After a long, cold, dark winter that seems to last most of the year (ugh), it’s FINALLY starting to feel like summer in Biarritz, and I’m SO HAPPY about it. As a sun-worshiping Californian, this last winter (our first winter in France!) wasn’t easy. There was one point in February where the sun didn’t make an appearance for three weeks straight. It took everything I had to not curl up into a ball and crawl into a big dark hole of depression. After returning to California for a month for my best friend Ashley’s wedding in April, I came back mid-May to chilly days and even more rain (Nooooo!). Apparently there were a few warm days while I was away, but sadly I missed them. I feel like this week has been the official start to what will be an amazing few warm months ahead. It was the breakthrough week, where the sun came out at least once every single day, sometimes even for the whole day (rare here). I had my first official beach day and actually laid out at La Grande Plage in a bikini, surrounded by t*tt*es (Brent is so jealous).

I had my french lesson outside this week in my teacher Marie’s beautiful back yard and got tan lines! We finally put our bistro table back out on our balcony to enjoy our morning coffee in the sun. I bought a fresh batch of succulents to re-plant all the ones that died in the cold of winter. Peonies are in season! We haven’t turned on our heater in a few weeks and can even prop the doors open when it’s not too windy. Every evening the locals are out, taking a drink with friends, watching the waves. Summer is coming to Biarritz and I couldn’t be happier about it!

It was one year ago in mid May when Becca and I decided to cruise down to one of the most famous wine regions in all of Spain known as Rioja. As always the drive in Spain was awesome! As Becca mentioned in a previous post, we stopped first in Pamplona then (unknown to us) continued following one of the many Camino de Santiago paths which led us to a city called Estella, Spain. We pulled over so Becca take some pictures and have a look at the little river that flowed through the town. This town has many little hostels for people who are traveling the Camino de Santiago and the usual immaculate church that you get so accustomed to here in Europe. (Side note: If people want to get an idea of this trail please watch the movie “The Way” which features Martin Sheen and the famous 90’s coach from the Mighty Ducks unknowingly called Emilio Estevez.)

I impatiently hassled Becca to get back in the car so we could make it to our final destination for the day known as Laguardia Spain located in the Rioja wine region. From Estella to Laguardia Spain we took the back roads and kinda got lost… alright we for sure did get lost… but it was cool, Becca didn’t really know how far out of the way I drove and most importantly everything we had seen was brand new and beautiful to us. We cruised through some little towns, gazed in awe of the hills and eventually made our way through the misty mountains to get to the peak and start our descent into Rioja. Now I am sure we did not take the proper route into Rioja but I would do it all over again in a heartbeat if I had to. The mist evaporated as the heat from the desert won the climate battle making way for an optimal temperatures for many Spanish vineyards. The HEAT!!!!!!!!! Becca and I were stoked. Surprisingly it’s warmer a lot earlier this year compared to 2014, but back then Becca and I were still experiencing the tail end of our first Winter and early Spring in France so the warmth was an unusual European experience for us. We pulled over again and snapped some photos of all the vineyards in Rioja midway down the mountain.

The Rioja region is made up of many small towns and Laguardia was the town I picked to be our home base. We stayed in a hotel called “Castillo El Collado” which was ran by an extremely tall and fragile old man. He was a modern day Dracula, in fact he could have been Dracula himself and Becca and I were just lucky that he wasn’t hungry and were able to survive. He was extremely kind but also creepy at the same time, always waiting for us at the bottom of the stairs making sure everything was okay so we couldn’t leave his “blood bank” castle. Now truth be told that description is spot on, but that doesn’t mean our stay was not awesome! I mean we just left Pamplona and now I am staying in a castle? I felt like Joffrey from Game of Thrones staying in my castle with the whole city at my feet, such a badass feeling… Dracula even snapped at his minions to prepare us food for our long awaited arrival. The minions brought us out fresh salad, chorizo and potato soup along with bread and fresh house wine. I am not trying to be harsh or mean but truth be told this is what it felt like, but as always I treated everyone with the utmost respect, this was in fact part of our “honeymoon” after all, so we did go all out. Side note: Did you know that honeymoon comes from the tradition of the of the Bride and Groom only drinking mead (honey) for a whole month (moon)? Booom! that was a mead fact!

