Skiing the Alps

At the recommendation of PW and MTU colleagues alike, Zach and I drove south to Garmisch-Partenkirchen to ski at the Garmisch-Classic Ski Resort.  There were three mountains at this resort, Zugspitze (2962 m), Alpspitze (2628 m), and Kreuzjoch (1719 m), so it was much bigger than any other place I've skied.  We started with a couple runs on the smaller Kreuzjoch and ended the day traveling near to the top (probably just shy of 2000 m) of Alpspitze.  It was incredibly fun, even though I ended up with quite a few bumps and bruises from my many spills.  Zach's much better than I am, so even though he was the first one to fall (HA!) he never fell again.

Skiing aside, the view was spectacular.  I never ever thought I'd even be in the Alps, nevermind skiing at the top of the mountains, so this was a fantastic experience.  Here are some pictures to prove it.

Don't worry, Mom.  I wore a helmet!

More pictures on Flickr

Friday Evening Sunset

We managed to get out of work on the earlier side of things today, so we beat the traffic and actually made it to the hotel in time to catch the sunset.  The sky was perfectly clear and the entire scene was gorgeous.  Nothing much else to say about it; just check out the pictures.

Link to Flickr album

Augustiner-Bräu

Last night Zach and I tried a restaurant that we found near the top of the list on Trip Advisor, Opatija.  This restaurant served Mediterranean and Bavarian food.  We were looking for something a little lighter after having several heavy meals in a row the past few days, so we both got fish dishes.  Mine was a mixture of a couple types of fillets, some octopus, squid, and king prawn.  All-in-all it was good, but not great.  Oh well.

Tonight, however, we headed over to Augustiner-Bräu (pronounced Augustiner-Broy), the oldest brewery in München.  It was founded in 1328 by Augustinian monks and has a fantastic-looking interior that is a rare example of the architecture, design, and atmosphere of Munich restaurants before World War I, according to my informative guide book.  I didn't get a great picture of it because I was lazy and didn't feel like standing up, so I'll have to get a better one the next time I go back.  You can see some of the aesthetics though, and the atmosphere was pretty great!

A bad picture of a good restaurant.

My meal was pretty great too.  I had a pretzel with a Dunkel to start, of course, and then ordered roasted wild boar with juniper sauce, creamed mushrooms, homemade bread dumplings, and cranberries.  The boar and mushrooms were very tasty.  The bread dumplings could have been better, but I don't really know how since I've never tried them before, and the cranberries were, well, cranberry delicious too.  Overall, it's a cool place with some good food that I would definitely go back to.

One more for the coaster collection.

Link to Flickr Album

Der Pschorr and Birthday Treats

Today is my birthday, so I wanted to go back to the best restaurant we'd been to so far, Der Pschorr.  This time, Zach tried the beef medallions that I had last time (but with a slightly different sauce), and I went for the Rabbit Ragout with a side of gnocchi and salad.  After scarfing down the main course and one Hacker-Pschorr Müncner Dunkel, Zach and I got the apple pie for dessert.  Now, this wasn't your typical American apple pie.  This was more like apple cider donuts stuffed with apple.  IT WAS AMAZING!  Definitely one of the best desserts either of us has ever had.  It's going to be hard not to order that again every time I go back there.

Der Pschorr's interior with an unusually few amount of people inside.

Even though dinner was great, what really made my day was coming back to my hotel room to find two small containers of Häagen-Dazs Belgian Chocolate ice cream and a small birthday cake waiting for me!  As it turns out, my extremely thoughtful, incredible girlfriend had called the hotel asking them to bring me ice cream.  They insisted on cake, but she insisted on ice cream because she knows I love that way more than cake, so I ended up with both.  The ice cream was great, the cake was meh, but overall the fact that Nell did that for me made up for the fact that we are an ocean apart.  She's the best.

My birthday surprise from Nell!

Link to Flicker album.

