A Different Lifestyle

Ever since I've been down here, I've been relaxed. I've been relatively stress-free and enjoying every moment of my stay here. Perhaps it's because I'm not working two jobs (which is catching up to me). Perhaps it's being crammed between mountains and water. Either way, I don't remember when the last time was that I was this care-free. Also, the area is relatively crime-free. I can walk home in the dark at night and have nothing to worry about -- the back door to my house never gets locked (though my bedroom does).


Last weekend was full of parties -- one which I had to walk 45 minutes to get to. Here's a few shots from the weekend:







And my Mondays are free, so me and a couple other Americans headed across town to the Cascade Brewery. It's the oldest traditional brewery in the country, which means they malt and roast grains on site, which smells really incredible. The company was founded originally as a saw mill built by 200 slaves (prisoners) but has since been converted and built upwards to accommodate huge tanks required for mass brewing.

The bottom three floors of the brewery feature hand-cut stones that were laid in 1824. Above that is the lighter-colored, machine-cut bricks that were laid in the renovation of 1927. Also, note the window on the top-right of the building. There's nothing behind it!


This is a giant vat (10,000 gallons+ I believe) of beer during the fermenting phase. In this vat, this yeast is a sludge at the bottom, and ferments upward. Some beer styles have down-fermenting yeast instead. It's really quite a science.


The two Americans are on the left and our fast-talking Aussie tour guide is on the right:


Bottling. This was an incredible loud room with thousands of bottles clanking around at any given day. The machine at the end of the bottle row can label 800 bottles per minute.




And here's a couple bonus shots: