Tuesday, November 27, 2012

A Very German Thanksgiving (Week 3)

If there's one upside to last weeks' crash it's that I timed it perfectly with my last minute trip to Germany. With my hobble & open wounds restricting me from all forms of exercise, I was able to indulge in what is a typically restricted social calendar. So with just an hour of training logged in this weeks' books I'll take this opportunity to tell you about my jam-packed séjour in Müenchen.

I took a weds evening flight out to Europe which set me on the ground in Munich on thurs at 16:00. A quick U-Bahn + bus trip landed me in StudentenStadt where I reunited with my good friend and host for the weekend, Victor Le Pape from my overseas travels in the summer of 2010. We dropped my handbag off at his studio, met with Björn, and bought local fare for dinner at a nearby market. Dinner proceeded to become quite the affair, with the lot of us learning to scale, behead, and gut fish over skype with Le Pape's father (an expert in the matter). The German's have such a social culture, and this dinner crew wound up becoming a very close group of friends over the course of the weekend.

Prost!
Friday, I set off to the Welt to tour the museum and manufacturing plant and pick up a car for the weekend. I was absolutely blow away by the level of automation in these factories and the caliber of service to which I was treated. A highlight was being guided by Faris Al Sultan's training buddy (Tom something or other) and getting to talk triathlon rather than cars for a few hours! My tour ran late so I had to skip out on my déjeuner plans with Victor - only to receive a call a few minutes later from Fabi (whom I'd met only the night before) inviting me to his nearby place for lunch! Fabi cooked us a mean chicken linguini and we proceeded to jam on his guitars before I dashed out to make it to the University in time for my German economics lesson. Dinner was yet another group affair, this time an apperatif of sardines (from bretagne) followed by some sort of delicious bacon & asperge pasta and a few German beers at the local bar.

The BMW Welt.
Lets go for a drive.
Sheer driving pleasure.

Saturday morning was an early 7am start, picking up Fabi and Björn and their snow equipment on the way to Austria  for a day of skiing. I got to experience the AutoBahn for the first time, taking my beloved over 210km/hr and getting a speeding ticket along the way (which apparently costs only 15). The conditions and snow pack couldn't have been more perfect, and after a physically exhausting day we stopped in a tiny German town to eat and drink some of the most famous Schnitzel & Spezi. We dumped our things back at the appt, hit the club, and wouldn't get home until 7 in the morning.
Björn, Victor, Fabi et moi.
l'ivrogne et moi.


Unsurprisingly, Sunday was a late morning. Lets just say that by the time we woke up at 15:00 we had just about enough time to eat dinner before meeting with our friends for the Asaf Avidan concert (whom I shared a YouTube video of a few posts back).

Asaf Avidan.
Le Français avec ça moustache.

On Monday, Victor and I finally managed an 8miler in Englischer Garten out to the famous surf wave before meeting back up with our good friends Björn and Fabi and having one last Schnitzel feast in advance of my flight back to the states.

Schnitzel.

It was the weekend of a lifetime and I still can't believe the great friendships and adventures I managed to squeeze into less than 96 hours. I look forward to welcoming my new friends to California in the near future. Now, back to training!!

No comments:

Post a Comment