Sunday, October 1, 2017

Tri-Tip Report

I do not claim to have a truly exhaustive view of Santa Barbara tri-tip. That may one day be possible. One can only hope. One can dream. One can get lost dreaming... 

But, alas, for now I can only claim to know good SB tri-tip when I taste it, and I will heartily agree with my older son and dog that Cold Springs Tavern has some of the best in town. Better, as always, with just a little bit of extra salt. The Tavern also boasts some amazing pepper horseradish sauce that more than makes up for the disgracefully substandard barbeque sauce that also comes on the side. (By the way, what is WRONG with Santa Barbara when it comes to barbeque sauce? For shame!) 

Cold Springs Tavern was very, very busy. Nevertheless, we were seated and served quickly. That was impressive. We ate delicious tri-tip. More impressive. And on our way out we befriended some nice people from Michigan who were experiencing Santa Barbara tri-tip for the first time. We congratulated them on their discovery and, at their request, offered advice about sauces: 1) Absolutely stay away from the (shamefully pathetic) barbeque sauce, 2) Pepper horseradish sauce highly recommended for those that like such things and 3) the fresh, tangy salsa on tri-tip sandwiches is a true Central Coast delicacy that cannot disappoint...and is highly recommended for purists and new tasters. Our audience all eagerly committed to the fresh salsa option.

Devoted followers of this blog may expect more tri-tip reports in the future, should some of the above-mentioned dreams come true.

Best Tri-Tip: Cold Spring Tavern

Next to some really good bad taxidermy!:


Saturday Evening Sunset



Wednesday, September 27, 2017

Santa Barbara

Big ships in (near) the harbor.

Price of a Char Cheeseburger: $9.95 (and no, I didn't get one)

Collector's Corner completely empty. Building sold for over $4m. 

Thursday, September 14, 2017

Ptarmigan Lake Hike

The smiling bear, sometimes known to attack (but only when teased or tickled).

Tuesday, August 1, 2017

Calvin Was Right! A New Sign at Arroyo Burro

Note blue sign in lower right.

The Biggest Classical Music Event in Santa Barbara History



A large dog runs toward the waiting pizza.

The same large dog poses in front of La Playa Stadium.

The Music Academy of the West performs some unknown composer of questionable talent.

The New York Philharmonic performs Beethoven's Ninth Symphony under the moon.

Saturday, July 15, 2017

Munchen Airport Update

Suitcase full of fresh German brot for meine Frau.

Also able to find scharfer Senf.

Even found a couple more Starbucks mugs. The good kind, not the boring new kind. Not many of the good kind left any more.

Ready to come home.

'Nuff said.

Munchen Airport

 All I want for Christmas is a new BMW M4 Coupe. 

It's the perfect car for commuting. 440hp. Top speed 174mph. $70,000. What a deal.

I may have spent a little time driving over 100mph in the last, oh, seven days or so. So I'm ready. Maybe.

All I want for my birthday is a new BMW M4 Coupe.


All I want forever is a new BMW M4 Coupe.





Thursday, July 13, 2017

Last Night in Charming Amberg

There are the sights (pictures below). 

There are the friendly people, like the lady who actually initiated a conversation with me while I ate dinner in the platz--she used to live in Maine and wanted to speak English with someone. Friendly Germans! Who knew? Nothing like Stuttgart, that's for sure.

There are the t-shirts: "West Point at Harlem", "Lubrication Vintage Gas Station USA", etc. (The t-shirt nonsense almost rivals Japan, it would seem.)

There is the bucolic Bavarian scenery and the California weather.

There is the massive, beautiful Catholic Seminary that dominates the city on the opposite end of the train station (and Altstadt). I am told "Pax Intrantibus" (the inscription over the main entry) means Peace to All Who Enter Here. It's a fitting saying for a Franciscan seminary.

And as if all this weren't enough, there was a dog obedience demonstration in the platz! A dog show! Downtown. For free. Oh, life is so gute.

But this is may last night and I must say Goodbye.











Return to Weiden

Not far from Grafenwohr. A charming little German town with "XXL" doners. Wow.

I also noticed the Crooklyn store is still there, except bigger and better than ever!



