Uhlfelder News

First, CONGRATULATIONS to Noah Hoffman (a loyal reader of this blog and designer of my fantastic training program) for being named to the XC Olympic Team to represent us at Pyeongchang, South Korea. Aspen also has Simi Hamilton on the XC team and on the alpine team: Wyly Maple, Torin Yater Wallas, Alex Ferreria, and Alice McKinnis. All are AVSC alums so Aspen is well represented.

We took the bus on a circuitous route, as a smaller group, over to Leutasch to XC ski. There is about 200Ks of XC skiing here, so it’s good to check out some other trails. After finding the trail, people split up and five of us ended up we skiing back to Seefeld. Just as we were getting underway, we were told we had to change our planned route because of high avalanche danger, which closed our intended route. We found an alternative route, and skied back to Seefeld, covering some of the same trails I had skied yesterday.

I cannot believe how many people here are into XC skiing — it’s like a crowded Aspen ski slope (albeit on a narrow path) at Christmas or a race, sometimes. Everything is groomed nicely and the weather was great. There is a ton of snow here, so that helps. The temperatures range from -4 to +4C (25 to 40F). The range of abilities is beginner and there are beginner areas and lessons, to, obviously, World Cup.

Anyway, just as we were getting underway, I looked at my heart rate monitor and it hit 42 or something even lower — I’m either in shape or the high altitude really does have a fantastic training effect.

Here’s a video at the start of our ski:

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We took our time, sort of, and skied about 25K from the drop off in Leutasch to Seefeld, stopping at a hut for a coffee and cakes. With us were two Jims, a Kim and an Elena.

The slopes are rated just like alpine ski runs (European ratings: green, red, black for easy, medium, harder). Everything is well marked and it’s super scenic, quiet and can be slow or fast as you want.

I meant to take an easy day which turned out to be a medium day. It turns out our alpine day sharpened up my downhilling and to go up, you have to go down.

There is one guy, Vlad, who befriended someone in the group when they were in Crested Butte, Colorado, on vacation and then showed up here. I guess he thought he’d save the money and mooch off the group. He seems to be a creap and is omnipresent. I ran into him lurking in the ski room and he asked if I was going to watch the races across the street (today is the combined — Nordic jumping then Nordic (XC) skiing. I said yes although I was going over to meet today’s group of skiers at the James Bondish outdoor bar, assuming he would go out to watch the event. Instead he turned up where we were. Just weird and to be ignored.

Speaking of the bar, the music at the bar is kind of amazingly old and hokey. I can hear it in my room until about 10 PM so I know. The playlist includes …tbd.

Here is a photo of the finish area for the races, at sunset. The tower has a video camera mounted to the top and is controlled from a seat at the bottom.

Another long meal, and not vegan at all. Vegan is out the window! Bring on the butter (lots of it), cheese, meat, etc… Speaking of meals, we have been eating those as a group but one of the guys got sick and he has cloistered himself apart from the group—no one wants to get sick. Even his wife won’t sit near him. Lousy situation!

Seefeld is definitely a Mecca for XC and we are front and center looking (or at least I am) at the Olympic arena. The hotel is tired and the room is in desperate need of a renovation, but location and view is A+++.

The Day Begins

Anyway, I joined the group for about 5K and then it seemed like everyone was going a different speed or working on Technique, so I just went skiing. What was really cool was that the World Cup guys and girls were skiing around so first two Austrian team members came by, skiing really slowly, so I just skied behind them making sure I didn’t crowd. They were very nice and I just watched the technique and tried to emulate. They are smooth, are perfectly balanced and they really glide. Anyway, they stopped, and went a different way from me but said “Servus,” which is sort of “Aloha” in southern Germany and Austria. Very nice.

I’ve been on my skate skis the entire time here and have not taken the classic skis out. The conditions are just too variable (too hard to wax for kick) and I haven’t classic skied at all this year (I would be super sore the first time out) so those skis and poles may stay in my giant Rossignol ski bag.

I skied on and two Germans passed me, going faster. Their speed was too fast so off they went. The weather was beautiful. Here’s a short video to see the trails:

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A saw a bunch of other team uniforms including Czechoslovakia and the US (I saw Simi Hamilton at the end of my ski). I continued to ski to a cabin that seemed like a good place to meet the group at Neuleutasch but was so early, I skied the 5K loop a second time, then called Garrett only to find out I was past the actual meeting spot near Wildmoos, so I skied an extra 10K or so, which really wasn’t a big deal since I’m here to ski.

