What a week! Editing and choosing the pictures for this week was so much fun. I spent the first half of my week living in my beautiful Berlin apartment with my amazing roommates. I went to the gym every morning, set up a relaxing home office and even cut my hair. Then, the second half of my week consisted of early morning train rides and 4 days in Garmisch Partenkirchen. I got to ski in the Alps on Garmisch Classic and Zugspitze. I got to Après ski in Europe. It’s all so awesome. I can’t believe that I’ve been living in Europe for 4 months and I’m already skiing in the Alps with my friends. I can’t believe I was just casually on the border of Austria and Germany. I can’t believe a lot of things. It doesn’t feel real sometimes. But it feels amazing.
When we strive to become better than we are, everything around us becomes better too.
Including my closet, which is now a cute little home office. Over the weekend we cleared out the extra things from the walk-in closet and now I now have the perfect command center set up. I find it difficult to concentrate if I’m in a messy environment, but now I have a clean little office in the back of the house with 2 giant windows and lots of natural light. It’s the ideal set up for my work from anywhere situation this year.
third times a charm
We have now been on our gym grind for three weeks and waking up at 5am has started to feel natural. This week to help track our progress in the gym we took measurements of our muscles and even bought a new fancy electric scale. The scale is from the brand called Renpho, but it looks exactly like my FitIndex scale from the U.S. The scale costs maybe 30 euros (on a bad day), but it gives you so much useful information. On top of basic information, like your weight, the scale also tells you your BMI, body fat percentage, visceral fat, amount of protein in your body, metabolic age and a ton of other crazy metrics. I don’t think they’re all super useful because I don’t understand the importance of my bone weight, but I think it’s cool to look at all the data.
LIFE ON FILM
I have loved photography my whole life, hence the beginnings of this blog, and this week I was able to send off my first rolls of film in Germany. For my film development I decided to go to Rossmann, which is a chain drug store in Germany that is similar to CVS or Walgreens in the US. Overall, the process was fairly similar to having film developed back in the States, but I genuinely guessed my way through the steps. Everything was in German and I haven’t learned words for film yet, so we will see what happens. I’m hoping the photos get developed and delivered back to me, but it’s truly a gamble if I’ll ever see that package again.
NEW HAIR, WHO DIS?
I have been lucky my whole life to always have a hair stylist in the family. For most of my time as an adult I have been able to visit my amazingly talented cousin for a haircut, which made hair cuts a breeze. After moving to Berlin I truly missed this luxury, but I found out this week that my new roommate is also a brilliant hair stylist. This week we decided it was time to chop off some of my dead weight and give my hair a fresh look. I didn’t do anything too crazy, just a couple of inches straight across the bottom, but my hair already feels so much better. Maybe in the Summer I’ll go even shorter… or even blonde.
THE EARLY BIRD GETS THE TABLE SEAT WITH THE WINDOW VIEW
This week I had my first ski trip of the season! I love planning trips with friends and especially trips revolving around winter sports and nature. To kick off our long weekend in the Alps I met up with Nisha for the 4:30am train from Berlin to Munich. I love train rides, especially when they’re empty and we bring pastries and coffee to keep us company.
LOCKED AND LOADED
One of my favorite things about traveling in Europe are the trains. More specifically, the train lockers. I think it’s absolutely genius to provide storage options at the train stations. This time I finally got to use the large storage locker for my snowboard bag and it was a perfect fit. Honestly, it was big enough for me to fit into too. Something I’ll keep in mind if I ever have trouble finding a hotel room for the night.
THESE BOOKS GO GREAT WITH COFFEE AND CAKE
While Nisha and I waited for everyone’s separate trains to arrive, we posted up at Lost Weekend coffee and book shop. The coffee shop was only a short walk from the main train station, but the walk was really refreshing after 5 hours on a train. Lost Weekend was clearly a popular coffee shop, but after looking around for a few minutes we were able to find a seat. I grabbed a hummus sandwich and a ginger tea. The perfect paring for my first real meal of the day.
OUR LOVELY AIRBNB
I feel so lucky that we found Dirk’s house on Airbnb. The house was the perfect size for 7 people and only a 10-minute walk from the Hausberg lift station in Garmisch-Partenkirchen. The stylish décor and breathtaking views of the mountain range were also the best backdrop for our ski weekend. Dirk was an amazing host, and I could not have been happier with our experience. When we first arrived, he showed us around his lovely home and gave us pointers for skiing over the next few days. On top of the house tour and ski advice, Dirk also hooked us up with snacks. During our introduction tour to the Airbnb, my friend and I had mentioned to Dirk that we hadn’t eaten all day because we were on the train. Next thing we know, fresh homemade lenil soup shows up at our door. He even stocked our fridge with a few staple snack foods like eggs, yogurt, meat and cheese. Seriously a 10/10 Airbnb experience that I would redo any week of the year. If you’re interested in checking out Dirk’s rental, you can find it here.
