I dropped the ball.

After leaving Munich my internet connectivity was spotty at best.  The rest of my vacation was eventful to say the least, but I neglected to document it.  I'm still trying to make sense of it all right now and will try to fill in all the missing blanks over the next few days.

Back to A'dam

Getting ready to take the Thalys back to Amsterdam.  Still can't get my friggin pictures uploaded from my iPhone.

Belgium

So, as my brother and sister in law pointed out, there has been a dearth of Airsick In The Aisle Seat posts.   Whatever, I've been busy.  It's been a very eventful two or three days suffice it to say I almost went to prison, but I didn't, which is awesome.  Prison would totally have ruined my vacation.    So yesterday I took a flight from Munich, which I was totally sad to leave, up to Amsterdam, which is fun too, but nowhere near as fun as Oktoberfest in Munich.  In Munich, the beer is amazing, the women are beautiful and everyone is friendly and seriously know how to have a good time.  I met a lot of great people at Oktoberfest.

Tonight I spent the day in Brussels with big bro and sis in law.  Very good beer, good food and amazing architecture.  I had no idea that Brussels was so picturesque, I probably should have guessed, but I clearly underestimated it.  The beer is damn good.

Ok, i'll try to post more later, I can't really type much more now.

Es tut mir leid, Ich spreche nicht Deutsch.

Munich!  Right now I'm watching South Park dubbed in German on Comedy Central.  What I don't understand is why they dubbed Timmy's voice when all he says is "TIMMAH!"  The theme song is pretty awesome sung in German, though.

I was too beat and jet-lagged to attempt getting into a beer tent at the fairgrounds when I finally arrived at my hotel, but I did raid my mini bar.  Inside I found two bottles of Radeberger Pilsner.  I wasn't expecting much from a mini bar offering, but all I can say is that this is the best Pilsen I've had thus far.  Pouring  it into the pilsner flute filled the immediate area with the intense floral aroma of Saaz hops.  Crisp and refreshing with a nicely understated malty character.  I'm such a pretentious jackass; it's just good beer.  I wish this quality of lager was considered standard back home.  Alas, I just drank the last of it, so I think I might head down to the bar while it's still open for a quick one before heading to bed.  I'm planning to wake extra early tomorrow morning to try and get into a tent to hoist a Maß or two.  OK, this is too much, now King of the Hill is on, in German...


More to come tomorrow: Charles de Gaulle, observations on the women of Germany and France, my attempts to hang with the Munchen and hopefully a report on the second day of Oktoberfest.

Sweet!

Tears and gnashing of teeth have been avoided, the nice people at Air France shoe horned me onto the flight.  The only downside is that I'm in seat 32E 1/2 which means that I have to carry a pet carrier containing someone's sedated Bichon Frise.  OK, the flight is boarding, more later.

An unscheduled stop in Paris? Maybe...

So despite my iPhone Navigator app's best efforts I managed to get to Logan without incident, however I still managed to step in a pile of shit luck.  Swiss Airlines 'accidentally' sent too small of a plane towards Boston.  Long story short, they turned me into Air France's problem.  At first this seemed like a spot of good news because although I was being rerouted through Charles de Gaulle, I would arrive in Munich only an hour later than I had planned.  Additionally they floated me a $400.00  voucher for a future flight, which will take a serious chunk out of the price of next year's tickets.  So with a jaunty skip in my step, (no, not really), I wandered over to Air France's check in line.  The expression on the french chick's face told me that I wasn't going to like what she would have to say.   Again, overbooked.  So I'm on the waiting list and won't find out until 10pm if I'm on the plane.  Yeah, OK, it's possible that somebody bought tickets to Paris and decided at the last minute they had better places to go.  No, it really isn't and I got the impression that I'm not the first one on the list.  Now I'm sitting in front of Sbarro's fuming because my hotel in Munich is 250 bucks a night and I'm losing one night right off the bat.   I have chosen to take the high road and do the noble thing; I'm getting belligerently drunk until I find out that I'm not getting on the plane, then I'm going to the Air Swiss desk and demand that not only they put me up in a hotel tonight, but that they pay for my lost night in Munich and get me on a plane first thing in the goddamn morning.  Then I should probably call the hotel in Munich and let them know and see if they won't charge me for tomorrow night because obviously those fucks at SWISS aren't going to give me any more money.  Assholes.

Intro

The purpose of this blog it to capture the boozy pearls of wisdom that spill out of my head as I traipse across Europe on a whirlwind tasting tour of the finest Germany, The Netherlands and Belgium have to offer in  the way of adult beverages.  Also I plan to see a bunch of old shit I hear they have over there.