San Francisco

We opted to avoid the holiday travel chaos, which meant a delayed trip to the US.

This was the best option after having several airline mishaps in the years past - driving from Washington DC to Ohio on Christmas Eve three years ago, and nearly getting stranded in El Paso two years ago.

Thankfully this year the weather decided to also cooperate with us.

Before our biannual Ohio visit, we stopped in San Francisco for 5 days to visit our dear friends, Emily & Jeremy, and their new pup - Banjo.

Having visited San Francisco twice before, it was so nice to see the city from our friends' view points and to simply catch up more on life after Germany. We sure miss them.

San Francisco is a great city;  fog swept rolling hills, inventive restaurants, creative people, and a lot of high tech industries. The only downsides are the amount of homeless people and dog poo littered sidewalks.

There are also many public parks speckled around and warm weather year round to make it incredibly livable.

Oh, how we missed the variety of American food. The portions may be larger than in many places, but it's the best way to enjoy a meal - by sharing great company and delicious foods. We did a lot of eating and this is certainly the city for that.

A few of the restaurants we visited included:

Tartine ... this is the legendary pastry shop with long lines that are worth the wait.
Nopa ... for a great New Year's eve dinner
Umami Burger ... waygu burgers
Tacolicious ... I will dream about these tacos and margaritas for a long long time. They are perfection. The tuna tostadas were my favorite, but I don't think you can go wrong.
Mosto... the tequila bar right next to tacolicious, making waiting time that much better.
Beach Chalet ... as close to a California beachside biergarten as it gets - with a veggie hops burger.
Tornado Pub ... an endless array of beers from around the world.
Mission Chinese ... this pop up restaurant has caused quite a stir and is now here to stay - don't miss it! The food is crazy good and the rap music is a hilarious blast from the past. The salt cod fried rice and the thrice cooked bacon were probably my favorites.

Bi-Rite Creamery ... delicious ice cream, which is extra sweet to enjoy in Delores Park with great weather in the middle of Winter. They also have an ice cream cook book coming out later this year! 

Chantal Guillon macarons... a touch of France in California. 

Ici ... (Berkeley) I'm not sure what the deal is, but sadly it was better the last time we went

Saigon Sandwiches .... Banh Mi, Vietnamese sandwiches

If you are planning a trip check out the following:
Jamie Oliver's San Francisco tips... We visited many of his recommendations, although the magazine came out a month after our trip.
7x7 Big Eat List of 2012... plenty more restaurants to try
7x7 Big To-Do List... 100 quintessential San Francisco experiences

Not all of our time was spent eating... we also did a lot of walking. I always seem to forget - or mentally block out - how impossibly slow and archaic the public transport is even in the biggest US cities.

With the California sun shining brightly and only needing to wear a jacket I wasn't sure if I was in some sort of alternate reality. A heavy dose of sunshine in the middle of the Winter is really is amazing and was the perfect way to start the new year. Those year-round beaches are such a luxury, too.

Fort Funston ... this beach is so unique. Dogs and their owners stroll along, splash in the waves, and find little treasures washed ashore. I'd go to take it all in even if I didn't have a dog, but I really can't wait to get one.

Tilden Park... for incredible Bay area views and a nice nature stroll.

Street art... lots of self expression around town 

St. Mary's Cathedral... home of the "two o'clock titty", at two o'clock the sun's channels its own Mary Katherine Gallagher to give the church it's own perky bust. 

What a great place to start the new year. Even the fog couldn't hold those fireworks back this year. 

Munich in September + October

Rather than writing about everything we've been up to I figure people enjoy photos more anyway.

Here's some of the fun September and October brought our way...

September

visitors decked out in their Bavarian best at the Oktoberfest

brotzeit

plenty of pretzels and beer

Münchener Kind'l street art

October

views from the Gaisberg

Auer dult

Autumn leaves

incredible weather

... as for November, we were once again traveling and trying to decide where to spend Christmas. 

Munich in May

What a busy month this has been.

we toured the Paulaner brewery and learned how to tap a wooden keg

celebrated a certain special someone's birthday

took a trip to Moscow

said hello to sunny days with endless flowers and creative cupcakes

... and goodbye (or at least bis später!) to good friends

We'll be traveling for the entire month of June to some of our favorite places. I can't wait to share more of our travels!

Frühlingsfest in Munich

The Frühlingsfest isn't as popular as Oktoberfest. With only 2 beer tents it's a much smaller scale, but it's still a lot of fun.

We visited with our friends Emily and Jeremy, who sadly are moving back to San Francisco soon. They will be greatly missed! It's still nice to pack in a bit more Bavarian fun before they say goodbye to Munich.

If you head to the Hippodrom, I highly recommend the spätzle with pears on it, but it's definitely enough to share.

The fest runs until May 15th.

Saalbach-Hinterglemm

Right after Christmas we headed to Austria for a fun getaway with friends.

Spectacular views of the Alps

Serious snowboarding

Lots of aprés ski glühwein

Fantastic sledding

The perfect skiing weekend

This is exactly how Winter should be.

Frankfurt

Here are some photos from the Frankfurt and their Römer Christmas Market, which will open this coming weekend.

We were in town for our friend's birthday last weekend, which was a lot of fun.

Being there brought back so many memories of my first days in Germany, although it seemed like another lifetime ago. I used to walk all over that city. Somehow I forgot how many tiny little adorable shops and restaurants they had.

