When making our decision to move to Europe, my company presented us with two options: London or Munich. I can boil our decision down to three key factors: 1) London's sky high prices; 2) Munich's central location in Europe; and 3) the Alps. Let's focus in on the last point. Ryan and I love the outdoors. When we aren't traveling (see point #2), we generally can't sit still on the weekends. We would much rather be hiking, skiing, snowshoeing, etc. and, of course, mixing in drinking and eating with any of the aforementioned activities. And what a joy to do it with some awesome new friends by our sides.
In mid-February we took a ski trip with our friends, Matt and Julie. While I will spare you from the crazy back story of how our friendship started, I will just list a few of the strange coincidences that brought us together. We are both Pacific NW Pi Phis (sorority sisters) that are huge Seahawks fans whom moved to Munich with our fiances and are getting married a week apart within only three miles of one another in Leavenworth, Washington. Whew, that was a mouthful. Meant to be, right?
Back to the skiing story. We took an early Saturday morning train to Garmisch-Partenkirchen. I thought to myself, okay so typically Ryan and I are not the best at giving ourselves enough time to catch the train, so let's plan some extra time in our morning to give a little cushion. Sure enough, we decided to use that cushion and not rush out the door. Mistake #1. I had thought the U-bahn would be running every ten minutes, per usual. However, since it was so early and also a Saturday, the trains were running every 20 minutes. Oops. We debated on continuing to wait for the U-bahn or call a cab and decided on the latter. We hauled our ski gear back up to the street and waited for the taxi we had called. Upon arrival, the taxi driver told us his back seats did not lie flat and we wouldn't be able to fit our skis in his car. Why didn't we mention the skis to the taxi dispatcher? Mistake #2. At this point, we had now missed the next U-bahn, had we waited for it. We quickly called for another larger taxi, and I called Julie to tell her we may miss our train and that we could just meet them up at the mountain later. The new taxi came, we crammed our gear in, and told him to drive as fast as possible to the Hauptbahnhof. We made it to the train with mere moments to spare, which is apparently a special talent of ours. What is not a specialty of ours? Bringing a bottle of champagne for train mimosas, only to realize the champagne is actually corked like a wine bottle and we have no opener. Oh well, at least we were on our way!
We arrived in Garmisch and walked a short distance to the next train station where we caught a cogwheel train up to the highest peak in Germany: Zupspitze. It was definitely worth going once and the views were amazing. However, this is literally the smallest ski resort I have ever seen. There were two high-speed lifts, three T-bars, and 12 runs. That's it. The runs were fun and fast and we enjoyed ourselves none-the-less. I also managed to make an ass out of myself and solicit glares from German skiers when I couldn't get off a T-bar properly and ended up still on the upward slope on the wrong side of the lift.
 |
| Julie and me |
 |
| Ready to fly down this mountain |
 |
| Matt ready to amaze us by picking up skiing after 10 years without a hitch |
.JPG) |
| On the very windy peak of Zugspitze. |
After taking the train back down the mountain, we lugged our gear to our hotel in town. The hotel seemed surprisingly nice for the last minute cheap rate; we were offered free prosecco upon check-in and the rooms were very large. However, upon closer inspection, we discovered our room had not been cleaned very well. There were rose petals and gummy bears on the floor, and there were used towels inside a bag in the closet. Interestingly, there was also a small electric tealight candle placed atop a Cupid statue above the bed. We assume this room must have been last used for a Valentine's weekend getaway. They finally came and cleaned our room after three requests, so needless to say I would not stay at this hotel again.
We enjoyed a night on the town with Matt and Julie, which included taking Irish Car Bombs at an Irish Pub and becoming sufficiently hungover to make the next day of skiing extra fun.
 |
| Blurry like our vision. Photo complements of Julie's Instagram. |
On Sunday, we skied the lower part of the mountains directly above the town: Garmish Classic. The ski area was much larger, although the visibility was terrible and the crowds were huge. As I have learned, Germans have little concern for "personal bubbles" which they also apply to skiing. There were times I was actually scared because someone was skiing so close to me. They think this is perfectly normal, I guess. We enjoyed some awesome runs, despite the weather, and then enjoyed some beers on the train back to Munich.
 |
| Sometimes you just need a little hair of the dog at 11 AM in order to keep skiing. |
 |
| Check out the great visibility behind me. |
At this point, I will also mention that Ryan and I tried to do this same exact train-ski trip back in early January only to be turned away in Garmisch due to windy weather and what we assume were avalanche warnings. Here's a sweet little memory from that trip.
I was going to try and cram both of our ski weekends into one post, but based on the length of this one, I will give you guys a breather and post the second one separately. Stay tuned!
xoxo
L & R
.jpg)
