Christine at the Porsche Museum

As stated before, Stuttgart is the car capital of the world.  We are headquarters to both Porsche and Mercedes Benz.  I have been patiently waiting for someone to visit me so that I could take them to the car museums.  I stopped waiting.  Today I visited the Porsche Museum.  First off, it is reasonably priced at 8 Euros.  It is a modern architecture building (left side picture).  The museum is across the street from one of the factories (right side picture).

 

I took some pictures of cars.  But, if you are a faithful follower, you will remember last summer, there was a car event in Stuttgart Mitte (center) and I took tons of car pictures there.  Today I learned more about the history of Porsche and racing cars, well racing Porsches.  

Guess who invented the Beetle Bug Volkswagen?  That's right -Ferdinand Porsche.  His son, Ferry went on to develop his own car because the ones out there were not his dream car.   On to my dream car.  I would look exceptional behind the wheel of this Porsche *:

Carrera 2S

This car can drive fast enough that it could drive on the ceiling.  Right now it's just rigged to be on the ceiling.

I found the cut away cars most interesting.  (It's kinda hard to get a good picture since it's in glass.)

I also liked the frame portions taken off the car so you could see inside.

More after the jump...

Per my Mom's request

What I look like skiing (from Chamonix, France):

From Mayrhofen, Austria:

Christine

Christine in Interlaken, Switzerland

As it turns out, you have to pay a toll to drive through Switzerland.  This is different then when I went to Zurich for the day.  Going there, I drove by the boarder patrol and did not pay a toll.  No one stopped me or anything.  Either going into Switzerland, or leaving.  Even though I drove right by the agents.  I have no idea why not.  For my New Year's ski trip, the driver stopped to pay the toll.  For cars, it's 40 Euro for the year.  I think you get a couple of Francs back.  (Side note:  there is also a toll for Austria in case you ever drive there in your own car.)

Rule #1:  Find out where you are staying before committing to a trip.  We stayed in city part of Interlaken.  This is a 1 1/2 hour commute to the top of the mountain.  Yes, you read that correctly 90 minutes to get to a place where you can ski.  Not cool.  We took a bus to the train, then switched trains half way up.  The 2nd train reminded me of that book "I think I can, I think I can".  Yes, it was a slow ride up.

Rule #2:  If you are out of college, do not stay at a hostel.  It is just not worth it.  The place was clean enough, but the walls were thin (I had earplugs so that helped).  It's just hard to share a shower with others.  Also, for the shower to run, you had to hold in the button/handle thing.  It is hard to shower that way.  I agree with Chris, a participant on the trip-they are called hostels because that is how you leave.

Rule #3:  If you plan to eat somewhere on New Year's Day-make a reservation.  Otherwise you are stuck eating (surprisingly good) burgers at the hostel.  The Swiss lit off fireworks on New Year's Day.  They party like everyone else on New Year's Eve.

The mountains:

The mountain was fairly big with plenty of intermediate runs (reds in Europe, Blues in the States) and a few blacks.  The Friday afternoon we arrived, the mountain was closed due to weather (winds).  Saturday it snowed a ton.  Sometimes visibility was not great.  Also, it was a wet snow.  I didn't think my jacket would dry for Sunday, but it did.  Sunday had perfect conditions.  Lots of powder to ski on.  I did a black run and hit some powder.  I also fell on my ass.  It happens.  It is hard to get out of powder, well get up and get your skis back on.  Monday we skied a half day in order to drive back.

In addition:  the Weltcup (World Cup) holds an event at Interlaken.  They blocked off the downhill run.  They were grooming and salting it for the race 13-15 January 2012.  But I skied next to it (just this red fence between the run and me) so I am counting it as skiing a World Cup run.

Start House 

Part of the Weltcup run

Francs and dollars aren't quite even in converting, but close enough I thought of them as a 1 to 1 conversion.  But a soup and bottle of water cost 16 Francs.  Rule #4:  Switzerland is expensive.

Christine

Christine in Chamonix, France

If you can't spend Christmas at home*, I suggest skiing in the French Alps.  Chamonix is a beautiful city, near the boarder of Switzerland and Italy.  In fact, you can ski 3 different countries and 6 different mountains in the area.  How great is that?  For this trip, I stuck to the French Alps.  I skied at Brevent (2,525 meters- 8,284 feet) and Domaine de Balme (Le Tour) (2,270 meters-7,447 feet).   The sun shined at Brevent.  This made for lovely skiing conditions.  I prefer to ski in the sun, since I hate being cold.  The mountain had amazing snow for the 2nd time going there.  Loved skiing that day.  And the restaurant on the mountain had excellent tomato soup.  Best I've had in Europe.  And I've had my fair share of the soup.

Not my best picture ever in terms of framing for the top of the mountain.

Skiing above the clouds.

Le Tour had power though.  If you ski, then you know that most everyone wishes for a powder day.  It snowed all morning at Le Tour.  I won't lie, I had trouble skiing in the poor visibility.  You have no idea what the condition of the snow is right in front of you.  But I loved skiing in the powder after I could see it.  So much fun.  A tip I learned- lean back a bit to keep your ski tips up (over the powder).  So there are no pictures of Le Tour.

I stayed at Gustavia.  This hotel is Swedish owned and operated.  They are quite nice people.  Who love to party until 2 in the morning.  Interestingly, they celebrate Christmas on Christmas Eve.  At 3pm they watched the Disney movie Donald Duck.  They do this every year.  The bar was packed with people.  Some could not even see the tv; that's right they just listened.  Apparently the Swedish think that Donald is like them- a pull yourself up from the boot straps, can't keep me down type.  They said the busy season is actually the summer time.  They can keep summer, I want snow.  Lots and lots of snow.