Wednesday, July 12, 2017

Three More Amberg Observations

1. It is unseasonably cold. Not dreary, per se, but cold. I remember seven years ago being absolutely baked alive in Stuttgart. But it's downright cold in Bavaria.

2. Gertraud appears to have two sets of clothes that she wears every other day. Not that there's anything wrong with it...

3. Amberg has ten different breweries. Several are considered German Craft Breweries, which is really something given German brewing traditions.

Amberg Platz

I have discovered my ambition for the rest of my life. I want to sit in the Amberg platz and drink fresh beer from one of the Amberg breweries and people watch in the summer evening. This is what I have been doing for the last two nights. Doesn't seem like it could ever get old.

I have no pictures from tonight. This is because I was too busy being entertained by three year old Liliana, who wanted me to see her coloring. Liliana got so excited that she started screeching--VERY unGerman--and I could tell it was making the older Germans extremely uncomfortable so I was forced to deny her my attention so her mother could get her calmed down. So my pictures are from last night. Virtually the same place with better weather (tonight it was more rainy):





Now for something ... different. Very different... By way. Now I have spent a lot of time in Germany. I've seen some weird things. Some really weird things. But this ranks as one of the weirdest. Maybe the All-Time Weirdest.

Being quite smitten with Amberg, and given the distinct possibility I will be returning here soon, I researched city hotels. I would like to come back here and bring my Frau with me. So I was researching Amberg hotels. 

Well, this hotel is really something. It's a prison-themed hotel. Set in a real prison. Or at least a former prison. A former German prison. I invite devoted followers of this blog to watch the video..or not...in the attached website. I'm not really sure how to understand this. And I don't want to cast aspersions, so to speak, but it just so happens that this, um, "modern" hotel, so to speak, is next to Amberg's Red Light District, so to speak:

http://www.hotel-fronfeste.de/index.php/zellen/doppelzelle

Nuff said. Maybe too much.


Monday, July 10, 2017

Gertraud's Altstadt Hotel

Because of my late travel plans I was forced to book lodging "on the economy". In other words, all the good hotels were full. So I did a web search and chose a hotel in Amberg that had almost five stars and a bunch of positive writeups. It turns out this was a good call. The delights of the city are many, as previous blog posts attest.

All of this led to the Altstadt. The Altstadt is on the outer edge of the old walled city of Amberg and therefore close to everything, especially delicious restaurants. It's also owned by Gertraud S.-P., pictured below. There are layers of stories here, both about the hotel and the owner, but I've only begun to peel them back. The layer I have not been able to peel back is the "-P", which apparently refers to Gertraud's (latest?) husband, a rather gruff, tattooed man who pretends not to speak English and to whom Gertraud says he has only been married a couple of years. Hmmm.



As for Gertruad, she was Amberg's "Princess" in 1972, which one can see from the painting with the crown behind her in the photograph below. She also had pictures of herself from around that time which reveal that, quite frankly, she was at one time a ravishing beauty. 

Now she owns the Altstadt Hotel, also pictured below, and a shot showing her welcoming another guest as he steps into the hotel lobby.




It is also worth mentioning that the Altstadt is across from the train station, which makes it great for people watching. Pictured below, the train station complete with bakerei and Subway. My Ford Focus ST rental car is second from the left. I wasn't too thrilled about a Ford Focus until I discovered just how fast it can go on the Autobahn. Now I'm a big, big, big fan. Oh, yes. 'Nuff said.


Sunday, July 9, 2017

Amberg

Drinking room temperature Mineralwasser (mit gasse) after taking a long, long walk through the beautiful town. Waiting another hour or more before dinner, after which the exhaustion will overtake me and I will crash. Until then, must...stay...awake.

The city has two town squares and a lovely river running through it. One of the squares features a statue with Jose wearing the HOI. Just like Heidelberg last fall, there is pro- and anti-immigrant graffiti, such as in the last picture below.







Sunday, April 2, 2017

Santa Barbara Harbor

My sun-averse wife explains something of such riveting importance to our friend that our son (behind) yawns and the friend scrolls through her device:



The horrible spring weather casts a sunny pale over the dreary coastal view. It's enough to make one consider declaring Worst Ever: