The Last Time

Well, Oktoberfest 2009 is finally over. I am not a huge fan of Oktoberfest. It is fun to go with Jenn and the kids and go on the roller coasters and eat a chicken (the secret ingredient is salt...a lot of salt), but essentially it is a giant Vermont country fair with thousands of drunk tourists. Imagine drinking 2 or 3 liters of strong German Beer and then trying to pick up the hot chicks (or dudes) and then eating some salty meat and then going on rides where you speed up and down and around in circles. I am pretty sure you know what happens next. Multiply by ten thousand and then multiply that by two weeks.

We usually go once a year...like here in 2006

Now that Oktoberfest 2009 is in the books, it got me to thinking about things that I will miss when we move to Chicago. I was thinking about it because people keep asking me if I will miss Oktoberfest. No. No I will not. I also will not miss the traditional vomit puddles.

But I will miss:

Weisswurst: White sausages that I eat every Friday morning. Breakfast of Bavarian Champions

Krustenbraten: Fantastic roast pork that I really like as a sandwich. mmm...

The alps: See my last blog entry for details

Bier: German beer is better than American beer. That is a simple fact. I will miss German beer

Go outside!

Like most teenagers, our children spend what seems to be a huge amount of time in front of either the computer, the television, or some other kind of electronic device that you hold in front of your face. It probably isn't as much as it seems and I cannot really tell them to reduce their time since I spend a lot of time on the computer and Jenn even got a Netbook so that she would not take away valuable Left4Dead time from me. Yes, I spend quality time with my son by killing zombies.

While the summer has not be overly awesome in terms of weather, these last few weeks have been pretty nice indeed. We always talk about doing stuff outside, but we often do not get around to it. For example, we live quite close to the Alps, but we have never gone skiing in our 8 years here! We just never seem to get around to it. Lame. So anyways, we went for a 2 hour bike ride yesterday through the villages south of Munich and today we are going on a hike in Schliersee.

It is really cool to be able to do these activities so easily and while we have not taken advantage of the Bavarian countryside as much as we should have in our years, we will definitely miss it. Or we will at least miss the possibility to do these things. Let's see what Chicago has to offer...

Here is a bike ride shot from May 2005

Hiking in Sept 2006

Sterling is playing Mass Effect right now...