I managed to have 2 types of fish on Christmas Eve.  Not quite like my family tradition of the 7 fish, but I tried.  And mine included oysters, which I like.  The hotel served a turkey dinner for Christmas.  But the dessert was lousy.  Some kind of English plum pudding or something terrible.  To the British people that may read this:  put butter in the cake/pudding batter.  Don't serve it as a garnish to add to make it taste better.  It doesn't help.  At all.  I'm just sayin'...

Waiting for the bus, there was a picture that I will paint some day:

Those are the real mountains.  They just look fake.  And this is my obligatory church picture.  ha ha

Christine

*I did have the chance to Skype with my family and it was wonderful to see you all.

Christine in Bastogne, Belguim

The Battle of the Bulge occurred at Bastogne, Belgium, beginning 16 December 1944 and lasted until 25 January 1945.  This is a fascinating battle and I recommend you read up on it.  Others have written more eloquently about it than I could ever.  The show Band of Brothers renewed interest in the battle.  So you can also watch that.  But I would like to point out that Easy Company were not the only ones to participate in the battle-far from it.  Many brave Americans gave their lives or were injured during the fight.  I believe around 16,000 Americans died and 64,000 were injured.  The Germans knew they could not win this battle with just fighting and their weapons.  They struck when the weather took a turn for the worse, so American planes could not support our troops.  The weather improved on 23 December and the bombers followed the tank tracks in the snow to take out the tanks.  Also, they dropped much needed supplies.

On December 10, 2011, the USO offered a walking tour of the battlefield.  And since it is around the anniversary day of the battle re-enactors were there.   The troops had to face snow (with little to no snow weather gear) and Germans.  We had a sunny day with no precipitation or enemies (as best I could tell there were no German re-enactors).  This made hiking much easier (or so you would think).  In many areas, the route was covered in black ice.  Not fun.

You had the opportunity to participate in an 8km, 18km, or 23 km walk.  I walked the 18km hike.  (This is *just* over 11 miles.)  I hiked through the woods, mud (yes, this city girl walked through mud-it's good I purchased hiking boots prior to my move), and water-logged clay.  I am fairly certain the entire hike was uphill.  Around the middle of the hike, I slipped on icy cobblestone (my slipping on cobblestone actually is a frequent occurrence around Europe).  I believe this is when I hurt my ankle.  And so I walked in pain for about 4 or 5 miles.  PSA:  Do not wave at buffalo.  Yes, the buffalo was looking at me.  And then I waved.  Then he charged.  Luckily, the electric fence stopped him.  There are no pictures of this event.  I was too busy moving out of the way.  And you would do the same thing.  Thanks to Joe for the camel pack-it came in handy on my walk through the woods.

Mud that I crossed over.  

3 German soldiers were buried in each grave (2 Unknown soldiers, 1 Known)

Me on the clay road-one of the more walkable parts

Veterans of WWII

Christine

Christine at the Schokolade Festival

Germany is a wonderful place.  Tübingen has a Schokolade (Chocolate) Festival.  The only bad thing--they have it for one week.  Really, this event should occur every weekend as far as I am concerned.  And I think the hordes of people that attended would agree with me.  Tübingen is a university town, right outside of Stuttgart.  There were all types of chocolate there.  As is custom (during Christmas time), there is a mug you can purchase for the event.  I had both heiße Schokolade (hot chocolate) and Kirsche gluhwein (cherry hot mulled red wine).  I also sampled Swiss hot chocolate.  

The people:

Examples of Schokolade makers and creations:

Best Schokolade cake ever.  I took a bite before I thought to take a picture.  But it was that good.  

Someone did painting with Schokolade:

Finally, I had a shot of Schokolade in a Schokolade made shot glass.  But forgot to take a picture.  Too excited.  ha ha 


Christine 

Christine in Mayrhofen, Austria

It is the greatest time of the year.  That's right--It is SKI SEASON.  Woo Hoo.  For Thanksgiving, I traveled to Mayrhofen, Austria to ski.  Mayrhofen was suppose to open on that Saturday.  But alas, there is no snow to be had in Europe.  We skied at Hintertuxer Gletscher (Glacier).  There's always skiing on glaciers.  We were 3250 meters up (10,750 feet for you Americans).  It was above the tree line.  You take 3 gondolas to get to the top.  That is my least favorite part.  Of skiing in general.  Sometimes you have to suffer for your sport.  Big risk.  Big reward.

The views were breathtaking.

Yes, there were T-bars as you can see in the above picture.  Those are not so fun, but whatever.  I got to ski.  I just like the mountain.

You can't tell depth perception in a picture of a snow covered mountain.  But this is what a run looks like:

But we did more than just ski.  We also hung out at Après-ski (it means after skiing, in French).  That means you drink Glühwein (amazing spiced hot red wine) or heisse schkolade (hot chocolate). Speaking of them, the French like matching outfits.  I found this very amusing.  I don't know why.

Some of us at the bar (the cool people--me too, but I'm the photographer):

And we played this game.  You hit the nail into the log.  But the hammer is hollow.  So there is just a rim to hit with.

My nail is the middle one.  Winning.  ha ha

If you are not a skier, you can be an ice mountain climber:

Or just hike with some friends:

Like I said previously, there is not a lot of snow to be had (this is a sad sight):

Very cool formation in the rocks:

The hotel after the jump.