The Highest Mountain (depending where you stand)

So we took the Seilbahn up to the top of Zugspitze (the highest mountain in Germany). There are two Seilbahns to the top, one starts in Germany, the other in Austria. Go figure.... do you really need two Seilbahn maybe 20 minutes away from each other? It's like a mini space race between Germany and Austria.

Check out those ski trails on the green mountain below. Nice......

Above the clouds! At the bottom right you can see part of the last Seilbahn tower.

A chilly 7 celcius at the top,  a warm 28 Celcius at the bottom.

The Zugspitze is high (2900m), and in the summer does look like the moon. Nothing but rock at the top, not a single plant. Not a living thing except tons of tourists and these little black birds soaring about picking crumbs from "the highest Biergarten in Germany".

A blackbird waiting for crumbs from those who always need to eat in really high places.

Biergarten at a very high altitude.

It's cold up here!

There's the deadly Gipfelkreuz behind Ani.

It was bracing standing there on top of all that rock, above the clouds, in the cold high altitude air. Unfortunately there were so many tourists it was comical. And you couldn't actually walk around the mountain (without risking a deady fall) but had to stay in the building where the Seilbahn unloads its passengers. There are numerous viewing platforms, and slowly one could make your way from one to the other. It was so crowded in the passages, I thought I was on an U-bahn.

O.k. so you spent 40 euros to go to the "top of Germany" so you have to really go to the top, all the way, to the Gipfelkreuz. The Kreuz is just 30 meters away from the viewing platforms, but it's on some seriously steep rock, with deadly drops left and right. To get there you should have climbing gear, i.e. harness, etc. so you could rope yourself to the steel guide cable. The problem is you and another million Germans want to do this, climb the puny section of deadly steep rock so you too can say you have touched the "top of Germany". Sorry I just don't get this! It's like climbing to the top of mount Everest and finding a film crew and models making an automobile commercial. It just ruins the whole adventure of climbing to the highest point if everyone else is already there. And in addition I would not risk my life on such a section of deadly rock with such a crowd of people pushing and shoving their way up and down the rock. 

But don't get me wrong, it is splendidly beautiful up there above the clouds teatering on the rocky knife edge of this ridiculously gigantic piece of rock.

Tirol/Zugspitze Witz!

We just got back from a 2 week Urlaub in Tirol, and here is the first Witz: Warum gehen die Osterreicher und Bayern auf die Zugspitze (2962m)? Um hoch, Deutsch zu reden! Ha, ha, ha.

Panorama with Zugspitze rechts.

Paris ist Schön

S. had a conference in Paris, and I got to go with. Paris is - I know you've heard this before - a beautiful city. But it is, really! We were staying in a much too expensive hotel next to the Tuilerie gardens. We were on one end of the gardens and the Louvre on the other. Along one side of the garden they had a amusement park set up. It was fun to sit in the Tuileries and watch the "hammer of doom" whip people 30 meters into the air, then down again. The ferries wheel was also a great place to get a view of Paris, from Monte Marte to the Arch de Triumph.

We walked all over Paris! Once to the eiffel tower, the other time all the way down the Seine to Notre Dame. There were beautiful gardens all along the way:

The French sure do know how to take in the simple pleasures of life: food, clothes, gardens, loving (more on that later). An example of the French attitude might be seen in these chairs which were strewn all through the Tuilerie gardens:

Perfect for just lying back and enjoying the sun. They even had these chairs at the airport near the gate (actually there they were more a perverse joke on waiting forever!).

As you can see in the tree above, Paris is the city of love. And public displays of affection (PDA) are quite the norm. In the Tuilerie gardens some couples acted as if no one else was around. It's kind of sweet really to see the importance the French place on L'Amour, the world could certainly use more of it.

A Boy's love of Vegetables!

In a pensive mood with Brocco.

We had a nice weekend with friends, spent mostly swimming in a little pond amidst the farms lands along the Donau.

After swimming we spent some time at our friends' house, mostly in their back yard which has a bunch of fruit trees (apple, cherries mostly). Pascal for some reason became attached to a stuffed Broccoli figure (from IKEA) lying around the house. He wouldn't let go of it, and gave it a nickname: Brocco!

