Weird and Wonderful Weihnachten in Germany

Aloha all,

since we wanted to return for Sandra’s mom’s 90th birthday anyway, we decided to spend all of December in Germany. It was my first “Fröhliche Weihnachten” in Europe after 28 “Mele Kalikimakas” in Hawaii.

The Christmas market in Stuttgart
fooled me with their fake snow, 
but later we got real 'White Christmas'.

Our surprisingly cheap flight included a few hours in London. Since Sandra and I had not been there in over 30 years, we used the time for a stroll along the Thames, a random trip on a double decker city bus and an unusual, but fun Thanksgiving dinner in an English pub. I wonder whether there was some turkey in those 'bangers & mash'.

Layover in London

In Germany we were welcomed with a fun advent tradition at our friends Susi & Ralf: “Feuerzangenbowle und Bratwürste”. I guess it’s best translated as a “Winter BBQ with Flaming Wine Punch”. Surprisingly, even Sandra stayed outdoors for the whole evening, despite the freezing temperature. With a coat and a fire place for warmth from the outside and plenty of Feuerzangenbowle for warmth from the inside, it was actually very pleasant. Those are the moments we miss about winter in Germany…too bad it comes with several months of just cold & grey.

Cozy advent BBQ with
Feuerzangenbowle 

We also spent a weekend in Munich for a little family reunion and a little college reunion. Since our niece was recovering from a hip surgery, Munich was chosen for a reunion with my brother’s family. Sandra and I also got to play “Eisstockschiessen” for the first time. It’s kind of like curling, without the silly broom. And considering the very spontaneous notice, we were also thrilled that five of our college friends were available to meet us.

Sandra at our Eisstockschiessen
 game in Munich

Christmas markets have become even more popular in Germany since we left. Every town, even small villages and every neighborhood in the cities seem to have their own ‘Weihnachtsmarkt’. We sampled the Glühwein in Munich, Stuttgart, Esslingen, Mainau and Heudorf. 

With my brother's family at one of
the Christmas Markets in Munich

Another hidden talent of Sandra:
Bow and arrow practice at the
Medieval Christmas market in Esslingen

The whimsical "Christmas Garden"
on the Mainau island

Four of the many hot Christmas beverages
at one of the many Christmas markets in Stuttgart

Traditionally, Glühwein used to be only red mulled wine. By now, this classic German winter beverage comes in red, rose and white. Some places have a whole menu of hot Christmas beverages. We were most surprised that the Hot Aperol, which we ordered kind of as a joke, was actually really tasty. I guess every hot beverage tastes a little better when it’s freezing outside, but nothing beats Susi & Ralf’s Feuerzangenbowle. All our visits to Christmas markets were before the tragic attack in Magdeburg. So sad that even this fun, peaceful holiday tradition is a target for crazy fanatics.

Emma on her 90th Birthday

The big party for Emma’s 90th birthday was a full success. She obviously enjoyed having so many friends and family members there, regardless of how many of them she could actually speak with or remember afterwards. The festivities included a champagne reception, a lunch, a picture guessing game, a heartfelt speech by Sandra’s sister Petra, a poem (it’s surprisingly hard to rhyme in German!), a clarinet and a harmonica presentation and of course “Kaffee & Kuchen”. No wonder Emma was utterly exhausted after the party, but she recovered quickly.

Guess the right order of 'Emma through the ages'

Unfortunately, due to health and age issues of various family members, Sandra and I had to split up for almost half of the month, including on Christmas. But the main purpose of our return trip to Germany this year was to spend quality time with our families. I am glad to report that my dad is recovering very well from his stroke in the summer. Sandra and I were able to celebrate my parents diamond anniversary with an intimate “dinner and a poem” at a very cute restaurant close to my hometown. Happily married for over 60 years is a fun goal to chase, we’re half way there already.

