Anatomy of a Family Photo

Typically, Noah and I only post the 'cream of the crop' photographs on our blog.  But today I feel like showing a bit more of the behind the scenes of our pictures - namely what it takes for us to capture one of our family photos.  

We just got back from spending the afternoon at Olympic Park, and we had taken our camera with us.  We spent the majority of our time laying on a picnic blanket and letting the dogs roam free around us, but I thought we should try to capture this memory with a family photo.


Step 1: Using my purse, set up the camera while Noah works on wrangling the dogs to the blanket while also acting as my model.

Step 2: Check that the alignment is good with a practice shot.  Rita had realized in Step 1 what was going on, so she runs away before the photo is taken.

Step 3: After the camera falls over on the last shot, Noah realigns the camera while I now act as a model/focal point.  Rita has decided to boycott this whole thing completely.  

Step 4: Finally get Rita to come back to the general vicinity, but she still refuses to cooperate.  

Step 5: Finally get all four of us sitting together and at least somewhat facing the camera.  Realize it won't get any better than this today, so settle for this shot.  Know we will have to find another picture for our Christmas/Hanukkah card this year.  

Welcome to the Hotel Weiss (such a lovely place....)

Last week, Hotel Weiss officially opened for the 2013 season with our first visitors this year – our friends from Phoenix, Stacy and Adam (though none of us live in Phoenix anymore as of 1 week ago).  They are the first of 11 total guests over the next 3 months – or at least those are what we know of today.

They landed around lunchtime on Tuesday, so I took them for some tried and true good jet-lag lunch food – döner kebap over by Rotkreuzplatz.  This is the same place we have taken a few other guests – including my mother, who took this awkward photo of one employee with the döner:

Noah made it home early from work, so we picked up some chicken from the Tuesday chicken cart and headed over to Hirschgarten’s biergarten for dinner and beer.  We all Noah lucked out in that Hirschgraten was showing the UEFA Dortmund vs. Real Madrid semifinal game on the big screens.  Stacy and I started with our backs to the screen, but had to eventually turn around - it just became too creepy to have all those faces staring our way.  

The next day the pups got to join us for a pizza picnic in Hofgarten followed by bocce ball in the Englischer Garten.  Sadie became obsessed with a woman riding horse around us – I had to keep her leashed up or she would have tried to become friends with the horse – and most likely fail miserably.  And while I kept her from that danger, it might have been my fault one of the bocce balls hit her in the face.  I have never felt so guilty in my life – I think I was more upset about it than Sadie was.

We spent the evening over at Frühlingsfest for more chicken and beer, and again… Noah was able to watch the UEFA FC Bayern vs. FC Barcelona semifinal game in the beer tent!  The place definitely had a different atmosphere with the game playing (as we were there the Saturday before with some international friends… and 1 authentic German), but it was a very happy one with FC Bayern winning 3-0 and clinching a Germany vs. Germany UEFA cup final.  We also got surrounded by a German boy band ‘flash mob’ – but not sure how flash mob it really was when there isn’t much room between the tables for their few dancers.  And a huge shout out to Stacy and Adam for partaking in the traditional Lederhosen and Dirndl!  Now they really need to come back for Oktoberfest to get their money’s worth out of it!

Thursday we stayed in the city center spending money… what else can you really do in bad weather?  We continued our theme of daily German food at Zum Franziskaner – this time treating our guests to an eclectic combination of Weißwurst, authentic Wienerschnitzel, and Kaiserschmarrn.  While all three authentic German/Bavarian food on their own – I don’t think they really go together.  But no one complained.

We switched things up for dinner and went to a Greek restaurant.  Our old Munich friend Laura joined us, so Noah and I were able to toast her goodbye (again) at dinner.  She found a job in Cincinnati and was here in Munich to finish up her last 2 weeks at Intel.  That just means her and her soon-to-be husband need to come to Munich on vacation, instead of business trips.

Our plans for Friday originally included walking through the Partnachklamm Gorge, as we had heard cool things about it.  We even pre-booked one of our car sharing vehicles for the day.  Unfortunately for us, they decided to ‘close’ the gorge for the week for maintenance, and it would open again Saturday.  But we had a car for Friday – not Saturday!  We decided to be resourceful and just find another place to visit with the car.  Solution: Eibsee and Zugspitze!  

