The Cathedral

You can take a lifetime running through Europe looking at Cathedrals, but if you're vsiting a major city, you have to at least go look.

St. Vitus is on the top of the hill and across the river from the old city. There's even a picture somewhere where we climbed the town tower in the old city and took a picture of St. Vitus from afar, which looks pretty cool.

Anyway, St. Vitus is one of the major Czech saints (don't know exactly what he did - oops, missed that part of the tour). King Wenceslas (yes, he really did exist in more than just a Christmas carol) is buried in the Church, and he overlooks the royal jewels. Unfortunately, we didn't get to see them, since they are locked up most of the time. Apparently, 7 of the most important leaders of the Czech Republic each have a key and only during major state events (like the swearing in of a new president) are they on public display.

We did climb to the 280+ steps to the top spire and took some great pictures of the city. And there are several over the top Baroque chapels inside.

The Second Castle

The first castle would be the one found on the top of the hill in Prague, but while that was being redone (it took a couple of centuries), some Charles character built a mini little castle outside Prague. On the way out of town we stopped by the castle and went on a tour. Unfortunately, the major attraction of the castle was the chapel inside, but it's limto 12 visitors and hour, because they are trying to control the environment.

Sorry that we don't have too many pictures of the place, but they also kind of forbid pictures inside the castle. Not that much inside, quite frankly, since when the French and Austrians came in to restore the place about 100 years ago, they also 'took' some of its major treasures, furniture, and middle age weaponary. I think they're still a little bitter about that one.

The Food

Food was interesting. Again, we're coming from France, so it's a little unfair to compare. Also being a veg wasn't helping matters too much, but in general they had some promising food. Definitely recommend going outside the tourist areas to grab something to eat - might require a little knowledge of the Czech language - but someone should be there to help out.

The Shopping

Wow, has the shopping changed in Prague, since I was there. Granted there's not some guy on the corner trying to exchange dollars for czech crowns for 4 times the official exchange rate, but I was hoping for a couple of deals.

Shopping in the tourist areas was pretty comparable to any other place in Europe right now. The crystal was also nice, but not nearly as attractive as I remember. I think Patrick did end up adding to his shoe collection - but he'd do that in pretty much any country he visited.

The Music

Gaby picked us up some tickets for a classical performance in St. Nicholas. I had some pictures, but they're a bit fuzzy. Nothing too heavy as far as classical music, but it was John Williams either.

Lora and Jen in Town

Lora Ramey and Jen Oleksiw came into town at the end of the week to see how Model Office was going and to do those things that Directors and Managers can do. I was going to post Jen's picture from the internal Lilly site, but it's a little too Glamour Shots (Jen, we need to talk about that later). So Jen, if you're reading this, take a picture with you and Lora and send it to me.

Since we were running off to Prague for the long weekend, we didn't have a chance to show them around Strasbourg, but we did get to spend a nice dinner with everyone at the Weber's on Friday. We then ended up at Murphy's around the corner from our place. Considering I crash about 8:30PM on Friday nights, I did pretty well with staying out until 1. Some of us stayed out a little longer, which impacted Shop Floor conformance to Schedule for the Prague operation; but that will have to wait for another posting.

Lora and Jen then left for Speke's Model Office. Apparently Jen's luggage was lost, she almost had a moment, and then it was eventually found. Good thing too, since I don't think any of us could handle her having to dress in Nigel's clothes.

The Making of Foie Gras

Jim and I went to Laurence's house last night to make foie gras - otherwise known as over-sized duck liver with cirrhosis.

Basically, Laurance first took Patrick to a specialty shop to pick up the duck liver. Apparently, you can't kill a duck at any old time, duck liver is seasonal, so we should start seeing it in the local grocery stores shortly. Since there's really not much to the recipe, it's all about the quality of the duck liver. The stuff is not cheap - it runs about 30 euros for one 600g liver. Although the original liver was expensive, Patrick found about 1/10th the amount of finished foie gras in the same store for about 110 euros.

So the first step after purchase is to remove the veins from the liver - since that will give a bad taste and texture in the end. They can be hard to find, so this is probably the most labor intensive step. After that we take a bottle of white wine, a 1/4 teaspoon of salt (specifically made for foie gras), and a 1/4 teaspoon of nutmeg, and marinate the liver for 24 hours in the refrigerator (flipping once after 12 hours). The next step is to bake the mixture in a terrine with a bain-marie for 40 minutes in 150 C oven, let it stand to room temperature, and then cure in the refrigerator for 2 days. After that it keeps for a about a week.

We actually didn't wait that long to see how long it keeps. Knowing that Patrick would be unable to eat an entire terrine of foie gras by himself, we opted for a tasting at work to celebrate the end of Model Office. Thomas brought in some great bottles of wine, Patrick ran home at 4PM and picked up the finished foie gras and pre-ordered bread from the local bakery - and it was an instant party. Of course, being the veg I couldn't taste it, but the reviews were very favorable, and the old catering trick of knowing if something was good . . . there wasn't any left.

Baden-Baden Spa

Went to Baden-Baden – home of the Spa – for a Sunday afternoon. See the insider travel blog for all the details. We went with Joe (Grabczak) and Prabhu who were here for Model Office, and as Joe said, “Good thing we went on Sunday, instead of Saturday, because I would have wanted to go back on Sunday again.”

Since Baden-Baden is only about 45 minutes away, it’s an easy Sunday afternoon trip when we’re in Strasbourg and everything else is closed.

Halfway done with Model Office

Alas, we are halfway through model office. Actually, for us it’s more like 90% done, since almost all of our sessions were within the first week. Apparently there is a school holiday the second week in Strasbourg, and so they wanted to get the integrated sessions out of the way in the first week to get the best attendance.

I think the sessions have gone very well, but like most Model Office’s it’s a lot of information for the business to absorb in such a short period of time. We did have an advanced design session earlier in the summer, so many of the major issues had already been resolved. I think I’m up to 3 issues, which is really kind of unheard of.

Have to throw in something to Prabhu, who (as always) has rocked. Obviously a great technical and business resource, and we've had absolutely flawless demonstrations. Tuesday night he had to throw something together at the last minute that very few could have done as quickly or as easily.

Weekend to Colmar

Went down the Alsatian wine road again this Saturday for the benefit for everyone who was already over here for Model Office. A guy in the office gave several suggestions on where to go, and we followed those to find new wineries and a new castle. Here’s the rundown . . . .