Bad Toelz

I've been meaning to go to this little town forever, and Chris and I finally made it out there this weekend. This was the town where my dad was stationed when he was in the Air Force. The base is no longer there, but it's still a nice town to visit.

We had pretty awesome luck the entire trip. First off, though the weather leading up to Saturday had been cloudy and wet, there was not a cloud in the sky as we left Muenchen. When we arrived, we got lucky again, because they were starting their Christkindlmarkt, a Christmas market held along the main street of the town. This was filled with food vendors serving hot wines and German foods, as well as several vendors selling nativities and other things.

Bad Tolz

It was a pretty relaxing trip. We wandered around the town for a while, snapped some photos, got something to eat at a sub shop, then climbed up to a church overlooking the town. After we'd seen about everything, we stopped at an outdoor cafe, got a beer, and just people watched for a little while. By the time we were finishing up our beers, the sun was setting and it was starting to get cold, so we headed back through town to the train station and headed home.

Der Kleine Prinz

Hmmm. So, uh, I went to a performance of Der Kleine Prinz last night (The Little Prince in English).

It was very...

Interesting.

Oh, did I mention it was interpretive dance?

It was held in the Staatstheater here in Muenchen, and by all means it was an entertaining show. I just... I just don't know what I saw.

Wait! I take it back; I do know one dancer was supposed to be a snake. That's about it.

I took some pictures of the theater, though they didn't allow photos of the performance.

Der Kleine Prinz

Thangsgiving!

Hey everyone! You'll be glad to know that I was able to celebrate Thanksgiving this year. I almost thought it wasn't going to happen, but Kevin rallied us together at the last minute. I believe his words were, "I am currently undefeated at Thanksgiving and don't want to break my winning streak, so let's make Thanksgiving happen."

So how good could a Thanksgiving meal be, when cooked by five guys who, at previous Thanksgivings, had barely lifted a spoon to serve ourselves? Actually, not bad. We went with the divide and conquer approach: each of us choosing a separate dish and making it happen. And in the end, we had quite a spread: turkey (duh), two kinds of stuffing, two big pots of mashed potatoes, sweet potatoes and marshmallows, homemade cranberry sauce, gravy, some sausages, rolls and apple pie a la mode.

Thanksgiving!

And though it took me a little while to track it down, we were able to have the epic battle for wishbone supremacy.

I'd feel sorry for him, but I think they both wanted the same thing anyway.

That's all for now!

Andechs Brewery

It's like a fairy tale: nestled in the hills outside Muenchen, a group of monks brew beer, perfecting the art over hundreds of years and selling it only to the brave souls who make the trip to their mountaintop brewery. We dared make this perilous trek, and were rewarded with perhaps the greatest beer I have ever tasted. We started early, taking the S-Bahn out of town to a city at the base of the mountain. From there we humped it, going through the town (in circles for a while) before making our way up the hill to the Andechs monastery/brewery. The hike actually wasn't that bad, except for a pretty steep part near the end. Actually, the most dangerous part was when we almost got hit by an ambulance...

Once we made it to the top, and before sampling the beverages, we took a look through monastery. I may be mistaken, but I believe that it was a Rococo style building, similar to the Wieskirche near Neuschwannstein. Really, a beautiful architectural style.

Andechs

After touring the church, we got down to business: trying their highly recommended beer. We found the restaurant area and took a seat, with a half liter and a hunk of pork apiece. The food was decent, but nothing spectacular, but the beer... Oh man. They poured our masses from giant oaken casks, which is a testament to how delicious it would prove to be. I can only describe the flavor like this:

When I was a kid, I used to watch the Simpsons quite regularly, and Homer was always drinking Duff beer. My only knowledge of beer up to this point was the amber liquid that Homer was so entranced by. Because I had never actually tasted beer, I could only imagine what it must taste like; I could only guess at what flavor could drive Homer to such distraction. My friends, that wonderful flavor I concocted long ago, the most wonderful beverage flavor I could imagine, I tasted that when I tasted the Andechs Dopplebock that day.

That day I climbed a mountain. And it was sweet.

BMW Welt

Hey Guys! Sorry, it's been a while since I've given you guys an update, so in the next few days I have a bunch of stuff to send your way, starting with our trip to BMW Welt. Not much to tell, for this one, though: we took a tour of the building, and the architecture was pretty incredible, but the photos will show that better than I can say it.

BMW Welt

More to follow soon!

Salzburg!

We had a bit of free time last weekend , so we took a quick nip across the border into Austria for a day! We grabbed the first train we could, but it wasn't a direct train, so we had a short layover in Prien am Chiemsee first. It was a nice little town, and we wandered around for about an hour, taking photos and looking into a little bike shop we found. Then we got onto the connecting train to Salzburg.

Salzburg

Salzburg was even more awesome than I remember it, probably because I didn't have to deal with an uptight tourguide this time. From the train station we made our way to the river, then followed it upstream to the old part of town. On our way, we stopped and played in the playground for a bit.

I think Austrian children must have amazing balance.

After we were done embarrassing ourselves in the playground, we continued up the river. We were getting hungry, so we decided to stop at a little Italian place for dinner. I thought the lasagna was pretty good, but the waitress was kinda crafty in the way she charged us for the wine... The portions were pretty small too, so when we left we were still looking for food. We made our way to the Dom zu Salzburg. It's another impressive church, and we were lucky enough to go on a day they were having an organ concert! I took some video, but we couldn't actually see the guy playing, so I just pointed my mic up and recorded the chair in front of me. I'll try to add it in later, I can't seem to load it here right now.

We left the church and made our way across the river, trying to make our way to the monastary on the hill. On our way we found a Swedish candy store, and stocked up on various gummy products: bears, worms, vampire teeth (did I mention this was Halloween?). It was a steep hike, but it was totally worth it as we got an excellent view of the city at night! It was getting a bit late now, so we decided to head back to the train station, but we wanted to stop at a few sites along the way. First was a big garden where a scene from the Sound of Music was filmed (Somehow a large percentage of us knew some songs...) and the second was another awesome playground not far from the garden. This one had a short rock climbing wall that led to a slide, and this musical toy where you stepped on bronze stepping blocks and a bell of a certain note rang. Those spoiled Austrian kids!

We caught the right train home, direct, so we could nap without fear of ending up in Italy or something. Made it home safe and sound, then promptly fell asleep!