 comments:
Tony,
I don't think those steps to the cellar meet with ADA requirements.
The Guggenheim in Bilboa is a piece of ... work. It looks like Gehry thought, "What is the most ridiculous looking building I can possibly come up with?", and that's what he designed.
You sent me some pictures a couple of years ago of a bar or some such with crooked walls and doors and windows and the like. That's what the Guggenheim looks like only on a "much grander" scale. I think I read an article when it was built that said it cost $750 a square foot. That was at least ten - fifteen years ago so you can imagine what it would cost now.
But the food is supposed to be good in Bilboa so have fun.
W
I was missing your posts! Glad to see you raise a glass with a smile ... Sounds like you've been working too hard over there (in at dark, out at dark)
The blutwurst you've been eating looks pretty bad, but that smoked pork looks like a winner....
Janie-
The "in at dark, out at dark" does not really go hand in hand with working too long (or hard for that matter). This is especially over here as we are quite a bit further North than you are. This gives us short days in the winter. On the flip side of that, it doesn't get dark until very late in the middle of summer.
Our intrepid hero bears a striking resemblance to a bespectacled Grizzly Adams.
-Steven
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