Laguardia is a cool mini town surrounded by a large wall protecting homes and a couple restaurants and a bar or two. I was able to practice my Spanish, and I was even offered a place to stay whenever I return, by a local who works on a vineyard. The conversation was started by the fact he was puzzled that I ordered a pizza in Laguardia, he had no clue my nickname was Meatneck so I forgave him and we became best of drunken friends. Becca smiled and wondered what the hell we were talking about. I explained to her the man was shocked that a man with such pale complexion (me) had such a great Spanish accent and albeit I did a really poor job of speaking with my new friend, he was stoked! This really wasn’t what was said but it was the underlying truth of the conversation.

Now me being me, I did a ton of research for this trip. The ultimate conclusion I gave to Becca was that very similarly to Saint Emilion, (see Becca’s Post) Rioja would be difficult to book wine tastings. Its nothing like California where you can just show up, pound some wine and bail on the Bodega. Wine fact: In Spain they call wineries Bodegas! We learned our lesson in France and I did my best not to make the same mistake so I was able to arrange 3 bodega tours prior to our arrival and for us that was better than nothing. We started early and our first stop was the Vivanco winery which hosts the largest wine museum in the world. If you enjoy wine this museum is highly recommended, I learned a lot at this museum but of course I forgot 99% of it. Some of the highlighted facts…. for thousands of years people have been making wine but most importantly for just as long people have been opening wine with phallic devices. It wasn’t just the Mexicans in Tijuana who invented the penis corkscrew, the Egyptians already had that on lock down thousands of years ago. The 13 year old me took many blurry photos of the elaborate collection. Wine bottle shapes, they mean a lot…. too bad I forgot all about them. Here is a good one I came up with on my own conclusion, traditional wine barrels require a fire so the wood can be bent back inward to make its traditionally “belly” shape and be held together by the metal braces. So all traditional barrels are toasted, but some are toasted longer than others giving wine a toasted taste. Feel free to call me out on that one! The low points of the museum was that you had to watch a late and early 2000’s propaganda video of how awesome and extravagant the Bodega was. In the end I was proud that Becca and I did not even purchase a single bottle of wine from this Bodega because we didn’t really like any of them! Were we becoming wine snobs? This was hardly the case (more on that later) the wine really just was that bad!

We got back into the car and headed to Logroño. We didn’t realize prior to our arrival but Logroño is a big town. We parked and low and behold this Spanish city was celebrating some sort of holiday. A man with no hands could could count on his fingers the amount of times Becca and I have gone down to Spain for a long weekend and not run into some sort of holiday tradition. It always happens and we have learned to enjoy it. This holiday was about some sort of pied piper blower instrument thing (no really it was). It was cool, lots of locals out dressed up all funny and having a good time. We stumbled into a mushroom bar (more of the salad variety not the hallucinogenic) and Becca was stoked to have freshly grilled mushrooms and wine. I even tried some and it wasn’t too bad, my parents would have been so proud. We cruised the city for a bit but had little time because we had to get back to the other side of the region for our wine tour with a bodega near our hotel back in Laguardia.

Our second Bodega tour was of Heradad Ugarte. This still wasn’t the small family bodega we were hoping for but we took the tour and learned about the owner who in short decided to cut into a mountain and start a modern bodega… nothing too special other than the fact the wine was good a cheap. I when I say cheap Becca was able to put a spell on me where I happily agreed to walk out with 4 cases of wine. The reason, good wine, low costs and perhaps it was the end of the day and we have had plenty of tastings. Dont worry I was unwillingly the responsible driver and was able to catch up to Becca when I met my Spanish local later that night. We later dined at a restaurant called Amelibia just outside the walls of Laguardia. I had the steak which just so happened to be one of the top 5 steaks of my life and Becca had the special which was….. ehhh…ummmm…. Well it doesn’t matter what Becca had because it wasn’t nearly as good as my salty Spanish steak. Back to Draculas we went for our last nights stay!