The runs here are far easier than what I’m used to, mainly because of the low altitude and what the high altitude does to your aerobic capacity. The skiing is good and seems like early March conditions in Aspen (hard in the mornings, soft and slushy by 1:00 or so. Garrett met me at the refuge, and we spoke with a nice Austrian couple who walked there with their dog. People are usually surprised that Americans can speak even a word of German.

You can walk or ski, sit down and get a nice lunch served; it’s really a great way to be outside and I see the attraction. Alcohol is served, often as a freebie, it seems all the time. I don’t partake since I don’t want to ski under the influence, particularly.

I skied back to the hotel with Garrott and it’s great to ski with someone with fantastic skills; he gave me a couple of tips, gently. Hold my hands closer to my body. I skied a total of about 25K or so.

At 2:30 we walked over to the US XC Ski Team wax truck to see what goes on behind the scenes. The US has a new waxing truck and we got a tour from the coach, Matt Whitcomb, and the waxing team, which looks like at least five guys. Each wax tech has two ski team members (one guy, one girl) they look after. The truck is really amazing and everything is state of the art. It cost over $1 million. They have over 600 pairs of skis they carry around, plus some very well-equipped waxing benches.

The group (and me) were really into this stuff and everyone had pretty good and relevant questions about waxing, race support and the American team. We talked about the doping Russians a bit, since there truck was next door. It seems like everyone pretty much remains friends and lets the national bodies (IOC, …) figure it out.

After that, which took 1.5 hours, the members of the group who volunteered to forerun the course (which Garrett had arranged. He’s got some pull! ) got credentials, which is super cool. Now I feel really important. The idea is they send some skiers off before the actual race begins to give the TV cameras a reference to set up their shots, then again to close the course, then again before and after each run.

Because I’m writing this, I don’t have the time for the next arranged activity: yodeling. That’s too bad for me or should I say think you.

Dinners are set with many courses and for Americans very overdone. This evening there were five courses, maybe more, as I counted them. Dinners last a long time and are a production here. Tonight there were five courses and everything is cooked with tubs of butter, tastes good and is rich! I assume if you cook mud in enough butter, it would taste wonderful.

I tried to buy a poster before leaving Toblach but it was just too complicated and we were leaving at 10:00 a.m. (and I didn’t want to get left behind, something I’ve made into a joke).

Two hours on a bus filled with caffeinated and overly enthusiastic folks is not really a recipe for my calm, especially when the insist on singing with everyone encouraging it. I had left my earplugs in my bag.

Thankfully, we arrived in Innsbruck. It was a beautiful day, clear and cool. I actually remembered walking down some of the streets. It’s a nice city, about 110,000 people with a university, clean and quiet. It really does have easy access to skiing within 30 minutes, and unlike boulder, it’s true. One of our guides is Austrian and her son, who is in school in Innsbruck met us and had skied that morning since they had about five feet of powder. There were plenty of avalanches too, some of which you could see on the surrounding slopes five or ten miles away.

Innsbruck

I tried to take a selfie, the result is unimpressive.

In Innsbruck, which I visited in summer with my family a few years ago, the plan was to go to lunch, then ride the train to Seefeld. My plan was to grab a sandwich, and ride the train, alone and in peace, to Seefeld. Mission accomplished, almost. I feel asleep somewhere before the Seefeld stop, went to the end of the line (two more stops) and realized what happened. The train immediately started the other way, the conductor came to collect my ticket, I explained what happened, and he said fine after a bit more explaining.

In Seefeld I walked around (I had a general idea of where the hotel was). I would say, this is Aspen, more or less (at least age demographic-wise along with shopping opportunities) but with amazing access to cross country trails and World Cup events (cross country) coming this week-end. In fact, our little group (well, group within the group) is forerunning the sprints on Saturday and the short course, about 3.7K, on Sunday (the races go around a bunch of times).

Anyway, I found the hotel and of course they tried to put me in what Skip, my Ski.com partner, used to call the “Ha, ha” room (small but no view). Anyone reading this knows that that doesn’t work for me.

My new room is a lot better with an amazing view!

Here in Austria instead of saying sorry let’s find you something that works, they cop an attitude and act like it’s your problem. I don’t know who that would work on.

View from my upgraded window!

At dinner, which was many courses and very rich (that whole vegan thing is out the window), out of about 10 people the waitress asked me first, if I spoke German (in German) and then an unintelligible question (in German). I asked her to restate the question in Hoch-Deutsch, which she claimed to be speaking (she wasn’t). Garrett was sitting nearby and confirmed that first, her German was terrible, and second, she was likely Eastern European. Anyway, she spoke enough English that we got by. The question was, do each of the people at the table get separate checks (for alcohol). The answer was yes.

