Dusseldorf and Cologne, Germany

I flew to Dusseldorf and Cologne this weekend with my friend Kinsey. She is from Chicago and has one month left in Munich before her 18 month rotation is over. We spent yesterday in Dusseldorf and then took the train from there to Cologne today.



This is Dusseldorf and the Rhine River.


Dusseldorf is known for a type of beer called alt. It tastes similar to a pale ale, which is very different from the type of beer we have here in Munich. The other noticable difference is the size of serving! The beers in Dusseldorf were served in .25L glasses (basically a glorified juice glass), whereas it is almost impossible to order a beer in Munich any smaller than .5L (pint) or the big 1L mug.


Interesting buildings...

This is the new EY building in Dusseldorf (yes, only 2 nerdy accountants take pictures of their workplaces). It's all glass, so the views from the top floor were really good.

Me and Kinsey at O'Reilly's Irish Pub in Dusseldorf.

This is a cathedral in Cologne. They started building it around 1250 and didn't finish until almost 1900. It is one of the biggest in Europe and is supposed to have the largest height-to-width ratio of any chuch of its kind. The two spires are over 500 feet tall. It's so big that it was hard to get any good pictures. The inside was even more impressive than the outside.

This is supposed to contain the cloaks and remains of the three wise men.

Coincidence! I am reading a WWII book right now and on the flight back to Munich, this was on one of the pages I read. It was really neat knowing that I had just been there a few hours ago and even crossed that bridge that got bombed and fell into the Rhine. The church actually was untouched somehow, but everything around it is just rubble. Cologne was one of the most heavily bombed cities in Germany. One of the quotes in the book is from a newspaper article and says, "Cologne is finished, literally erased from the map forever." Another line was that Eisenhower's Chief of Staff said it was a "picture of absolute destruction greater than I had seen anywhere".

Lederhosen

I did go skiing this weekend, but I'm sure you are getting tired of reading about that, so I will skip that this week. I bought a pair of lederhosen today, complete with suspenders, a traditional Bavarian shirt, and shoes. You can get these at most stores here, but I went to an authentic store suggested by the locals. If you're going to do it, you might as well do it right, huh! The first time I'll wear it is coming up in a couple weeks at a festival called "Starkbierfest". I will have a post on this later, but thought I would at least let you know what it is.


I stole this from a website called bayerntrips.com: "Everyone has heard of Oktoberfest. Starkbierfest is almost unknown. It’s like its big cousin, but somehow better. Oompah music mixed with Oldies we all know. Hearty fare complements the beer and attempts to stave off the effects of the 8.1% alcohol beer. Thousands on their feet, dancing on benches, singing along to the music. And laughter, lots of laughter. This is an evening at Paulaner am Nockherherg, the prime location of Bavaria’s Starkbierfest. It all began with a monk named, Salvator. Required to refrain from food for 40 days in observance of Jesus’ time in the desert, Salvator found a loophole: Eating is denied, but drinking is allowed. Thus was born the Starkbier, the hefty bock. Yes, it is higher in alcohol, but the name derives from its being brewed with less water and, therefore, more grain. A liter, it is said, holds the equivalent of 16 loaves of bread!"

I stole this from a website called toytowngermany.com: "Starkbier is a strong beer which is consumed in Germany during Lent. The "strength" of the beer is not referring to the alcohol content, instead it describes the concentration of dissolved solids: the starch, sugars, proteins and minerals. The technical name for these solids is the "Wort". This being Germany, the supreme land of rules and regulations, you'll probably not be surprised to learn there are laws governing which beers may qualify as Starkbier. There are two types of Starkbier: Bockbier and Dopplebock. Bockbier must be at least 16% wort whilst Doppelbock must be at least 18%. The famous "Salvator" Starkbier brewed by Paulaner weighs in at 18.3% wort. It's a Doppelbock. This means that for every liter of Starkbier, if you boil away the water and alcohol you have 183 grammes of solids remaining. Or, in layman's terms, one Mass (liter) contains roughly the same amount of Stuff as 16 loaves of bread. Hence: liquid food. For the monks, fluid doesn't break fasting rules."

Now if this isn't stylish, I don't know what is!

It doesn't get any better! (Skiing in St. Anton)

Yes, imagine that...I went skiing again. 6 of us left early Friday morning to St. Anton's in Austria for a 3-day ski weekend. The snow was absolutely incredible and the resort was really nice too. It snowed all day Friday and half the day Saturday and then got clear on Sunday. All day Friday and Saturday we were in waist-deep powder and sometimes it would seriously come up to your shoulders! When you fell, you literally buried yourself and had to dig out of it unless you did a somersault-like flip or roll to avoid going so deep (which of course takes skill, and no luck right?). We skiied "off-piste" (off of the trails) the whole time and were the first ones to make tracks a lot of the time. Some of the areas were really steep too, so it felt like your shoulders were touching the side of the mountain at times. I should probably not go skiing anymore because I can't imagine a better time! (But of course I already signed up for the bus for next weekend's trip on Saturday.)

Juan and Justin are covered, but that is mostly just from kicking up so much powder (and maybe a little dusting when they did fall)! Juan is Alissa's friend from the US who flew in for the weekend. He was on a ski team in Ruidoso, NM, so was really good. He and Justin are hard to keep up with!

This is one of Alissa that shows how deep it was.

STRRRRRAIGHT down!

These three were taken on our favorite "run" of the weekend. It was really long and had a lot of variety in terrain. Nobody else had skiied it when we first tried it, so we were one of the few people ever on it every day.

The town of St. Anton.

Alissa, me and Juan at Apres Ski.

Saalbach, Austria Skiing

Another Saturday, another day of skiing. Justin and I took the bus to Saalbach, Austria. The morning started off with really icy, cloudy, and windy conditions, but by about 11, the skies cleared and the snow started softening up. By the end of the day, it was right at freezing at the top of the mountain and 50 at the bottom, so it actually got slushy just like spring skiing.

After skiing, we met some friends for a nice dinner at a French crepe place in Munich (lots of irony in that sentence huh...French...good food...French restaurant in Munich. HA!). I had had dessert crepes before, but never a dinner crepe. It was really good actually and of course the dessert one was outstanding. Peaches, cream, caramel, vanilla sauce, a little ice cream, and some grand marnier to top it off. Mmmm!

Weekend Skiing in Soll, Austria

I don't want to make this my skiing blog, but being so close to so many resorts in the Alps is too good to pass up. I know, it's a rough life. 11 of us drove to Soll, Austria after work on Friday and rented a couple condos. The ski resort is called SkiWelt, which is made up of a few mountains and 9 small towns at the base. There are 91 lifts, so it is a pretty big place. Saturday was really cold and so foggy you literally couldn't see much more than 25 feet at times, so it made the skiing pretty miserable. From the very top of one of the lifts, you could get above the clouds, which made for a really impressive sight.

We wanted to go sledding Saturday night, but they closed early for some reason. So of course we improvised and made our own sledding and had a great time. On Sunday, the weather was perfect. They got a couple inches of snow Saturday night and we had crystal clear skies all day.

These are the pictures from the top of the mountain above the fog on Saturday.

Here's the crew. From left to right: Me, Justin, Andrea, Kelly, Chris, Kerry, Sarah, Jenny, Andi, and laying in the front are Alissa and Kinsey. Scary...only 2 non-accountants in the whole group. Don't worry, we had all the bills divided in no time!