Frankfurt is an interesting place. It's heavily run by money and work life, which makes sense since it's one of Europe's largest financial hubs.

Our hotel room had a balcony that looked onto the Commerzbank Tower and it felt very big city. It's probably an easier city to transition to since it is so international, although we were only there for a short time.

At the party people had mixed responses when I told them I lived in Munich. Some called it posh and wished they lived here, too, while others felt it lacked multiculturalism and was a glorified village.

Happy Halloween

Nearly every year I decide to create something for Halloween at the very last minute. Finding decorations here isn't so easy, so I decided to make my own. Stefan helped me hang the bats since I can't reach our ceiling even with a step ladder. They turned out very cute.

Our friends Allison and Jamie are visiting for the long weekend, we received a card from the Great Pumpkin, and it's the end of daylight savings time so we get to 'fall back' an hour and have more sleep... so we've already had several great treats.

Here's to hoping your Halloween is just as fun!

Oktoberfest 2010

Going to the Oktoberfest is always fun. I love seeing the different tents, decorations, and small details. It's also nice to go at various times of day to see the way the light changes.

The second week looks to be much chillier and with a bit of rain. That is one change I could do without, but I'm glad we were able to enjoy it with bright blue skies and the last of the summer sun.

Cat + Beth brought their dirndls along, so they were set and ready to go. Our first Wies'n visit was opening weekend, but thankfully with reservations at the Schottenhamel tent.

Reservations typically include vouchers for 2 Maß + 1/2 of a chicken. Even though the vouchers come with a tip for the waitstaff it's wise to give them at least a Euro extra for prompt service. It's easy to understand how the workers make a fair amount of money during the Wies'n, but they definitely earn it.

Stefan joined us after running a half marathon and looked dashing as ever in his lederhosen. We had a great time singing our hearts out. Perhaps I haven't visited enough this year to pin the 'Wies'n Hit', but the band's rotation was really great and included crowd favorites that you can download for your own celebrations:

'Das Geht Ab' - Frauenarzt + Manny Marc
'Ein Kompliment ' - Sport Freunde Stiller (the local favorite)
'Skandal im Sperrbezirk' - Spider Murphy Gang
'Hofbräuhaus Lied' - Wilhelm Gabriel
'Anton Aus Tirol' - DJ Ötzi
'Anita' - Costa Cordalis
'Country Roads' - John Denver
'Er Gehört zu Mir' - Marianne Rosenberg
'Viva Colonia' - De Höhner
'Fürstenfeld' - S.T.S.
'Hände zum Himmel'
'So ein schöner Tag' (Fliegerlied) - Tim Toupet

We'll be visiting several more times as friends and visitors arrive. I'm hoping to get up the courage to ride the sky swings or ferris wheel at dusk, because I'm sure the photos would be incredible.

Vintage Oktoberfest

Since Oktoberfest began 200 years ago it is more of a celebration than ever, although this is a photo of the calm before the storm. Vendors were finishing their set ups and Theresienwiese was relatively quiet.

The old-fashioned area with old rides, costumes, animals, and horse races opened the day before the actual kick off, so we were happy to take part in the festivities. It costs 4€ to enter, but it's definitely worth checking out. After all Jubileumswiesn was 200 years in the making!

The animal area is very impressive. They have sheep, cows, horses, rabbits, turkeys, and freshly hatched chicks.

Keeping with the Oktoberfest theme there is plenty of beer, but the beer in the Jubileums area is slightly different. All 6 breweries got together to help in creating it the old way straight from the wooden kegs and it's available at the Festzelt for 8.80€ / litre. It's a bit stronger in taste and alcohol.

It appeared as though many tourists didn't realize it was happening, because there weren't as many people as I would have expected.

On our way over I was talking to our cab driver about the supposed controversy between several brothels in the area. One is said to give the cabbies 120€ / person they bring, so the other brothel is complaining. He said since he's a day driver he doesn't know too much about it, but he did say he had a Turkish business man that wanted a 'typical German woman'. He wasn't sure what that meant, so he took him to several brothels to check out the ladies. The cab driver said the Turkish man found one he liked, but she was the cleaning lady and her services weren't for sale. Cab driver stories are always so random.

Amazingly we were his first trip to Oktoberfest this year.

In the Festzelt there were traditional Goaßlschnalzen whip crackers and locals with their festive costumes and kitted out tracht.

It makes me love our city that much more - they definitely know how to celebrate and incorporate tradition at every turn. They also make things so family friendly.

This is a great site to buy Oktoberfest decor and celebrate yourself if you're not able to make it.

Chiemsee Wedding

Our friends Irmi and Felix got married last month and had a very beautiful celebration at the Chiemsee.

They are big sailors, so having it at the lake was a perfect fit. Every tiny detail was not overlooked from beautiful paper lanterns and parasols to a cigar bar that grew more and more popular as the night wore on.

Being a dog lover I was also thrilled to see several guests had brought theirs along.

They were very distracted while everyone enjoyed cocktails and hors d'oeuvres.

We all celebrated late into the night with lots of talking, dancing, and of course eating plenty of fantastic foods.

The next day, after brunch, we each wrote a note for love for a balloon launch. What a gorgeous wedding weekend.

Congratulations, Irmi + Felix!