Friday, October 20, 2006

Hiking to the Czech Republic

After reading the manual to my camara, I discovered the "Compose this next shot for me, and make it look cool" button. Something to do with F-stops I think. I started to fancy myself a photagrafer, and took 247 pictures on this hike.

The new American brewing intern and his girlfriend and I had set our weekend plans to a hike in the Bayerische Wald, some of the only unindustrialized forest land in Germany. In a country where every hedge is neatly trimmed, every square meter debated and planned, I longed for a walk in the wilderness.

The problem is that you still need to bring a map and compass and do a bit of planning, even though you are in Germany and there is a cafe at the top of the mountain that serves weissbier and bratwurst. Prior planning prevents piss poor performance, a friend Tom once told me.

I let the others do the driving and the trail finding, and woke up as we got to a trailhead. We started walking down a trail that wasn't really signed. I grew suspicious after 30 minutes of our on-the-right-trail-edness. We found a ray of sun shining throught the trees, and I decided to show off my orienteering savvy.

Stick a stick in the sand and mark the end of the shadow (Point 1). Wait 15-20 minutes. Mark the end of the new shadow (Point 2). Draw a line from Point 1 to Point 2, which shows you which direction east is. The sun travels east to west, and if you are positive that we you are still in the Northern Hemisphere, you have an unwieldy but effective compass.

So now we knew we were briskly walking away from the mountain we wanted to climb for a half hour or so. We came understand that the trail system was organized and marked with animal charicatures. We were on the Rabbit Trail. After following the Rabbit, we took a right onto the Beetle Trail. Left on the Fern Trail. The Fern Trail got us into meeting some runners who pointed and confused us more. We started down an unmarked side trail, and I'm thinking about the headlines, "Stupid American Tourists Found Frozen 200 Metres From Their Car".

The unmarked trail essentially brought us back to the car, where we hitched a ride on a bus to the proper trailhead. The real trail was a beautiful walk through autumn hardwoods, steeply climbing through the autumnal colour palate.

We emerged from the shaded woods into a deadwood forest. For miles and miles around, trees at this elevation were dead and white. We wondered about acid rain or fire, and then remembered reading about a beetle attack. The trail maintanence crew cut down snags close to the trail, so they wouldn't fall on unwary wanderers.

The mountaintop vegetation in autumnal beauty mixed reds and oranges of the shrubs, straw and browns of the grasses, and greens from the fir trees.


Near the top of Mt. Rachel sits this Haus, where hikers can refresh themselves with cakes and coffee, or beer and pretzels. We all agreed that plum cake and coffee was in order.

Plum cake: a wonder of European culinary culture. A delicate balance of sweet and tart without too much uneccesary sugar. On a hike, would you really rather eat an energy bar? Oh how I've missed you, plum cake.


The background of this photo is the Czeck Republic. Just more miles of dead forest. But is was very pretty dead forest.

Every little zit of a mountain in Germany has a cross at the peak. I think Ian was really happy about his plum cake and coffee in this picture.

Sunday, October 08, 2006

Je monte et pense à mon chéri.

Car j'étends nu dans le bigorneau, j'étire mes bras et fais un ange de pelouse. Tous les nuages cumulous blancs gonflés forment la forme de mon visage du chéri. Comme il gentil est d'elle pour me rendre visite ici dans les collines de la Bavière.

The typical Bavarian building technique is called "Fachwerk", which means literally "subject tradework". Ian says that that it means "half-timber construction". But I won't quote him on that.

I've seen a few of these old houses gutted out, where all that is left is the wood framing. I'd like to believe they were being reconditioned. It is a beautiful way to build a house, most likely not up to earthquake code, but authentic looking and makes for good atmosphere.

I'm not sure what the orange plant is, but it made for good foreground. If anyone has a botanical name, please send me an email.


Clever Hans takes a picture of himself wearing a yellow wind jacket next to a field of yellow crop. Isn't he witty? The bees thought I was witty too, when they confused me for a flower and started to try pollinating me.

I saw hanggliders and parasailors from afar, and wondered how they managed to get up in the air. I was biking along a ridgetop, so they couldn't have launched from higher ground. So I rode around until I found their launch pad.

They have a control seat winch station, which feeds out about a mile of rope, dragged via motorcycle along flat farmland. The pilot locks in and radios the controller. The winch pulls, the pilot runs, and his sail hoists him in the air. Very cool. I took video of this guy taking off. He almost wipes out, and I heard him yell "Schtopp! Schtopp!" right before his sail takes him airborne.

Saturday, October 07, 2006

Budvar wersus ze Amerikan Budweiser

Soon after I arrived in Germany, I started a beer tasting notebook, to keep track of which beers I had already tried, what I thought they were made of and so on. Lost it at a pub. So I'll have to start over. Ts'ok.

One beer I will never forget is the Czech Budweiser. It is a true, whole Saaz hopped lager, clean and perfect and Saazy. I was so amazed by this beer, that I started to wonder about the trademark debates I had heard about, and thought I would read up.