We began with a nice 7km hike/walk around the Eibsee – a lake at the bottom of the Zugspitze mountain (which, by the way, is the highest point in Bavaria – the mountain, not the lake).  Here we made fast friends with the ducks, who clearly are used to people feeding them.  At one point we stopped to look at the lake on a small hill, and this little duck came walking all the way up the hill to try to beg.  Impressive little climber!  We also found a rock shaped like Texas, so naturally I had to stop and give it a photo shoot.

After the 7km hike/walk, we took the cable car to the top of Zugspitze, which left both Stacy and I rather uneasy.  The mountain is 2,962 meters above sea level – or an elevation gain from the bottom of 1,950 meters.  Whatever way you look at it – you are going very high, very fast.

Once at the top, you take an elevator up 3 floors to get to the actual summit.  It is amazing how tiny Eibsee looked from up here.  After stomaching all I could handle of the heights, we moved to Deutschlands höchster Biergarten (Germany’s highest beer garden) for lunch.  I can say I had a real beer at the top of Germany – no Radler for me that day!  

For our guests’ last day in Munich, we decided to focus on the biergarten experience (again).  We first went into the city center to hit up Viktualienmarkt – the large open market near Marienplatz – to pick up a nice lunch spread.  After a quick detour to see the Hofbräuhaus, we hopped on the Ubahn up to Olympiapark, where Rita and Sadie cuddled in the small space between the seats.

Once there, we somehow managed to hit up two separate biergartens.  We did split them by stomping around the park grounds and making it to the highest hill there for some nice views of Munich and the Alps.  It was also nice that Stacy and Adam had one day of beautiful weather in Munich – how we wish it was every day!  Sadly this marked the end of their Munich leg, and we woke up Sunday to an empty apartment.  Well, not too empty – we had two waggly little dog butts to greet us in the morning.

In 9 days, Hotel Weiss will welcome my parents, and we will do it all over again!

Scott's Visit

We often say if we had more friends and family living closer, we might just stay in Germany forever- this being the part we miss most from back home.  It is no surprise then that we get really excited to have visitors from home.  Having guests distracts us from that feeling of being different and reminds us we have accomplished a lot since coming here.  Plus guests give us an excuse to get off our butts and go out and explore the city!  Therefore, we were really glad to have Scott, my childhood best friend, here to visit for one week!

Scott arrived on a Saturday morning and is the first person I have ever seen defeat jetlag (including our three attempts at it).  I’m not sure what it his secret, but perhaps not sleeping at all on the flight over here was the key.  His flight was delayed an hour which kept us from racing across town to catch the Munich TSV 1860’s season opening soccer game.  No problem, instead we started the city tour early. 

After an obligatory lunch stop for Döner Kebap (future guests take note) we walked the tourist trail through the city center.  Every time we visit the city it gives that same feeling one gets when returning to their elementary school, the place just feels smaller and smaller.  It seems like it used to take 4 hours to walk through Munich, now it feels like 30 minutes.  After Scott wore us out (still without sleep for something like 20 hours), we rested up at home with some Olympics on the TV.  I must say the German coverage was not nearly as exciting because the German athletes are not ALWAYS winning like the US.  That, and probably because the coverage was in German!  We capped the night off with a giant beer and pretzel at our local Hirschgarten (future guests take note, again).

On the following cloudy Sunday morning, we gambled that the weather would clear up and went out to Lake Starnberg for a swim.  Smart move because we the sun came out just as we arrived, and we beat the crowds.  Being in the Olympic spirit, Scott and I played water polo while Julie just floated away in her toddler size, “Dora the Explorer” looking floatie.   However, playing water polo led us amateurs into swallowing a bunch of lake water, which I found to be more unpleasant than salt water because the earthy taste lingers for hours.  Bring a toothbrush next time.

We returned home in the afternoon and Scott and I took the 20-minute bike ride up to Olympic Park, which was hosting their summer festival.  This is the perfect bike ride in my opinion (future guests, your itinerary is being written right here).  Coincidently, this marks the one-year anniversary where Julie and I came to Munich for our interviews and then escaped to the festival to contemplate our future lives over carnival food.  

Scott and I had a bratwurst, went up the Olympic tower, and spent 30 minutes touring the park festivities before a dark, dark storm rolled in.  And there we were, like our childhood all over again, riding bikes through the rain.  This was one of the biggest storms I have seen in Munich, and we were forced to take cover under a nearby apartment building.  Not to let their lunch plans be spoiled, a family sharing our shelter decided to have their picnic right there on the cement ground next to us.  Eventually it cleared enough to safely ride back home.  We reached the edge of the storm to find a perfectly sunny day waiting us at home.  We ended the evening with another trip to the biergarten and more Olympics.