Game Time with my parents

My dad recovered enough from his stroke that we were able to go to a game of our soccer club together. It was the first time for me since they moved to their fancy new arena. It’s bigger and better than the old one, but I was always tempted to shout: “I’ve seen them play in the second division standing on top of the restrooms in the old funky stadium!”. It was a great match and my dad and I had the perfect view of the most spectacular goal I have ever seen live (for the older German readers: It was every bit as good as Klaus Fischer’s famous Fallrückzieher, which won best goal of the past century). Since Freiburg won 3-2 anyway, we were able to appreciate this goal, even though it was scored by the wrong team.

My first SC Freiburg match in the new stadium

It was also interesting to poke around old family documents at my parent’s house, some dating back to 1875. I have now seen my grandfather’s ‘denazification file’, proving that he was not a Nazi…at least not a really bad one, if there is such a thing. On a lighter note: We enjoyed seeing photos of our parents when they were not even our age. My parents and I also enjoyed random slide shows from our photo library, selected by AI according to various keywords. 

With my parents and their garden

For Christmas, I picked up my parents and my brother’s mother-in-law and we went to Switzerland to ensure that my first European Christmas in 28 years was a white one. As an extra bonus, we got to celebrate with my brother and his family. I have developed a gift allergy pretty early in life, but they were all very accommodating in that respect. We ate, drank, walked, laughed and played games together for three days. One highlight was watching an edited version of our wedding video. Just to clarify: We had the most fun wedding ever, but to put it lightly: The painfully long and embarrassing 3 hour home video did not do it justice. Our nephew is a skilled filmmaker, he managed to edit it into a very watchable, but still pleasantly embarrassing 13 minute film.

A lot has changed  in the homeland and some of the customs seem weird to us now. Apparently, a new tradition is that Christmas dinner starts at 10pm and includes: Sushi, mac & cheese, raspberry tiramisu and lasagna. I have to admit that it was all very delicious, but in comparison, it seems almost normal that in my family during my childhood, we used to eat a whole cow’s tongue every Christmas.

What a Christmas Feast!

Unfortunately, Sandra and her family was not able to join us for Christmas as planned. There seem to be a lot of diseases going around; I guess the cold weather, the holiday stress and all of us getting older doesn’t help. Almost everyone was sick at some point and some people just don’t know how to time their infections. I took my turn after the birthday, but before Christmas.

Almost the whole family together for Christmas

By Christmas, I was healthy again to go skiing with my brother and my niece in Switzerland. It was a beautiful, but weird skiing experience: The skis my brother gave me were ridiculously skinny, the poles very long and the boots were very light and not fully attached to the skis. On two days, we shuffled around for 27 kilometers on skis without ever finding a lift, even though we had very obvious tracks to follow. The lack of lifts probably explains the suspiciously cheap lift tickets. 

The not-so-alpine skiing in front of the Swiss Alps

Overall, it was fun experiencing a European winter, but I wouldn’t mind waiting another 28 years before doing this again. Of course it didn’t help that two days before we left, the heating broke in my parent’s house. I wish I could have taken them with me to warm up on Maui. 

And that’s the News from Lake Europe, where all the days are cold, all the Glühwein is good looking and we are looking forward to coming home to Maui more than average.

A hui hou,

Chris & Sandra

Experimental Communities…and the Cities that we Really Built

Aloha all,

in the last two weeks we visited three types of experimental communities:

Biosphere 2 -  the largest artificial biosphere in the world

Taliesin West - Frank Lloyd Wright’s ‘desert laboratory’ and

Arcosanti - a still active experimental community by Paolo Soleri

Biosphere 2 outside of Tucson, AZ

Frank Lloyd Wright's Taliesin West

Paolo Soleri's 'Arcosanti'

All three were visionary projects that were very successful on some level. But they all can be described as failures, too. They did not fundamentally change the way we build houses and plan cities, as we could tell by visiting three cities that we humans actually built: Tucson, Phoenix and Las Vegas are all prime examples of urban sprawl. Don't get me wrong, we enjoyed these cities and there is plenty to do there, but it's not what the Frank Lloyd Wright or Paolo Soleri or the designers of the Biosphere envisioned our future cities to look like. 