I did forget to mention we had an epic breakfast every morning at our Castle Hotel. Dracula himself made Becca fresh hot chocolate every morning, maybe it was to sweeten her blood? Such a kind man. We packed up and headed to our last stop at the Bodega C.V.N.E. in the city of Haro. It was here we learned with great importance about the effect of the Phylloxera insect that destroyed all of France’s vineyards. It was this catastrophe that eventually lead to the rise of the Rioja wine region. Lots of the French winemakers headed south to find the vineyards untouched by Phylloxera and helped the Spanish improve their winemaking techniques. The C.V.N.E. founders knew the French could help establish them to become a big playmaker in the wine business and invested in the French along with a dude named Alexandre Gustave Eiffel to build them a cellar. Yep same dude who build that French tower and that bridge in Porto, Portugal…. he gets around a lot. So C.V.N.E. has this killer wine cellar along with great wines. We enjoyed the tour, I even met a lady from the San Diego Union Tribune.

A little wine talk…. Becca and I have both agreed that we enjoy Spanish Rioja more than Bordeaux region. Its kinda unique because we both have extremely different palettes. To probably overly simplify and inaccurately describe the wine it is an extremely earthy wine that Becca enjoys, but i feel the climate is a little warmer in Spain giving it a small hint of sweet flavor that I enjoy. I could be wrong… I know I am wrong…. But I am sticking to it! Last but not least I recommend Rioja for the food the people and of course the wine!

It was an awesome quick trip to Porto, Portugal. Chinese New Year creates a short window of downtime for me at the office, so Becca and I planned a spontaneous trip to Porto to check out Portugal for the first time. It’s a seven and half hour drive from our home in Biarritz – you drive along the coast and into Spain, then suddenly cut inland and drive over mountains to a warm desert. Becca and I had not seen the sun for months so it was awesome to drive through the Spanish desert with the sun warming up our car. We made a pit stop in a Spanish city called Leon for some food and wine. Becca also got to shop for a bit, she always makes up an excuse, something about how cheap the merchandise is in Spain compared to Biarritz. Sadly I don’t have a good “come back” to argue the situation so shopping always wins out. We drove over another mountain range during the sunset and arrived in Porto at night. It’s always fun but still scary entering a new European city at night looking for your hotel. The GPS never has the exact location of your hotel, you drive the wrong way on one way streets and usually you can’t park near your hotel anyways because its located on some vintage pre-car era street. But again that’s usually why we pick these hotels because of their awesome location not necessarily their parking amenities (although that is a bonus).

Becca and I initially didn’t know a thing about Portugal. In fact we hired a personal guide off Tripadvisor.com just to show us around and give us some quick tips. Our guide Ricardo, from City Taylor Tours, left us a map at the hotel “check in” with restaurant recommendations close to our hotel for our first night. The city was alive on Friday night, our recommended hot spots were just too full for us and we were too intimidated to push through the crowd, so we settled on a simple dive bar for our first Portuguese meal. To our surprise the bartenders knew some English. Becca ordered some items and we each got a beverage, we waited for our food at our table while watching soccer on tv with the locals playing cards to the right of us. Now again, I am describing this in more detail than normal because this was our first Portuguese experience. I was feeling the vibe out and sipping on my Super Bock (the main Porto beer) when our waiter brings out a flaming pile of little weiners. “What the hell did you order” I asked Becca, shes responds with “Saucisson Flambe” of course. Now I will admit these little hot dogs doused in some sort of octane and set on fire were not that tasty, but the experience was a little surreal, it made both of us crack up. I drank my 3 Super Bocks and Becca had 2 glasses of local red while I cooked my hot dogs and Becca ate some pizza. Now here comes the best part of the story, we walk up to the bar to pay our tab and the bartenders give us a free shot of Hot Dog flame oil (not really its was just some sort of crazy Portuguese alcohol) and tell us our tab is 40 euro in broken English. “Awwww snap” I thought in my head, we were suckered! Chock this up to the first lesson learned in Portugal, I did read something on tripadvisor.com about Portguesse restuarants often over charging. I grab my debit card as the bartender hands me the common Euro debit pin machine to see my bill of 14.00 euro. Thats right, 14 euro for 3 beers, 2 red wines, 2 free shots, a large Pizza and flaming wieners with bread and chips. Portugal is a bargain! This put a large smile on my face because I knew Porto was going to be awesome.

