Jan 18 to 30

Jan 18 - Linda flew back to Houston today to check on the house and will fly to Chicago to surprise her mom on Saturday, so I’ll be doing the blog until she gets back which won’t be until March 1.   

I went skiing over the weekend at Spitzensee, a German ski area just over an hour from Munich.  A friend from my office has a cabin just outside the ski area and invited me and another American who was in Munich for meetings to spend the weekend.  The cabin was built in the 1880's.  It had some modern conveniences such as running water and electricity, but not much else.  There was no road to the cabin so we had to hike by snow shoe about 1/2 mile from the nearest parking area.  The cabin is heated by a wood stove and it warmed up to 12C (54F) after a few hours.  The weather and skiing were great.




View from the Cabin



Path to the cabin. The cabin is near the top of the photo.

I learned a Bavarian card game called Watten.  Watten is played with German suited cards, with suits of acorns, leaves, hearts and bells. A 32 card pack is used, the cards in each suit being the ace (As or Sau), king (König), over (Ober), under (Unter), 10, 9, 8, 7.  The object is to win at least 3 of the 5 hands.

Three of the cards are called Kritische; they are permanent trumps, and are always the highest cards whatever other trumps are chosen. These are:
1.Maxi - the king of hearts - the highest trump
2.Belli - the seven of bells - second highest
3.Spritzer or Soacha - the seven of acorns - third highest

Belli

Spritzer

On Sunday I didn't have a ski pass for the lift nearest the cabin so we talked to the lift operator to let me go up the lift to get to the office to buy the pass.  The operator said OK, but I had to share a drink of Schnapps with the operator before I could go on the lift.

Jan 26 – I went to an Irish pub after work to celebrate Australia Day with some of the English speaking colleagues from work.  There were a lot of people there, but the only Australian may have been the one colleague from the office.  I guess it was a good reason to go out and have a beer.

I also ran into the two gay guys that Linda saw this summer.  They both have long blond hair and one was wearing pink hot pants with bows on the side and tall white go-go boots.  The temperature was in the mid 20’s.  They were quite a sight.  They got off at the same train stop I did, so I walked very fast to the escalator so I wouldn’t have to ride up the escalator behind them.

Jan 30 – I went skiing again with the Ski Club to the Itter ski resort in Austria.  The resort is very big and we didn’t see half of it.  The weather was spectacular with blue skies and temperatures in the mid 20’s.  I started skiing with the group but on the third run they went down a black run and after I got up from my two falls, the group was no where to be seen.  Luckily we made plans to meet at one of the many restaurants located in the ski runs.  After a beer and bowl of goulash, we skied together until around 4:00.  This was an Apres Ski trip, meaning that everyone meets at one of the bars for drinks before heading to the bus for the ride home.