Carving Some Fresh Powder

With all the effort around moving last year, we missed the ski season in the Alps.  So this season, I made it a top priority to hit the slopes as soon as possible. 

The Friday before Christmas break I took a day off and went snowboarding with a colleague.  We set off for a small resort just on the edge of Austria called Seefeld.  There we were - while many others labored away at the office the day before Christmas break - amongst the fresh alpine air home to some of the world’s greatest winter athletes.  This was really the perfect skiing condition- fresh snow and empty slopes.  In fact it was so empty that I would expect the resort probably lost money this day.  I started the day slow, adjusting to the new board, and I was feeling like a real professional out there- perhaps because nobody was around to see my falls.  Eventually my ego got the best of me though, because after a few hours I began attempting jumps (if you can call it that) and maneuvers that were outside my ability and taking some pretty rough falls.  In the end, a half day was enough, considering there were no lines for the lift.

 Having conquered one alpine mountain, I was anxious to take Julie out to the slopes so she could test out some skiing herself.  The other weekend we were invited by one of Julie’s colleagues to join him on a trip to Garmisch (home of the 1936 winter Olympics).  We purchased the Garmisch Ski Express ticket, which includes a round trip train ride plus an all-day ski lift ticket for just 42 EUR- a very reasonable deal I might say.   

We set off early Sunday morning and 2 hours later we were at the base lift and rental shop.  Eager to hit the slopes we rushed renting my board and Julie’s skis, and after boarding the first gondola Julie realized she left her poles back in the lobby.  I guess it goes without saying she is still VERY NEW to skiing.  But no worries, us guys took a quick run back down the mountain to get warmed up and retrieve the poles, and we were all reunited in no time. 

After wearing Julie out on the baby slopes, I spent the rest of the day trying to keep up with Zsolt on the rest of the mountain (who grew up in Canada and is a very good snowboarder).  At one point we ended up on the steepest part of the mountain, which in my opinion deserves a color beyond black, where I managed to slowly slide/roll/tumble my way down to the bottom (while Zsolt rode down pretty much flawlessly).   Later I learned this trail is known as “Kandahar” which is the downhill speed course used for the Olympics in 1936 and other world cup competitions.  At least the views were beautiful up here, and thanks to Zsolt’s new Intel phone, we have some pictures.

One of the surprises of Garmisch was the vast number of English speakers we heard.  It really felt like we were at a ski resort in Colorado and there happened to be just a few German tourists….a very strange feeling.  In fact during our lunch break, I think we heard more English than German!

After some lunch on the mountain and a long break to recover from my Olympic tumble, I joined Julie on some smaller slopes which were serviced by T-bar lifts.  These are the lifts (less common in America) where a T-bar suspended from a running cable drags you up the mountain while the skis/snowboard remains in contact with the ground.  I think this kind of lift is unpleasant for all, but especially worse for snowboarders who must straddle it between the legs and ride up with one foot unclipped from the bindings.  As I was riding it for the first time I encountered a very steep hill when the lift was stopped, which left my straddling this T-bar, dangling from one leg as my back leg was unclipped from the binding, for what felt like 30 minutes at on a 45 degree uphill slope.  Needless to say, I’m not the biggest fan of T-bar lifts after this.

As we were leaving we stopped in a lodge near the base to kill some time before our return train.  We were shocked to see all these random American brands/products and one section was stocked just like a Walgreens or CVS from the States.  Ecstatic that I found David Sunflower Seeds, I rushed in line to purchase them, noticing that the prices were even marked in $USD!   And that is when the cashier politely explained that this was an American military operation, and only those with valid military I.D. could make purchases (or enter the building, but somehow we escaped that notice). It finally made sense why we heard so many Americans on the slopes: we were in the vicinity of a large US military service.  Sadly, I was not able to purchase my sunflower seeds, but I’m just glad the troops aren’t deprived of them (thanks for your service!).

That was our first (hopefully not last) time skiing in Germany!  We both paid the price the next day, and Julie’s grapefruit size bruise on her leg gave us weeks to remember just how much fun we had.

Innsbruck, Tirol

While I was dealing with backing up our recent photos (methods that Noah deems extreme – with the combination of external hard drives, burning onto CDs, and uploading to the cloud with my various accounts), I realized that our trip to Innsbruck last November was left off of the blog.  Sure this wasn’t that big of a trip, but the main point of our blog is for us to be able to look back and remember all our excursions, big and small, we take while we are here.  The second reason – to let our moms/grandma share in our adventures from 3,000 miles away.  So with that precursor, I will write about Innsbruck, almost three months later, and cheat and change this date for the blog so that this falls in the right chronology – between ‘Our First Snow of the Year’ and Istanbul.

