Hanging out with Cousin Nate

The start of 2015 has been very, very low key for us as evident from the lack of recent blog activity.  Our 2015 adventures have recently ‘officially’ kicked off with a two-week visit from my cousin Nate, who was travelling around Germany and visiting many of his German friends from the U of M.  This counts as perhaps only the fourth or fifth time I have spent time with my cousin, which just goes to show that sometimes you have to move halfway around the world to get friends and family to visit.

We celebrated Nate’s arrival with the traditional Hirschgarten Biergarten experience.  Although the weather did not entirely cooperate, we were well supplied with food from Aunt Ellen and Uncle Rüdiger.  The spread included Obazda, radishes, sliced meats and cheeses, and about a dozen hard-boiled Easter eggs - which they were still desperately trying to get rid of. 

As a side note, the Easter egg hunt is a very important tradition in my uncle’s family and is only to be carried out using hard-boiled eggs buried deep into the wild forest (see prior blog).  This is not your plastic-eggs-filled-with-candy-slightly-hidden-in-the-backyard kind of game- they take the Easter egg hunt very serious.  So Julie, Nate, and I agreed to eat the remaining Easter eggs (although none of us really liked them), to honor our Uncle Rüdiger who worked hard preparing the perfect Biergarten spread (and so that we could finally be rid of any guilt for not eating them).

The rest of the week, Julie and I spent at work and got to enjoy Nate’s company in the evening.  We shared dinners at the apartment and got into some pretty serious battles in Settler’s of Catan, which Julie ended up mostly dominating (of course).  We also got together at Ellen and Rüdiger’s place during the week to watch the first leg of the UEFA Champions League quarterfinal matchup FC Bayern Munich vs. Porto, where they ended up losing 3-1.  It was a really fun evening of yelling at the TV and enjoying popcorn from my aunt’s vintage American popcorn maker.

On the weekend, we took Nate to the famous Andechs brewery for all of our first time.  The monastery is only about 30 miles from Munich – I am not sure why we haven’t been before.  We, the doggies included, enjoyed a nice afternoon exploring the ancient sights set high up on the hill overlooking the fields down below.  The three of us split a giant Schweinshaxe (pork knuckle) for lunch and enjoyed some of their famous beer.  Rita made friends with the elderly Bavarian man next to us who was nudging crumbs down to her on the ground.  Afterwards we went for a long walk along the Amersee before calling it a day. 

Nate left us on Sunday to visit another friend (he technically has more German friends than we do), and we went to go pick up Logan and Ashley at the airport who were just arriving for part one of their European vacation.  However Logan and Ashley were asleep by the time Nate returned, and left for Paris early the next morning, leaving both to wonder if the other really existed.

Perhaps the most exciting part of Nate’s visit (at least in my opinion) was attending the second leg of the Bayern Munich vs. Porto quarterfinal.  It was a nail biter waiting for our tickets to arrive, which I bought 2^nd hand online (for a lot of money) and only arrived the day before the match after some unexpected shipping delays. 

Anyhow, there was a lot of excitement for this game considering FC Bayern needed at least 2 goals to advance to the semifinals and most people expected them to fall short.  In the end this match was truly unbelievable.  You know that moment in a basketball or football game where one team just starts dominating for a few minutes causing the opposing team to stop the game with a timeout?  Well imagine that level of domination for about 45 minutes straight because in soccer there are no timeouts.  Bayern Munich ended up scoring a touchdown worth of goals and winning 6-1, which meant Nate and I witnessed the most wild and exciting match we could have imagined.  As I write this, however, that game feels less meaningful since FC Bayern was just eliminated in the semifinal by Barcelona (Julie back-dated this blog which is how I know the future).  But still that was one of most entertaining and exciting sports games I have ever witnessed. 

We ended our week with Nate by celebrating in the traditional Bavarian style by going to Frühlingsfest, our favorite beer festival of the year.  Ashley and Logan, back from their other travels, joined us as well.  We started out by cruising around the fairgrounds a bit and then taking a ride in the Ferris wheel.  Later we played a round of that ski ball horse racing game, where you nudge along your toy horse forward along the race track by rolling a ball into holes at the end of a ramp (makes sense right?).  It was a pretty tight race between all 5 of us, except for Ashley’s defected horse that was not moving at all.  To everyone’s surprise Logan, who is not known for his talents throwing a ball, ended up winning and taking home the obnoxiously big orange stuffed dragon.  We then settled at our table in the Hippodrome tent, toasting our giant beers (and Ashley her water) and dancing on the benches for the rest of the evening. 

Nate rocking it in Rüdiger's old Lederhosen!

The following day we said goodbye to Nate and the four of us (Julie, myself, Logan, and Ashley) took off on our Scotland vacation.  We had a really great time spending quality time with my cousin and it was nice to learn more about the Hoff side of my family.  Thanks for coming Nate and good luck in medical school!