Saturday, September 27, 2008

Riga

Jan, Anne's father, invited his wife, his daughters and their boyfriends to a trip to Riga. He wanted to have a trip with his family to celebrate his sixtieth birthday. I was very fortunate to be invited. It was a awsome trip. Riga surprised me as a city, it had a lot of things to see and do. The best part was that it was all gathered in a very small area.

The highlights
  • The Black Head House, a fraternity for unmarried men. The house has a lot of things to look at.
  • The market located in the old Zeplin hangars. Mostly food, but it is nice to see.
  • Tower of St. Peters Church, 72m above the old city it offers a magnificent view.
  • Rozengrals, a restaurant that has a medieval team. The waiters wear costumes, they have live music, the resturant is in a old cellar with authentic looking furniture, just awesome. It is in Rozena Iela
  • Black Magic, a nice café.

Images

Wednesday, September 10, 2008

Wine trip to Lucca, Italia

I have just returned from a fantastic trip to Lucca in Italy. My girlfriend and I went together with ErgoVin, the wine club at my previous employer. I should probably say that I went with people from the wine club and not the club, as that is more accurate.

We traveled with Norwegians flight from Oslo to Pisa early in the morning. Left our homes at around 04:00. We had originally booked a later flight, but it was moved forward. Which in turn allowed us some time in Pisa before our scheduled program started. In Pisa we saw the famous tower, then left for Lucca.

Lucca is a fabulous town, at least the old part. It is surrounded by a high wall, which you can walk/jog/bike on top of. It has lots of old building and narrow winding streets. Almost at every street corner there is a restaurant with a great atmosphere and serving wonderful Italian food. I could get used to the four course (antipasti, primi, secundi and desert) meal not to mention the wine...

We hired a Norwegian living in Lucca had arranged the entire trip for us. Everything from booking the hotel, making reservations at restaurants and planing wine tastings. The entire deal was perfect for us. (I'll try to get his contact information and put it her.)

Saturday we went to Greve, a town in the Cianti wine district. There we visited a large wine shop. In this shop they had lots of wine dispensing-wending-machines. By inserting a pre-payed card you could get wine. It was a fun experience. I wish Vinmonopolet could have the same system, so that you could buy (and taste) a smal quantity of a wine before deciding if you wish to buy a bottle. After Greve we went a short while to a vinyard where we had lunch and looked at the production facilities.

Sunday we went to a huge villa where we could relax by the pool and learn to cook Italian food. This was a great experience. It is possible to rent rooms in the villa, he has sixe double room and one single, all cost 120€. I wish I could have stayed at the villa longer, and learned more about Italian cooking. We learned to make pasta and a few other things. I enjoyed learning how to make pasta. When I returned to Oslo I immediately bought a pasta roller for my KitchenAid.

We left from Firenze with a Sterling flight since that was a lot cheaper than returning with Norwegian. For the first time in a while I arrived back at reasonable time (16:40), and had time to train (yes I have started training at Sats) and fix a few things the same day.

Images
* Lucca 2008