We met our guide Ricardo in our hotel lobby at 10AM. The plan was for him to show us around and give us more of a “local vibe” tour of Porto while also recommending restaurants and things to do for our remaining time. First he took us to a popular local cafe for coffee and common pastries. It was my belief that the pastries we had where the best I’ve had in Europe. “But you live in France,” ppssshhhh the French don’t believe in breakfast outside of ham, butter and baguettes with the occasional croissant thrown in. I am not a man of sweets and creams but for some really weird reason I enjoyed all 4 of the traditional pastries. I’ve either grown up and suddenly turned into a man or the Portuguese pastries are just that good (I’ll go with the latter).

Ricardo showed us the local food market as well as the local delicacies like salted cod, lupin beans, ham etc… He then proceeded to show Becca the local flea market. It was a sad day for Becca because the flea market was not nearly as packed as usual due to the light rain that day. She was still able to grab some souvenirs for home. The flea market was just above the Douro River which was used to transport Port wine from the mountains/vineyards of Porto (more on this later). The Bridge in the background is known as the Maria Pia Bridge designed by Gustave Eiffel, you know, the same dude who designed Eiffel Tower and the Statue of Liberty.

We kept cruising with Ricardo as he spoke about Portugal’s history and how a previous dictator’s regime, the church and trade merchants all fought and impacted the current look of the city. Massive castle walls built long ago to protect Porto have been etched out in sections as the city outgrew its protection and bled into more modern day streets. Ricardo showed us the oldest part of the city, right next to the river and explained that living in this location was super rare because homes never go up for sale and are passed down from generation to generation. Becca loved all the colors of the old homes, we had hoped for some sun to really see them but sadly it never came out for us. A bit later we had more food. Ricardo asked me if l like chorizo…. phhhhssshhhh does Meatneck like chorizo??? 3 minutes later a chorizo was set on fire and being cooked on the bar top as we tried local Porto wine. Charred chorizo was awesome, the local wine and corn bread was “speck-tac-que-lair” as the French say. The restaurant Ricardo took us to for a snack was a owned by a friend of his from college, and he mentioned it’s doing really well because they use local wine and chorizo as well as other local products. In fact we returned on Sunday and Becca and I each had a beer that was so rare it was only sold in 1 other location and it was made a block up the street by some friends who liked making beer. It felt like Porto is just on the cusp of turning into a real “trendy place”. Ricardo pointed out a couple of new bars and restaurants that had a chic and hipster vibe to them, but they weren’t trying to be cool… they just were cool. Nothing was overdone or expensive, and everything felt simple and efficient to me.

 

A little more walking here and there, a couple of finger points at cool stuff and then BOOM! we were back to eating and drinking. I sampled their smoky ham and poultry sausage while Becca had a cod sandwich. We tried and amazing sparkling rose that comes straight out the tap. It was so refreshing and Ricardo tells us they go down real easy in the summertime, Becca and I wanted more but knew we still had to explore the city before we got too drunk off Portugal’s awesome beverages.

The next day was completely planned out thanks to the help of Ricardo. Becca beach combed in the rain looking to add to her amazing collection. We walked over the bridge to the other side of the River to the city known as Gaia. It is here where they now store the world famous Port before the ship it off to the rest of the world.

