St. Louis is a Beer Town

I didn't like beer at all when I first got to college. But that is hardly a surprise when the high quality beer choice is Bud Light. Since I turned 21, I've been able to explore all the great craft beer varieties available, and for a lil gal just beginning  to learn about beer and what types are out there, St. Louis is a great town for that.


My education got a big jump when I decided to take a class. Yes - a beer class. Even better, a FREE beer class. Enter: Cicero's Beer School. If you live in the St. Louis area and you you like free beer, you have to come. It will be one of the things I miss most when I leave St. Louis in a few short months.

Lets examine some of the pros of beer school...

1. Free Beer (duh - no brainer)

Perhaps the best beer we got try.
 We sampled this beer before it was even released in the brewery with a super
 limited release and a price tag of 20 bucks a bottle. (source)

2. The Homework = Buy Beer

If you buy any of the beers tried the week before and bring in your receipt

you automatically are in a drawing to win a bucket of beer!

3. The prizes 

At the end of each class, the instructor asks questions. 

You gotta be quick - but if you are right you win a prize.

 Check out my collection below

Pint glasses are common prizes. Maybe I never have to buy real ones?
Or do real people have to drink out of non-beer logo pint glasses?

My big win from last week. Love Blue Moon - although I hardly consider it craft anymore...
Does that make me a beer snob or a real person. Perhaps both?

The cons of beer school?

1. Its only once a week

2. It isn't going to follow me to the next city :(

More on some great breweries of St. Louis in the next few weeks. I won't write about the actually beer school beers because some other beer school attendees do that here.

But perhaps I'll bring my camera and the boy and go check out some of the new breweries that have opened in this town in the last few months. 

Daisy's super fancy dog park

Anybody that has ever owned a dog while living in an apartment knows how glorious dog parks are. They give the dogs the chance to run around and get some energy out and also meet some new doggy friends. That is why when Michele and I choose a neighborhood to live in, we were thrilled to notice a  bunch of dogs playing in a "dog park" just down the street. Why the quotes? Oh - just check out the pictures.

What is this you ask? A tennis court? 

You let your dog run around on the neighborhood tennis courts?  

Who do you think I am?

Take another look...

Oh some large fences and netting in the middle of the tennis court.

Well, that makes the tennis court kind of useless.

 In that case, that's a great city - neighborhood dog park

Minus any grass...

And the fact that some of the dogs play so hard that the cement hurts their feet.

But, it's fenced and literally 3 minutes from the apartment.

So...I'll take it and so will Daisy

I'm playing with some online photo-editors, so this is just a basic collage using Picasa, but it was such a nice day and Daisy was having so much fun with that toy it seemed like a good place to start.

Daisy hopes you are having a good weekend! She enjoyed some play time in boyfriend's backyard this morning, and was super thrilled that Kentucky beat Vandy, because that meant that she could stay curled up in his lap during the game. 

Lazy Daisy

Daisy is a rescue dog. I don't know a lot about her past except that she was rescued off the streets of St. Louis in September of 2010. She was stuck in the shelter (I say stuck because no shelter is good - but Stray Rescue does a really good job of interacting with the dogs as much as possible and walks them at least twice a day) until March of 2011, when an older couple took her for a trial adoption period. But they returned her after just a couple days because she was TOO NICE. They even went so far as to say that their grandkids came over, and she didn't jump on them or anything. Thank goodness that they returned her, because this clearly was not the right home for her! So then she was back in the shelter for another 5 months until my roommate and I went to the shelter to pick out our next foster dog.

As soon as we got her home we found out that she is just a love bug. These are just some of her favorite things to do...

• Sleep
• Eat
• Lick her people's faces
• Sleep
• Play with her toys
• Sleep some more
• Eat
• Sleep curled up in my lap
• Sleep curled up next to me in bed

As you can see, ever since she got off the streets she has had a really rough life. But as with most rescue dogs she has her problems, but she has a lot more things that she does well than that she struggles with. We can delve into those another day. For now though, I'll leave you with the adorable video of daisy watching a pre-superbowl commercial of a bunch of dogs barking the star war's theme song. 

My first post!

I decided to start a blog for a few reasons

1. I anticipate a lot of exciting and perhaps scary changes coming in the next few months/years
2. I waste a lot of my time reading about other people's dogs, cooking tips, and DIY renovation ideas
3. Lots of my friends and family are spread out across the country and I want to keep them up to date on what I'm up to

I anticipate this blog will have some cute photos of the dog I'm currently fostering from Stray Rescue of STL. The lazy princess miss Daisy. Here and I am skyping with her. My boyfriend, who will also likely show up in this blog, is hoping to adopt her in the next few months.

I also am planning a lot of exciting trips in the next few months. Next week a trip to Lexington, KY, a spring break trip to Gatlinburg TN and the smoky mtns, a quick hop over to Kansas City in April, a post-grad roadt trip out to Yellowstone and the Tetons, and finally a learning tour trip to the Amazon and Ecuador with New Community Project. 

Then, I start work in Chicago while my boy and puppy move to Lexington to start medical school. Unless that plan changes in the next few months. 

Whatever happens it'll be an adventure and I'm excited to share it with anybody who reads this (or if nobody reads it, at least I'll have a record of everything I did!)