Day 3: The Spoils of Empire

It was once said that the sun never sets on the British Empire, and when you've got that much of the world under your dominion, it's pretty easy to amass a seriously impressive collection of artifacts. This collection is the British Museum, and it stands as an awe inspiring testament to the wealth and power of the British Empire from the 1800s to 1947, and its prominence as a world class collection following. We spent most of the day perusing the unbelievable collection of stuff from Greece, Rome, Assyria, China, Egypt, Africa, India, and beyond. The collections of Egyptian statues and mummies, Grecian marbles, and Assyrian temple reliefs are beyond compare, and it is no wonder the Greek government perpetually cries foul over the fact that they have two of the seven wonders of the world (statues from the Mausoleum at Halicarnassus, and the carvings from the Parthenon). While it is amazing to see all of these artifacts all together, it does come with the sad realization that these comprise the cultural heritage of many people, who had some of their most stunning archaeological sites stripped bare to create this place. Even without the massive statues, their collection still contains amazing pieces from Roman Britain, including most of the artifacts depicted in my old Latin textbooks. I'll attach a few pictures, but I can't post everything, much like we couldn't actually see everything.

After that, we went to the Princess Louise tavern. This dates from the 1800s, and has the most ornate bar interior I have ever seen. More importantly, it serves Samuel Smith's beer for incredibly reasonable (for London) prices. Having added another beer to the review list, we went to a show in the West End called Handbagged, which was about the relationship between Margaret Thatcher & the queen. It was not exactly a flattering portrayal of her. Tomorrow we plan to ride the Boris Bikes and hopefully not get killed by a bus.

Beer Review #2

Beer #5: Wadsworth 6x

Served: From a cask into a shaker pint.

Appearance: Dark amber brown

Smell: Toasty malt

Taste: This has more flavor, and is more complex than Fuller's. There's some toastiness, but not as much as Guinness. You also get some hops at the end, but not a whole lot. Same smoothness in the mouth from the lack of carbonation.

Cost: We got a pint and a half for £6.23. This is still like $8 per pint, but I don't think we are going to find anything in London that will be much cheaper (this place is really pricy).

Overall: 6/10 on taste, falling to 3.5 with the penalty for being so damn pricy.

Day 2: Museums & Massacre

Today, we went to three museums, and the bloodiest play Shakespeare ever wrote. First up was the Tate Modern, which houses the modern half of the Tate Museum's collection. This includes some Cubist, Dada, and Surrealist art (including Dali's Metamorphosis of Narcissus, which adorned the wall of my freshman dorm room), but mostly contained the lnd of art found in the new wing at SLAM. This ranged from interesting to "this is just a mirror stuck on the wall". Since I have difficulty seeing this stuff as greater than the sum of its parts, the Tate Modern was kind of a disappointment.

Next up was the underground bunker where Churchill and his cabinet conducted their business in wartime. This was a great look into who Churchill was, and how hard it was on the people who worked long hours in uncomfortable conditions during the Blitz and beyond. From there, we walked to Trafalgar Square to see Nelson's Column, and a giant statue of a royal blue rooster, who judging by the social status of all the other statues in the square was a famous British admiral or king. While we stopped corns quick drink, I noticed that the building at the other end of the square was the National Gallery, housing paintings from the Renaissance to a vast collection of Impressionists. We only had time to see some of the Impressionists before the trip to the theater, but what we saw was enough to make us want to come back another day.

From there, we went to see a play at the Globe Theater, a modern reconstruction of the orginal. The show this evening was Titus Andronicus, which will mt be coming to the Shakespeare Festival ever. This is mostly because of the fact that this play contains Tarantino-esque levels of violence and gore that caused at least two people in the audience to faint. Those who could stand it were treated to an incredibly acted show in an intimate setting that required no microphones, and allowed the actors to perform many of the actions amongst the groundlings. Tomorrow morning I will write my second beer review.

My First Beer Review

Beer #4: Fuller's London Pride

Served: Beer in the UK is dispensed from a cask via a beer engine that forces air into the beer. This differs from a conventional tap, which uses a CO2 tank to pressurized the keg and keep the CO2 dissolved in the beer until... Yaaay solution thermodynamics.

Pours: Golden brown

Smell: Concentrated Budweiser

Taste: Imagine a more flavorful Budweiser, with far less carbonation, served 20 degrees warmer than your usual ice cold Bud. Add a slight creaminess, and you have Fuller's. I could drink this all day, and at 4.1 ABV, I would be full before I was drunk.

Price: My mom got a half pint of something similar to go with mine. This set us back almost 9 pounds. This is a problem, because that's almost $16. If we split it fairly, my mom's beer was $6, and mine was $10. Not a whole lot of bang for your buck.

