Euro furlough? Take it SLO

Last weekend, we experienced the first of what will be 11 furlough Fridays from July through the end of September.

Although I don’t agree with the process (which is basically a tax on DoD civilians because Congress couldn’t figure out a budget), Molly and I have been hard at work trying to figure out ways to make the most of these forced days off without pay.

We had months to prepare but it came down to a game-time decision: we chose to soak up the summer in Slovenia, near Lake Bled, which is only a 5-hour drive from us.

So we packed into our friend Steve’s Passat, paddleboard and all, without anything really planned except for lodging. (Ok, Molly scoped this place out and had several solid ideas; it was Steve, Eric & I who didn’t do any real legwork).

Riding on Molly’s excellent planning, we hiked the pristine Vintgar Gorge and lounged the entire next day on the shores of Lake Bled, which reminded me of an unspoiled Lake Tahoe, but without motorboats or overpriced vacation rentals.

Oh, but with crystal clear water and a 17^th century church perched atop an island in the middle of the lake.

So pretty much Lake Tahoe.

We had a surprise visit from our friends Mike and Sonya - fresh off a 10-day Alpine motorcycle excursion, who joined in on the fun in the sun.

We took excursions around the lake, sipped cold beers on the island and savored ice cream in the sun. It felt like the first day of summer – in the past four years.

Rounding out the weekend, we stopped in Ljubljana (pronounced “loob-li-ah-na”) for a city stroll and some lunch.

This weekend we took to the road again, this time to the Bavarian Forest National Park, which, when combined with the Bohemian Forest on the other side of the Czech border, is the largest protected forested area in Europe.

After a quick climb to the top of the Baumwipfelpfad, an egg-shaped, wooden dome that surrounds a few 90-foot trees and offers panoramic views, we hiked through the surrounding area, making friends with a moose or two and some birds of prey in what seemed like a part-zoo, part-wildlife reserve area.

Although we’re still nailing down plans for the next 9 furlough weekends, we have decided on one thing: If they're going to force us to take Fridays off, we’ll just travel like it’s our job.

If you can’t beat ‘em, paddle ‘em

When I surfed in Hawaii there was only one species of vermin more despicable than the fin-toting *spongers: those pricks on stand up paddleboards.

They steal perfectly good waves and clog up the line-up – not to mention the panic they inspire when they come barreling toward you on those behemoth boards and you have nowhere to go.

However, after having spent the last four years without easy access to the ocean, I began searching for a new water-based hobby.

I missed that light, watermelon sea breeze you get as you paddle out, the effortless joy of gliding across the water … and I also missed being in shape.

Though we’re more than 8 hours from the nearest ocean, we do have plenty of lakes and rivers, so the stand up paddleboard (SUP) seemed like the best option.

So last week on July 4 (‘merica!), Molly and I tested a few different SUPs on the Rednitz River near Nuremberg. After about 15 minutes we were smitten.

So smitten that we took one home that weekend, and that’s where the real testing began -- on a float trip down the Danube.

Initially, I was nervous about how fast the river was running, but when my co-worker Andreas and his girlfriend, Nikola, piled into a grocery store inflatable kayak with barely any freeboard, my fears seemed frivolous.

We bopped downstream with most of the oar-power being devoted to building a super floating island so we could properly prost “ausleben” (to the good life).

Several kilometers later we stopped at the Weltenburg Monastery, which is widely considered to be the oldest monastery in the world. Its beer regularly wins international competitions and the Asam Bock is just like it sounds (wait for it).

After a quick stop for bier and kuchen, we were back on the water. 

However, getting into the river proved much easier than getting out.

As we approached the disembarkation point, the river’s speed picked up. Andreas’ and Nikola’s kayak flipped, sending a floating yard sale of shoes, bags, a cooler and their three-pound dog, Mila, downstream.

Andreas caught Mila, and with the help of a Good Samaritan, we collected almost everything else. By now though, the rest of our possessions are probably floating somewhere in the Black Sea.

I left the trip with a newfound respect for the Danube, and an appreciation for the stand up paddleboard, but you’ll still never see me paddling out to the line-up on one.

*Spongers = boogey boarders. 

Traveling served up family-style

The family strikes a pose at the John Lennon Wall in Prague. 

My neighbor’s annoying dog has been barking for 45 minutes straight, and it will only continue as the day does. This barking annoyance has happened daily for the past three and a half years (and Jeremy and I have contemplated buying a super soaker numerous times). Last week, however, I learned the only thing to drown him out is a house full of Haydens.

