Deutschland

This time next week I'll be packed up and ready to get on a plane to Munich.  I'm very excited about the trip for many reasons.  I'll be seeing Brett and Krista, which is exciting because they moved to Germany before I moved to Flagstaff so it's been awhile.  Also I'll get to go skiing in Austria again, which is where I learned to ski at the age of 3/4, and I will be able to eat and buy as many Smarties as my stomach and bags can hold.  And when I say smarties I don't mean those crappy American sugar wafer things, but the amazing ones of my childhood.  A colorful sugar-coated chocolate confectionery. 

When we moved from Germany to Maryland, age 7, one of the things I remember missing most other than my friends were the candies (favorite being Smarties) and my favorite ice cream flavor.  The stuff over here, especially the chocolate, just didn't compare and m&ms don't have anything on Smarties.  I thought the candy was gone from my life forever until a trip to Montreal in college where I saw them at the convenience store and in ice cream.  They aren't available in many places in the US and certainly not in bulk so it's always exciting for me when I can buy them or when people bring them back to me after being in Europe.  The bag below was courtesy of Nick last summer.

Currently the plan is to take the first few days of the trip to hit up some skiing, most likely Innsbruck and St.Anton/Rendl areas.  I went to St.Anton for spring break in college one year and it was good skiing followed by some amazing apres ski  at Mooserwirt and then in town, so I'm excited to try to get back there again.

After some skiing looks like we're going to be more touristy and probably do a day in Munich and a few days in Vienna.

Other than that the snow is melting nicely up here in Flagstaff so hopefully the trails will be clear soon.  The past few weekends I've been enjoying a day of biking/running in Sedona and a day of skiing on the mountain, a very nice combo.