The 4 Seasons

Wow! It's summer and we've been having a heat wave. At over 80F the whole week rain is very welcome, unfortunately it hasn't really come. Today it's cooling off a little, and it rained very weakly, but we got a perfect rainbow (even a slight double rainbow!) right outside our apartment window. I also like, in the picture, the way the rainbow lands perfectly into our neighbor's balcony. 

I thought it would be interesting to contrast the perfect "Hawaiian" rainbow with the view out of our window during the winter. It's almost incomprehensible that both kinds of weather could exist in the same place, and that make both seasons all the more remarkable and special. Here's to the seasons!

Father's Day With Animals

Three other farm animals. 

Two days before Father's day I was reading the newspaper when I saw an ad about wolf pups in a zoo. I showed my mom and my parents decided that we should go there for Father's day. We had to drive with the car for 50 Minutes and while we drove I read a book to Pascal. 

Once at the zoo, we took the red path and on the way we saw the wolf pups. They were really cute and they came from America. Then we kept on going and saw the grown-up wolfs. We kept on going and we saw these signs where there were questions about wolfs.  I answered all of them right except for one.

When there were no signs any more we saw a cage with deer and people in it; at first we thought they were zookeepers but then we came closer and we saw that they were kids. So we kept on going and saw the entrance. I went in slowly (so I wouldn't scare the deer ) and then a deer came close to me. It was a girl and she was really tame, all of them were tame and they came down the hill to lie in the sun. A lot of them ate grass but some just sat down. We saw three boys and one was pretty young and barely had horns. The others had half grown antlers because they lost them in the winter. When I touched the deer's horns they were all soft and I noticed that I saw these deers in a different zoo with full-grown antlers. Those let themselves get petted too, except that we weren't allowed to go in the cage at that zoo. I watched the deer eat the grass and sometimes it was kind of interesting.

Papa is petting the deer like it was a dog. She likes it!

We kept on going until we got to the exit and had to go out. We followed the red path and came to a bull that had long hair on his head, and it was pretty funny because I think he could barely see you. When we came to the end of the trail there was a little restaurant where we could look at guinea pigs and rabbits. Then we ate grilled cheese sandwiches. ( They were really good. ) So we went back to the car and drove back home.

The longhaired beast.

Wild Poppies along the path.

Pascal is taking this picture with one eye closed (the one that looks through the view finder!) that's why Mama is trying not to burst out laughing!

Top of the Mountain

It was Tessa's last weekend with us, so we wanted to spend some special family time together. Our 2-hour car trip took us to Mariazell, a little town and well-known pilgrimage site in Styria. As it was the weekend of Pfingsten (Pentecost), we saw large groups of people on their spiritual journey. We did enjoy the peaceful atmosphere by the basilica amongst the pilgrims. You could sense their feeling of accomplishment, friendship and contentment.  

However, our main reason for us to come to Marizell was the mountains. The first day we cheated and took the gondola up the Bürgeralpe (1266 m) instead of walking. As this doesn’t fly for two consecutive days, we climbed to the top of the Gemeindealpe (1623 m) the next day. From both places the view was spectacular, it feels like you are flying up there! The landscape underneath keeps on changing depending on the shadows of the clouds. And you can see soooo far. Also the nature in the mountains is beautiful, everything so fresh and green. The kids discovered lots of little treasures along the way (snails, rocks, leaves etc.) and learned the names of different flowers and trees. The cool, crisp air feels great on your skin when you take the quite strenuous hike up the mountain. To our surprise, Pascal teamed up with Tessa and lead the charge up the mountain! He chose to take the steepest section (the pictures under the chair lift) and barely needed to stop to rest. 

Other highlights of our weekend-trip were the traditional Pirker Lebkuchen (gingerbread), in the summer also served in the form of ice cream, the fantastic flower meadows, and the scooter ride down the Gemeindealpe, which is almost as fast as going down the lift - if you dare. And of course the random stuff that you could never plan but which actually are always such fond memories of any vacation: playing on the bike racks with an adventurous toddler, finding a 'Bine' sign, and bringing home a bouquet of wild flowers.