The two companies, American Anhauser-Busch and Czech Budvar, have been battling over trademark issues for a long time. You have in one corner the biggest beer producer in the world, trying to sell his wares in markets where "Budweiser" means Czech premium lager. They actually agreed in a trade fair in 1911 that AB wouldn't sell in Europe, and Budvar wouldn't sell north of Panama. Of course, AB could not stay out of Europe forever, and thus came conflict.

In the other corner you have Budvar. The Czech town of Ceske Budejovice, "Budweis" auf Deutsch, has been brewing beer since 1260. About 500 years before the Declaration of Independance. Just down the road is Plzen, the town which developed the now world famous Pilsner beer style.

So far this battle has actually proven positive for Budvar. They have not sold out to the American company, and all the press has brought attention to the Czech brewery.

In the US, the craft beer industry has been thriving for the last 20 or so years. Much to the delight of beer nerds, they are able to taste five different IPAs from a single grocery store, all brewed by locally owned breweries. And each year more small breweries open up.

In Germany, the famed home of beer, the opposite is happening. The mega-corporations either buy up the little guys and shut them down, or smaller breweries are forced to shut down, out-competed buy economy of scale.

I could start to rant about Walmart and the decapitation of the entepenurial class by corporate America, but I think I'd rather have a beer. Cheers.

Just Another Bavarian Bike Ride

Sometimes wrong or random turns result in finding the place you really wanted to be. That last sentence sounds a bit like Confucius, and while I could go on and on about the Great Masters teachings, I am just writing about a bike ride.

I thought this twin track farm road would be adventerous. It led me to a great view above the town of Tiefenellern, but the gravel was so loose, and me being on a road bike, I had to ride on the median vegetation for traction. Riding to and from this little town is about a 30 km ride, perfect for after work. Since you ride up a valley the whole way, the ride back is almost entirely downhill.

Speaking of worng turns, on this ride I decided to see how lost I could get on back roads through ag and forest lands. Fate led me to this family's farm, which I had to bike across (road ended, I rode a little foot path bordering their land) to get to the road seen in photo. The family was probably just going to church, or grandmas house. I've never seen a horse-drawn carriage before; at least not a non city/tourist one. They found it odd that I found them photo-worthy. I found it beautiful that they rode a carriage.

I took the train to Bayrueth, home town of Richard Wagner. Wagner is best known for composing the helicopter attack scene in "Apocalypse Now", previously known as "Flight of the Valkaries". I wanted to ride up to the Fichtelgibirge. On the map, the Fichtelgebirge are the most promising mountains close to Bamberg. I had hopes of finding cliffs, gondolas, alpenhorns, braided blondes, and Ricola headquarters. I found a bike-friendly, gradual ride up to off-season ski towns, and an excellent 20 km downhill ride after the summit. But no alpenhorns.

Germans love flower boxed windows. There are so many flowered windows that you start to wonder whether their is some funny business going on. Like there's an unspoken rule about windows and flowers and the dutch flower mafia muscle enforcement makes sure you buy this years colors and plant on time...

Near the end of the ride, I tried taking shots I could sell to Starbucks or Microsoft.

Parents Visit Germany

My parents stopped by Bamberg in late August. We took a driving tour through Franconian Switzerland looking for Tuchersfeld, which you see in the photo above. I saw a picture of the rock formations in a guide book and figured it would be interesting to see.

Along the way, we saw this ruin of a burg. Asking the locals for a two minute history, we learned that the knights that lived there would ride down and rob whomever was passing through. Every little town has their story, their bit of history that they embelish to make a buck.

The stark visage of this cliffbound ruin had me imagining Monty Python versions of the robber knights, the big parties they would throw after a heist, and the last big one, when the jester tipped over the lantern in the linen closet while frolicking with the stable woman and the whole place went up in flames. What a pity.


After visiting Bamberg, my parents went south to a mountain village called Oberstaufen, and I joined them there one weekend. I had the chance to go for a hike one day. A beautiful walk up a mountain, passing hundreds and hundreds of bell-laden cows. There was such a din from all of the cow bells, that I actually got nervous. What if the smart nerd cow that knows that their faux mountain paridise was about to end as the human captors march them downhill to meet their maker. What if he spreads moo and the cows revolt? Look at those horns! I wouldn't stand a chance!

I started running and sheltered in this cabin for several days, waiting for the end of the week. I befriended a goat and lived on goat milk for the week, no way I was getting near one of those cows! By the end of the week, I had figured out how to make the most delicate mountain goat cheese. You can order it online now at www.gaugerbrau.cheesespot.bs.

On Friday, the German cowboys came up the mountain, and decorate the cows with flowers in an event called Feeshiite. I'm certain that the spelling is wrong there. They march the troops down throught the town and there is a party and everyone is jolly except for the smart nerd cow, who knows whats coming and was unable to convine his bovine comrades that the flower march means death.

This is the view from the hotel in Oberstaufen, the most spectacular view I have ever seen from a hotel. The air felt clean, full of pure grass-fed cow shit aromas. I think the mountain in the background is the one I hiked. Beyond that ridge, you are looking into Austria.