Last Sunday my mom and sisters, along with their immediate families, flew from St. Louis to Germany to experience the lifestyle Jeremy and I have swooned over for the past four years.

It was a week of bonding, beer and Boggle. And like her last visit to Europe, my mom, Linda, stepped up to the blog mic to share her experiences, which I will relay below, despite the fact she calls me a hippie. (smile).

Dancing around the May Pole.

I never thought of my own mortality until the death of my mom two years ago. I don’t have a bucket list, and I prefer to say “life experiences” anyway.

What I did want was for two sisters to experience the life of their hippie vagabond younger sister. As I watched this unfold, flashbacks of their childhood filled my mind.

The minute the ‘seesters’ (as they call each other) were reunited they were hugging and squealing – my mind drifted back to three little girls squealing (and fighting) over toys, then clothes, then cars.

Prost from the Hofbrauhaus. 

Arriving at the Buddemeier-Hayden residence, we found bedrooms earmarked with a picture of the occupant, fresh linens and pillows donned with chocolate. My mind immediately flashed to messy bedrooms of yesteryear strewn with toys and clothes. 

Joel screams Munich City. 

Jet lag passed over the weary group as family sightseeing through Prague, rivalry during a bocce tournament and a competitive game of catch phrase – complete with warred heckling – took over the visit.

Hannah masters the Rodelbahn. 

Unique opportunities such as running in the Munich Color Run, riding the Rodelbahn, bathing in beer at a spa and touring a concentration camp effortlessly presented themselves.

Color run fun.

Family dinners became a free-for-all as everyone - fork in hand - reached across the table to sample everyone else’s food, without asking, of course.

Paige - 1, Pork Knuckle - 0

Sitting back and watching this weeklong family-packed vacation unfold was a heartwarming experience for me.

Owl face. 

I can’t say this was a dream come true because I believe dreams are planned. This trip was not planned – it was a gift from my mom, as unexpected as it were. She played an important part in this event; her spirit traveled with us in the sound of laughter as three generations reconnected. She showed herself when we found pennies on the ground.

Making new friends. 

I don’t think the younger kids (Paige, Hannah and Joel) will appreciate this trip until they are older, though I saw them soaking up the culture and food like the warm sun – which finally came out the last day of our visit.

Three ducks and a quack ride the U-bahn. 

And even though we all managed to cram numerous souvenirs in already jammed suitcases, the experience and exposure is what we will hold onto the most.

Biergarten Bonanza III: The mystery behind the maß

I’m going to let you in on a little secret: Germans like beer.

Ok, that’s not really a secret, but for all the cultures that claim to love beer, no one else celebrates the beverage and, more importantly, the perfect ambiance to go with it, like a typical German biergarten. 

But what makes this setting so special?

A dozen of us set out this past weekend to discover just that. We had heard tales from previous biergarten expeditions (namely, Biergarten Bonanzas I & II) that the answer to our question rested at the bottom of a maß bier – we just had to find the right biergarten.

So with Hawthorne’s “Beer Drinker’s Guide to Munich” and Bayern passes in hand, we made our way to Munich.

The first stop: the Fasanerie. Although renowned in the 17^th century as a pheasant hatchery, this biergarten was popular with our group for having the best damn pretzels.

Ever.

Probably even more impressive was the concessionaire opened a few hours early, just for us, and cranked those pretzels out like they were microwaved.

Next, we made our way to what has been called the largest biergarten in the world: the Hirschgarten. As the name implies, there’s an enclosure full of live deer in addition to the more than 8,000 seats in the surrounding biergarten.

We probably could have spent the entire day here, but trudged on to the Insel Muhle (island mill), where a few streams converge, splitting the biergarten into several sections.

By this point we were loud enough to be asked to take it down a notch, and one person was even jovially "chastised" for pouring bier into the wrong type of glass.

A few hours later we ended our search at a microbrewery called Forschungsbrauerei, where you can only taste the sweet nectar that is the St. Jakobus Blonder Bock at the brewery (they don’t distribute – not even in Munich), but the service was hit or miss.

After the last biergarten, things got a bit fuzzy: there was ninja frisbee, S-bahn platform dancing, a mad horn player, scary clowns, near-naked stream surfing and breakfast in the underwear garden.

