Ski Trips - St. Jakob in Defereggental (the Funpark!)

In a previous post, we showed briefly the skiing in St. Jakob in Defereggental (Austria).  A little further than most skiiers in Munich will drive, but wide open slopes and short lines make it a relaxing alternative to the crowded mountains closer to big cities.

Another especially interesting dimension of Defereggental is the "Funpark".  This is basically a long, broad slope that has ramps, jumps, and other possibilities for trick skiing.  Think of your local skateboard halfpipe area at the park - this is the skiing version.  You have to go to a specific lift for it -- the arrow on the map shows you where it's located on the slopes.

This is a pair of good sized snow jumps.  I would see a bunch of snowboarders and skiiers (see the double tracks?) try them, although conservatively.  I tried a jump like this at a different Funpark and fell back on my butt - you have to lean forward more than you'd think. I would see a lot of snowboarders resting uphill from the jumps with their buddies, perhaps getting up the nerve to kick off and tackle the jumps.

Expecially for the snowboarders, St. Jakob has installed skateboard-like handrails to jump up and slide down.  Here you can approach from the right or the left.  I actually saw a skiier do this one!  He was one of those Austrian teenagers that has probably been skiing since he was three years old.  I saw him all day, and he would ski down the easy slopes going backwards, so this guy had chops. 

This one was almost exclusively used by snowboarders.  Maybe because of the curve?  It would theoretically be possible to do this with skiis, right?  You can see a lot of snowboard tracks to the left of the ramp, where people changed their minds at the last minute and changed course to go right of the ramp. 

I didn't see anyone try this particular prop while I was taking the lifts.  But I think it's cool that they installed an entire stairway in the slopes, and am guessing that when the hard-core snowboarders are out there that this is used quite a bit.  I want to see three guys board down this at the same time, one on each section!  It's funny that you can see footprints on the left - did someone wipe out and head back up for another go?

 

Finally, there was this monster jump.  HUGE.  I thought about taking this veeeeery slowly, but chickened out.  Look at the right side of the ramp and you'll see ski marks about halfway up - that come diagonally down from right to left.  These people, like me, started approaching this towering pile of snow and changed their minds, swerving to the left and cutting across the side of the ramp rather than over it!  I did see some people do this, and a professional photographer taking photos.  I'll look for them on the next brochure.  Cool. dude.

March Madness

As the NCAA tournament has moved beyond its first rounds, so has the Schnitzelbahn German Beer Tournament.

After many tastings and experiments with food and beer, we find ourselves with 16 teams beers remaining (sorry, my mind is overcome with basketball...Go Heels!). We've had a lot of winners so far, and I guess Herr J and I have been the biggest winners of all, getting to try so many new beers and say hello again to our old favorites.

At this point, the bracket looks like this (click to enlarge):

In our four "regions"we have remaining beers from 10 breweries:
Hacker-Pschorr
2x Löwenbräu
2x Andechs
Tegernseer
Hasseröder
Krombacher
Augustiner
Hofbräu
2x Erdinger
and a record FOUR entries from Paulaner!!!

8 of the 10 are in or around Munich, though Tegernsee and Andechs are special places meriting their own mention!

This is where we bring our friends into the fun...Most of our first round matches pitted similar beer types against each other. In the later rounds, however, personal preference really becomes the deciding factor. So we thought we'd solicit the opinions of our trusted friends and get more votes...well, and any excuse to have a party....

We have some favorites, of course, but there's not a beer in the Sweet Sixteen that we wouldn't gladly order. And since the field is dominated by Bavarian beers, it would be pretty easy for us to order one fresh out of the tap!

Macro Photography with compact cameras

I rambled a bit about trying to get decent night photos from a compact camera in that previous post, but now it's time for some random thoughts about "marco" photography with compact cameras.  Macro photography can be simply defined as capturing small subjects.  Technically, a macro shot is when the light image that hits the sensor is close to the same size as the actual subject (thanks, Wikipedia).  Think of a mountain landscape:  on the sensor, the "picture" will be small.  If you capture an insect at a macro level, the "picture" on the sensor will approach the size of the insect in real life.  This differentiation is important to pros because it changes the mechanics of lens/light/etc.  I don't know such details, but try to take macro shots anyway.

There are two methods of going macro:  either use a zoom lens (that can focus in a macro setting), or put the front of the lens really close to the subject.  For campact cameras, even ones with quite a bit of zoom like my now-dead Canon SX200IS, only the second is really available.  Here is one of my favorites taken in garden here in Germany.  (Don't jump!)