These cities are very different from the cute small towns described in the last blog post. There is no question that Joy preferred the small towns, but Sandra and I are equally intrigued by the variety of options only big cities can offer: Besides the experimental communities mentioned above, we also saw a fun musical, toured a very unusual state capitol, stayed at a brewery, went to a canal festival, hiked in a suburban national park, walked through a town that once was 70 feet under water and attended a fake concert by U2. 

Downtown Tucson viewed from 'A-Mountain'

Tucson was the first city we came to. Yes, it is a sprawling mess of subdivisions, shopping malls and mobile home & RV parks. But we actually stayed a night in one of the many huge RV parks and it was somewhat enticing: Fairly affordable, peaceful and lots of amenities and activities. We can see why many snowbirds spend the winter here. I think once we saw everything there is to see in America, we’ll be ready to move into one of those RV communities and play pickleball all winter.

One of many weird cacti
at the Saguaro National Park
on the outskirts of Tucson

Fortunately, they set aside two areas outside of Tucson for the Saguaro National Park before the sprawling development takes down the last of these magnificent cacti. While hiking, we love looking for the biggest, the weirdest or the most perfect cactus: There are plenty of saguaros with arms growing out of arms, but we are still looking for one growing an arm out of an arm that grows out of an arm. Inspired by our friend Russell, we are now also looking for that “perfect cactus”, the one that looks like the emoji. Then there are crested saguaros, which are deformed by a virus, but can be particularly beautiful.

Crested saguaro 

Downtown Tucson is actually quite attractive once you made it through the sprawl.  We had met Mauro, a local historian, at the Tubac Presidio State Park and booked a private walking tour with him. He is the best tour guide in all of Tucson. We say that confidently, even though we don’t know any other tour guides there. If you are ever in Tucson, we highly recommend taking a tour with him to learn about the town’s history from the earliest beginnings to the effects of the more recent, so-called ‘urban renewal’. As a historian, Mauro is no fan of urban renewal. But even after learning about the social injustices, we still liked downtown Tucson.

With Russell, Talia and Troy
at the Arizona-Sonora Desert Museum

The next day we met with our ex-Maui Ultimate friend Russell, his lovely wife Talia and their very cute son Troy. We spent the day at the Arizona-Sonora Desert Museum together, which had been highly recommended by anybody we had talked to. We really enjoyed seeing and catching up with Russell, Talia and Troy. The desert museum not so much, to be honest. Opposite to popular believe, I don't have to like everything. We were not impressed by the almost hummingbirdless hummingbird house or the aviary with five pigeons. They also have a prairie dog town with exactly zero prairie dogs. But Troy was awesome!

The Biosphere 2 was one of the most intriguing places we have ever visited. In case you don’t know what that is: It’s has been described as the most important scientific experiment since JFK’s call to send a man to the moon. It has also been described as a scam, a publicity stunt and a failure. We found Biosphere 2 fascinating, regardless of that contradiction; or maybe because of it.

One of the biomes at Biosphere 2

Biosphere 1 is our planet earth. Biosphere 2 was an experiment to build a sealed smaller version of earth to test how humans might be able to sustain themselves, for example if we were to screw up Biosphere 1 or if we wanted to colonize another planet. This had been done before, but never anywhere close to this scale. The interior of the mostly glass dome of Biosphere 2 is over three acres (almost 13,000 square meters!), complete with a rain forest, a mangrove wetland, an ocean with live coral, a desert, a savannah and enough farm land to feed everyone inside. In the original experiment, from 1991 to 1993, Biosphere 2 was sealed for two years with eight chosen inhabitants. One of the issues they discovered was that the oxygen levels dropped to the point where the inhabitants were constantly tired. Instead of publicly acknowledging this discovery, they pumped oxygen into the supposedly sealed system. When that became public, they lost a lot of credibility with many in the scientific community. I think they are still struggling with that, even though they apparently do serious science now.

