Lap 34

This weekend I stepped out of my Larry Bird year into a my Charles Barkley / Hakeem Olajuwon (but definitely not Rick Barry) year (I turned 34, if you're not NBA-inclined). 

Molly and I woke up early and sprinted through the Weiden flomarkt (flea market) looking for last-minute steals before hopping on a train west to Wurzburg, which is known for its Baroque architecture and the vineyards that drape the hills on either side of the Main River. 

We had originally intended to use the Bayern Rail Pass (5 people can travel all day, anywhere in Bavaria, for 28 euros) in the same way Jay Dietrich, Dwig Lovejoy and I did in San Francisco circa 2003 -- randomly jumping on and off at various stops and seeing where the day / dice took us. However, after it took us three hours to get to our initial destination, we decided to postpone Muni-meets-Deutsche Bahn for another weekend. 

Wurzburg is very walkable so we mainly cruised the cobblestone streets and stumbled into the occasional weinstube (wine bar) for a break from the German bier norm. As we were stumbling, we stumbled further into something called "federweisen" (the spring whites), which is a super sweet, delicious, cloudy white wine -- mmm. Oh, that, and a waitress who told us frankly, "Das ist nicht fur Sie" (that is not for you) when we tried to order something from the menu that was obviously out of our league. 

Other than Molly absolutely murdering me in backgammon to and from Wurzburg (something was obviously wrong with the dice:), it was a chill weekend, with no real plans and no stress. 

I'm not one to brag, but I did receive two very special gifts -- a hop plant (which will hopefully be in our first beer we brew here) from our friend and co-worker Franz, and a personalized song from Molly that is destined to replace the standard birthday tune. Here's the original version (patents pending):