Photoblog - Vienna (Nightlife)

It seems like a long time ago, but it was just last Winter when Frau A and I visited Vienna for the weekend.  We saw Schoenbrunn Palace and ice skating around the Town Hall... but kept busy in the evenings too.

One of the main reasons for the trip was to see the show "Ich war noch niemals in New York".  In the spirit of "jukebox musicals" like Mamma Mia! (Abba) and Movin' Out (Billy Joel), this production features the songs of Udo Juergens.  Juergens is one of the most popular, successful, and beloved schlager singers.  (He's up top in our schlager post.)  He has sold over 100 million records and still sells out concert halls in his mid-70s today.  And yes, he won the Eurovision Song Contest in 1966.

The title means "I've never been to New York" -- in the story, an older couple aren't feeling "alive" anymore and therefore make a spontaneous decision to take a cruise ship to the Big Apple for the first time. (Notice the heart-shaped life preserver and rope in the banner.)  Although the story was a bit predictable, it was satisfying and Juergen's catchy tunes got everyone clapping and singing along.  And love & happiness prevail in the end.  Just like it should be.

The hotel was not far from the Bahnhof, so there were plenty of late-night options nearby.  So on another evening we checked out the nearby billiards bar, called "Köö - The Great Entertainer", on the second floor above some clothing stores & coffee shop.

 

The first order of business was to try the local beer, called Gösser.  It's a lot like the Munich helles, and in fact the styles are often combined for beer competitions into a group called VOM - Vienna, Oktoberfest, and Märzen (March) styles.  In the official BJCP Beer Style Guidelines it's called European Amber Lager.  Frau A and I love 'em -- a little less hoppy/bitter and crisp but richer and smoother than a pils.

There is a smoking ban in Munich now, so the haze and smells of the bar here were quite a surprise.  But together with the loud music and crack of caroming balls at the tables, it really felt like a pool hall.

The tables were all full (or reserved for hours) so we moved to the dart boards.  Warning:  do NOT be fooled by her quiet demeanor, long flowing hair, and friendly smile.  Frau A is a hustler and will beat you at darts.  She won all three of the first games again me.  I thought a second beer would change things - no luck.  She took 2 of the next 3.  Ouch.

The great thing about Vienna is that there are so many things to see in daylight, and just as many things to do at night.  We're hoping to return this summer and hang out with a colleague of mine who lives there (but works in the Munich office, staying Monday-Wednesday).  Stay tuned.

2018 Olympics: The Decision

The 2018 Winter Games were announced today, and (sniff, sniff) Munich did not win. They'll be held in Pyongchan South Korea instead.

After months of campaigning and signs everywhere, Munich held a day-long party culminating in the broadcast of "Die Entscheidung," or The Decision at a couple of public viewing points.  The biggest festivities were at the BMW World by OlympiaPark, which would have held many of the games.

We stopped by Marienplatz to watch the announcement.  It was far more crowded than the average summer tourist Glockenspiel viewing - actually very close to the point of being dangerous.  Rather unusual for Germany and its usual efficient crowd control!

Despite not having a win to celebrate, they went ahead and released the balloons and shot off some cannons or fireworks or something from the tower as the crowd quickly dispersed.

All in all, it was a nice bit of sun on an otherwise busy work day! And any perfect summer day is a day worth celebrating!

P.S.....I really don't know what this was, but had to take a picture. If anyone knows the story behind these types of vehicles (and the related crazy Austrian backpacks), I'd love to know! I'm not sure how to describe these in English, so I have no idea where to begin Googling them in German! But I'm curious.

Here's the Austrian cousin we saw at the World Cup downhill skiing event

Photoblog - Back to the English Garden

Following our initial post on Munich's English Garden, Frau A and I went back for more photos.  (Frau A also wanted to see if any new chicks had hatched from the water bird population.)

We took the U-Bahn north, from downtown to Münchener Freiheit.  It's one stop past Giselastrasse, just off the top of the map you see here.  The idea was to walk south through the park from Kleinhesseloher Lake, photographing the Chinese Tower, Monopteros, and surfers (yes, surfers, you'll see) on the Eisbach.  Lastly, the State Chancellory is just outside on the park on the way home.

On the map you can see a creek running along the west side of the park, which feeds eventually back into the Isar river.  Atop the bridge railing as you enter the English Garden, the park service installed a new flower planter.  Very nice.  The Germans really like flowers and have high quality displays throughout the city.