In this case, the front of the lens was probably 3cm from the insect itself.  Many DSLRs have a minimum distance between lens and subject, often measured in feet.  Fortunately, most compact cameras today have the minimum distance specified in centimeters, and some are effectively 0cm!  In other words, the subject can basically be touching the front of the lens, but the camera will still be able to focus and capture the shot.  For whatever reason, this insect allowed me to get the lens to about 6cm from it.  The colors turned out great, and there was not a lot of movement so I didn't get much subject blur and got some neat detail.

 

The challenge of getting the lens so close to a subject is not only that the subject may be disturbed and move away, but the camera itself starts to cast a shadow -- because the lens is so close to the subject, it starts blocking light from reaching the subject!  In this example below, the day was clear and the sun was bright.  However, the sun was overhead, so getting too close for a top down pic just made it dark.  Therefore, I had to change my angle to ensure enough light hit the bee.  It creates a nice effect on the flower, but I could not get nearly as close as with the prior photo.

Even with the bright sun (and therefore lots of light and a fast shutter speed) insects are difficult.  They move lots, and quickly.  In the example below, the spider let me get just a few centimetes away, but was constantly moving.  That made it difficult for the compact camera to achieve focus (it kept "hunting"), and when it did, some of the spider's legs are blurry.  Still fun to take and look at, though.

 

The other challenge with focusing:  when the lens is that close to the subject, even with a smaller sensor you get a shallow depth of field.  Notice here that I wanted to get the ants in focus, but my camera kept grabbing a part of the plant.  I should have used "spot" focus mode, to tell the camera specifically where I wanted it to focus on.  Too bad, the ant "checking me out" would have been great in focus!

The upside of macro photography with a compact camera (and its small sensor) is that you get some "bokeh" -- the "blurred" section in the background.  Bokeh is not something you can usually get with these cameras.  In this case, the blue makes an interesting addition to the scene.

Like night photography, these are not professional examples, but fun for me.  I really recommend you experiment with your camera.  It can be fun to see what comes out, just don't get bitten.

German Pranks

Our Anglo culture does not always understand the German sense of humor.  The best (satyrical) summary I've ever seen is from "The Xenophobe's Guide to the Germans", which says:  "The Germans take humor very seriously.  It is no laughing matter."  It's a good way to describe it.

I can speak the language quite well now, but it is hard for me to keep up with a comedian (they speak very fast, with lots of slang).  But hanging out with guys from work, I have learned that the humor is often quite directed -- they laugh "at" as much as they do "with".  And, as usual in the German culture, there is not a lot of subtlety to their humor... but when they do put together a skit or a prank they approach it like building a BMW.  All out.  As you'll see below.

Here are a few pranks from an old television program, "Verstehst du Spass?"  ("Do you understand fun?").  In the first, they set up a fake waterbed in a department store... and you know how everyone likes to try out beds (especially at 1:26 and 2:19).  The targets take it pretty well.

In the second, they use identical twins and a fake bathroom mirror to make other visitors think they don't have a reflection.  I especially like the end, where the girl has to remind her reflection to come with her (at 6:03).

The third skit is the longest and most complicated, but it's really worth it.  A guy is driving someone else's BMW, and thinks it rolls down the hill and sinks in water.  But then another guy drives a car over the same water, trying to convince him that it's just a large puddle (at 4:13).  There's even more, with a disapperaing person in the same "puddle" (at 5:07) - it's worth the time to see the whole thing, even without the benefit of understanding the language.

Finally, I have to share this classic.  It's not a prank, but a television commercial for Germans to learn English.  A German Coast Guard rookie has to help a ship in distress... Cheers.

The Good Side of German Customer Service

As previously mentioned, customer service in Germany sometimes can surprise you...on the postive side, a service person's incredible knowledge in his or her area of expertise is shocking. And you will often come across people in stores who take great pride in their department.

Herr J's neighborhood grocery store is a great example of this. The man who runs the wine section spent 7 years in New Zealand, and therefore is always on the lookout for good NZ wines to include in the store's selection. The wine section of the store is "his" section, and he takes great pride in it. He holds wine tastings in the store every few months and likes to interact with customers to find out what they enjoy and how he can improve the selection.

One of the butchers there has a similar approach. In addition to the normal meat selection, they offer a variety of pre-marinated or pre-assembled meat dishes (think kebabs, roulade, etc.). We've found the marinades to be exceptionally good, and he explained to Herr J that he enjoys experimenting and making new creations to sell to customers.

His thinly sliced bacon-wrapped pork spirals on a stick were pretty amazing, so when we saw this unusual looking thing in the meat counter, we had to try it:

It looked like raw hamburger braided with strips of puff pastry, so I expected it would taste similar to the beer and beef pies I usually have on hand in the fridge...just in a different shape.

