Welcome to my blog. I document my adventures in travel, style, and food. Hope you have a nice stay!
Just inside the door, Köbes, Kölsch bartenders in Köln, accumulated in the stone lined sallyport leading to the beer garden. They turned in unison beginning an exaggerated process of grouchy inspection, head-to-toe. Suffering mild humiliation in a similar Kölsch beer hall (Malzmühle) a few hours before, we walked confidently past the aproned guardians of Päffgen towards the beer garden, masking our anxiety with scowls and grunts of salutation.
Our more knowledgeable beer friends mention Cantillon in the hushed tones of children peering over the banister on Christmas morning: a place and product sprinkled in magical dust. Cantillon produces the best Lambic beers in the world. Walking down an unkempt street in southwestern Brussels, a sharp morning gust whipped magazine clippings and dirty napkins up on cresting waves. We turned right, leaving the haggard block behind; one hundred feet beyond the turn, bottles awaited on pallets behind the open cargo hull of a delivery truck. The recumbent, guzzling jester of Cantillon branded each bottle and hung from a sheet metal punch-out above the door. The place appeared closed but the door opened.
The circumstances that landed us in San Luis, Argentina seem completely impossible in a more organized version of the Universe. To think that a chance click from my computer in Georgia and the consequent encounter with a couple running an AirBNB would find us a bed and friends in San Luis, Argentina and two fantastic craft brewery contacts months later seems a bit preordained - or otherwise, too good to be true. But that's the way it happened; and if you asked me how it would turn out while I was sitting in my pajamas on my parents' couch last October, what I'd be doing in December, or if this trip would work out at all I'd stare right back with shrugged shoulders, hands turned up, pinched lips, and wide eyes. I never could have predicted the path and could never have planned it so well. Often you need the very basis of a plan to give you (and those around you) the confidence to step off and set foot on the journey, mission, etc; but most of the plan develops along with the information coming in, and as a result, you find a plan that better suits your current situation. Eventually, after you've seen enough plans fail you come to this realization and still fight it every time. I've gotten to a point where I think that Sara and I are completely out of our minds most of the time; and then there's an experience like San Luis, and we can smile at each other and reassure ourselves that we are not wrong about this.