'The Ocean' at Biosphere 2

Originally, it was envisioned that crews would take turns living in Biosphere 2 over a 100 year span, but that never happened. Just half a year into the second experiment, it was abruptly stopped, because humans are idiots. It wasn’t just because Steve Bannon (yes, THAT Steve Bannon) joined the management. There was fighting on the inside and on the outside. Eventually, it was decided that the research would continue, but the idea of humans living in a closed system was dropped. Columbia University took over for a few years and now the University of Arizona owns and manages Biosphere 2. 

The library in Biosphere 2

We joined a guided history tour through the living quarters of the original Biospherians, we did a long audio tour through the various biomes and we talked to several people at Biosphere 2. We were so intrigued that we also watched a documentary about it, but we are still not sure whether we rather agree with the assessment that this was (or even still is) a great science experiment or whether it was publicity stunt and a failure. One thing is for sure: It’s different from any other place we have ever visited anywhere.

On our way to the Phoenix metro area, we stayed at Picacho Peak State Park. We did a fun, but steep hike. We did not make it to the peak, but we met a nice fellow RVer and had an engaging conversation over dinner with him. 

We made it up this section,
but not to Picacho Peak

We also stopped at another Pueblo Indian ruin called Casa Grande.
As the name suggests, it's a big house, now covered by a bigger roof

Phoenix is the capital of Arizona, so of course we had to visit the Arizona State Capitol, or as we like to call it: Number 35. This one is different from the 34 other state capitols we have toured before. The capitol building is now actually a museum. Instead of building a new capitol when they ran out of space, they first built an annex and then two separate buildings for the senate and the house of representatives and finally a tower for the executive branch. It is a bit confusing and not the most impressive state capitol building(s), but it still kept us entertained for almost a full day.

The Arizona Capitol buildings 

The Phoenix metro area has grown so much that it includes several other cities.  At the Mesa Arts Center we saw the very fun “Come From Away” musical. It’s about the 38 planes that landed in Gander, Newfoundland on 9/11, instantly doubling the population of this small town. We spent an afternoon and evening in Old Town Scottsdale. It’s a nice mix of old and new; some historic buildings, lots of bars and restaurants, a nice canal promenade and a surprising number of self driving cars circling around the neighborhood. During dinner in Old Town Scottsdale, we overheard the neighbor table talking about a fire and drone show. Unknowingly, we had timed our visit perfectly with the Canal Convergence festival. 

Fire show at the Canal Convergence festival 
in Old Town Scottsdale

On our multiple tours of Frank Lloyd Wright buildings throughout the country, we kept hearing about Taliesin in Wisconsin and Taliesin West in Arizona. Since 1938 Taliesin West was the winter home, studio and ‘desert laboratory’ of Frank Lloyd Wright. Even after his death in 1959, Taliesin West continued as a studio, school and workshop for architecture students until 2019. While we missed that part of the history, it enabled us to join a new kind of tour they now offer at Taliesin West: Exploring the “Shelters in the Desert” where students built structures to live in while studying at Taliesin West.

One of the "Shelters in the Desert',
built by a student at Taliesin West

We were always impressed by the timeless beauty of almost all FLW buildings. But we had also heard many stories how difficult it must have been to deal with him personally. We were pleasantly surprised to hear that apparently he showed a different side to the students who stayed at Taliesin West. It seems to have been a fun, inspiring atmosphere and many students have fond memories of their time in the desert with Frank Lloyd Wright. We have fond memories of our visit there, too.

Frank Lloyd Wright's studio at Taliesin West

Paolo Soleri was one of those young students who attended Wrights school at Taliesin West. He went on to become a famous architect and urban planner himself. His masterpiece is the experimental community “Arcosanti”. Lucky for us, he built that on our route and even luckier, one of the other guests on the Taliesin tour told us about it. 