 

After reading some info on Port I was surprised by one important fact: I always associated Port as being created to be able to ship around the world and not spoil, just like an Indian Pale Ale (IPA) beer. But the reality was that the Portuguese had always drank Port and the merchants/sailors knew the higher level of alcohol would make it easier to ship around the world and England (most importantly). I came to the conclusion that because the people from Porto traded so much with England that they are more open to speaking english than some other countries. I dont know if thats right but I am sticking to it. No more history lets talk drinks!

Becca’s dad Bryan… I mean my father in law Bryan (thats a thing I never wrote before) would have been proud of the many Ports we sampled. White, Pink, Tawny, Late Bottle Vintage and Vintage, we tried them all. It was Bryan who introduced me to Ports or “sippies” as he calls them, and because Becca and I now like Port so much it was a major factor in deciding to go to Porto. In fact we didn’t know much about the traditional wine that grew next to the Douro River, we only knew about Port. It wasn’t until we arrived in Porto that we discovered the rising popularity of Portuguese wine and how 3 out of the top 5 wines on this year’s “Wine Spectator” are from or near the Douro river….. BOOOM!!! that was a wine fact, back to Port talk. We went to 2 different tasting rooms and even took a tour of the cellars. I settled a friendly argument that I have with the French when I asked our tour guide if regular (not white or pink) Port should be drunk as an aperitif and with ice. She looked puzzled and confused but I told her that’s not how I drink my sippies but thats the French roll, she mentioned the French like to everything “their way”…. not my words thats what she said.

 

Overall It was a very cool experience I am so happy to have gone to Porto. We came back with many bottles to drink in Château Grettenberger. We also cleared out a store of black beans because they tasted so good and we are unable to buy them in France. We will try and make it back to Porto but will continue to travel to new places. But I would put Porto high on your list of places to visit if you ever come to Europe.

 

Last weekend I was fortunate to travel for work to Munich, for the Ispo tradeshow. The plan was to check out products, materials and new innovations that could be applied to future boardshort seasons. I was shocked at how large the convention center was as I often got lost in the 12 Costco-sized hubs full of brands and vendors. But let’s skip the boring stuff and talk about Munich.

Tom (my boss) and his wife have really good friends in Munich, and they were able to give us a nice tour in the short time we stayed in Munich. The picture below shows Marienplatz, which I later learned is where Hitler delivered his “Beer Hall Putsch” speech, and attempted to take over the government. His speech was so “impressive” that he had a ‘hokus pokus’ effect on the crowd which lead to a fight killing 4 policeman and 16 Nazis. Apparently he failed at overtaking the government and served 9 months in prison. Hitler was released and soon after became known as the famous…Hitler. Alright enough of the history.

Close to the Marienplatz was bar and restaurant called Weisses Brauhaus. I was told this place served traditional Bavarian food and that is something Munich is proud of and embraces, compared to a city like Berlin, where big beers and sausages aren’t as common. I was told I either had to have the Pork Knuckle or the Suckling Pork Roast. I picked the suckling pork roast because I was afraid of what a pork knuckle would look like. Tom picked the pork knuckle and I had “orderers regret”.  You can see the yummy, crispy skin and weird potato, that Tom let me try, in the photo below. The potato had a weird gnocchi texture to it, so I soaked it up in the beer gravy, and chased it with more wheat beer.

These Bavarians know how to live! I don’t know where my roots come from but I’ll pick Bavaria simply because beer and sausage are awesome. I like to think it’s in my blood. Weisses Brauhaus only serves wheat beer, but for some reason the Munich Germans don’t call it Hefeweizen, they call them Weissbiers and after doing a little research Weissbier means white beer. Before the invention of pale ales and pale lagers, Weissbiers were the only light beers and all other beers where mostly dark… Ohh snap! That was a beer fact. I drank many Weissbiers and I had to order a full stein (1 liter) you know… because Germany. No joke I even saw John McCain at this place because they had a G7 defense convention going on in Munich. Our local Munich friend noticed and pointed out John McCain and said all the American politicians looked like they came from Netflix’s “House of Cards” and I couldn’t have agreed more with him.