In the end, I’m not sure if we ever found the answer to our quest – or maybe it was there all along. The more we sang (and drank), the more it seemed to make sense: 

Ein Prosit, ein Prosit, die Gemütlichkeit. (A toast, a toast (to) the coziness.)

The Kama'aina tourist

I didn’t take many photos on our recent trip to Hawaii – which is uncharacteristic as I call myself a photographer. And it wasn’t for lack of opportunity as the trip was filled with numerous Kodak moments, but for me (and assumingly Jeremy who didn’t take many photos either), Hawaii doesn’t need to be documented. Hawaii just is. Hawaii is home.

It’s been nearly four years since we moved from Oahu and two years since we graced the islands with a visit. And every time we come back, regardless of our time apart, she makes it easy. The island wraps us in a plumeria-scented blanket and rocks us to sleep; she nestles us in her mountainous bosom and allows life to fall into place; she pushes us forth to experience the graciousness and warmth of aloha.

We swam in her oceans, we hiked through her bamboo forests, we climbed her mountains. And while the spirit of Oahu merits praise, our amazing friends also played an important role.

We did a bit of planning of this trip, but not much. We sent out a call for a few couches to sleep on and were rewarded with numerous crashing pads, a complimentary van to drive around while we were there, and rides to and from the airport.

Without planning, we saw our friends play at the coolest private venue in Honolulu … twice. Without effort, we unknowing caught the annual bluegrass festival – where most of our lovely peeps played and camped. We experienced the day-to-day life we once lived without skipping a beat. We were handed poke on a silver platter.

Hawaii doesn’t need to be documented; it needs to be experienced. So I’m not posting any photos, but the memories still swim in my head. And damn, aloha, you make me smile every time. 

The real Turkish delight

When you travel a lot it’s easy to lose sight of why you’re even doing it.

For Jeremy and me, traveling has always been about experiencing something new; about putting ourselves in a situation and place we’ve never been; about embracing cultures different from our own with an open mind and an open heart.

So when Aliza came to visit all the way from Hawaii, she inquired about some of our favorite places. We took her to Salzburg and Prague and to the  Chodovar Beer Bath, served her copious amounts of dark beer and fattened her up on pork knees. We let her fly in our little town of Weiden as we went off to work (she survived swimmingly), and, when she asked, told her that Turkey was our absolute favorite country to explore within Europe. So the following week, Aliza and I geared up for a weeklong, girls' only “Fraufest” through Istanbul and Cappadocia.

I can tell you all about our trip, and maybe I should because it was fantastic, but I’d rather share what we experienced – the unprecedented hospitality from people around us. It started in Salzburg when my friend Silke gave us a tour around the city and took us through the castle, where she happens to work, even though it was her day off.

It continued our first night in Istanbul when we arrived at the house where we were renting a room for a few days. We were greeted by Necip and his girlfriend Laetitia who gave us a brief orientation of the city, gave us insider's tips, and handed us a cell phone and metro pass to use while we were there.

I found their place on airbnb. It was cheap and located near a tram in a neighborhood outside of the local tourist hubbub - exactly what we were looking for, but we got so much more. 

One morning they cooked us an amazing Turkish breakfast and we dined and conversed like old friends. The generosity continued when we wanted to visit a  “local” hamam (Turkish bath).

There are Turkish baths all over the city, but they tend to be geared toward travelers and are a bit more like spas (and more expensive) than your average bath house – so Laetitia offered to accompany us to the local dive to help us navigate the language barrier.

It was an amazing experience. Watching women socialize and bathe each other in this 1,000-year-old stone bath house; smiling as an old Turkish woman roughly scrubbed your skin, and walking out feeling clean, refreshed and fulfilled.

The tipping point came when Necip joined us for dinner that night, taking us to his favorite fish restaurant, again helping us navigate the language barrier in the non-touristy part of town, and if that wasn’t enough, he bought us dinner. 

Our cup runneth over, and it continued to runneth over through Cappadocia.

His name was Attila, a man whose heart was as big as his belly. We met him the first night we landed in Goreme, walking by his shop “Sultan Balloons.” We asked for directions to another office as we had to switch some plans around and he said, “hop in, I’ll drive you there.”

The next day we came back and expressed an interest in a wine tour and pottery exhibit, both located in cities in opposite directions.

“I have some running to do, I’ll take you there,” he said. And he did. We drove with Attila all over the area, waiting around while he paid his taxes, eating at his favorite local pide dive.

