6/26/2011 Pictures

OK, so Blogger is really stupid. Or my computer is really stupid. Possibly I am really stupid, but that is unlikely. More likely is that all three are true. That said...

I had hoped to add some pictures to previous posts, but it seems I am not allowed to do so. So here are a few, along with commentary. This year, I'll put them up more promptly - really!

Here is my Granddaughter, Jaden, at the Volksfest in Vilsek. This really swell event is a fundraiser for the local community music school and town band. And they serve you the local beer - in mugs the size of your head!

The local suds are made by the Winkler Brewery, who also make a really weird Cola/Orange mix thing that Z really likes. The beer is light and refreshing - lawnmower beer.

Bamberg - an amazingly beautiful place. And home to 8 breweries! This is where Rauchbeir comes from. Dark and smokey, it's really swell with smoked cheese or a smoked brot (hey, I wasn't always a veg!).

Hofbrau! Disneyland for beer drinkers! The party never stops. And if you've had a little much, look carefully in the tree for the local Starbucks (they're everywhere!).

I was taken with this fence in Munich. It's in the right clef and everything.

Marienplatz - one of the most beautiful places on earth. Go vists this amazing place. Listen to Uncle Dave. You won't be sorry.

My how time flies. Another year has gone by, and I still have pictures from last year to load so I can make room for pictures for this year. So anyway, here is a taste of Vilseck, Kyra and Greg's home away from home...

Winkler Brau is the town suds. This is the front of the brewery. We drank a lot of this stuff while we were there. Nice session beer. Looking forward to drinking more of it. Soon...

This view is just down the hill from the bakery, on my morning walk. I liked the flowers on the windows. Some summer when I am home to take care of them, I'm going to do that.

8/3/2008, Vilseck

Z cleaned house today, and I took Jaden for another walk to keep her out of the way (and trying to create a habit that we hope she will stick with). In downtown Viseck we discovered that there is a folkfest going on here, too. So this afternoon, we all wandered down to catch the entertainment. Unfortunately, the bands don’t play until later. Seems the whole thing is a fundraiser for the local community band program. We did get a chance to enjoy the local suds from the brewery down the street, Winkler Bräu. A nice session lager, the nose has some floral notes, but is mostly malt. There is a nice balance of bittering hops with the sweetness of the malt, and a bitter-sweet kiss off in the back of your throat as it slides on by. Most enjoyable, especially by the Maβ!

7/27/2008, Vilseck, Rothenberg ob de Tauber

So last night I took my evening "constitutional" around town. Vilseck is really a very beautiful and quaint village, nice old German buildings, a beautiful, onion-domed, church, very nice and friendly folks decked out in traditional lederhosen and dirndls – no really, beautiful, quaint, old, church, and lederhosen and dirndls, I think there was a wine festival going on downtown. They were all very nice, though. I felt right at home.

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Today we went to Rothenburg ob der Tauber. About an hour from here by car, Rothenburg is the German Disneyland (and I mean that in the best aspects of the word). If you were to imaging the typical German village that you see at Oktoberfests and in movies and things like that, Rothenburg is your place. Of course it comes with the huge crowd of tourist to match.

We started by hunting down a place to eat. The nice café had wonderful food on the central square, straight from central casting. Amazing views and good food – give me a break. Oh, yes – and it’s also a brewery. Can you believe it? So the house Kellerbier is a nice, pretty golden brown color, with a sudsy ring of foam winking at you from the top. Nice balance of hops to malt without blowing you out of the water, and a little tang of the hops on the back of your tongue. A wonderful little session beer.

Walking around after lunch it is a little hard to believe this place. You see another one of those places that defies description without using that trite, overused travel vocabulary. And that’s OK. It was swell. We went to Käthe Wohlfart Christmas store and ogled ornaments. We looked at great old buildings, with every new square a new panorama of amazing views. There are the cute building signs. The half-timbered construction on walls. The amazing churches. The fortress walls. It was all so cool and all so tritely tourist. I loved every minute of it.

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Z is putting her college degree to use tonight and taking some pictures of Keyra’s college friends. It should be an entertaining end to a wonderful day.

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On a more serious note, I am sad to note the passing of one of my biggest fans, Florence Gross. Pat Zollner’s mom (of polka band fame), Florence always told me that I was her favorite trumpet player. It was always a joy to see her face in the audience at Mt. Angel, and I will miss her this year, and every year.

7\8\ö8 Vilseck to Keszthely

So no promises on this entry. I am typing today on Vera´s keyboard which is in Hungarian. It has about a million more keys than I am used to, the "Z" and "Y" key have been switched, and most of the punctuation marks don´t work - as you can see from the title of this post.

Sunday, and the trip from Vilseck to Keszthely...

