11 years ago, I went to Oktoberfest with my friend Brent. Six hours later, I was in the hospital with a broken ankle. I had surgery, then spent six days in a Munich hospital.
I may have been smiling, but this wasn’t fun.
Tosh.0, a TV show on Comedy Central, has a segment called Web Redemption, during which the host grants people who have had massively embarrassing F*@# ups the opportunity to have a do over. It was while watching this show that I decided I needed an Oktoberfest Redemption.
When I was 4 years old, my biggest dream was to be in The Sound of Music. Everyday after kindergarten, my best friend and I watched the movie and acted out the scenes. We leaped from couch to couch during the “I am 16” song, and climbed the bookshelves when the children were in the trees, and danced to “so long farewell”. In Salzburg, nearly 3 decades later, I was able to make those dreams come true.
“I am 16 going on 17”
Wandering around a Czech forest accompanied by my husband, sister-in-law, and someone else’s dog, isn’t exactly something I imagined doing on this trip. Nevertheless, it happened.
We arrived in Prague with the intention of taking in the gorgeous atmosphere, consuming lots of good food and beer, and catching up with old friends. Since I lived here for a year a decade ago, I was anxious to reunite with some of the Czech friends I had made. Shockingly, I ran into an American friend as well.
Czechs are known for their beer, and we thoroughly enjoyed sampling liters of it in the hilltop monastic breweries and underground beer halls. While lagers are their forte, Czechs also make great dark beers, and have begun producing some delicious IPAs. Needing a (brief) break from beer – blasphemy, I know – we splurged on the inventive cocktails at Hemingway Bar. Set up a bit like a speakeasy, with dim lighting and strict rules, the bar served creative drinks, such as pear purée, vodka, elderflower lemonade topped with an absinthe meringue.
After 5 days living the good life, revisiting old haunts, and catching up with friends, we headed south to the picturesque town of Česky Krumlov. A river snakes its way through the town, giving it the appearance of puzzle pieces from above. Taking advantage of the opportunity to enjoy a country setting, we elected to stay in an old bakery turned farmhouse 4 miles outside the town. The owner of the house had a young dog, Ben, who followed us around.
We didn’t have a car, and the bus was very infrequent, so the three of us thought it would be nice to take the scenic forest hike to town. Armed with a map drawn in crayon, and a large, not very detailed county map, we set off.
The crayon map, which was meant to lead us to town
As we walked away from the house, Ben came running after us. Being a farm dog, he isn’t leashed (nor does he have a collar), and we assumed he was just going for a little jaunt and would return home shortly. 40 minutes later, he was still with us. We tried yelling at him to go home, but he just eagerly ran ahead. Unsurprisingly, the crayon map wasn’t very easy to follow, yet we managed to find our way to the blue hiking trail. The trail through the woods was quiet and peaceful. While the trail markers were very infrequent, the path seemed well worn. It emptied into a big meadow, which we crossed, expecting to see trail markers on the other side. Nope. No trail markers. Only pigs. Pigs that were utterly excited to see us.
Begging help from a local, he brought us to another house, where one of the inhabitants spoke English. She very kindly pointed out that we were way off track (thanks, we got that), and then walked us to the start of a different trail, that would join up with the former trail. To thank her for her hospitality, Ben chased her cat down the street
By this time, it was 6:00pm and we only had an hour of daylight left. Electing to take our chances in the woods, we set off once more. We found the very narrow, overgrown trail, which we followed until we hit a fork in the path. There were trail markers on both sides. How could we go wrong? Well, apparently it’s pretty easy. Despite having trail markers for a few hundred feet, the path we chose, petered out. We hiked back up the hill, and chose the other option. At this point, we were all a little uneasy, as it was twilight, and getting hard to see. With Ben running ahead of us, we thankfully made it to town just as night fell.
We fashioned a leash for Ben out of my scarf. For a farm dog, he was surprisingly unresistant to his makeshift leash. When we found wifi, we called the owner to inform her that we were in town, we had her dog, and could she kindly come pick all of us up. While we waited for our very understanding landlord to arrive, we found a restaurant that allowed dogs, and enjoyed a delicious Czech meal of goulash, dumplings, and beer.
Beer of choice: There’s no easy answer. This country deserves a list.
Casey’s beer of choice overall: Ježek (generally only available in Jihlava)
Paul’s beer of choice overall: St Norbert IPA
Craft beer of choice: Real Deal Ale, at Prague Beer Museum
Beer of choice in Prague (lager): Pilsner Urquell
Beer of choice in Prague (dark): Kozel
Beer of choice in Cesky Krumlov: Eggenberg (both dark and light)
When we pictured England, we envisioned Tower Bridge, Big Ben, cozy pubs, and narrow country lanes. England was all of those things. We spent 4 days in London, where we met up with Paul’s youngest sister Lindsay. We did the quintessential touristy things like watching the changing of the guard, visiting the Tower of London, seeing the Rosetta Stone in the National museum, hanging out in Piccadilly Circus, and riding a double-decker bus.
Neither of us is a big proponent of posting pictures of food on Facebook and Instagram, but food is such a big part of life in Spain, that we don’t feel right leaving the country without writing about it. So screw it; here’s a post about food.
Let me start off by saying that we did not run with the bulls. Though, in hindsight I wish we had.
San Sebastián de los Reyes is a suburb of Madrid that hosts a weeklong bullfighting festival in August. While Pamplona holds the more famous running of the bulls, bull running also takes place in San Sebastián de los Reyes.
