Prague beer, Wroclaw music, and Islay single malts

This morning I didn’t open email or the news, but clicked the link to a website a Navy friend sent, of a lovely Czech restaurant far from here. Browsing the site took me to the web to visit Prague, 

which has a thousand year history that, as always fascinates me, includes horrific occupation by Nazi Germany from 1939 through the end of WW2, and 1989’s bloodless event of the Soviet Union’s collapse that they call the Velvet Revolution. At the moment I’m in my Beck bedroom chair with the blue velvet that my mother had upholstered maybe forty years ago, but in my bookcase in the Bay bedroom I have a little folding case given to me a score and five years ago by Apalachicola friends who had just returned from a week or ten-day visit to east European cities including Prague; and Wroclaw, which is stamped on the case. Musicians, they returned reporting they had attended two concerts a day while away. Our organist and choir director my years at Trinity Church, they are in my heart for ever.

The restaurant menu includes favorite European dishes, and I’d love to try their Staropramen, Czech beer on tap. 

Also, looking at bottles on the bottom shelf of my tall bookcase, from my blue velvet chair I see three of the single malt Scotches on their wine list: Glenfiddich, Laphroaig, and Glenlivet. Laphroaig is an Islay single malt that will scorch the throat if gulped stupidly, but with one finger and a single ice cube in a short glass it can be sipped and savored all evening while everyone else pops beer tops. 

I don’t drink much whisky, just now and then, but my favorites are Ardbeg and Lagavulin. Available at Charlie Lahan’s Carousel at Laguna Beach, they are both from Islay distilleries, whose whisky is known for smoky character, apparently from the peat in the barley, and hints of iodine, seaweed and salt. 

Islay is off the west coast of Scotland, and seems to me I read that the sea’s tide sweeps into at least one of the distilleries on the southwest coast. 

How did I get here? IDK.

D.Thos+ in +Time+

Okay, I’m going to try pics again this morning. Pics posted Saturday caused aberrations in the print size, which I couldn’t correct despite repeated trying.