Austrian Ski Week

We just returned from a week of skiing in Lech, Zurs, and St. Anton, Austria with our friends Kyle, Tiffany, Alan, Liz, Katie, and Ben. We stayed at Haus Theresia for the third year in a row (2008 trip, 2009 trip). On our first night, Walter and Janine (our B & B hosts) provided Sekt (like champagne) for a toast. They are such warm, friendly people and the house is perfect for making your own evening meals and playing games in the common dining room. We highly recommend Haus Theresia to anyone traveling to this area of Austria. If we had more time in Europe, it would be great to return in the summer for a week of hiking and frivolity in the Alps.

On the first two days, we took lessons in Zurs from a great instructor named Siegi who took us all over the place- on and off piste (another word for ski run). This picture was taken immediately following the most challenging afternoon of off-piste skiing we've experienced...

Our second day of skiing was beautiful. One of the main highlights was watching a helicopter land not more than ten to fifteen feet from where we were skiing, pick up two passengers, and nose dive toward a different mountain, presumably for some heliskiing. 

Although Matt skied for all SIX days of our trip, several of us took Wednesday off to give our bodies a rest. In the morning, we rode the Galzigbahn (gondola) up a mountain in St. Anton to take some pictures...

By coincidence, we ran into the skiiers atop the same mountain. Our friend, Kyle, the mannequin...

We spent the remainder of the afternoon at the St. Anton spa. It was very surreal to swim laps in an outdoor pool at the base of the Austrian Alps and to enjoy at least five different saunas...yes, I know this is an experience I should NOT get used to, but it was sooo nice!

On Thursday, we skied the Weisse Ring, a ski route that links Lech and Zurs. Unfortunately, visibility was very poor (see the whiteout below), but we enjoyed skiing in the fresh powder.

In lieu of mail service: Happy Birthday, Brandon!

On our final day, we skied the Wiesse Ring again, in hopes of better views...mission accomplished!

This was a great kick-off to the 2010 ski season. For more pictures from the trip, check out Alan and Elizabeth's photo album.

So Long, Farewell

It's official...Adam, Melanie, Calvin, Kurt, Carrie, and Emma are headed home (tear). Before they left, we hosted a little farewell party for them at our house. Here are some pictures...

Everyone brought food and drink to share, with a little touch of red-white-and-blue...

Look out America, you have two really cute kids headed your way...

 

It's true what they say; when you're this far away from home, your friends become more like family. From our trips to Salzburg, Vienna, Lech, Madrid, and Toledo...to our Luxembourg half-marathon training/race and Frankfurt marathon relay...to Settlers games (and resource apparel)...to watching you welcome your first children into the world...to celebrating Halloween, Thanksgiving, Christmas, New Years, Easter, Fourth of July, and everything in between...it's been a pleasure.

Thanks for the memories. We'll never forget our CMT adventures in Europe!

Updates

The blog is officially up-to-date. Check out November's posts for pictures and captions of our trip to Venice and Milan, as well as December's posts for pictures of the Wiesbaden Christmas Market and our trip to Iowa.

Happy New Year!

January Snow

After spending the past few weeks back home explaining how our area of Germany does not seem to get an appreciable amount of snow, we stand corrected. This is the most snow we've seen in three years here, although there still only appears to be a few inches of accumulation. Nonetheless, here are some photos from our schnee covered village...

It's beautiful, but hopefully it stops soon so that the roads are ok tomorrow!

Gluckliches Neu Jahr!

This was our first New Year's Eve, or Silvester, in Germany (Year 1: we were in Belgium with Kiley and Erich and Year 2: we were still in Iowa for the holidays), so we were happy to spend it with good friends. It is common practice to set off New Year's Eve fireworks in Germany, so the guys set them off throughout the night and eventually the sky above our village was filled with smoke from all of the pyrotechnics. It's a pretty fun tradition and was nice to see, since it's been a couple of years since our last Fourth of July celebration.

Iowa- Weeks 3 and 4

Thankfully, my good friend Liz was home for the holidays, so we were able to spend some quality time with her, Nate, and some other members of her family...

We spent Christmas Eve with Matt's family and had a delicious dinner of pork loin, baked sweet potato/apple, frog-ball (or fish-eye) salad, and beer bread.

Ben, Brandon, and Matt in their fur hats from Russia...

The kids...

Although travel was not advised on Christmas morning due to ice and wind, Erich, Kiley, Matt and I drove SLOWLY to my grandparents' house in Lincoln. The typically 3-hour-long trip took 4.5 hours, but we arrived in time for brunch, followed by gifts and Christmas dinner preparation.

This is Evey, the latest addition to the Friedman family. Congratulations, Ruth and Dan!

Table set for 23...

The guys...

Now that the younger generation is not so young anymore, we have enough players for a Contract Rummy tournament....

Table 1: T.J., Ashley, Brandon (Deb, the photographer)

Table 2: Mimi, Barb, Erich, and Elie

Table 3: Pam, Greg, Hannah, Kiley

Table 4: Andy, Matt, Colter, Scott

Brandon was the winner! In addition to cards, Beatles Rock Band was enjoyed by many...

On our second night in Lincoln, a Russian dinner was prepared (inspired by travel to Russia this fall), beginning with pickled herring spread, and pickles with sour cream and honey (try it, it's delicious!), followed by beef stroganoff, beet salad and pickled cucumbers. For dessert, we had baklava and some Lefse (Norwegian). And if the food wasn't authentic enough, Mimi and Herb also gifted everyone in the family with Russian fur hats of their own...needless to say, they were a hit!












As we were all acting silly with our new Russian hats, someone aptly commented that perhaps a Russian family somewhere in the world was gifting each other with NY Yankees hats at that very moment. I'd be curious to see what faces and/or gestures they might be making in a similar photo...

Ki, Erich, Ash, and Matt

The cousins...Elie, Ben, Brandon, Hannah, Colter, and Katy

No, we didn't fly our own personal Russian man in for the dinner. This is my uncle Greg who looks like he could have been plucked right out of the Red Square...

Dinner was followed by about 30 minutes of activity that could be described as "recreational dish washing" or perhaps "karaoke cleanup." Music was blasted. The Rock Band microphone was retrieved from the basement. Hilarity ensued and the dishes were done in record time.

Meanwhile, the kids had their own Russian after-party, to which Matt and I were graciously invited.  There was a special password, which was "no password," (can't get anything by these kids), and only two rules: (1) no smiling; and (2) no having fun. American children being socialized to believe that all Russians are fun-hating individuals - done and done.

The next morning, Matt and I were up bright and early to drive back to Des Moines for games, dinner, and a White Elephant gift exchange with Matt's Mom's family. This quick travel to and from various family gatherings is always a pleasant reminder of how fortunate we are to have our families live so close to one another.

In our final days in Iowa, I had brunch with Kate, Cassie, and Sam at Waveland Cafe and Matt had lunch with Kevin at Tasty Tacos. On our anniversary (3 years and counting!), we had a great lunch with Kiley and Erich downtown at Django and in keeping with tradition, we had our last supper with the combined family, this time, we met at Mustards.

Christmas card outtake (you may want to click on this picture to take a closer look at Brandon)

This was yet another great trip home, our last before leaving Germany at the end of the summer. Thanks to everyone who helped to make our Christmas so special. Love you all!