The experimental community of Arcosanti 

Arcosanti was envisioned to become a community for 5,000 residents and Soleri wanted it to be designed around the need of humans, not around the need of cars. This was pretty progressive stuff in 1970.

The foundry where the 'Arcosanti Bells' are made

54 years later, Arcosanti is still active. But instead of 5,000 residents, they have less than 50. And this time, we can’t even blame Steve Bannon. They have a business making and selling handcrafted bells. Every resident must have a job at Arcosanti. In return, they get to live in this unique, experimental town for just $300 rent per month .This is not a hippie commune, but it’s nice to see there are places where not everything revolved around money. I think I’d move here before I live in Biosphere 3 or in one of the desert shelters at Taliesin West.

The Montezuma Castle,
which was a multifamily home 

The Montezuma Castle is not a castle and the Montezuma Well is not a well. Neither one have anything to do with Montezuma, but even with those misnomers, they make for a beautiful and interesting National Monument. 

The Montezuma Well, which is a spring

Sedona was our last highlight in Arizona. We did a very nice hike through the red rocks and had a nice lunch in town. What a beautiful part of the country, we’ve put it on the list of potential places to move to when Haleakala erupts.

Great hike around the red rocks of Sedona

Then it was time to say ‘a hui hou’ to Joy. She is winterized and parked in storage, but we promised her to come back next spring. We are now at “Uncle Tom’s Cabin”. For those not familiar with this American classic: Uncle Tommy is a good friend from Maui Ultimate, who moved to Las Vegas last year. 

Since we are staying with Thomas, we thought it was only appropriate to go to St. Thomas with him. That’s a town that we heard about at the Lake Mead NRA. St. Thomas got flooded when Hoover Dam was built. For a while, it was 70 feet under water. With the recent historic low water levels in Lake Mead, the town has since re-emerged. Only foundations remain, but it was interesting to walk around and learn about the town’s history. Surprisingly, it’s several miles away from the water by now.

The re-emerged ruins of St. Thomas

More or less by coincidence, we came through the ‘Valley of Fire’ on the way to St. Thomas. Tommy drove, but for Joy, this would have been a homecoming: Our very first night on the road with Joy in 2018 was at the Valley of Fire campground. Back then, it was so hot that we could not do much hiking, this time it was nice and cool and we were able to do a fun hike. What beautiful rock formations! 

Hike at the Valley Of Fire

I'm no geologist, but I think the scientific
 term for these are "pretty rocks"

After hearing about “The Sphere” for a year now, we caved yesterday and wanted to find out what the fuss is all about. It sounded like a giant IMAX theater, so I was hesitant to pay $100 to see a film. But I guess for 2.3 billion dollars (!) you get more than just a movie theater. The Sphere holds almost 20,000 people and the screen is the largest in the world: 580,000 square feet, 54,000 square meters! 

U2 performing in front of Las Vegas, 
except that neither one is real

When the Sphere opened last year, U2 opened the venue with a 40 night residency show. They made a movie from that which is now shown several times a week. The quality of the image is ridiculously good. It really looked like Bono was walking on stage, talking and singing to us. I truly believe if they wanted to, they could fool me (and up to 19,999 others) by claiming to have a band perform live when in fact we are just watching a screen. Scary new world, but pretty cool. 

At least four humans were really there.
Not so sure about Bono.

Today, we still hope to play a round of golf with Tommy and then see our friend Barbara, who happens to be in town, too. Tomorrow, we fly home to Maui…with a two hour layover in Denver (too short to see our hanai family), a 22 hour layover in London (not enough time to see King Charles) and a one month layover in Germany (enough time to see our families). Yes, we realize this is not the shortest route to Maui. But these might be the cheapest flights we have booked and we’ll still make it back to our beloved, recovering island before the end of the year.

And that’s the news from Lake Vegas, where all the visions for the future were strong, all the spheres are good looking and all the cities offer more attractions than average.

Chris & Sandra