My friend Erin is dating a girl from Australia, Catalina. They met when Cat was vising friends in the US and fell in love in a storybook-like way. Erin was able to visit Cat in Australia for a few weeks this summer, and in October, Cat was able to come to the US for three months. During this time I was able to get to know her, and we became friends. She had to go back to Australia last week. It was sad to see her go. Erin plans to move to Australia as soon as her house sells. It will be hard to say goodbye to Erin when the time comes. But their story is an amazing one, and they belong together. As a bonus though, I now have good incentive to visit another continent. Someday in the hopefully not too distant future, I hope to visit them both. In the meantime, I'll enjoy the time I have with Erin while she is here and help her pass the time until she's able to reunite with Cat.In other news I went to the Craft Beer Expo in Mankato this weekend with Court. I am not really a craft beer lover. Court is, so I bought tickets for his birthday figuring it would be a good way to experience more types of beer. I usually have to stick to lite beers in order to find things I like, but I had a fun time sampling all the varieties out there. There were over 50 vendors. Most stations had 2-3 samples each. I kept track on the little map in the brochure they handed out of which stations has beer I liked. Most were no-gos but there were a couple that I enjoyed. By the end however, basically everything was tasting about the same - pretty awful. I think I've had my fill of craft beers for awhile. I plan on sticking to my miller and bud lites for the next few months. If I go again next year though, I plan on taking a leaf from the books of the experienced expo-goers. They made necklaces with pretzels on them to snack on between samples. They provided two benefits: Palate cleanser, and sobering agent. I definitely could have use both of those.