He drank tea with the owners as we tasted wine, and laughed at us and with us and as we tried our hands on the pottery wheel. We used his office as a home base the rest of the time, plopping down on his brightly colored beanbags just to say “hi,” resting our feet before we began our new adventure.

I’ve always thought of the Turkish people as unbelievable friendly, and besides the cabbie who tried to overcharge us on the way to the airport (he was taken for ride instead when we gave him the standard rate) everyone we ran into was open and kind.

From the shepherd who kissed our left cheek, then right cheek, then left cheek, then right cheek (this went on for some time) to our hostel worker Mehmet, who knocked on our door every night with the biggest smile you could ever imagine just to ask how our day was. When we walked through the valleys, people driving by would stop and ask if we needed directions. In Istanbul, cruising the back

streets, children would run after us yelling, “My name is …” and waving heartily screeching “hello!”

Granted, at times there is an ulterior motive. Perhaps the kindness of people is amplified by a desire for you to buy something, or accept a service, and for Attila, he did get payment. We booked a hot-air balloon ride with his company, but we received so much more - we experienced a trip we simply could not have done on our own. And it was worth every one lira cent.

We felt blessed and brimming as the trip ended, sighing in disbelief at all he kindness we experienced. But this trip made me realize that I travel not for the land, as beautiful and mystic as it might be, but for the people of that land. In this case, the real Turkish delight.  

Your guest is as good as mine? Hopefully not.

Despite living in Germany for three and a half years now, we’ve been surprised how many guests we haven’t had (I’m smelling my armpits right now and they’re ok, so …).

This year, though, I think a light went on, as we’re already set to host at least four groups of friends and families by August.

However, the first guest we hosted this year left, well, “much to be desired” would be a gross understatement.

Like most guests, his visit started off innocuous enough; polite, helpful and even providing a breath of fresh air in what has seemed like a ridiculously long winter.

Initially, I was somewhat concerned that he didn’t really articulate any sort of plan like, “I’m hoping to stay for a week to 10 days,” etc, but people plan differently, so I brushed it aside. However, as his stay chugged into Day 3, more red flags started to pop up.

He would stay up all hours of the night and then sleep all day, snoring on the couch as Molly was trying to write articles; he then moved his work space into the area where Molly usually set up shop; he never left the house; and rarely offered to help clean up.

Then we started to notice dwindling levels in various bottles of alcohol by about Day 5. As I headed out of town for a ski trip that Friday, Molly set aside a few bottles of booze as a concession that he not touch any of the rest  of the liquor cabinet (some of which were gifts or bottles we were saving for special occasions).

As an aside, any time you have to ask a guest not to drink all your alcohol, or consider locking most of the interior doors, that's a huge warning sign. At the foundation of having guests is trust, right?

So when we came back Sunday night and noticed empty bottles stacked up next to the sink, there was only one thing to do: give him the boot. 

Here’s a list of the damage we discovered over the few days:

1 x 750 mL red wine
1 x 700 mL Cointreau
300 mL Appenzeller
1 x 750 mL blackberry wine
1 x 700 mL apfel liquor
1 x 700 mL pear schnaps
1 bottle peppermint schnaps
350 mL vodka
175 mL Yeni Raki
3-4 small bottles of wine
6 mini bottles of absinth
assorted mini vodka bottles
leftovers from bottles of Jamison, Jack Daniels
2 West Coast IPAs
9 Natty Lights
7-10 .5L German beers
(Note: These are only the bottles we found. I'm guessing there were more.)

In some ways, I guess I should have thanked him – he killed the remainder of that 12-er I bought for the ND-Alabama game that no one wanted to drink. Then again, he took down Molly's prized Appenzeller (a relatively rare, delicious Swiss digestive) and the pair of IPAs I was nursing until I could score reinforcements. 

Looking back though, it wasn’t so much that he was inconsiderate, drank liquor he never intended to replace, or even worse, bogarted liquor we specifically asked him not to drink – I guess at the root of it, he was a guest who didn’t give a damn about the people who were putting him up.

It’s weird, though, because as the hosts, we had this almost guilty feeling for having to kick him out, even though he definitely deserved it. Perhaps that's why we drove him to a station 15 miles from our house so he could catch a cheaper train to Nuremberg, or let him stay an extra night to get his plans in order. 

And though we’re not shutting our doors to folks looking to crash any time soon, we are more aware of those telltale signs of a bad guest.