Who hasn’t Heard of Cortina? I’ve never alpine skied here, so what the hell. I’m here and it seems silly not to take advantage. One of our guides – Italian Elaina – has guided here and claims to know the mountain.I arranged lift tickets and ski rentals through my Ski.com contacts and off we went. I could have arranged a local guide but Elaina made it clear it was unnecessary. There are only three people on the trip, plus Elaina and me, who wanted to go and one last minute addition.

By the way, I’m writing this at 2 a.m. — I have to stop eating the sweats offered at dinner—they taste good but they haven’t helped me get over jet lag, if that ever happens.

From Toblach, where we were staying, near the cross country tracks we took a bus to Cortina. In Cortina, everything was super easy. Lift tickets were ready, as were ski rentals. Our Ski.com Europe guy has some contacts! The ride over reminded me of Independence Pass (about an hour over mountain roads) except there is harder core traffic, e.g. our bus and many huge trucks that passed us. Also, the peril was certainly more profound as a fall off the road would sure hurt (very briefly though). The views were amazing and there is a XC path that goes all the way to Cortina, more or less following the road we took.

Famous Mountain “3 Zinnen” Which is featured in every local photo

Once there the six of us skied fast on relatively steep runs on piste. It turns out anything hard, that isn’t groomed, is considered off piste and everything on piste is groomed. The snow was hard and fast and we skied fast, which was easy.

Wide Open and Fast with No One Around

The skiing was between Golden Horn on Aspen Highlands and Astec on Aspen Mountain in steepness (not terribly). We skied as fast as I’ve skied in a while, but the runs called out for that. In fact, those were my first alpine runs this season. Access to skiing is a pain in Cortina and it’s clear that you need a guide, especially if you want to ski the off piste stuff. A nice bit of trivia that you are reminded of getting on the cable car to the area is that Cliffhanger with Sylvester Stallone was filmed here. They have a bunch of posters from the movie on the walls. If you recall, it was meant to be set in Colorado and this looks very much not like Colorado. Hollywood.

The Wind was Blowing, Hard

We skied onto every lift and there was not a lift line in sight. The wind was howling but it was easy to navigate the area since it’s pretty wide open and few trees. Interestingly (well, kind of), they have a desiduous connifer which loses its needles in winter. I never knew that such a tree existed. I just thought they were dead.

I found out that some of the other folks on the trip have some impressive resumes for not only cross country skiing but running too (and academics too!). One guy (many years ago) ran a 2:35 marathon, another a 2:50 marathon and one woman ran a 3:10 marathon. My fastest was 3:18. I guess they sort of lost their interest in training at that level having burned out as younger athletes. Now it seems the masters athletes really are the ones who took up XC, like me, later.

Lunch at Refuge ?? with group whose names I have kind of learned (my jacket is on hanger in the background)

We had a fantastic lunch, the planning for which went: let’s grab a quick bite at a self-service restaurant to let’s sit down and get served some fantastic pasta for an hour plus in the mountain Refugio.

Cortina Panorama

We ended skiing early at 2:30 to catch the 3:05 bus, ran to give the skis back, and catch the bus for another harrowing ride back over the pass to Toblach (the German name) or Dobbiaco (the Italian name).

Tomorrow off to Seebach (German name) or Seefeld (Italian name). It’s snowing, again, outside as I write this at 9 p.m. French time.

We are off this morning to Tyrol in Italy. Before leaving, I took a photo of a light fixture in the hallway of the hotel in Austria. I thought it was really cool.

We’ve arrived in Italy after about an hour bus ride on tight roads that the bus driver didn’t get too excited about. Not only were they narrow, but there were trucks heavily loaded with everything — from piles of logs to huge semi trucks. We arrived at Innichen/San Candido, took the lift up the mountain (it’s a ski area and looks pretty nice), ate nice Italian food (lasagne, ravioli, etc…) at a very nice restaurant on the mountain, had an espresso, then sledded down on locally popular sleds called “Rodels” to the bottom.

The sledding was on a course that was sufficiently steep and you could fly on the sleds. Luckily the sides of the course were built up snow banks since everyone definitely had to “slow down” a couple of times, trying to get the hang of it. Liability issues would clearly prevent something like this in the US but I saw little kids on sleds flying down and laughing like crazy while doing so.

