Joe’s Blog

I am currently having a little break and enjoying the sun and sights in a little place called Barcelona. The locals are surprisingly pleasant and the architecture everywhere is awesome. I like how mopeds and bicycles are used so much but far too many people have tattoos covering themselves.

Something to do with Gaudi

Here are a few pics from the road;

Seen from the new Rambla del Mar

FC Barcelona Vs Sporting Lisbon (Champions League) which finished 3-1 to Barca

The Nou Camp - thousands of these people came on mopeds

On the way over too, I came across our American fiends in Shannon  - Air Force and marines mostly

Getting some rest before the next flight

They are NOT the same family! Aldi North and Aldi South are run by two brothers and the international market has been divided up geographically by them. Aldi comes from “ALbrecht DIscount” and the brothers names are Karl Albrecht und Theo Albrecht. Legend has it that they separated because of a dispute over whether to sell tabacco or not in their stores, but this is not confirmed.

Here is a nice little map of Aldi North and South in Germany:

Aldi equator

and the map of Europe. Note: Aldi South operates in Ireland, while Aldi North operates in Spain - those crazy Germans!

Aldi in Europe

Meanwhile Lidl (pronounced Lee-dil, not Lie-dil or Lid-il) operates throughout Europe and the name comes from a man by the name of Ludwig Lidl but it is primarily owned by the Schwarz family. The company also owns Kaufland, KaufMarkt und Handelshof

Lidl locations

Another tale of brotherly business competition though - Adolf “Adi” Dassler founded Adidas, while his brother later founded Puma. Both companies still have their headquarters in the small town of Herzogenaurach (population: 23,000)

After some seems like weeks of rain, today was glorious and I took the opportunity to take a few photos with a very modest camera. Enjoy!

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Short answer to Mike - go to Franconia (northern Bavaria, in German: Franken). In Berlin, Becks seems to be the beer of choice. There is a beer known as Schultheiss but it was more of an old-mans beer. Berliner-Pilsner was a good alternative to Becks. I heard of Berliner Kindl too but can’t remember it being any good. Certainly didn’t try any green/red Berliner Weisse

Giving an uninformed guess, the beer in East Berlin was horrible and in West Berlin, you were happy if you had coal during the airlift. So a proud, continuous brewing tradition is unlikely. Even the new, hip, organic drink of choice, “Bionade” isn’t from Berlin.

The beer culture in Bavaria and Franconia is much stronger and even the wikipedia page reflects this EN. The German Wikipedia goes into more detail and states that Oberfranken (Upper Franconia) has more breweries than any other European country! Only the US (1383), China (420) and Russia (404) have more breweries but Oberfranken is much smaller of course and there are approx. 200 in Oberfranken and approx. 300 in all of Franconia). See:
Bierland-Oberfranken
List of breweries in Bavaria
www.franconiabeerguide.com

Via Irland Inside and The Sunday Times
“HSE’s 4-star hotel bill for evicted travellers”

The Health Service Executive (HSE) is picking up the bill for a family of eight travellers who checked themselves into Dublin’s Citywest hotel after being evicted from their home in Clondalkin earlier this month.

The Doherty family booked into the four-star hotel on June 20 and the HSE has since agreed to fund the cost of at least €2,000 a week.

Looks terrible, tastes sinfully good - chocolate, biscuits, baileys, brandy, butter and some condensed milk. I finally got around to making it and thanks to Tom & family for the recipe.

PS: It looks very dark because I used plain chocolate, which I love, but it’s normally made using milk-chocolate

sometimes youtube is even funnier when you watch the follow-ups - in this case, Ken Lee (watch all 3)

Some stuff that I intended to blog and I’ve finally gotten around to it now.

Went to the Rally of the Lakes for the first time. It was a beautiful weekend and once you accept the fact that there are loads of boy-racers it’s quite nice.

Video from Killarney;

Got the Playstation 2 working again (suffering from disc read errors) following a tip from a friend and this guide Dealing with PlayStation 2 disc read errors which worked a treat.

Windsurfing in Keel Lake on Achill Island was a blast and I can highly recommend the UL Windsurfing Club.
Day 1 on the ’small’ sail

On Day 2 I got to try a much bigger sail

Also got to see the 2008 National Hurling League Final between Galway and Tipp

Also got to visit the European Parliament buildings in Brussels and discuss politics (including Lisbon of course). Got quite a few pics of the city which is quite nice and the beer is really nice. We even visited the bar with the most beers in the world (2004 Guinness World Record) Delirium Café

Thinking of going somewhere for the weekend without leaving a massive carbon footprint behind? How about BallyB! Some of the newer attractions;

The Ballybunion Surf School - www.ballybunionsurf.com

Ballybunion Leisure Centre - www.ballybunionleisure.com

I liked this video and thought I would share - Supermarket 2.0