Sunday, May 24, 2009

Week 12: The Ultimate Deutschland Experience

This was a great weekend, full of hardcore DE experiences. And another entry where video need to help me out to really get some of this across.

Since Thursday was a holiday, we had 3+ days to play with and couldn't go out of town cause 1/2 of Eric's birthday present kept us here for Saturday. More about that, when I get to Saturday. :)

Thursday was a fantastic and unexpected pretty day, so off we drove, southbound to the DE. Here's a cool map you can see of where we went! First stop was Kochelsee, a lovely lake surrounded by mountains. We had some cheese, crackers, juice, bier, and chocolate, dunked the kids, went for "brief" alpine swims, and saw an old german lady sunbathing topless. Classic DE.

Back in the car, and southward where we got a little "lost" and ended up on a very bad, winding, SKINNY road. After passing the a couple huts and t-bars, realized we were driving on the cat-track of a ski area! hmm. A nice lady hiking pointed us to the less steep "cat track" and we ended up at this drop-dead gorgeous, Heidi-like place with a bierhut, little lake, and gang of dirt bikers. Perfect! We stayed there for a while (while Eric had a conference call... ) and picked flowers, rolled in grass, and took pictures. Made me want to break out in Sound of Music leaps and singing.


Back in the car, found a lonely goat/sheepherd high on a hill, yodelodo yodelodo yo hey hoo, and wandered towards Garmisch- which we've been within 10 miles of now 3 times, but have never gone in! Stopped at a restaurant to get dinner and WOW- yodeling accordian player, dancing lederhosen boys-- again, this was a good day.

Friday was somewhat normal because Eric had to work, but then comes Saturday. I'll turn it over to Eric to describe his day:

For my birthday, Laurie gave me a day of driving at the BMW Fahrer Training. They basically handed us a 270 HP 330 and we got to run through the courses. Braking- fun. Braking with an obsticle- very
fun. Understeer training on a tight circle- awesome. Oversteer training on a tight loop with sprinklers- very awesome. Overall, a fun day and good training on how to drive a car under extreme circumstances. The good part is that I learned how to drive a high performance BMW, not sure if this will help with driving a lumbering van to Mazama. We posted a short version of the video here.
For the longer 10 minute version, click here to see it on YouTube. The instructor's directions are particularly humorous.

Meanwhile, the kids and I rode the bike up the Isar about 15 KM and found a nice spot to sit and play with rocks. Miles found two sticks that became his bass guitar, and they had a little impromptu show on the beach. That night, we took the tram to Hirschgarten, a beer garden we've been meaning to go to. I think it's moved to near the top of the list- every food you could imagine (DE food, that is), ping pong tables everywhere, boules, basketball, a carousel, and several playgrounds. Oh, and did I mention the deer you can feed? Yeah. Great place. :)

AND TODAY, Sunday, I am happy to say, I am caught up on the blog. :) This might end up being my favorite DE slideshow- classic. http://www.flickr.com/photos/8611188@N02/sets/72157618760019244/show/

1 comment:

  1. Oh my! I haven't even watched the slideshow yet but your blog ROCKS! I love the interimittent videos -- the pics and narratives are awesome as usual. Thanks for sharing this! Matt is, I am sure, so jealous re: Eric's special b-day gift. Wonderful! Amy

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