It was surprisingly fast and fun and something the Aspen Ski Company should consider doing. Parents with little kids were there and the kids were loving it.

Then we kept our cross-country gear, everyone had a back-pack and changed into lighter wear, and we XC skied about five kilometers to Toblach. This is a border town so everyone speaks Italian, German, and English, it seems.

The entire town is over heated (I’ve had to sleep with windows open to cool rooms to reasonable sleeping temperature through the trip) by a plant that burns wood chips, then pipes the heat out to all the houses and hotels. This is the richest part of Italy and the state even supports the purchases of real estate for new couples by giving them part of a downpayment on their first home interest free. This was all told to us by Elena, who is Italian and really cared and it sounds good. She also took at least 30 minutes to describe bidets and how they are properly used (pants off).

We arrived at the stadium (“Nordic Arena Toblach-Dobbiaco) on a beautiful sunny day where the world cup sprints (cross country) were held in December 2017 and skied around there.

At the XC Stadium Sprint Course

I was enjoying it so much I didn’t notice the group was leaving (okay ditched me). I thought they just hadn’t left but realized I was forgotten — again. Let’s not dredge up stories of my childhood— just kidding.

I found my own way to the hotel. I’m just glad no one was hurt.

Before dinner, I walked around the little village.

We had a very nice three (at least) course dinner. Now the daunting challenge is to sleep. I’m finding that my jet lag is exacerbated by the rich food eaten late at night (dah).

Apparently you have to make your own bed here in Italy.

Tomorrow Cortina to Alpine ski.

Today started like any other day. Assuming you’re in Austria and planning to go skiing in a marathon distance (42K) cross country ski race. In any case that’s what was going on here today and I felt like it kind of worked out for me. I have no choice but to go out slowly because I was behind what I thought was about 1000 people but was probably 500 or a bit more, and many of them were awful Skiers. They don’t seed here so it’s a free for all. Poles are broken (not mine luckily) but I was worried. I ended up passing hundreds of people (the 42K race and the 21K race, which also had about 300 people, were started simultaneously) and never got passed, which in my mind is the best race I can ski. It was very pleased.

What was strange is that for the first half of the race, as I was passing people who were in both races, some of them who I didn’t catch until the end of the first 20 kilometers looked like they had drunk a keg of beer over the last years, and one guy in particular looked like he was 25 pounds overweight and was squeezed like a lumpy sausage into his race suit. Not only was it not a pretty sight, but how did he stay ahead of me for 20K? Another strange thing was that once I passed the 20K mark, I almost felt like I was alone. The 20K skiers had finished, and the skiers who were left were in the longer race, but they were all pretty far in front of me. The good and bad news is it gave me a chance to ski faster, but there was no one to ski with.

My time, I thought, wasn’t very good but given the competition (it was a truly international race), I guess it was okay. On looking at the photos on line I see tons of form issues for me to fix.

Here is a panorama showing the race start.

I ended up with 156th out of about 340 finishers in the 42K race. I was eighth in my age group.

Here’s a photo of me at the end of the race. I think I look great, but that’s just me. Thanks to Noah Hoffman for providing such a cool race suit and great training advice.

Fresh as a spring breeze

Here are results:

http://results.racetime.pro/results.php?CId=16658&RId=6131

One thing worth mentioning is that I was pulling up to one of the last stops for food and drinks and one of the guys serving drinks had a cigarette hanging out of his mouth. I asked smoking guy for “Essen” (food) and he pointed back to the table which I was already about 30 m past. Given the lingering cigarette smoke, I skipped this food stop. Welcome to Austria.

Garrett is insisting that everyone’s time is well spent so he brought the group to a distillery for a tour. Free tastings of hard alcohol—mmm good. Not my thing, but I liked the lighting in the cellar, a really great basement room. It would certainly make a good model for a nice private wine cellar.

This morning, after honestly not sleeping at all (I’m jet-lagged about as badly as I can remember). We got an early start, ate a quick breakfast and took a 45-minute shuttle bus from Lienz Austria up to Obertilliach via a serpentine road.

One guy on the trip is a professor or something in Alaska and offers his very professorial opinions about everything. He reminds me of someone at home we know and is a Yale graduate. The group all went to the best colleges, some were very accomplished athletes on a college level, and are all really into supporting the US cross country team and the development teams and young athletes.

I overheard the professor tell Garrott about tourism and the mountain sports industry. Lots of free advice to be sure.

