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!

Powder! at Alpbachtal, Austria

Ok, so I've been complaining about the snow here the last two posts. Well, we finally got into some deep powder today! We also had unbelievable weather. It was probably just below freezing so the snow was good and we were plenty warm. I went on the ski bus with the Munich Ski Club with a few friends this time. My friends Justin, Kinsey, Chris and his fiance Kerry, and their friend Erika joined us this weekend for a trip to Alpabchtal, Austria (Kinsey and Chris are from Chicago and also work for EY). It is east of Innsbruck and about an hour and a half from Munich by bus. So, back to the powder...the runs were pretty packed down, but Justin and I went to the backside and found quite a bit of "boot-high" powder for a change just off the marked runs. Justin is a really good skiier, so he definitely pushes me to do things I normally wouldn't do (hence one of the reasons I got a helmet!). Anyway, everyone else took lessons, so Justin and I skiied together all day and had a wonderful day of skiing! Needless to say, I'm going to be feeling this one in my thighs tomorrow!

Alright, so Justin decided it would be a good idea to take this one unmarked trail (are you getting the general theme here!) that had really deep powder, so of course I followed him. Well, let's just say we crossed 2 barbed-wire fences on the way and had to go over/around a few hay bales. Yeah, not really something we should have been on! So anyway, we came to this one area where there was no way down but STRAIGHT down on a path no wider than our skis that was really icy. This picture doesn't do it justice, but Justin went first and tried to go down as far sideways as he could to keep his speed down. Well, you can see where he ended up. So I of course tried to go straight down and take the "jump" at the bottom instead. Yeah....I made the jump alright, but I landed in such deep powder that I literally did a summersault and ended up in a very similar position to him, but on the other side of the tree at least. What a fun day! It's probably good that nobody had a video camera or we might have made America's Funniest Home Videos a time or two...or at least America's Stupidest Videos, one of the two!

Where's Justin?
HA!, there he is...buried!

Skiing at Obertauern, Austria

My two friends Justin and Alissa and I went to Obertauern, Austria to ski today. It is south of Salzburg, so is about 2 and a half hours southeast of Munich. Even though it was fairly far in comparison to a lot of other places, we heard they just got new snow and it is a pretty big resort. The weather was great most of the day until mid-afternoon and then the clouds came and it got hard to see. The snow wasn't too bad. I never thought I was or realized it, but I think skiing so much in Colorado made me become a snow snob. Even though they had just gotten some new snow a day or so ago, it still wasn't "Colorado powder". All of those fun "back bowl" areas that almost always have powder have been really chunky and icy here so far. Maybe we just haven't been lucky either. However, the runs here seem to be a lot steeper and are actually a lot of fun because of it. The other thing they have here are heated seats (on a few lifts) and "bubble covers" over the chair lifts, which make a huge difference especially toward the top if it is windy. Neither place had long lines either, so we are definitely getting plenty of ski time in!

The first time I was in Europe and at the Hofbrauhaus, I thought it was strange everyone was singing along to John Denver's "Take Me Home, Country Roads" song. Well, it is a German and Austrian favorite apparently and everyone was singing it during Apre's Ski today too. Needless to say, some of the music you hear here just makes you laugh. We heard a Milli Vanilli song today at lunch! I am not even kidding!

Ski Trip to Axamer Lizum

A few friends and I joined the Munich Ski Club, which takes weekly bus trips to different ski resorts each weekend. This weekend 2 friends and I went to Axamer Lizum, which is just outside of Innsbruck, Austria (or about 2 hrs from Munich) and was used for the 1964 and 1976 Olympics. They hadn't received any new snow since January 1st, so the snow was pretty crunchy/icy in spots, but we had a great time anyway. I can never complain about the scenery! I also learned that skiing in Europe is more than just skiing though. Apre´s Ski (which pretty much translates to after ski party - literally "after ski") is part of the experience and entails listening to "party" music, drinking and dancing after the last run of the day.

My friend Alissa and I taking a pre-lunch break for a warm drink.

This is a view from the top of the mountain down into the town of Innsbruck (right side of the picture).

This is the band that was playing during lunch. Not a bad view behind them!

This is me and my friends Alissa and Justin at Apre´s Ski.

This is a video of someone paragliding while skiing. He just skiied down enough to pick up some speed and then his parachute took over (it's hard to see, but he did a flip right at first too). You can hear the band in the above picture playing in the background...and yodeling. Yep, yodeling. Gotta love Austria!