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January 2006
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European Beer Tour 2005
By Tim - 10:23 AM, Monday, January 9, 2006 - 29 Comments |
 Just today I remembered that 4BG does have a front page and isn't just a breeding ground for insanity. Well in September/October 2005, three of the five bitter guys spent a stupid amount of cash to drink a lot of good beer in a lot of bad places.
(Incidently, Michael has his own little Oktoberfest going on in his bedroom every night, which I guess is why he didn't come. Adam didn't because he's mental.)
We spent about 18 months planning the trip, created a forum specifically for it (with nearly 1000 posts spread over 51 topics... that averages at more than two threads for each day we were actually over there) and spent way too much time "preparing" (by punishing our livers at the Belgian Beer Cafe ahead of time).
Here were some of our initial plans which weren't too far off from what we did.
http://www.itee.uq.edu.au/~tch/belgium.jpg
http://www.itee.uq.edu.au/~tch/europe.jpg
In the end we travelled via Japan to Frankfurt, then to Munich for Oktoberfest, Berlin, Brussels, Leuven, Hoegaarden, Antwerp, Westmalle, Westvleteren, Bruges, Chimay, Namur, Bastogne, back to Brussels, then through to Paris, and finally finished in London.
 I have to say it was pretty awe-inspiring stuff. Tokyo was incredible - far cheaper than I expected, people a lot more friendly and not as crowded as I thought either. Some great sights, food, shops and beer there. Oktoberfest was like nothing I have ever seen before or since, and completely unlike what I expected. The sheer scope of it, the types of people there, and the incredible beer and food made this a serious trip highlight for me.
Belgium on the other hand, was as I remembered, except this time I took with me an appreciation for its beer. I think on average each of us drank around 6-8 Belgian beers each day, and almost never the same one twice.
I still hate the French, but at least this time I ate in a friendly restaurant and experienced great service and food. London was okay. Typical London. Warm beers and too expensive. Too much to tell in a news post so here are a few more ambiguous pictures.
You can also have a look at our Flickr set... it is arranged in chronological order of our trip and has comments about each photo which include anecdotes about the trip.
 
 
  
 
 
 
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Mr Pibb + Red Vines = Crazy Delicious
By Tim - 9:41 AM, Monday, January 9, 2006 - 1 Comment
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Oh "The Lonely Island". How you brighten my day. Seriously, one of the funniest videos I've seen in a long time. After seeing it blogged on BoingBoing.net at least three times, I remembered that I may or may not have a website I used to udpate and should share this cupcake goodness.
Get it here from YouTube. SNL can still be relevant!
I also just realised it's the new year, and my last post was from June last year. Wow. I am one lazy mofo. As some of you may or may not know, I'm trying to finish my PhD thesis... I was pretty busy on it from June till September, then had an Oktoberfest trip with some of the other bitter guys (can't believe I didn't even manage an update for that), and since then...well...let's just say up until a week ago my brain was still on holiday from the trip.
So in lieu of anything actually funny or interesting, instead here is a picture from my new year's eve shenanigans.
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