We still don't know what these are called, but we're going to experiment with making them. The taste was wonderful - the ground beef (a very lean beef, as is typical here) was mixed with onion, garlic, and spices, sandwiched between strips of puff pastry, then braided. You cook around 150°C for 15-25 minutes, and then we turned it up a little at the end.

The results were so great! We're looking forward to seeing what else the butcher creates.  

Observations from the US

Usually my trips to the US are vacation trips, and we all know vacation has little relation to reality. But this is the first time in a while I've been to the US and spent some "normal" time there. You know....getting up in the morning and going to work everyday, having a routine, etc...

For the record, it's been WONDERFUL! Except that I get really confused sometimes - at my level of German speaking, I'm used to planning in my what I'm going to say before any interaction with others. I find myself doing this, and then realizing how useless my German sentence will be to anyone here

A few random observations on life compared to Germany:

• The food portions are huge, but the beers are small
• Everyone walks to and from the train station, but few walk to lunch (maybe in summer??)
• Due to construction this morning the walk/don't walk lights were out of service for most of the walk.  I think a lot of city-dwelling Germans would have been lost when the lights stayed red forever. I wonder what's the longest someone would wait before giving up and jaywalking?
• Interestingly, everything at Starbucks has a calorie count on all its baked goods now!

The Last of the First Round Matches

And here we are, finally, after many nights of tasting beers. We'll finish up with a last round of four Pilsners.

First up, we have Hasseröder Premium Pils and Bitburger Premium Pils. Hasseröder has been brewing beer since 1872, but was a relatively small and not widely-known brewery until the 1990 German reunification. It had been a highly successful regional beer, but was not often available outside of the Magdeburg district (now part of Sachsen-Anhalt) of the DDR. However, it's been one of the big success stories after reunification - becoming one of the top three consumed pils nationwide, and one of the favorite beers in the former DDR states.  They invested heavily in technological improvements and marketing, ultimately became part of InBev and was chosen as the brand used for beer ads during the German World Cup matches in South Africa. Though Budweiser through InBev owns the rights to the beer advertising in the World Cup, the Budvar-Budweiser dispute prohibited them from using the Budweiser name. Instead, they chose Hasseröder, which generally focuses its marketing efforts on sporting teams and events.

Bitburger is one we see often on commercials, especially during televised sports. Everyone knows their slogan "Bitte ein Bit" ("Ask for a Bit" or "A Bit, Please")...their commercials are everywhere! Bitburg is located in the Eifel mountain area of Rhineland-Palatinate, near the Luxembourg border. Though pretty much every Geman brewery uses only the best ingredients, Bitbuger claims that its water source (drawn from the Bitburg Triassic Trough) gives it a superior, crisp Pilsner taste. Whether or not the water filtered through million-year old shell and sandstone makes a better beer or not, Bitburger is doing something right and is one of the top 3 selling beers across Germany.

In our contest, we preferred the Hasseröder, however. The Bit lived up to its word association and was a bit bitter compared to the crisp Hasseröder.  And in addition to a preferable taste, the Hasseröder had a really pleasing, crisp fizziness to it.  

Then we have Wernesgrüner's "Legendary Pils" vs König Pilsener, Germany's "King of Beer." Wernesgrüner has been brewing beer since 1436, which they make sure to point out was a good 50 years "before Columbus discovered America."  It's available these days in the US and Canada, and you'll definitely find it in any US Aldi that sells beer. (American friends, if you have an Aldi in your town, give it a visit!) Wernesgrüner has a long tradition of export to North America, as it was served on Hapag-Lloyd's famous Hamburg-New York cruise line in the early 1900s and was also often taken to other countries as a gift by German travellers. Today, it's owned by the Bitburger Group, and is pitched as a brewery combining hundreds of years of experience with modern technology to produce a Legendary beer.

The König Pilsener today is also part of the Bitburger Group. In addition to the usual sports marketing, they use German celebrities Til Schweiger and Boris Becker (seriously, he and his ladies are always in the tabloids and social pages!!) in promotions. König Pilsener has been around since 1825, when Herr König began brewing his beer. The brewery focuses on Pils today, though also produces an Altbier and several other beer drinks (radler, malz, alcohol-free, etc). They've been making Pils since before it was popular, so why change? This one comes from Duisburg, an inland port and major steel producing area near Düsseldorf. 

Both of these beers were considerably lighter tasting than the other two, but we picked the Wernesgrüner to be the Bitburger Group's representative in the next round.  

 

Though it's one of the biggest brewery groups in Germany, Bitburger's three pils could not stand up to InBev's Hasseröder.  Most likely it's our Bavarian-trained palates...we don't favor the super hoppy beers. It was, of course, a Pils, but we really enjoyed that they added some maltiness to balance out the hops. A really great pilsner beer.