Grandhotel Pupp First Class Karlovy Vary

... of old time beer making equipment, and beer bottling equipment and capping. We also got a small coin which was used in payment in olden times. Workers with this coin were entitled to a beer. We turned in our coins to get a nice beer. As we were running behind, our guide asked if it was ok for us to eat here as well. We each got a nice bread bowl full of goulash soup and then a plate of bread ...

... put before him... <br><br><br>The tour starts with the production line - the cleaning of recycled glasses, the airation &amp; subsequent dispensing of beer into glasses and laser scanning of the bottles for imperfections, this was pretty much how it worked for the cans aswell (minus the recycling step). <br><br>If I could bore you with all the ...

Today we went to the Pilsner Urquell brewery in Plzen. Pilsner, the type of beer, originated here, where Pilsner Urquell was brewed from local crops and local mineral water. The tour was awesome. We saw the traditional brew kettles and the modern ones, as well as a very modern new packaging plant. We also tasted some unpastuerized beer directly from fermenting barrels.<br>

... 4th floor with 4 large windows overlooking this toy-train town. It was Laurie's birthday so Ryan sprung for what was called the "spa treatment". Well, you know how when you go to a typical spa the options are "massage - Swedish, hot rock, deep tissue"....here you could select from 1 major and 1 minor treatments, which were interesting to say the least. Some of the options were: carbon dioxide bag or bath, iodine bath, lymph drainage by ...

... for this simple cotton short-sleeved polo shirt - an astounding $156!! We politely passed. We found our way back to find a dinner spot and wound up at our own Hotel U Kocku, and enjoyed a nice Czech meal, followed with Haggen Daz ice cream! After the sunset, we re-loaded our camera gear and headed for the Vltava River and found a spot for our night shots of the Charles Bridge and the city river reflections. We caught many eyes, stares over our photo session as we were ...

Arrived in Karlstejn on the "City Elephant" train at 1.20pm and walked 2km to the Karlstejn Castle. Went on the 2.30pm English tour of the castle which took about an hour. No photography allowed inside the castle. Took in the views over the town before walking back to the train station and catching the train back to Prague.

... ready to go out, because I had the time to spare. I left the dorms around 11 am and headed downtown for some aimless wandering. What I found was the National Museum which I had seen a thousand times, but never went in. Well, this weekend, it was time. I purchased my $2 ticket and went in to see priceless ancient things like skulls of Neandertals, Austraopithecines, and other pre-historic peoples. There was the coolest caveman exhibit there, and I wandered through it for ...

... paid for one so far. Do they have check out times at dorms? Well I'll find that out later. These people here in Prague are such nice people. A professor at Charles University was an angel helping me find a place to stay. I gave him a pin from Omaha (it said Omaha: Rare.Well-Done. so I explained the whole steak phenomenon in Omaha. He spoke great English. Today I woke up at 4:30am and couldn't go back to ...

... on New Year's Eve and Day. Fortunately the public transit continues to run, but the WC's in the stations are closed, because the attendants have the day off. Although it really isn't very cold here, the fact that we are so far north and the days are so cloudy, ice accumulates on ponds very quickly and people do a lot of skating. From Christmas to this writing (29 January) it has snowed almost every day. Not much accumulation, but snow nevertheless. We get a kick out of how ...

... the country occasionally to get our visas renewed. It might especially be good for us because it would not tie us down to contracts that we may be unhappy with or would be too constricting. Viola, that is her name, is so intent on keeping what she has learned these two weeks that she wants to meet us for lunch at least once during our month of schooling. We have stumbled on a very interesting Lutheran Church. It is only two blocks from TESCO, formerly K-Mart. The minister is from ...