Kyra drove the first section of the trip, and I took over just before the Austrian border. What fun! The autobahn is pretty cool. Before we crossed the border into Austria I touched on 11ö a couple of times. Austria has a speed limit, so I had to content myself with crusing along at 13ö KMH (that between 85 and 9ö MPH for you slowpokes at home!).

The autobahn system is set up so that you don't travel into any towns, just skirt the edges. As a result you get to see a lot of wooded hillsides and, over in the distance, many little quaint villages, huge castles, towering chuch towers, etc. Since you don't get to see any of them up close and personal, you have a lot of time to sit and question. I drove through three countries in a day. Why three countries? Germany and Austria share a language, the architecture is similar in all three countries, the social customs are similar. What makes it all so different? Which leads on to introspection about culture. I am fortunate enough to get to play in a band with several great friends who perform the folk music of Germany. Why Germany? What draws people to hear the folk music of a culture that is not their own? What is folk music? Dang it, I almost missed that turn.

We reached Peter and Vera's in the late afternoon, just in time for dinner. First the obligatory palinka - no make that two. Apricot, and very good stuff too. And then dinner - chicken parprikas for the carnivores, and "chicken" paprikas with tofu for the vegetarian. Vera has been playing around with tofu and should publish a cookbook. She is doing some amazing things with the stuff.

After a couple of glasses of Peter's remarkably tasty home grown wine, we wandered down to listen two a couple of tunes from the band playing downtown. Classic garage band, bass player working hard at being serious, rhythm guitarist that is just a little too old and a little too bald to pull off the low guitar, preening for the ladies at the edge of the stage thing, lead guitarist that has the look but not quite the licks, drummer that was pretty OK, female lead vocalist dressed in the current hip fassion and placed front stage to be the center of attention. And - and this is what made it for me - the keyboard player who is a dead ringer for Steve Martin, look manerisms and everything. I was rolling the whole time. We finally gave up, grabed a gelatto and headed home for bed.

Monday.

A nice relaxing day by the lake. You pay 8öö forint and that gives you the run of the place for the day. Get there early enough and you can even have on of those cool deck chair things. We all relaxed in the sun, taking turns getting in to swim with Jaden, who stays in the water pretty much all day. I remember when I used to be able to do that. I spent my time not swiming reading the work at the center for the arts school next year (yes, I did do some work this summer!). It's called "The Creative Habit" by Twyla Tharp, and I highly recomend it to those of you with a creative bent. A facinating read about the process of creating and the work involved in doing so. Lunch was langos - basically an elephant ear with garlic instead of sugar. Pretty tasty.

Dinner, and another of Vera's tofu experiments. Tonight was Tofu Schnitzel: thinly sliced tofu with blue cheese in the middle, breaded and deep fried. I have mentioned before that Vera is the queen of cooking, but she excells at frying. This was pretty amazing stuff.

More beer notes:

Aktien Pilsner, Bayreuther Bierbrauerei AG, 4.9% by volume.

A beautiful light tawny brown with a slightly hoppy nose. Sweet and hops are well balanced in the front of the mouth, slight hop flavor in the back of the mouth that disappears a little too quickly. Not too big - another good session beer.

7/5/08 Vilseck and Weiden

Z and I started the day with a walk around Vilseck, a classic little village with tile roofs and quaint architecture. Z got a bit turned around and I saw a bit more of town than I counted on, but it was a pleasant morning for a walk and everything was so beautiful, so who cares. We stopped at the kondeterei on the way home for fresh pretzels and bread for breakfast.

Our afternoon was spent in Weiden shopping on the pedestrian mall. On a beautiful summer afternoon – not too hot and slightly cloudy – the place was packed with people. A fun place to people watch. We visited a fun trachten shop (http://www.trachten.de/) and checked out the lederhosen and dirndls, and then visited the department store down the street where I was able to score a leather loden jacket on a season ending clearance for cheap!

From there to the PX for – you guessed it – more shopping. Kyra’s friend Katie works there and, having just got off work, showed us all the killer deals and helped us find the bargains.

Dinner was at a small restaurant up the street. Schnitzle and salmon for the adults and a nice play area for Jaden, with ice cream sundaes for desert (except for Uncle Dave, who opted for another beer!).

We finished the day with chatting with Greg online and via web cam. us all the killer deals and helped us find the bargains.

Dinner was at a small restaurant up the street. Schnitzle and salmon for the adults and a nice play area for Jaden, with ice cream sundaes for desert (except for Uncle Dave, who opted for another beer!).

We finished the day with chatting with Greg online and via web cam – you will be happy to know that he seems to be doing well and is looking good – then some last minute packing and off to bed to rest up for the journey to Keszthely tomorrow.

7/3 & 4/08 Not in a Philadelphia

And we’re off.

Hailey picked us up at 6:00 a.m. after a very short night. We had a huge electrical storm with lots of thunder and lightning that made sleep somewhat unlikely. Alright, waiting to the last minute to pack probably didn’t help a whole lot either. On the plus side, we both got a whole lot more sleep than usual on the plane!