It was very cold, at least single digits and given my sleep, I seem to be susceptible to it. It was miserable. I think lack of exercise yesterday contributed.

Today was the classic race day, and a couple in our group participated. I’m waiting for tomorrow and the skate race. I estimate there were 750 people or so, from really fast to really slow. I saw a pretty bad fall at the start which given the chaos seemed inevitable. Garrott was remarking how cross-country just wasn’t that popular in Austria. Tomorrow’s’ race should have about 1,000 people. The average Aspen race has 15.

Anyway, Garrott, the trip leader, didn’t seem terribly interested in skiing and everyone was doing their own thing so I met one of our guides, Petra from Austria, and she told me to meet them at a restaurant in Rauschenberg. This was about four miles from the starting point in Obertilliach and one of Garrott’s “quaint mountain huts.”

It took 30 minutes of skiing to warm up, sort of, but when I arrived at the hut 50 minutes later I was still cold and uncomfortable. I sat there thinking I must have the wrong place since it wasn’t quaint, it wasn’t cute, or charming-it wasn’t anything more than a bar that served drinks and some basic off-the-shelf food. I had the Campbell’s noodle soup, then another, and waited.

If you tolerated the smell, the view was nice

Here was the atmosphere: next to the main road, filled with stale cigarette smoke and a table of Austrians enthusiastically watching the Hahnenkamm on TV. To be fair, it had a nice view, but it wasn’t enough to redeem it. I waited about a 40 minutes for everyone else to show up, and tried to warm up. Eventually another six or so people showed up along with the overly enthusiastic, borderline annoying daughter of one of the guests.

Rauch means to smoke in German. We Americans are simply not used to smoking and dealing with smoke anymore.

We went back down the trails to catch the shuttle back to Lienz and on a quick ski back to Obertilliach I was met by the trail police that asked for my trail pass. This is when English comes in handy, and I told him our group leader had it and she was right behind me and went on my way. Apparently she showed up and said Garrott was behind her with the passes (he wasn’t). It turns out Garrett was told passes were not needed during the races. Eventually I got to where the 42K classic race was still going on, and double polled with the slower folks watching the race. It didn’t seem to matter that a race was going on and I was skiing on the course.

Some notes:

We had a nice dinner and the group with some who even get my sense of humor.

We reviewed the race today as informed by the two people from the group who raced.

It’s snowing this evening and notwithstanding lack of sleep tomorrow should be nice. I slept this afternoon for a couple hours.

We decided to go alpine skiing in Cortina on Tuesday.

Garrott offered to arrange a biathlon ski for me in Seefeld.

1-19-2018 — Drive from Munich to Lienz Austria

Today at noon we got on a bus and made our way to Austria. There are 14 guests, two guides and Garrott Kuzzy, who is a former Olympic XC skier and put the trip together. Ten days of XC skiing already looks too daunting to everyone so they are talking about alpine skiing for at least a couple of days. I brought my alpine clothes and googles so that’s fine with me.

Three of the trip goers is a couple with their daughter in her 20s from Carbondale and looked really familiar. Turns out the mom has been at our house and played the piano with Anne and her piano group.

There is a lot of snow here compared with Aspen. I’m not sure it’s as much as advertised but will know more tomorrow.

Everyone seems nice and on their best behavior. There are at least two other people on the trip who seem to speak some German. One guy was an exchange student and I don’t know what the other’s story is. I guess I speak some too. It seems clear that a trip to Germany and Austria would attract people who speak and want to practice the language (German, Bavarian, Austrian, etc…).

We passed Kitzbuhel and the skiing looked good. The most-famous World-cup Hahnenkamm downhill is taking place, but we only saw it from the bus windows (our timing is off). The race is tomorrow. There will probably be 100,000 people on the course and it’s an hour from where we’re staying.

It’s just the Hahnenkamm—no big deal

Our first group dinner was tonight. I am still jet lagged and listening to people made me even more tired. I understand why beer is so popular. We were warned that the hotels all have saunas and we should expect that everyone will be nude – sounds gross to me.

There are two wax experts that will do the ski waxing for us, a husband and wife team, who are cute, tall, and speak English. They were hired to wax and know how to do it! They really care and are waxing people’s skis for a world-cup race team. Wow. There goes my main excuse for a middling performance.

I’m not used to or terribly in touch with the whole “group” thing and wonder how long it will be before I am so sick of people that I’m so sick of people. One couple from Alaska had their luggage lost. Kind of a big deal when you’re on a ski trip. The people are all separated by at most two degrees of separation and everyone knows someone or knows someone who knows someone else, as you see. Pretty insular. In fact, I don’t think they should have children since they may be born with cross-country skis on and only talk about waxing or how awful trump is.