What sets this trip apart from our others this year, is that we took our dogs with us out of the country.  Yes – the pups ‘used’ their pet passports we got them.  And ‘used’ is in the most loose sense – since Germany and Austria are both members of the Schengen ‘borderless’ area – essentially removing borders between the member countries – there is no border check to verify our passports.  But that didn’t matter – we wanted to make sure we were still following the rules like good pseudo-Germans! 

First, a cute dog story:  Our dogs have always loved riding in cars, and since living in Munich they have fallen in love with Aunt Ellen’s little blue Twingo car (important detail) – it means a trip somewhere fun.  We decided to use our new car-sharing program and rent a car for the trip to Austria.  Noah went to pick up the car and parked it outside the apartment.  When it was time to leave, the dogs were beyond energetic, as they knew a road trip was in order by the fact that we packed their food and leashes in our luggage.  When we opened the front door, amongst all the cars parked on our street, there was one small blue car.  They both darted straight to that blue car and looked at us to let them in.  The problem – we rented a silver car that was parked further down the street.  I am no scientist (I will leave that to Noah), but to me it shows that dogs have both memory and proves they aren’t as colorblind as people tend to assume.

And we were off!  With Noah working to re-learn how to drive a manual transmission, we headed south to Austria.  We did have to make a quick stop at a gas station to purchase a vignette – required for driving on the Austrian highways.  Think EZ Tag for you Houstonians, except for a much steeper fine – over 100EUR.  After a few hours, and finagling the small city of Innsbruck by car, we found a parking spot and headed to our hotel – the Hotel Weisses Kreuz.  Any idea why we might have favored this place when we saw it on the internet??? 

 It was a very cute, historic hotel, dating back to the 15^th century.  It had many levels and various corridors, connecting the different sections of the hotel that were probably purchased at different times, as the place expanded.  Plus the location was perfect – right in the center of things, and just a few yards/meters away from the Goldenes Dachl & the Helblinghaus.

We saddled up the dogs and took off towards the Nordkette mountain.  We took a series of funiculars and cable cars to reach the top, where we stopped to take some family photos.  

Dog's unsure about riding a cable car

We then took the last cable car up to the very tip-top – though this was in the clouds and a bit creepy.  It felt like stepping out onto another planet.  There were all these crows that were just flying, but not moving, because the wind was so extreme.  We only spent about 15 minutes at this level before heading back down below the clouds for some hot chocolate at the restaurant.

One level below, while we were waiting on the funicular, my eagle eyes spotted the tiny yellow and blue markings of an Ikea across the city.  I love Ikea.  But the one in Munich is rather hard to get to, and there was a picture frame I wanted that the Munich one didn’t have.  The next morning we found ourselves in the Innsbruck Ikea, surprisingly leaving with more than just that one picture frame. 

After our morning shopping excursion, we picked the dogs up from the hotel and headed off to explore the city.  We stopped in Dom zu St. Jakob – a baroque church that the Asam Brothers helped decorate.  For those of you who have visited us, we probably took you to our favorite church in Munich – Asamkirche, built by these brothers a decade+ later.  It made the church a bit more interesting for us.  We then walked along the main pedestrian zone located around the Annasäule column.  This was established in 1706 as a remembrance that Bavarian invaders were defeated in the region three years earlier.

The next day it was time to head back to Munich, but we had a small side trip planned to visit Achensee – a small alpine lake on the Austrian side, somewhat on the way home.  We figured the dogs could use some hiking around before the long drive back.  To reach the lake we had to head up some steep roads – which really tested Noah’s manual driving expertise (or lack of it).  We had our first stall-out on a steep hill (versus our stall-outs on flat ground) – which resulted in the car quickly rolling downhill backwards.  Luckily we were the only ones on the road, or we would have definitely hit a few cars on our way down.  After a few scary moments, Noah was able to kick the car back in gear and drive off.  Only later did we learn of the ‘commonly known’ hand-brake trick.  It is only common knowledge when everyone drives manual – which is just not the case in the States!! 

A little while longer we all made it to the lake, the car in one piece.  This is where I will give Noah a shout out for his amazing driving abilities – I know if it were me, I would pay 10x the price to get an automatic car, and then because of that not go anywhere.  The weather was very windy, which made it rather chilly.  That didn’t matter – the dogs were happy, the lake was pretty, and we all enjoyed the fresh air.

Sadie so worn out she fell asleep sitting up in the car

All in all it was a great weekend getaway, and it is always a bonus when we get to take the dogs with us on vacation.