We came back on Sunday for a proper sausage breakfast. We were too late for the sausage, but they did have plenty of beer. So like a traditional German, I sat and drank beer and listened to these awesome men play traditional bavarian music in traditional bavarian clothing. Apparently some people come every Sunday. This one old local had a seat in the corner with a sign that read ‘since 1973’. Every freaking Sunday this old bastard would sit in his corner table (with a surely depressed wife at home) since 1973. It’s so awesome but also so sad at the same time. If he missed a Sunday, his sign would have to be taken down and he would have to start the family tradition all over again. Some families even have Stein lockers at the restaurant where they store their family Stein and drink from it every Sunday. Could you imagine if you had a beer stein/glass locker?

Initially I wasn’t so in love with Munich… I still don’t know if I am, but it was awesome to see the Bavarian culture and drink good beer and eat awesome sausages/bratwurst. Have I mentioned I love beer and sausages yet? I didn’t have lot of time to see the city because I actually had to work…. you know, the reason why I came to Munich in the first place. But I am glad I got to explore and see a little bit of Munich and someday might try and make it back for Oktoberfest…. to drink more beer and eat sausages!

Back in early May 2014, Brent had another long holiday weekend so we decided to take our first trip (since living in France) down to Spain. Living in Biarritz, we are only about 20 minutes from the Spanish border, so it makes cruising to another country for a weekend adventure pretty easy (cool, huh?). Not to mention Brent is fluent in Spanish, so while we were still struggling to learn French, it was like a sigh of relief when we would cross the border into Spain, because it became so much easier to communicate and understand what was going on. It really felt like being on vacation, especially for me, who was finally off the hook for having to do all the talking.

We had a four-day weekend, so we planned a roadtrip to a few different places, starting with a night and two days in Pamplona. Pamplona is the Spanish Basque city that is so famous for the San Fermin Festival, better know to most as the running of the bulls. It’s only about an hour and a half drive from Biarritz, and the scenic road getting there is gorgeous : you drive through Spain’s Basque country which is full of lush, green hills and mountains (thanks to all the rain we get here). It was not at all what I expected driving into Spain, it’s gorgeous!! And because of all the mountains, you drive through tons of really long tunnels on the freeway. It’s only a few miles away but feels so different from driving the roads up here in France.

I was in love with Pamplona as soon as we got there – the architecture was like nothing I had seen before and everything was so colorful! The buildings and houses were like candy, I couldn’t get enough! We spent a lot of time exploring the old center of town : you can follow the path the bulls run through the center, so even though the festival wasn’t happening when we were there, we tried to imagine what it must be like to see so many people and bulls running through the tiny, colorful streets. I stumbled on lots of great little shops while I was there, too. It was the first time I really did any shopping since making the move, and I was extremely excited to discover that Zara, among other brands, is on average 10 euro cheaper (per item) than in France. Score!

We were lucky to be there on a Thursday night, which turns out is a great night for ‘happy hour’ – a tapa and a glass of Rioja for just TWO euros, which you could get at almost any bar in the old center of town. Spanish Tapas are worth making a trip down to Spain alone! We enjoyed tasting so many different types of tapas, drinking Rioja, and just cruised around town and people watched. It was so fun to see the city come alive with locals who just chill in the streets for hours, snacking on tapas, talking with friends, a glass of wine in their hands… we could definitely get used to this lifestyle (and pretty much have, by now).

Our last morning in Pamplona, before we headed off to our next Spanish adventure in the Rioja wine region, I hit up a few more shops, explored a few new streets, and we enjoyed a breakfast of famous Spanish churros and thick hot chocolate, a la taza, to dip the churros in. I love this chocolate so much because it isn’t too sweet, it’s bolder and earthier, and when combined with a bite of sugar-coated churro, it’s the perfect combination. Luckily we did lots of walking exploring the city, to burn off our nutritious breakfast.

I loved Pamplona and it was the perfect city to explore for our first weekend adventure in Spain!