Ah, queso...

My favorite is Mag Mud, which we gladly shared with our friends one night. We've also had the opportunity to go to the McKinney Architects holiday party - great to see everyone again, as well as meet the new faces. And other wonderful dinners with friends back here in Austin throughout the week. We've been staying with friends here in Austin, taking up a whole room for well over a week, and are quite grateful.
Now, though, on to our holiday adventures. Hope everyone has a happy holiday season, and best wishes for a wonderful New Year!

Merry Christmas!

The In-Laws Visit

No not the above, but this loverly couple: The creature in the top photo is actually this thing called Krampus which look quite evil and scary. We've encountered them several times recently, along with nearby children crying. Still don't quite understand how you can mix something so evil with something so nice like St. Nick, but ah well.

In any case, we've been having a ball going to Rothenburg and Salzburg, and now Munich, especially with all of the Christmas markets. As always, trains make for a great way to catch up on your sleep.

Tis' the season - prost !

All quiet...

On Saturday Heather & Todd ended up going to Salzburg for the day, while Amit arrived in Munich from visiting Regensburg. We were able to give him an overview of Munich from the top of St. Peter's before heading over to the ice skating rink at Karlsplatz, which conveniently has gluhwein during the holiday season. After dinner, we met up with Heather & Todd at the Hofbrauhaus to give our visitors some of that Oktoberfest/ gemutlichkeit feeling. After sleeping in the next day, Kyle treated us all to a bike tour (thankfully the weather cooperated!). We finished up at the Chinesischer Turm beer garden.

All in all a great weekend. We greatly appreciate having visitors, and hope they had as much fun as we did!

O'zapft is! (It's tapped!)

Last nite we went to a birthday party for one of Kyle's co-workers' girlfriend. She was turning 30, and rented out half of a pub to celebrate. Above you can see Heather, Todd, Elke (the birthday girl), and Kyle toasting. As part of the celebrations, they purchased old-fashioned wooden kegs of Augustiner to tap - and Kyle was able to open one of them! Below he is standing with Andy, one of his co-workers, in front of one of the kegs. Quite enjoyable night, and we all just barely made it back to the U-bahn station in time to catch the last train back.

Visitors from a far away land

This week our first visitors arrived - friends Heather and Todd from Austin. After arriving Wednesday morning, we made a quick stop at the apartment for some refreshing, and then headed out to the Dachau concentration camp. That evening we joined up with Kyle for a traditional Bavarian meal. The following day Heather, Todd and I headed out to the Neuschwanstein and Hohenschwangau castles. Hohenschwangau, seen in the background of the following photo, is where the previously mentioned Mad King Ludwig II grew up during some summer holidays, .

Neuschwantstein (as seen in the photo at the top) was one of the amazing castles he planned when he was king, though this one was never completely finished. Gorgeous views all around, though on the way there I think Todd and Heather were still a bit jet lagged....