The Largest Schnitzel In Town

You read that correctly.  Zach and I headed into the University District tonight to a small place called Steinheil 16.  A co-worker recommended it to us saying, "It has the biggest schnitzel in the city."  (Don't feel bad, all of the German-speaking people at the table giggled at that too.)  So, always wanting to try new things, we said "Why not?"  We went in, ordered two half-liters of Augustiner Dunkel and two pork Wiener Schnitzels, then sat back and waited.  When our food was brought out to the table, we really couldn't believe our eyes.  These things were MASSIVE!  Almost as large as the plate itself.  Remember when you were a kid and your friends told you that if your hand was bigger than your face you had cancer?  And then when you checked, they made you smack yourself in the face?  Well, if someone said the same to you about the schnitzel, you'd just know right away that you had the worst cancer imaginable without even having to check.

Thankfully, they were very thin pieces, so you really weren't getting as much meat as it seemed like, but it was still really heavy (and delicious).  Good thing we had a long walk back to the hotel to burn that one off.

The Pork Weiner Schnitzel from Steinheil.

Olympiaturm and Exploring Old Town

We started off today taking the U-Bahn north from our usual station, which was a first for us.  Our destination, the Olympiaturm (Olympic Tower), is the highest building in Munich, and we were told it provided excellent views of the city and countryside beyond.  Once again, the guys at work gave us good advice because the views were absolutely stunning.  There was some cloud cover, but it was high enough that we were able to see all the way to the Alps!  I'll probably go back on a sunny day to get some better pictures, but it was really amazing to see the whole city splayed out in front of us with the Alps on the horizon.  Definitely something worth doing if you ever come to Munich.

View south from Olympiaturm

Hopping back on the U-Bahn, we made our way down south of Marienplatz to Sendlinger Tor, the southern gate to the old city, which was build around 1300 B.C.  We then walked up Sendlinger Strasse past Asamkirche to the Viktualienmarkt.  Disappointingly, the market isn't open on Sundays, so we'll have to go back another time.  So, we headed over to Marienplatz to catch the Glockenspiel at noon.  The Glockenspiel, if you don't know, is a set of figurines in the clock tower of the Neues Rathaus that move and dance to music a few times a day.  It was interesting and worth seeing once.  I took a couple of videos of the Glockenspiel in action that I will upload somewhere later.

After the Glockenspiel's spiel we walked the short distance over to Peterskirche (St. Peter's Church), which is a Roman Catholic church sitting on the highest point of the Old Town, according to my guide book.  The church, Munich's oldest public building and the oldest church in the district, was actually formed with part of a monastery from which Munich received its name (Mönchen = monks).  Atop the church sits a 91-meter-tall tower built in the 17th century.  To get to the viewing platform at the top of the tower, we had to take a very skinny, very long staircase that could not fit two people side-by-side.  Fortunately, the leg workout was worth it because the view from the top was excellent.  We had an awesome view of the Old Town and, of course, the Alps on the horizon.  Thanks to Nell for the suggestion on this one!

Frauenkirche, Neues Rathaus, and Olympiaturm in the distance,
as viewed from Peterskirche.

Next, we headed west from Marienplatz to Karlstor, the western gate to the Old Town.  From there we turned north into the northern half of Old Town and meandered our way to Odeonsplatz, where we had a great view of the Theatinerkirche and Feldherrnhalle.  Feldhernnhalle was the sight of Adolf Hitler's failed coup attempt in November 1923, known as the Hitlerputsch.  He used his time in prison that followed this failed coup to write Mein Kampf, and, well, you know the rest.  We then walked through the Hofgarten, past the northern side of the famous Residenz and the Bayerische Staatskanzlei (Bavarian State Chancellery), and turned south to return to Marienplatz.  Another quick U-Bahn ride dropped us off near the Paulaner Bräuhaus, our destination for a late lunch.  After another excellent meal, this one consisting of the Braumeister Schnitzel (pork with a spicy crust, potato gnocchi, and root vegetables) and a half-liter of the Paulaner Dunkler Wickerl (brewed in-house), we called it a day.

Flicker photos:  https://www.flickr.com/gp/finigdan/8SW5nv