My Big 30th Birthday!

Not that I feel that much older than last week, but I have moments when I realize I am not in my 20s anymore. I'm not sure it helps with Chris keep pointing out the fact that he is still in his 20s, and that "I am old now." Can't wait for two months when he joins me in the 30s and I can repay for his teasing.

I took Friday and Monday off work to have a four day weekend. Felt the 30th birthday deserves a little break from work. Chris had to work however. He is pushing to get his experiment done. Actually, for the laser to really work so he can finally start his experiment. Hopefully, that will be soon. So, on Friday I looked at the map of Munich and picked out Ostpark/Eastpark. I have not been there before. I took my music, bundled up and went for a walk. It turned out to be a very nice day out. The park was pretty empty, a few walkers and a group of men playing curling on the frozen pond. It was great. It was such a stress reliever. Great way to start the weekend. There was a gymnastics arena there that was covered in snow and so since there was no people doing performances, I decided to make a snowman with arms out saying "tada" as he finished his performance. It was kind of funny. But well, got me to do something. After the walk I went home and had a nice relaxing rest of the day.

Saturday, we went to Garmisch-Partenkirchen. It is a small town in the German Alps. It is like Germany's Tahoe because a lot of people go here to go skiing on Zugspitze, the highest mountain in the German alps. Unfortunately, the weather was pretty gray so we could not see Zugspitze. When we arrived it was snowing pretty hard. We had lunch at a cafe/konditori. By the time we left it had stopped snowing. I borrowed two plastic sleds from work. We were going to rent the wooden German sleds and go down the hills that are set for only sledding but this allowed us to hike and sled wherever we found. It was great. We found a trail and just followed it to see where it led us. We found a small hill at first and sled down. After 20 minutes playing there we continued and came across another path back down the mountain. We sled down that path to the parking lot at the bottom. It was fun because you had to turn here and there and it was narrow. So we were using our arms to turn and our feet to slow down. Chris went flying off the path several times but luckily was not injured. It was both fun and challenging. At the bottom we looked at a trail map and decided to go back up the path and to a larger path made for cross country skiers. There was a tree-less slope marked on the map that could bring us back down but it turned out to have a substantial cliff along it so that was a definite no go. But we sled down a really steep hill under a cable lift that only ran in the summer time. It was fast and fun. But when we put our feet down to slow down we only got snow spraying our face. The snow was so powdery and soft. It was hilarious. Most of the time we walked our feet were under the powder about mid calf height. It was a great day. Exhausting. We stopped back at the Konditori again to grab a slice of cake for the trip back. We got home, made spaghetti and crashed.

Sunday, we stayed home. Our bodies sore and warmed up now, going out wasn't desired at all. Chris made a yummy chocolate cake with chocolate frosting and chicken roll-ups, my childhood favorite.

Monday, Chris was back at work and I went off to Augsburg, a city an hour away. It was windy that day and pretty cold. I walked around fast. It was a pretty city but not very fascinating. The cathedral was destroyed like most cathedrals, but this one wasn't rebuilt to resemble what it used to. I went around taking more artistic pictures for fun. There was one section left of the old city wall and gate. It was pretty busy with people walking about. I walked through some residential areas. It is like Munich, in that everyone lives in apartments, but in Augsburg every apartment was different and unique, which I liked. It made it it look more cozy to me. It has more character in home life, whereas Munich has the character in the historical buildings. Later in the afternoon it started to snow again and I was tired of going in shops just to defrost for a bit. So I went back to Munich.

For my birthday, Chris got me tickets to the Ballet at the city Opera House. The ballet was Onegin, a Russian story performed with Tchaikovsky's music. We were glad we read the story before we went, we'd have been clueless otherwise. We dressed up fancy, but were one of the few that were. The place was rebuilt, of course, but it was still magnificent. The chandeliers and the style was amazing. They still had the king's box in the center. The entrance was also done fancy with big rooms with chandeliers and mirrors. We took a picture with us by taking a picture of the reflection. It worked okay. I cannot express how wonderful the performance and the experience of going to the ballet was. The dancing and music was great. It was our first time and hopefully more to come in the future. The funny moments of the night are: my feet did not touch the ground but there was a bar that you put your feet on, made it awkward. The couple next to us, the man was so enthralled with the performance whereas the girl was bored silly except for the climatic point where the dual occurs. Downstairs there is refreshments. People could reserve tables actually and had a meal during intermission. Quite a fast meal, I'd say. It was a wonderful night. I am glad Chris likes to dress up occasionally like I do.