Overall Review: 5/10 on taste (it wasnt a revelation in beer), but 2/10 if you factor in the big city sticker shock.

Day 1: Sleep is for Business Class Travellers.

The Boeing 787 was designed with numerous innovative features to make travelling easier on the people inside. Wireless system control allows for a taller cabin that is less uncomfortable for tall people. Composite materials allow for higher cabin humidity to keep people's sinuses from drying out. Better ambient lighting allows for improved sleep/wake cycles on long flights. Unfortunately, Boeing then sells this airplane to companies who cram as many seats as possible into it, which renders all of these improvements useless. We did not fly a 787 to London, but it wouldn't have mattered if we did. Flying coach means you get to try sleeping in an upright position, which I find impossible without a hangover and something... else. Since I had neither of these, this meant that I arrived in London at noon local time with a few hours of my eyes closed and a cup of airplane coffee keeping me going.

Nonetheless, my mom and I set off to see the Prime Meridian today, via a boat trip down the Thames. We started from Victoria Station, walked to the river, and then discovered that the nearest ferry dock was up past the houses of Parliament and Big Ben. We arrived there, but not before taking numerous pictures of the ornate stone exterior of the building, with its centuries-old figures of kings, and the gothic splendor of Westminster Abbey. Unfortunately, the pictures we took of Big Ben didn't turn out so well, as cell phone cameras don't do so well against gray skies. Having reached the ferry, we boarded the boat and set off down the Thames.

The trip down the Thames from Westminster to Greenwich takes you past several notable London landmarks like the London Eye, Cleopatra's Needle, and of course, the Tower Bridge. But most importantly, it showcases the interesting jumble of architectural styles that is London. There are many buildings that have the kind of intricate brickwork and masonry that defined the buildings that people built for hundreds of years here. There are also a lot of buildings from the postwar period when architects were still figuring out how to turn steel and glass and concrete into something people would want to use, with varying degrees of success. Finally, there are buildings that have sprung up in the past 20 years, all rounded edges and glass facades and computerized designs. All of this somehow works together to create a city. Perhaps nowhere is this more evident than as you cruise beneath the Tower Bridge and see the modern skyscraper known as The Shard rise up behind it, like a third tower sent by aliens to keep it from falling down.

We reached Greenwich, but were a bit too late to go up to the main courtyard where the Prime Meridian is. Instead, we took pictures on a walkway below it with a smaller display. We were also too late to see the famed Painted Hall at Greenwich College, but we weren't too late to have pies and mash at a little hole in the wall that had been serving them since 1890. While they were good, cheap, and filling, they certainly weren't helping the reputation the British have for not being chefs on the level of the Italians or French.

After Greenwich, we went back to the place we will be staying, and then out to a pub for a pint of beer, British style. This will be discussed in my next post.

Pre-travel picture

Yurrp, here I come!

The Good, The Bad, and The Average: My Beer Review Baseline

Earlier this evening, I mentioned I would be doing beer reviews. As such, I figured I should do a couple while still in the US to establish the format, and get a baseline. So, I drank three different beers this evening, representing three distinct levels of beer quality. Here's what happened.

Beer #1: Delirium Nocturnum

Served: Poured from a bomber into a Coca-Cola glass (weissbier style).

Appearance: Dark brown, almost Coca-Cola colored. Good head that stuck around for awhile.

Smell: Definite malt odor.

Taste: This stuff had a lot of malt or grain character, like drinking a brown bread. A lot of the Belgian beers I've had taste like this. I don't think it was quite as strong a flavor as others I've had, but I also got this on Valentine's Day, and just got around to drinking it (fuck you, school). The one thing I did notice was that it didn't do as good a job of hiding the alcohol taste (it's 8.5% ABV) as some other beers I've had at that strength are.

Price: I got this 22oz bomber as a gift. I think my girlfriend said it was about $10 though (which works out to about €7.50 or so if you round.

Overall Rating: I'll award this one a 7.5 out of 10. If I like a beer better than this one, it's going to be very good or excellent. If I'm someplace that has this fresh on tap, I would like to review it and see how much I ruined it by not drinking it for 3 months.

Beer #2: Stag

Served: Poured from a can into the same Coca-Cola glass, after I rinsed it out.

Appearance: Pale yellow. Looked like piss.

Smell: None

Taste: If you've ever thrown a party where beer was served and got spilled, and then you didn't clean it up right away, Stag tastes the way your apartment smells the morning after that spill. At first, it just tastes like water, but at the end there's a faint taste of beer (but it almost seems like that taste is more in your nose than your mouth).