On Monday we (without Julie who had to work, and without the dogs because the hike was too difficult) went out to hike an Alp.  We were delayed in our departure though because it seemed Rita might have seriously injured her leg.  I’m not sure what happened, but she was in pain and unable to fully walk on one back leg (in hindsight perhaps a bee sting or minor sprain).  Eventually she seemed like she would be ok, and since our vet was only open 4-6 pm, we couldn’t do much now (some things really do shut down here in the summer break).  

We hiked the peak of Wendelstein, a place Julie recommended after her work’s team builder there.  We knew we were limited on time because of Rita and the vet so we set a pretty brisk pace.  Initially the plan was to hike a bit up and then turn around to get home.  The weather was perfect and we were making such good time we just hiked all the way to the top with 3,000 foot elevation gain in 2.5 hours.  The best part about hiking up mountains in Bavaria is that awaiting you at the top is a beer hut.  So we enjoyed the beer we worked so hard for and some incredible views before taking the gondola back down to the bottom.  This is probably my favorite and most memorable hike I have ever taken (if only because most hikes don’t end in beer).  See for yourself:

Scott spent the rest of the week on his own before returning home.  Unfortunately, I do have to work sometimes. But we accomplished a lot in three days.  Come see for yourself what you can do here in a long weekend, if only you can beat the jetlag.  We looooove having visitors!

My first Fußball experience!

Today was spent resting and recovering from the last 3 days.  Thursday was anther public holiday, and we took Friday off, giving us an extended weekend.  Yesterday was the UEFA Champions League men’s finals here in Munich (I’ll leave that to Noah to write about), and the day before we took a train to Regensburg for the day.  But for now, I will backtrack to Thursday – my first European soccer, I mean football, experience.

I decided to make my first football game count – I waited to see a Champions League final game.  And I waited for free tickets.  You can say the latter was more the motivating factor… and you would be right.  Thursday was the UEFA Champions League WOmen’s finals at Olympic Stadium, and our friends, Eddie and Laura, won extra tickets to the game.  With 8 tickets, and only 2 of them, plus 2 tickets reserved as souvenirs, we were lucky we made the list.

The game was some German team (not Munich, so who cares) against some French team.  Here we are at the stadium before the game.

It started off with a pretty cool opening ceremony, with a bunch of girls/women in soccer gear running around the field with different parachute type banners.  And by parachute – I refer to those fun parachutes we played with as a kid in gymnastics, where you pop it up and everyone runs under it.  If you have no clue what I am talking about, I am sorry.  It was fun.

Once the game started, us gals ran off to grab food (the lines were now gone).  Returning with typical stadium fare – you know beer, sausages, and giant pretzels…. ok typical German stadium fare -  we made it back just in time to see Lyon (the French team) score a goal off a penalty kick.  Not looking good for Frankfurt (that German team that isn’t Munich).

Later they scored another, to win 2-0, zwei-null, two-zero, deux-zéro (they made every announcement in German, English and French).  Overall, I really enjoyed my first football experience - the weather was nice, the food was good, and I saw 2 goals – much better than a 0-0 game!

After the game, the four of us went to explore the Champions League festival, which was going on all weekend.  We went to a tent where you won prizes based on how many ‘goals’ you made with 3 shots.  It was basically a wall with 3 holes in it.  I was pretty nervous, as this was the first time I ever kicked a soccer ball at a goal (or at all, as far as I can remember).  Instead I made 1 in – beating our resident soccer player Eddie who didn’t make a single shot!  Noah made 1 too, so we each got a prize.  Poor Noah got punked – he picked a nice looking book called ’10 years of UEFA Champions League’.  Turns out he should have opened it and read the fine print – the 10 years refers to 1992-2002.  At least it looks cool.

I can’t rag on Eddie too much.  Later in the Ford tent he made 3 goals and had the best speed, and won 2 tickets to Saturday’s Men's Champions League Finals. I guess his skills are there when it counts.  But the rest of us got our photo taken and a lanyard.  It almost is like Noah got to go to the game too!

Auf Wiedersehen and Gute Heimfahrt!