We kept walking west to the Kleinhesseloher See.  This is most famous for the beergarden that sits on its shore, called the Seehaus.  It seats 2500 people!  In addition to the Seehaus, one can rent paddleboats and canoes to take on the water.  On our last visit, we weren't experimenting with HDR Photography, so this time I bracketed and tonemapped the waiting paddleboats.  More HDR to come.

In the next photo's background you can see the throngs enjoying food & beer at the Seehaus -- in good weather it is always packed.  Perhaps this guy wished he'd picked a paddle boat instead -- look's like he's taking a rest from rowing his sweetheart around?   She looks relaxed though.

These guys know how to enjoy life.  Take refreshment with you onto the water, put your feet up, and soak in the sunshine.  (The sun gave us a colorful reflection on the water too.)  Notice the geese hanging around, just in case any humans care to share their snacks.

On the southern tip of the lake, where it narrows to a feeder heading towards the Isar river, Frau A saw the feathery babies she was hoping for.  This train of goslings was motoring after mom & dad.  The guy in back seems to be yelling for everyone to wait up.

We brought breadcrumbs to feed the waterfowl - some come out to get a more strategic position.  It's harder to see in the web-sized photo, but you can see this baby's tiny teeth.  Notice also that the adult in the background has a tag around its foot, part of the wildlife management in the English Garden.

Next along the way was the Chinese Tower.  There's a beer garden here also (not shown).  There was a German "oom-pah" band playing on the second story (hidden from this view) -- common entertainment in good weather.  The sun was really bright now - even with bracketing and tonemapping there are still some blown highlights, but that's just my inexperience showing.

 

We continued walking south to the Monopteros.  This was a prime candidate for HDR too.  I got some serious vignetting, but it doesn't distract too much so I didn't try to fix it in post processing (also a bit lazy... could correct for some distortion as well...).  As usual, HDR brings out texture in stone and contrast in the clouds that you wouldn't get in low-dynamic range output.

As you near the park's south exit, you should always stop at the Eisbach to see the surfers.  The Eisbach is a small man-made river flowing through the English Garden (and another small Isar tributary).  One section at the end has a standing wave, perfect for surfing -- the surfer stays in place as the water flows by.

Technically, this was illegal... but never enforced.  That's probably why they made it legal in 2010 and now just post warning signs.  The surfers only have a few meters in which to go back & forth, so you can catch the spray on camera:

There will often be a lot of spectators, watching from both banks of the small river, or loooking down from a small bridge that spans the Eisbach just a couple of meters before the wave.  The guy below was probably the best surfer we saw that day and gave us plenty of opportunity to get some good photos.

Check out this Eisbach surfing video on YouTube, taken from the bridge.  There are regular surfers, beginners just lying on the board, and even body surfers!  The water is cold, hence the wetsuits.

Finally at the end of the afternoon, one more chance to bracket photographs and try HDR - at the Bavarian Chancellory building.  This is outside the English Garden, inside the small Hofgarten.  Lots of glass and stone make for a good subject to tonemap.

There is just so much to see in the English Garden.  Frau and I will return again in Autumn to see how things have changed and photograph some other nice spots.

Google Doodles Quiz - Part 10...Media and multi-theme logos

In this prior post we briefly described Google Doodles and had a quiz.  This blog entry is the 10th "quiz" of Doodles and the last one (for now).

Below are three Doodles recognizing the birthdays of radio and film directors, two historical figures that did not fit into the previous categories, plus two Doodles that each reflect two topics:

#1

#2

#3

#4

#5

#6

#7

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Answers below:

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#1    Birthday of Alfred Hitchcock (The Birds)
#2    Birthday of Akira Kurosawa (Japanese film director)
#3    Birthday of H. G. Wells (War of the Worlds)
#4    Birthday of Ghandi
#5    "Birthday" of Confucius
#6    Independence Day (4th of July)  and  Birthday of Rube Goldberg (cartoons of complex machines)
#7    New Year's Day  and  Birthday of TCP/IP which is the communications protocol for the Internet!

July 4th Food

Happy July 4th!

Since it isn't a holiday here in Germany, we celebrated yesterday with a good, old-fashioned American summer meal.

Spicy pork ribs, sweet corn, and rosemary potatoes...with some Andechs Bergbock Hell, of course.

We've found an easy way to do ribs here (and luckily good pork is available everywhere). Wrap the ribs so they're air-tight in aluminum foil and bake in oven around 100°C for several hours.  The steam released from the meat should make the packet puff up as it cooks.  We usually just leave them in low all day and they come out perfectly tender and falling off the bone.