Price: A 24 pack of Stag is $12.99 from Schnuck's, which is €9.50 (note: for these prices, I'm rounding up because I'm sure no bank would give you the Google rate for euros to dollars conversion).

Overall Rating: Yeah, this is a 1.5/10, and only because I've had malt liquor, which is absolutely foul. If I drink any beers in Europe that are on this level, I'm going to take a brewery tour of that brewery for the sole purpose of punching the head brewer in the mouth for sucking at his job. Based on this, I'm giving Bud Light a 2/10, and Budweiser a 2.5.

Beer #3: Schlafly Hefeweizen

Served: Poured from a can into a glass.

Smell: Faintly of beer

Taste: Hefeweizens are usually pretty light, this one is very light. You definitely get some wheat and some yeast, but this is not a strong tasting beer. This beer also came out of a can, so that's not helping it any.

Price: The Schnuck's website says a 6-pack of bottles of this is $7.99 (€6). If memory serves, you can get a 12-pack of cans of this for around $13.99 (€10.50).

Overall Rating: I'm going to give this a 3.5/10. Canning did this beer no favors. If it were fresh on draft, it would compare favorably to Boulevard Unfiltered Wheat (I've had this fresh on draft before, and it's pretty close to the Boulevard), which I'll give about a 5/10 (for those wondering how I can rate this beer without immediately tasting it, I drank 3 liters of it the night Mizzou lost to Auburn in the SEC championship game, so I cannot forget that taste). Any regularly priced beer that I like better than that stuff will win the Adam Mizes Seal of Approval, unless it is going for close to what the Delirium Nocturnum was, in which case it will have to beat the Delirium.

So these three beers comprise The Good, The Mediocre, and The Ugly. I expect most beers to fall within the mediocre to good range, with nothing falling below a 3 or so (god I hope I'm right). However, I do have a personal bias towards big Belgian trappist beers, which may be inflating my score for the Delirium Nocturnum, which is big, Belgian, and has somewhat similar bready qualities as the most recent Belgian trappist beer I tried (Chimay White). If I rate a non-Belgian beer better than a 5/10, it's probably worth trying. Also, I don't like super hoppy beers at all, so those of you who were somehow hoping for me to give you a great survey of all of the IPAs of London are SOL.

I'll post more beers when I'm actually in Europe.

Pre-Trip Post (In Which My Itinerary Is Revealed In Case I Get Kidnapped By Radical Anti-European Protesters)

If you're reading this, then you know that I'm spending the next month touring Europe before coming home to have a real adult job and live in a house that can only be described as the fantasy we all had as juniors and seniors in high school. If you're still reading this, then you actually sort of care about this, and want to keep up with the places I'm going, things I'm doing, art I'm seeing, and beers I'm drinking. For those of you who want to follow me, my itinerary is as follows.

• MAY 28-JUNE 2: Fly to London with mom. British Museum, Tate, Shakespeare at the Globe, musical in the West End, Bars & Boris Bikes, and probably some other stuff
• JUNE 3: Travel to Paris via Eurostar, buy EURail pass.
• JUNE 4-8: Paris. Versailles, Louvre, Orsay, Pompidou, Orangerie, Catacombs.
• JUNE 9: Mom goes back to America, I go to Bruges.
• JUNE 10: Bruges. Sightseeing, and a thorough taste testing of Belgian beers.
• JUNE 11: Travel to Berlin.
• JUNE 12-14: Berlin. Reichstag and Bundesmuseum and Kurfurstendamm. More beer tasting.
• JUNE 15: Travel to Prague
• JUNE 16-17: Prague. Old Town, Jewish Quarter, whatever else the hostel staff says is cool. Still more beer tasting.
• JUNE 18: Travel to Munich.
• JUNE 19-20: Munich. Englischergarten, more drooling at architecture. Also, my hostel is next to the Hofbrauhaus. I'll also probably do a post on what it's like to watch the US play in the World Cup in hostile territory.
• JUNE 21: Travel to... almost Venice. Hostels in the lagoon are for people who have been working as engineers for a year or so ($$$).
• JUNE 22-23: Venice. Sightseeing, running on rooftops, assassinating various members of the Borgia family, communicating with my future descendant about something involving a solar flare. Also the glassworks at Murano if I can help it.
• JUNE 24: Travel to Naples. Eat a pizza.
• JUNE 25: Pompeii. Pour out a little Chianti for Caecilius and Grumio. Recall all those days in Mr. Voigt's Latin class and chug rest of Chianti.
• JUNE 26: Travel to Rome.
• JUNE 27-30: Rome. Roman Ruin complex, Vatican City, more museums.
• JULY 1: Fly home.

That's a brief summary of what I'll be up to this next month.