essex wine report

I just have to talk a little more about carousel. Spent Saturday and Sunday going to the sites and I just really enjoy it so you'll just have to put up with me.

Some yankee friends (syf) came over Saturday to carousel with tso and I. I was kinda disappointed that more were not open but oh well we had enough choice.

As usual, I had our tour organized to minimize travel time therefore maximizing the food and drink time. Therefore, our first stop was the German pavilion for food and beer. I wonder what happened to the two Tibetan monks that used to cook for them. This was years ago but man those two guys were good. Strange, #1 we get there and the adult dance troop from the Scottish club were there, deja vous. The major problem was that the tree trunk wasn't there. I had looked forward to it. They have a real old tree trunk where you get three hits to drive a nail. It really can't be done with the baby hammer, but the fun is good. An old German engineer told me that in the old country it's the privilege of the architect to drive the last ceremonial nail. Well being construction guys they would grease the head of the nail so the head of the hammer would just slip off. You would think the architects would figure it out. Well it seemed to be an oldie but goodie. Well real strudel, real beer and a porkfest made this real good: as usual.

From there it was to the South Asian Village. TSO  claimed it was her idea to invoke the "go to one you've never been to before" rule so that was that. Walking in was a smell paradise. Now ordering the food was kinda fun so I got a D; mutton curry, tomato curry, roti then some sweets. This lovely lady informed me that I bought the Sri Lanken  platter and smiled. Then I found out why. Man was it hot. Man was it good. May I add here that I had eaten 2 days worth of tandoori chicken before this. My eyeballs were sweating. Boy. did I need a beer, but of course there was none available. The sweets were, ahhhh, rather odd. Not at all what I expected. The dancing on the other hand was really interesting and quite exotic.

Next its off to, you guessed it, the Scottish club. And guess who was there, the adult dancers were back. Saw the pipe band again and they did the drum solo. Amazing, simply amazing. I just love pipe bands.

We were running out of time so we headed for Jamaica. Just have to finish the night there. Their dancers were , well just so erotic. With the drums and the dancers, wow.

TSO and I took the yute Sunday afternoon to the Scottish(I know) and then to the German for food. Well he enjoyed the highland dancers and the pipers. So we headed to the German for food and guess who is there, the pipe band. I was starting to feel like a groupie. Well the Germans loved them and everyone seemed to cry after the encore-Amazing Grace. The sound was just devastating-extremely powerful, but really deja vousey.

It just baffles me that more groups do not enter this. Just read the paper and there seems to be so many issues between ethnic groups, but we are just so ignorant of each other. I really feel that if we voluntarily meet, see the food, history, culture we can all find some middle ground. Face it we have to get along and I am just such a fan of the melting pot ideal.