 

April in Brussels

So Sabine and I got a long, long, long, long overdue free weekend together. We spent it in Brussels to see Lizz Wright perform. Her first song was a Neil Young cover "Old man take a look at my life, I'm a lot like you were......" She sang it like it was her own words. Very cool. Brussels is a music city (like Vienna), but unlike Vienna classical music is not the thing, rather jazz!

The other thing we discovered in Brussels was - Africa! Really! The stand out food for us was an Ethiopian dinner, and Ethiopian coffee, and Sabine got a nice African necklace at the flea market. And then we went to see a jazz concert which is an African-American art form in origin. Hmmmm.

Actually Brussels has a particularly BAD history with Africa. They plundered the Congo, with no mercy and treated the Africans with less regard then an abused farm animal. The one place you can see the 'evil' manifest is in the palace de justice! It is an overwhelmingly large building (for a time the largest building in the world by some measure like offices, etc.), and the thing is very impressive in the same way Darth Vadar's death star might seem. 

Inside the palace

A detail I found in of the palace de justice was this sculpture in the waiting area of a random office. I think, rightly so, Brussels does have a sense of guilt over its African adventure.

We stayed in a bed and breakfast http://www.leopold2.be/en/home/ outside the main city but not far by subway. The owner was very nice, and the house looks like his work in progress, and was tastefully decorated in a modern style.

Another reason Brussels' appreciation of music far surpasses that of Vienna's is breadth of scope! In the subways they play music, the first time I noticed they were playing classical music (not such a big surprise, but pleasant). The next day they were playing jazz. The third day some kind of pop R&B! And all the music was tasteful, considered not top 40 hits, but interesting music selected from the whole broad spectrum of music out there in the world. Very cool.

And to add to Brussels' eclectic tastes, they also celebrate comics! There are comics painted on walls all over the city. We also saw a strange exhibit of art brut and the fantastic figures typical of the art.

Sabine poses with a nice little old monster lady we bumped into.

As far as things to do goes, it seemed necessary to visit the Atomium, a huge structure resembling an Atom of the ball and stick model. You take an elevator to the top where in the top ball there is a rotating restaurant. The whole thing is kind of cheesy, I guess, and smacks of when we all thought the future would hold such promise (you know: free energy from the atom, flying cars, robot maids, etc...). Actually, this feeling of hope in the future reminded me of my 60's childhood, the Apollo rocket to the moon, all the hope for fixing all the ills in our world. It's a nice feeling, although even then this positivity/innocence was shadowed by the assassinations of MLK, a president, the brutality and pointlessness of the Vietnam war, etc... Nonetheless it would be nice if we could all dream like that again.

In front of the Atomium (get it 'be' welcome...)

Down the stairs is the beginning of the old city.

The Sweetest Gift Ever

Last month, the girls surprised me with a very unique present for my birthday. Tessa and Anika had both put their talents together and created a masterpiece - at least in my chocolate-crazy eyes. Tessa designed a huge cardboard-Wonka chocolate bar and a colorful poster where she “immortalized” a story that Anika had thought of. The story was built around chocolate bar brand names and even made sense -to me. Here it is: 

Dear Mama,

I bet you are wondering how we got this BOUNTY of chocolate. It is so special that we had to fly to Willy Wonka’s secret factory on MARS. On our trip we went to a new planet called DUPLO (Scientist have not discovered it yet.) I bet you can’t guess who we met there ?!! LEOnardo da Vinci!! He is not dead!!! He lives in space with his cute little KITKAT named TWIX. The problem is da Vinci has terrible MANNERs. (He’s NUTS!!).

We also got to see the MILKY WAY. It’s a very popular tourist attraction; they even sell milkshakes and cow souvenirs, but we thought it was CORNY. The best part of our journey was getting to see the Wonka factory. We’ll bring you along next time!

Happy Birthday! We love you to the moon and back, literally, we saw that, too!

Thank you, family, for making my birthday so special!