We did a play several years ago at VSAA that had a short piece called “Philadelphia” in it. According to author David Ives, to “be in a Philadelphia” meant that you could order anything you want; a burger, a chicken sandwich, and they will bring you a cheese steak. By these standards, you can’t be in a Philadelphia in Philadelphia, as there is no cheese steak to be had in the airport. We toyed with using our four hour layover to grab a cab and go downtown for one of the famous sandwiches. Needless to say, as a vegetarian, I wasn’t that into it. But Z would be, and that’s reason enough. We took a pass this time, but maybe on the way back.

You begin to notice on international trips that you are going through the looking glass as you catch the last leg of your flight. Increasingly the people around you speak in a language that is not yours. At this point, your attention is increasingly drawn to the way people behave, the cultural similarities and differences. A mother, with a tired but beautiful smile on her face trying to keep her daughter awake before the flight. A father and son, both with a laptop out, the former a PC the latter a Mac (I wonder if they argue over the commercials).

I was lucky enough to draw one of those people on the international leg of the flight that sits down in front of you and instantly drops the seat all the way back and then leaves it there for the remainder of the flight. It gets to be a little claustrophobic and hard to read and stuff. No I didn’t smack her or bounce the back of the chair around. But I thought about it.

The nice mom from the airport ended up sitting right next to us. Needless to say you start to worry a little on a flight where you are hoping to sleep a bit and you see a kid right next to you. The poor lady was obviously exhausted, but was completely devoted to her daughter. I took mom about two hours to get daughter to drop off, and then she slept for the rest of the flight. So did mom.

We were met in Munich by Kyra and Jaden. Jaden insisted that I sit in the back so we could talk on the hour-and-a-half ride to Vilseck, their home. Jaden has reached the age where she can explain anything, so the conversation was pretty humorous (“…a car is made by putting for wheels, and then you add the sides, and then you add the top, and then…”).

We celebrated the fourth with dinner and conversation with several of Kyra’s friends in Vilseck. Kim and Nick hosted a barbecue, with Katie and Russell and Z and I as guests, as well as a few drop-ins. The gentlemen needed to drop out for a bit after one of the guests left and had an accident on the way home (no one hurt). A pleasant evening of conversation.

Several of you commented on our last trip that you enjoyed the beer notes. There should be several this trip so I’ll try and keep you posted.

Meister Pils, Schwarben Bräu Breweri, Stuttgart, 4.9% by Volume

To be fair, this beer is past its pull date. That said; the beer is more malty than hoppy. The nose is supposed to be Tettnanger according to the label (yes, they sell themselves on their aromatics). Very flavorful taste on the front of the mouth, with a nice chewy flavor that is all malt. Disappears on the back of the palette quickly, with little contribution to the overall flavor. A nice session beer. And yes, I enjoyed my session. (www.schwabenbraeu.de)

7/02/08 Round Two!

And so the adventure continues again…

This trip we are scheduled to travel to Munich (you can hear the little bubbles calling my name, can’t you?), where Kyra will pick us up and take us to her home in Vilseck. From there Peter (Z’s father, if you are a bit behind), will pick us up and, with me at the wheel (can you say “autobahn?”) travel to Keszthely. We’ll hang out there for a couple of weeks with the family and see some stuff, maybe catch a play in Hungarian at the castle, possibly run up to Budapest and very likely Kecskemet, and then back to Kyra’s for some quality time in the land of beer and polkas (and so I am told culture and food and stuff like that).

Of course you notice that there are a lot of “possiblies” and “maybes” in the above list. If you have been following along so far, you know that the plan kind of exists in a fly-by-the-seat-of-your-pants way. So here is the wish list:

*I hope to see the castle in Keszthely this trip
*I would love to see the big ruin on the hill north of Keszthely
*I want to lay on the beach by what my granddaughter is now referring to as the “ocean” (Lake Balaton) and catch some sun and some z’s
*I would love to stop on one of the trips through and live out a lifelong dream of reading a paper and having a kaffee mit schlag in a little café in Vienna
*One word, Hofbrauhaus
*Oh yeah, and Kulmbach
*Oh and all those Klosters
*And the source of all that is good, Pilsn Czechoslovakia (you know, the place that “pilsner” comes from…)

I know that I will eat great, so I am really looking forward to that (my mother-in-law is one of the greatest cooks on the planet). I hear that some side trips to Neuschwandstein and stuff like that are being talked about, and that would be awesome. And I know that I am going to spend some quality time with Kyra and my favorite granddaughter, Jaden (OK, she is my only granddaughter, don’t wreck the moment). I also hear that there is a party planned where I will get to meet the wives and families of Greg’s unit, and that is going to be really cool.

But mostly, I’m going to relax and go with the flow. Like usual. No really.

Let round two begin…