The group thing could go another way — maybe we’ll all be getting naked in the sauna and bond as a group. Seems unlikely.

(put sauna photo here)

Using the internet is painfully slow until everyone is done watching porn, so I have to wait until that’s over to upload this blog.  Jet lag helps me keep stupid hours.

We are in Lienz at the Goldener Fisch hotel   It’s nice and clean with large rooms and I have new slippers from the hotel.

I woke up this morning at about 1:30 ish after falling asleep at around 10 p.m. (sorry, 22:00 here). After waiting for the sun to come up and reading the Wednesday NY Times I brought with me from home in excruciating detail, it was almost 6:30 and breakfast was open.

It was a standard European breakfast; nothing special but clean and neat and ostensibly Bavarian.

Breakfast looks yummy

I did drink about five cups of strong coffee. Then I took the S-Bahn three stops to Marienplatz. The weather was atrocious with cold and high winds. I had full on ski clothing and wasn’t terribly warm.

I walked into a very nice department store which had 70 percent off on some things, but mostly 20 or 30 percent off but stuff was priced in ranges and didn’t seem that expensive, really. But I don’t want or need anything. Below is a photo of one of many stores that specialize in Tracht (Derndels and laderhosen).

I walked to the closest museum I found — the Museum Funf Kontinente (five continents) mainly to warm up. It had native stuff from all over the world. The name was a tip off. I saw the Peru exhibit (we were there summer 2016), American Indian art, and strangely a not-updated homage to Mianmar (nothing about their apparent ethnic cleansing!).

Anyway, long enough in there and asked the front desk (everyone is so friendly, especially if you speak German to them) for directions to the Alte Pinakothek, which has some old masters and I felt like I should get some culture for a change. Speaking of culture, I’m noticing that I can often get people to understand my meaning when speaking German and I think with six to eight years of emersion I could become close to fluent.

By then, unfortunately, I would likely die of second-hand cigarette smoke since you are basically walking through a chimney filled with the stuff as you go down the streets. It’s gross and has to take a toll.

Everything is farther away and takes longer than people think and they really walk around here. I’ve noticed that at meals there is no portion control and bread is abundant. You need the calories. I went the museum’s cafe and had a Thai soup and a tuna salad; both very good.

Here are some photos of the highlights for me.

Being a peasant was fun!

Nice doggy

Okay, okay, I’ll pay, but it seemed expensive.

After the Alte Pinakothek, I headed back to the hotel for a much needed break of a few minutes, then met Jane and Mike from Wisconsin who are on my ski trip and responded to an email offering to get a tour of the Stadtmuesum, which prominently features Uhlfelder stuff. We met Dr. Isabella Fehle, the director of the museum and my friend, who took the three of us to coffee and cakes (not necessarily on a marathoner’s diet), gave us entry tickets and we talked for a long time. She is wonderful and the only peril for the Uhlfelder name exhibits is her leaving. That said, it seems some of the Uhlfelder exhibits (in the museum annex) were changed.

Uhlfelder China sold at Kaufhaus Uhlfelder on display at the Stadtmuseum

They added the famous photo of Dr. Siegal being marched down a street in his underwear with a sign that said “I will not bother the police.” I had no idea they had changed the exhibit. This is a very emotional thing for me and jet lag didn’t help; I told my new friends Jane and Mike about it but found it hard. Since the last time I visited the museum, I had met Dr. Siegal’s daughter Bea Green (she’s 92 now) and spent a couple of days with her in Munich is April 2015 when we both participated in the opening of another museum (Dokument Centrum) and found out more about the event and the families’ intertwined relationships. Man’s inhumanity to man, for sure.

I had an appointment to meet Martina’s parents and her kids for dinner. That took some doing because the phone number Martina gave me didn’t work on my phone but I found an old phone number (home phone) in my phone and got ahold of them and met them near their house for a nice dinner. At this point it was supposed to be Bararian fare, but after my sweet at 3:00 (sorry, 15:00) I was not hungry so I had a salad.

I noticed the German press carry the latest awful news from the US, including that trump passed a test for dementia (the newspaper had the test and just glancing at it I was able to determine that the two humped animal was a spider).

Anyway, a long day and there was an express bus that Martina’s father, Bernt, found that went from the restaurant to the Ostbahnhoff (next to my hotel). Nineteen minutes of nodding off.

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.