Playing in the snow

Well, as it continued to snow (over 16 inches total), we took advantage of it. A visit to the Theresenwiese - the huge park where Oktoberfest is held – yielded an interesting view of a snow-covered Lady Bavaria. And our balcony provided a handy place to keep beer cold. Look at all of the snow on the table: Saturday I purchased some cheap snow pants, we got a couple of cheap sleds, and headed out to Olympic Park to go sledding on the hill. Tons of fun, and a first for Kyle! The beer garden there was even open which provided for a tasty gluhwein break. Wonderful weekend taking advantage of the snow. Amazingly, after being in the -10ºC range for nearly the whole week, Sunday it crept up to +6ºC, melting most of the snow, so we headed out to the zoo, where we were able to see the newborn baby Gorilla. Until next time…

SNOW SNOW SNOW!

This is absolutley amazing. Yesterday was nothing. It snowed all night long, and hasn't really stopped today. Check it out! I think we have at least 8 inches on the table on our blacony, which is even somewhat under an eave. It's also pretty neat as here they even have sidewalk snow plows - but man will they run you over if you don't get out of the way!

My shoes are completely lacking - I'm going to have to start looking for something that goes up over my ankle at least, preferably with some sort of water resistance - I just want to go play in it all! It was great going class today - there are quite a few people there like myself who are definitely not used to snow, and we're all looking forward to building snow men ;)

Real snow!

All the rumors were true, and we now have snow! This is much better than that brief little bit back in November. Real snow – all night long, and most of the day today. I was home from class today waiting on the dishwasher repairman (broken motor – now to see what the landlords say: new motor or new machine). After he left I headed out to the Englischer Garten to check out the scenery – quite beautiful, quiet, serene - and so clean. I haven’t seen snow coming down like this in a while. More is expected tonite and tomorrow – yippee!

Watch out for Hurricane Kyrill

Well, while Austin was shut down for a snow/ice storm, Munich was shut down Thursday afternoon and Friday for a wind storm. Seriously. Apparently hurricanes are not just over water, and some of them don’t even have any rain! The S-bahns were partially shut down, as they run above ground – trees fall over the tracks, and it takes a while to get them off and the train running again. All over Germany it was actually quite serious, with many deaths. And in Berlin, the new train station had a few problems – including a girder that fell down – how, I’m not quite sure. So, trains all over Germany were having a hard time getting were they needed to go, not to mention the airplanes. Ah well, all over now – back to school and work for us.

Schönes wochenende

Friday we went to a birthday party of one of Kyle’s coworkers, Andy (he’s the other guy that tapped a keg at Elke’s party back in November). Good evening, and made it back just in time to catch the last train home. Saturday we headed out with Christian and Elke to Wurzburg, on their kind invitation. Elke’s family has a building there in which they conveniently still have a flat, so we were able to stay there and tour the city while they took care of some business with the rented space on the first floor. Her family has owned the building since the late 40s, and one of the tenants is a 95 year old woman (living on the 4th floor – no elevator!) who has been there since the building was built. Saturday evening we went to a great little weinstube in town. A class had just gotten out, and as we were ordering the red wine sampler, the sommelier came over and explained in wonderful detail the wines of the region, the specific wines we were tasting, and why red is better than white! The next day we traveled to a teeny town called Sommerhausen (Winterhausen is just across the main road) on the way home. Wonderful time, and we’ve realized that back in Austin we should really take more advantage of our weekends, as short day trips can really complete a weekend.