FAJITA FRIDAY!
For our first meal of the weekend, we started off easy with a free-for-all burrito / nacho / fajita / taco bar. Our toppings consisted of the classic bell pepper and onion mix, beef, beans, corn, chilies, cheese, mushrooms, tofu, salsa, guacamole and lettuce. We also paired the delicious feast with a crate of beer from the Garmisch Brauhaus because #buylocal. After fueling up on beans and beer we ended the night with drinking card games. The funniest game consisted of matching cards and stealing a wooden stick from the middle of the table faster than anyone else. I’m not very good at describing the game because alcohol.
ZUGSPITZE: TOP OF GERMANY
Zugspitze is the highest peak in Germany and sits 2,962 meters above sea level. It’s also part of the Wettersteingebirge in the Bavarian Alps, which means I just had my first ski trip in the Alps!
To get to the peak we truly had a journey. We took the Zugspitzbahn Cogwheel from Garmisch-Partenkirchen in the direction of Zugspitzplatt. The train passed through cute villages and snow covered fields in Hausberg, Kreuzeck / Alpsitzbahn, Hammersbach, Grainau, Eibsee and Riffelriss before turning 90 degrees vertical and ascending Zugspitze to the peak. I don’t know why, but I was so surprised that the train went all the way to the top of the mountain. I expected that we would need to get off the train and take a cable car to the top of the mountain at some point, but nope… the Cogwheel was the little engine that could. For 25 minutes we burrowed through the mountain before popping out on top of Deutschland.
The view from the top of the mountain was truly insane. We lucked out with the visibility while we were at the peak and we could see for what felt like miles… or kilometers. My brother likes to remind me that the Earth’s surface begins to curve out of sight after 5 kilometers, so I should really be saying “we can see for approximately 5 miles unless I’m a flat earther.”
After freezing in the gale force winds at the top of the mountain and holding on to T bars for dear life, we ended the day by posting up in the après ski tent with weiss bier, French fries, cake and packed sandwiches for a few hours. After a few drinks we took the tipsy train back down the mountain and watched the sunset over the snowy mountains. It was gorgeous!
Apreski at Bräustüberl Garmisch, zum wildschütz, Bierbrauerei Garmischer Hof and Peaches
While I love cooking giant group meals, I also love getting dressed up and going into town for a nice meal with all my friends. For our first meal out we decided to go to Bräustüberl Garmisch for pregame drinks before heading to zum wildschütz for a classic Bavarian meal. We ordered a wide spread off of their menu, ranging from Flammkuchen, fish fillet and goat cheese salat to beef stroganoff and something to do with ox meat. It was all delicious and beautiful, but my favorite part of dinner was singing Oktoberfest songs with the bar staff and getting a round of free shots.
While we were in Garmish we went out every night and the après ski vibes were always comical. We spent one night playing Pass the Pig at Bierbrauerei Garmischer Hof and closing out Peaches with singing along to classic German hits like Marmon, Stein und Eisen bricht.
MORNING COFFEE WALKS
As I’ve said in previous posts, I love my mornings. Instead of sitting in the house alone in the early AM I spent my mornings in Garmisch walking around the town to see everything in the early morning light. I love being up before everyone else is awake in the town. I spent my time searching for the best croissant and the the best sunrise spots. On my morning walks I made sure to grab coffee and a butterbretzel to start the night off on the right foot. One morning I also walked to a bakery and bought a giant loaf of fresh honey bread to use for our ski sandwiches. It was the best mid skiing snack I could have asked for.
GARMISCH CLASSIC
Garmisch Classic is a series of tall mountains in the Bavarian Alps that are famed for their history as the 1963 Winter Olympics location. On top of it’s history with elite sports, while we were at the mountain they were also hosting the 2022 Skiing world cup. It was cool to see the tv crews and athletes prepping for their big moment. Meanwhile, we stuffing our pockets with homemade PB&J sandwiches and falling down reds.
The weather while we were skiing Garmisch was truly the best weather we could have hoped for. It was warm with fresh snow and sun the entire day. At some points I didn’t even need gloves at all. While we were on the mountain we had enough time to start at the Hausberg lift and zig zag way across the mountain to the peak of Kreuzjoch (1,719km) and Osterfelderkopf (2,050km) before the sun set behind the mountains. After a full day of skiing we finished our runs at the Kreuzalm bar and ordered French fires, Weiss beer and Fireball shots. All in all, a super successful ski day.
PIZZA NIGHT Finale!
For our final night in Garmisch, Chef Alex made pizza from scratch for everyone in the house. This pizza was seriously amazing, and it took hours of prep work. Alex made the dough the day before and let it rise over night. Then, to top it off, he brought his own pizza oven. I have never seen a portable pizza oven before, but it’s seriously one of the coolest inventions. You can check it out for yourself here. I had so much fun on this ski trip and the home made vegan pizza was the cherry tomato on top.
SERVUS Sunsets and homemade waffles!
