The Adventures of Lorie and Brian Groth

• Megan explains our train challenges.
• Alan describes the town of Reims.
• I don’t think Kate blogged anything.

Some of the guys from the marketing team in Italy took us out to Martin Pescatore last night, which is a fish restaurant in Milan. We had far too much food (all of it fish-based) and some great white wine to go with it. We also got to try limoncello – I’m not sure if it was homemade or a brand like the one I have pictured here though. This site explains it quite accurately:

Sweet and soothing, potent and relaxing, limoncello is a strong, bright yellow after-dinner liqueur that hails from southern Italy, along the Amalfi Coast and the islands of Capri and Ischia. The ripe full-flavored lemons, found all along the Mediterranean are ideal for crafting this potent nectar. The resulting liqueur is very strong, very sweet, and very satisfying.

And now the fun part…. this morning Lorie and I were locked into our hotel room. I discovered it just as I was heading to the office: the lock was broken and wouldn’t unlock. The maintenance guys had to drill the lock out and cut part of the door around the lock. This is at the Sheraton Diana Majestic, which is a nice hotel (with a cool bar), so it was a bit unexpected.  

So far, I haven’t seen much of Madrid except for the KIO Towers that are within walking distance of my hotel. There isn’t much interesting around it though, unless a bus terminal is exciting.

Tonight, we are going to dinner at Meson Teitu, which is an Asturian restaurant. That’s a northern area of Spain that’s known for its cider (sidra).

An update from London: Lorie, Cullen, Megan, Daisy, Milo, and I all went to the Telegraph (a pub in Putney) to see my first rugby game on Saturday night. For me, it is like other team sports on TV (I could care less), but it was interesting to see the rugby fans really get excited during the game. Plus I got to learn a little about the game from Cullen and Megan, who both enjoy sports like normal people. Yes, I learned about Rugby from two Americans! Anyway, it was doubly fun because England beat France and now heads to the Rugby World Cup finals.

In October 2006, Lorie, Milo, and I landed in London. One year later, we own a new flat and are still attempting to adjust to the English way of life. OK, we figured out the pub life within minutes, but other than that it is all still quite new to us. Inspired by Alan’s map of where he and Megan have been, I created a map of where we have been since arriving here one year ago.

I will updated this map as we go to new places. Up next are Milan, Italy and Madrid, Spain, which we’ve never been to. See http://maps.live.com/?v=2&cid=817ED2A8693B5FC7!3113&encType=1

Lorie, Anne, and I just got back from a long weekend in the Champagne region of France and our highlight by far was our tour and tastings at Veuve Clicquot. It was a combination of the fact that we already like the champagne, we were looking forward to it, but also the brand management they have done for over 100 years, the strong female characters associated to the wine, their environmental approach to their business, and their old Roman-era chalk caves where they store much of the champagne. We were able to sample their La Grande Dame (very high end) and their demi-sec (extra sweet) and learned that Lorie and I really liked the sweet one, much like a dessert wine. We of course came home with our fair share of bottles to enjoy later. We also stayed at a great little bed and breakfast, saw a couple of small towns, checked out a couple of other vineyards, and sampled other brands of champagne…. I will explain all of that later after some sleep and catching up with work, and I’ll post some photos.  

Daisy, Milo, Alan, Megan, Anne, Lorie, and I spent 3 days and 2 nights on the Leicester, which is a 53 foot boat in the Rochdale Canal in West Yorkshire. We started off in the town of Sowerby Bridge, quite enjoyed the little town of Hebden Bridge, and came close to getting to Todmorden. We only got as far as a good biker bar just before Todmorden, which turned out to be fun since we were the token Americans and appeared to be quite the novelty. I’m not sure about other biker bars in England, but this one included someone who had never been outside of the Todmorden area (so she says) and a guy who was swapping names of favorite poets with Anne. He rode a Honda, but would like to have a Harley if he could afford it.

The canal is full of locks that we had to open and close on our own, and the boat is really a very slow moving barge with a big diesel engine. We only made it about 8 or 9 miles down the canal before we had to turn around and get back, so it is about half the speed of a casual walk. Along the canal are old mills, pubs, rolling hills of trees and farms divided by rock-walls, and other barges that people live on. 

In Sowerby Bridge, we went through the deepest lock in England, which has a draft of 20 feet, and it was the only one that had someone stationed there to operate it. Otherwise, we were the ones opening and closing the gates and drains to raise and lower the water level in the locks. For the most part, Alan and I were usually driving the boat, Megan and Anne worked the locks, and Lorie was on dog duty to keep the dogs (mostly Daisy) from jumping off the boat or getting too nervous while going through the locks (mostly Milo). Here’s a diagram of the interior of our boat – long and skinny.

Update:

• Brian’s photos
• Alan’s photos

Later in August we will be in Minnesota at Lake Pickeral (the one in Ottertail County). I am looking forward to the wakeboarding, sailing, kayaking, paddle boat (ooh the excitement!), visiting relatives, riding my recumbent bicycle, and just relaxing. Here is a satellite image of the lake, and a 180 degree view of the lake from my parent’s dock: