Fare the well, great white north

So last night I went to Gastov's, a german eatery and bar in minnesota. The Hefe Wizen was boundlessly brilliant. It tasted like a fall day - crisp, clear, fields of wheat in the background, and the suggestion of lemon, delicious. I would be severely remiss however if I failed t note the particular vessel in which it was served, a two liter glass boot with the inscription, "Ein Bier, das Man(actually the german equivalent) mit freunden trinkt." Roughly, one beer and a man makes friends. Lyrica, clarification? The rules of the boat were as follwos: could not put it down, toe must be pointing out, you must tap it when you pass it, if it splashes you must drink again (note: this was actually quite the danger in the midregions of the glass as air would rise to the "toe" causing a gurgling sound [very startling when not expected] and if the level was dropped abruptly the bubble would race out, taking beer with it and shooting a drop or two on some poor sap's [my own] mug), and most importantly the second-to-last person to imbibe had to buy the next one. We had 5 if I recollect correctly. For dinner we ordered a dish that was supposedly for 3 but I think could serve 6-7 with ease, really just a collection of meats with red cabbage and veggies under them somewhere. After the food we tried some snuff, it tasted(?) like Vicks. I of course fouled up the delivery of it into my nose and had a brown spot at the tip of my nose until a kind neighbor, in-between low-level hysterics, informed me of the exact nature of my appearance. We finished it all off with a round of apple schnapps like licour, (sp?) which I now believe is the perfect way to end any meal. They of course had an accordian player who was also named Joe! How...not that uncommon, but he played a beautously bawdy song for us and let me subject the rest of the table to my take on percussion with the stick, which was made up of a small drum, cowbell, bells, and a cymbal on top.

The conversation made very very happy Charlie informed me that I would not be overse to a go at the Nero Wolfe series. This statement made me positively bounce with joy as I've been a fan of these books since george introduced me to them. Apparently Charlie and his roommate have formed a local NW appreciation society, it reportedly hopes to meet on the roof of the liquor store behind their house. I have realized of late that I am particularly fond of the Nero or Mencken type of character that is not ashamed to seek their own comfort, has a cynical view of humanity while haveing a well-developed sense of personal morality, and is wickedly funny.

After dinner we went downstairs to the bar and 2+ hours of polka dancing. One gentleman of 72 winters was quite the thing, bedecked in black trousers, a blue shirt, and red suspenders who had his run wih most of the young ladies within a step or two of the dance floor. He was naturally, quite the polka dancer, and I tried to study his movements to pick up a thing or two.

Gastov's in short: Excellent beer, fantastic beer, german food, snuff to your satisfaction, and learn the polka while you're there.

This past week I reread the first 3 books in the Aubrey/Maturin or Master and Commander series. I now feel these books are a-tip-toe above anything else as far as enjoyable series books go. They have it all with their hilarious banter, thrilling naval action scenes, a sloth, espionage, women (at times), and the sheer volume of their collected adventures which will keep you in reading material for some time. The only possible bug-a-boo is that O'Brien is not shy with the naval or early 1800s English jaron. It's qite thick at times but with application and digilence you may hope to understand what the weather-gauge, mizzenmast, and laudanum are; I myself almost know what the weather-gauge is, or at least I understand the importance of having it in any naval action. In all earnestness though, I reccomend them to any landlubber whoever hoped, or didn't even know they hoped, to raise their blue flag at the mizzen.

So as the title of this post implies I have left MN and am back in Chicago. I took the train which wound up being a 9 hour journey. The scenery was quite nice, especially as we followed the Mississippi into La Crosse, the bluffs and the eagles I saw were very striking. Also we wound up being quite the attraction ourselves. They were fixing a bridge in Milwaukee which means we had to take a detour down a different rail line. For some reason this elicited great excitement in local locomotive appreciation chapters. When we made the detour there we no less than 20 people there videotaping and taking pictures of it, and along the way I saw another 10 people taking pictures of us. I don't know if this was the first time a passenger train had gone down that line in 50 years but some people were doing all they could to document it. Anyway, I have no plans except dinner club on Monday the next few days so if anyone has any ideas, let me know. Cheers.

My friday night

So tonight began with great hope. We were going to a place in minneapolis called Gustav's(?-may not actually be called this but some part of it is? I'm sorry I know that's confusing) where reportedly they have polka music and they serve beer in glass boots and the second to last person to finish the beer has to buy the next one. I, to the great annoyance of the girl organizing the trip, kept calling it frauhaus, as I thought a german whorehouse by that name would be pretty sweet. Anyway, after I discovered that the polka at its basic level is a souped up version of the waltz I was very pumped and excited to go. Of course as the non-drowzy reader may suspect by now, this is not what wound up happening.

The car broke down about 6 miles from our point of origin and about 34 miles from our intended destination along highway 65. After playing extended versions of zoom schwartz perfigliano and ink pink we decided that we should hike back up the highway to a bar and have fun there. We saw a traffic light in the distance and hoped that it could salvage the remnant of our friday night. Four of us began our hike with great hope that the evening could be saved, and not only because we were in a dancing mood, and had a large square of delicious home-baked focacia (I'm sorry but correct spelling is unknown to me at present). Several of us had to go to the bathroom so we went to the hunter's inn first and had a beer. A strange man grabbed my female friend on the sides and said hi on his way out, it was that kind of place. We decided that we should press on to fatboys; it is sad that this became our city-on-a-hill so to speak as its a rather upscale biker bar that because of the price of the bikes on display I am hesitant to believe that many of the genuine cowboys of the highway visit very often. We arrived and quietly sipped our beers as the DJ attempted to coax people to the dance floor with heavy metal and other painful melodies. Eventually music more suitable to my style of dancing was played and I ventured to the dance floor.

For the first time in my life within 20 minutes of stepping on the dance floor I totally owned it. While I'm hesitant to toot my own horn I was startled by the number of women checking out my moves as my hips gyrated in sync with the music (thanks charity) and my contorted facial expressions showed my expressions of joy from both dancing and drinking. Granted I was only up against 25-35 year old white men from minnesota, not really on the cutting edge of dance moves, but hey I'm no great talent myself. I think the night hit its apex when I waltzed with a married woman named Joy; fortunately her husband was not in attendance. Another highlight was looking back and seeing an older gentleman in biker apparel conversing with my two friends, I was later to learn that he was inviting them both to Amsterdam for a wild time and seemed to express his interest in both of them, I think my friends were more amused than anything, which is good. Anyway I spent a fun 2.5 hrs dancing before we decided to head back. Sadly my closing game is still more like a Farnsworth (former unsuccessful closer/middle reliever for the Cubs) than a rivera (the closer for the yankees for those who don't follow the sport regularly) and I am back here alone, which is why I'm writing now I suppose.

This past week was good, cut down trees, closed down a dirt road to the great consternation of the locals (but hey, they shouldn't dump their old sofas, treadmills, and most strangely; their kilns there) and got a headache from a touch too much sharpie fumes, frankly thats a pretty good trifecta right there. I will close with two comments. First BJoyful which happens to be a pretty sweet license plate and also the inspiration to my dancing, and secondly I am drunk, eric I hope this post measures up. Finally, since I find myself long-winded and with a third comment, feel free to add your heckles and commentary here. I am, at least for the short-term, still your humble correspondent north of the twin cities metropolitan area and the king of fatboy's, if only for 30 minutes.