So we are a bit behind on our blogging....

Repeated field exercises, trips to Ireland, rumors of deployments and crazy cats have been a bit of a hindrance to our regular blogging. With that said, we are now going to catch you all up on the goings on of the Millers. Firstly, Aaron Burr and Tom asked us to thank Helen for her great gift to them. They have been having a ball! Who knew that a remotely controlled mouse could entertain two cats for so long (For a super cute video, click here)! With that said, we should explain our forays into foreign lands, namely Ireland, and the Czech Republic. Both locations share great beer and a high unemployment rate, other than that , the two places have absolutely nothing in common!
Ireland: Well, it all starts with a four hour drive to the world's most ghetto airport to catch our Ryan Air flight. Keep in mind, Ryan Air is CHEAP, like 15 Euro tickets to Italy (our next adventure) cheap. Although it is no frills, and you all rush the plane, as there is no assigned seating, and the pilots fly in a manner that makes you believe that this is their first time in the cockpit, we had no complaints! We flew from a converted US Air Force base that the Germans now own, and use as a hub for Ryan Air. All in all, a bit sketchy, but it did the job. We arrived in Dublin with our friend, Katie, all in one piece. After meeting her Irish friend and conversing a bit, she volunteered to drive us to our hotel. She was undoubtedly the worst driver I have ever ridden with. In addition to almost dying under the wheels of numerous double decker buses we got a native Dubliner's (yes, like the James Joyce collection of stories) tour of the city before dropping us off near our hotel. We stumbled with our ruck sacks into our modest hotel to discover that it was merely a modest number of rooms (picture the Leaky Cauldron) above the most wonderful Irish Pub. Now I am not talking about an Irish pub in the sense of tourist ridden eatery, but a legit pub with live music and beautiful Irish beers and ciders on tap that you could have with breakfast if you wanted to (which the Irish apparently partake in quite regularly). We spent the remainder of the day exploring the lovely parks and eating fish and chips chased by pints of Guiness and Bulmer's. As much as we love Germany, you can only stand so much Schnitzel and purity law enforced bland beer varieties. We turned in early to the sounds of a great traditional irish band playing in the pub below. Waking early, we went to see the National Gallery of Ireland which houses one of my favorite Vermeer's. Miller enjoyed seeing some of the nativie Irish art, and we both detested every bit of Italian Renaissance painting that the gallery had to offer. Altogether, quite a nice place, thankfully devoid of hordes of people. Following the gallery, we walked around the city a bit more, and read in St. Stephen's Green. Following our taxing day, we went back to our home pub and had some lovely Irish cheeses with copious amounts of Guiness....what a day. Our third day, being country folk, we decided to escape the city to do a bit of hiking along the coast. After taking a half hour train ride out to Howth (pronounced like both) we found a great hiking trail around a peninsula and spent the better part of the day exploring some truly striking scenery. We walked along cliff faces and spotted seals in the Atlantic. After a truly disappointing lunch in the seaside town, we boarded a train back to Dublin to sample some of Dublin's own microbrews. Sadly, we were disappointed again in our meal selection, as the brewery we were at tried far too hard to try to distinguish themselves from commercialism, that their beers were quite lackluster, and the service poor. Oh well...so we walked back to our own pub to read and sip irish coffee. Our last day was uneventful. We declined a ride from Katie's friend, fearing for our lives, and rode on the top of a double-decker bus to the airport where we meet up with Katie and caught our flight back to Germany. It took us far too long to get home thanks to construction and a truly confused GPS. And that was the end of our Irish adventure!


Czech:
Ever since we have arrived in Bavaria, it has been on our Czechlist to Czech out the Czech Republic. Sorry, I had to get that out of my system. We live not quite 45 minutes from the border with the Czech Republic and so a couple of weeks ago Jak and I decided to hop the fence and head to Plzen, home of the origional Pilsner beer. Crossing the border is a shock. We are used to New England, where it isn't so much a delineated border as a zone of confusion. The border with Czech is quite different. One moment you are in Bavaria, where everything is so neat and prosperous that I swear they sweap the forrests. With only a stop to pay a toll in the form of buying a bright reflective sticker for your window, you change from that ordered exsistance into a world where a black market liver is just around the corner. In reality it isnt nearly that bad, but it is quite a contrast nonetheless. Jak and I drove to Plzen, only 90 minutes away, to take the brewery tour we had heard so much about.
Reading this it may seem that we are alcholics, or more properly drunks as we do not go to meetings, but in reality it is a combination of our curiosity with only a little of our love of libations that drive us to tour brewerys the world over. The Pilsner Urquel brewery is reminiscent of Wonka's factory. In the midst of drab Plzen rise towering wrought iron gates that hold a massive cobbled court yard that is the home of Pilsner. We signed up for the English language tour, and paid our several hundred crowns to get that and a photo pass. (An aside, it is really cool to hold a 1000 crown bill in your hand, until you realize it is about 25 bucks) We were unsure what to expect, but the tour was awesome. An elderly gentleman who spoke perfect english with a Mensa vocabulary escourted our group through the new brewery and bottling line that have been recently built. It was really neat, but it was even cooler when we hopped on the largest elevator in the Czech Republic only to find it doesnt work. Following attempts to revive the elevator, we broke down and walked the 1 flight of stairs to the actual brewing room. From there we went down on the coolest (and coldest) part of the tour, part of the 19 kilometers of man made tunnels where the beer has been traditionally aged. They still brew it the old way to ensure that the modern batches match up, and we ended the tour with glasses of beer right from barrels the size of our Volkswagen.
The drive back to Deutschland was uneventful, and it ended up being an awesome forray into a totally different world that is right across our doorstep.