Uhlfelder News

Another great Aspen day, in Ocho’s estimation

Hello all! Thanks for viewing!

January 15, 2018

Ten years ago in while living in Spain I had a blog, which this is meant to better. More insightful, more funny, more photos.

Anyway as I was leaving Aspen it was about 35 or 40° and feelt like 55 in the sun. Dry and cloudless.

Ocho of course was ever vigilant watching and waiting for something — anything.

I’m taking a cross country ski trip in Austria to race in a Loppet (long) race and just have a different experience. Don’t get me wrong — the skiing in Aspen is pretty hard to match, but that said, it’s nice to see what everyone is missing (in Aspen).

I’ll expect myself to be hilarious and write things, without meaning to be funny, that are too funny to believe. It’s easy since this sport of cross country skiing was invented by and continues to be dominated by the ever funny Scandanavians.

January 16, 2018

The only way to fly — except first or private, I guess.

Anyway, I just got to Germany and seem to be okay with jet-lag (so far). The two flights were unbelieveably easy, almost earily so. I got to the airport late (business), the bags were still able to be checked through, and the flight arrived an hour early. I managed to sleep on the flight (I think) since I had a flat bed seat. The flight was only seven hours and they even served me my Asian vegan meal, which was surely better than the choices, although they looked fine.

Lufthansa service is pretty extraordinary. As I saw it, there were enough flight attendants to have a ratio of what looked like two passengers to one attendant. There was even a senior attendant who went around asking if everything was okay and insisted on shaking everyone’s hand. Really, too much.

1/17/2018

The Munich airport is earily empty and there are few people but lots of well lit shops. I walked by the Rolex store to see if they have a Daytona in steel, which seems impossible to buy (there is a premium if you can find one). I asked in German if they had one, she said yes, white gold, yellow gold, etc… and I asked “und vas noch” and she knew I was looking for the steel and smiled and said no.

You have to walk a long distance, which I’ve done before, to get to baggage claim and then you feel like you’re in the wrong place anyway since there is no one there. My 60-pound bag and my ski bag made it, no problem.

I have two passports, US and German. For reasons of thinking that it may be easier to get through passport control with a US Passport, I presented that one. I think that was the wrong move. She (I think) asked me if that was the “whole” passport, as if pages were missing, asked other questions, and I sensed she (he?) was not too into US passport holders. It may be what’s going on here; thank you Trump. I’ll watch for this.

It was pretty clear after picking them up that unless I had gone insane, it wasn’t worth trying to save 70 Euros by not taking a cab, so that’s what I did.

Not a word was exchanged with the Turkish tax driver, other than where I was staying. Anyway, I arrived in Munich about 2:00. Door to door in 14 hours or so. When I checked in, I felt like I learned my lesson. The front desk of this smallish hotel next to the Ostbahnhof welcomed me in English, immediately seemed to know who I was, gave me a form to sign, and asked for a passport. I used the German one. Much better plus I got to speak German and didn’t have to fill out the form!

Munich is super cold and moist, which is great for my hands which are cracked and dry (assuming I extract them from gloves). Black is the color worn here, as with most cities. It was snowing and blowing but I walked around just to get some air. It’s easy to get lost. I stopped for a bratwurst but of course choose the crappiest place to cheat on the vegan thing. I’ll be cheating at much better places as the weeks progress, I promise. I also stopped at another place for a espresso, which was nice and needed.

Above is a view from my hotel window — the “charming” Ostbahnhof.

And below is the hotel bathroom’s drying rack (why is every place so overheated in Munich?).

Walking around it seems all there are is bread stores, meat stores, supermarkets, and very upscale and interesting furnishings stores. I guess it’s the neighborhood.

Anway, I met Martina, my German friend whose family has always been part of our German and Munich experience, and Julia, who wrote her master’s thesis about the Uhlfelder family, at a vegan restaurant near Sendlinger Tor, a gate that was part of the Munich city walls. These two have been part of my Munich family and we all keep in touch, especially Martina and her family. I guess we see each other once a year or so, which explains that Julia told both Martina and I — oh, by the way, I have a baby now.

The wall, by the way, is no longer in use (other than as a tourist attraction).

Anyway, it was a really nice snowy evening and as Martina and I walked back to the S-Bahn it was a perfectly charming (albeit cold) German evening as you might read in fairy tales.

Julia, Martina and me (I’m on the left) eating at a vegan only restaurant

Martina and I walking through Marienplatz on a snowy beautiful evening.

Sendlinger Tor town gate.