As a special treat, we topped it off with a homemade version of one of America's finest inventions - Reese's Cup Blizzard!
It's not a road trip without stopping at Dairy Queen, and sadly they don't have them here. Reese's Cups finally are becoming more widely available here - they have them occasionally in the American section of grocery stores in Kaufhof or Karstadt. But now they're available at the mini-Edeka in the Hauptbahnhof and at many gas stations!

Take your favorite ice cream and let it soften. Add crumbled Reese's cups and blend.

Delicious! 

While it's wonderful ice cream, the Häagen-Dazs Beligian Chocolate really is a bit too rich for this. It's great on it's own, but is just too much and also overpowers the Reese's cup taste a little. Next time we'll try with some vanilla or less chocolatey ice cream.

Women's World Cup

Back in February we attended an Alpine skiing World Cup event in Garmisch-Partenkirchen (Women's Downhill).  So yesterday, we went to Augsburg to watch Sweden take on North Korea in one of the Women's World Cup soccer matches.

Augsburg is just a 40-50 minute train ride from Munich - basically the same as going to the airport!  Quick & easy.  It's smaller than Munich (about 260,000 inhabitants vs 1.3 million) with a likewise smaller stadium.   The Impuls Arena seats 31,000 (vs. 65,000 in Munich's Allianz Arena) and this game drew over 23,000 - a good size crowd for the first round.  First round games of Germany or the U.S. are the most popular and sold out... 

There is a typical pre-game activity for all FIFA World Cup matches:  the teams march out in parallel; each player walks with a child, holding his/her hand.  The players line up, country flags are displayed, and the respective national anthems played. 

 

We were sitting in the third row of the southeast corner of the stadium -- so anything in our end was really close, but action on the far side of the field was not so easy to photograph (even with the big zoom lenses we brought along).  In the first half, Sweden defended the goal in front of us.  We did get one shot of the Swedish keeper with a Sony 3D ad making her look cool, but North Korea for the most part was not too dangerous and the ball didn't spend much time in our zone. 

The first half ended 0-0, and we hoped that Sweden would continue to create action... and that in the 2nd half it would be in front of us.  We were not disappointed!  In the sequence below, the Swede made a dangerous push right in front of the goalie box, but the keeper made the stop. 

A number of corner kicks were right in front of us -- in the photo below the set was handled right, but the header ended up off target (and probably not strong enough anyway).  But Sweden was creating the most chances and you got the feeling they would break through eventually. 

North Korea did keep it interesting with a few scares of their own.  The picture below was one of their best opportunities, but the Swedish goalie made the stop (with the help of some physical play by the defender). 

Still early in the second half, Sweden again went knocking on the door, but the North Korean goalie again closed the door... 

The North Korean style is ball-control, and most corner kicks and free kicks were NOT put into the air -- rather, passed to a neaby player.  (The height differential probably also dictates that style of play.)  In this case, however, we have a clear view to the other end where North Korea did try a set piece.  Not well executed though. 

Around the 60th minute came the game changer.  Sweden came quickly down the right side, right in front of us!  A smart, fast cross came to the striker who trapped it and placed a hard shot past the goalie who could not get back left-to-right in time.  1-0, Sweden. 

  

Yes, the ladies celebrate the same way as the men... 

And that's how it finished too.  In the end, the better team won but it was a fun game to watch.  In general, we've found that watching fussball in person give a much better feeling for the speed and precision of the game -- we prefer it to television.  We're going to see of some of the elimination round games are available!

German Beds

Travellers always find little surprises wherever they go. The most common one in German hotels - after "what do you mean there's no air conditioning?!?!!" - is the bedding.

Perhaps it's in response to complaints, but I'm impressed that a recent Jetsetter popup sale on a Berlin hotel added this to their "What to Know" section.

Whether you're staying in a hotel or trying to buy bedding, Americans are in for a shock that it's extremely difficult to find large duvets. Usually they're closer to our twin size, so that you'll need 2 duvets for a normal sized bed. Many couples who come here are shocked that they have to sleep under separate covers.  There is a logic behind it, that men and women often have different sleeping preferences and having two different duvets (and sometimes 2 different mattresses joined together!) allows each to have their own preferred comfort and temperature.  It's supposed to prevent many matrimonial arguments, though many German women's magazines now debate whether the traditional is extremely practical or terribly unromantic.

What do you think? Strange? Great idea?

Personally, I like to able to totally wrap up in the winter and those little ones just don't do the job.