Second City

When we've travelled to great cities in Europe like Amsterdam, Madrid and Paris, we always have a great time and look forward to when we can take our next trip. This past week we travelled to another great city - Chicago. I was reminded we don't have to go so far afield to find a city you'll want to return to.

Chicago is one of the great cities of the world.  According to Wikipedia it has the fourth largest GDP of all cities in the world behind only Tokyo, New York and Los Angeles and ahead of London and Paris.

Soccer was what prompted us initially to go to Chicago. It is the closest city to Minnesota that has Major League Soccer. The soccer fanatics in our house wanted to see an MLS game so we bought tickets to a Chicago Fire game and saw the Fire defeat Toronto 1-0. It was a chilly but dry night and we had a good time.  We experienced the same sort of excitement and atmosphere at a professional soccer game that one sees at an MLB or NBA game.  Lots of families and kids, and the stadium was mostly full. Not bad for the last game of the season.

Some of the essential elements of a trip to Chicago: Architecture, Traffic and Tourists.

One common experience when traveling to one these great cities of the world seems to be the mass transit system. The Chicago rail system makes it easy to get around. We bought one day passes that let us hop on and off the trains and busses.

Orange Line stop in Downtown

Like all these cities I've visited, we experienced great restaurants, amazing architecture, and fascinating sights. 

Cloud Gate, aka 'The Bean', in Millenium Park

The Bean taking a picture of us, or vice versa.

Neo at the Crown Fountain

We're looking forward to another trip and more sights. 

Forgotten Dreams

If you get a chance, see the film, Cave of Forgotten Dreams. It is about the 30,000 year old cave paintings in Chauvet France. You can get a glimpse at Chauvet Paintings

Another Prosaic Post

Reading this blog you might think the only thing in our lives is bottling beer.  I've only done it twice, and both times are documented here.

Thabiso had left over ingredients and homegrown hops and he used them to brew up a couple of gallons.  It is quite good - he added some spices and let it sit for 3 months.  Last week Thabiso, Taylor, Tlotlisang and I bottled it up.

Obviously more fun than it looks!

The Mad Capper hard at work

Apparently cameras make me close my eyes. But not the cat.
She's always on the alert for any available lap.

Pop's Porter Update

Last night we taste-tested the porter - it's not ready yet.  The taste is not bad, but it is only mildly carbonated, so it probably needs some more time.  The temp in our house during the day is probably a little low, and darker beers apparently take longer to carbonate.

Pop's Porter

We bottled beer today. I'll call it Pop's Porter. On Oct. 12th, Thabiso and I made our first attempt to brew this porter. We were drinking a few beers and mixing up our batch of porter, and we were having such a good time drinking a few beers that we burned our batch! So the next night we were all business and brewed a new batch.

More than three months later, we finally got around to bottling it. Thabiso absconded to Ireland so he missed out on all the fun of washing bottles. Of course we've been saving bottles for a few months, but they all had to be washed and we wanted to take the labels off, so Neo, Tlotlisang and I spent a few hours soaking, scrubbing, washing. I have become an expert on the different techniques used to attach labels to bottles. Some are definitely easier to remove than others. That will be a criteria from now on when I buy beer - whose labels are easier to remove!

Today, Neo, PJ and I bottled the porter and in two weeks we'll finally enjoy it. It's not a bad tasting beer.

Neo and PJ hard at work.

Neo the happy capper, while Tlotlisang offered entertainment.

Neo kept capping, but Tlotlisang couldn't wait.

PJ on Tap Duty.

The dishwasher helped

The Final Product

Lesotho is a rich green during summer. We usually go during winter but decided we wanted to spend time there while it was warm. We were rewarded with ripe apricots and peaches.