Author: Kari

We arrived at the Munich Airport safe ‘n’ sound! We had great flights; we arrived early in Amsterdam, so we didn’t have to sprint to our connection to Munich! Our bags were the last off 🙁 but they made it! 🙂 Here’s Brian in the Airport:

We took the S-Bahn (surface train) into Central Munich.

After a wee rest in the afternoon, we wandered around Central Munich for the evening:

Another in Central Munich… just to prove I was there!

Supper at the Hofbräuhaus! (where Octoberfest is held)

Beer for Brian, wine for me, and German sausage and sauerkraut for both of us…

We had a safe, but long drive from Munich to Ruhpolding… in and out of rain, snow and gigantic snowflakes! We took the back roads, so got to see lots of villages.

The Alps had been hammered by snow… they called it a “100 Year Storm”. The last 15 km of our drive, which should have taken 20 min, took nearly 3 hours! We’re not really sure what happened… but, it was not an avalanche. Partly accidents, for sure; and we heard that in some of the smaller villages snow being removed from roofs dumped onto the roads, so then the roads needed to be cleared.

We finally made it safe ‘n’ sound into Ruhpolding. We checked into our nice little apartment, then went out for supper. Here are a couple pics from The Village (the central part of Ruhpolding).

We had supper at a wonderful Hungarian restaurant recommended by our Hostess – she owns (or manages) our apartment house. The “kids” were just finishing supper in The Village, a block from our restaurant, so popped by to say hi. Sorry, no pics of them! 🙁 They told us about Glühwein Huts, and, of course, we found one!

The Men’s Sprint was postponed from Wednesday to Thursday. We heard that the German Government had declared a state of emergency in the region – we were safe ‘n’ sound, and Ruhpolding was just fine. But, sadly, the Opening Ceremonies Tuesday night had to be cancelled.

We had lunch with Scott and Christian (Emma was training at the time) …

Here’s our apartment, and Brian standing by our SUV… it’s a Kia… we wanted a BMW, but they wouldn’t rent us one cuz we were going to Italy… guess the BMW is highly sought after by Italian thieves! Our apartment is third floor, left side of the balcony.

The Hotel Post in the afternoon, and supper there in the evening. Brian had traditional Wiener Schnitzel and I had thin-sliced roast beef salad sort of thing… both were excellent! And, my favorite way to eat beef… rare, thin-sliced, cold, and with a great dressing! And fried potatoes too! So far, hadn’t seen too much “green” on the plates! They definitely like meat and potatoes!!!!!

Glühwein: And, a shot of amaretto with it this evening… be still my heart!

Sun! The sun came out… it was spectacular! Here are a couple pics from our balcony in the morning…

Ruhpolding, like every town we were in, has lovely churches.

Off to Berchtesgaden

In the afternoon we drove east to Berchtesgaden (this is where Hitler’s Eagle’s Nest is). Unfortunately, Eagle’s Nest is closed in the Winter… I think the road up there is pretty nasty in the Winter. The town of Berchtesgaden is lovely and the drive there was incredible… especially after the dump of snow. Here are some pics from along the way…

Some pics of the Eagle’s Nest… at least we think this is Eagle’s Nest 😉

A few pics in Berchtesgaden…

We had a great first day at the Ruhpolding races!! We parked near the Zentrum (Center) of Ruhpolding and took a shuttle to the Chiemgau Arena. We were in the Grandstand, in the Standing Section. We were looking at the Shooting Range, looking straight down lane 9, and we were able to see the finish line.

The Canadians had mixed results, but all-in-all a great day!

The Range area was in the shade, so the light in the photos was not great.

Between the Men’s Sprint and the Women’s Sprint we wandered around… beer huts, food huts, tons of people! Lots of languages; many speak some, or even lots, of English.

And, amazingly, we bumped into Scott and Christian during their cool-down!

I had great fun watching the people watch Brian!!! All the way from funny faces to “I want a photo with you”!! 😃 At €5 each, he coulda made €125+ from photos!!!😂 And those are only the photos we know about! 🤣 He stayed nice and warm though!

We enjoyed “Currywurst Mit Frites” (sausage with a mild curry sauce and fries) for lunch.

And, GLÜHWEIN!! 😀 This time Weiß Glühwein (with white wine) … it was good! Not as flavorful as the red, but very good!

A couple more pics from between the races…

I was able to get a couple okay pics of “the kids” in the range. I couldn’t get Scott and Christian in prone, cuz they chose the lane that had a speaker in my line of sight. 😂

We stopped at the Supermarket (grocery store) on our way ‘home’ after the races… found the ingredients for fixing our own glühwein (red)!!!!! 😄

We finished our day with Scott and Christian and Emma and their teammates for supper at Hotel Post. We had a great visit!!! Sorry, I forgot to take a pic…again! 🙁

What an exciting day and race!!!!  We were sandwiched in in the Grandstand Standing Section… in amongst a large group of Norwegians. Yet, whenever the Germans did anything, the noise drowned out everything!! It was impossible to take photos from the Grandstand… way too crowded and too many heads and flags in my line of sight. 16,000 people at Friday’s race!!

It was soooo exciting to see how well Christian and Scott did, WOW!!!!!! Unfortunate for Aiden to have a penalty loop, but it happens. He and Jules show lots of potential!!!

I only have a couple pics from the Arena area…. they show a bit of what it was like with the crowds. This first pic has the Range in the background (where the flags are). The little huts are all for food and drink and drink and drink! 😃

We had a great day watching the Women’s Relay. Emma did a fabulous job and got us up into 5th! Then Megan and Rosanna had a tough go in the Range, both with a penalty loop, and Canada ended in 12th, which is still respectable. It was wonderful to see Emma shoot the way she usually does!!!

Here are a couple pics from the day… I’m on our apartment balcony, Brian is along the walk we used to go to The Village to catch the shuttle, and one of the good ones of Emma…

We decided to try a different viewing spot…. instead of being in the Standing section of the Grandstand, we went On Course. It was very exciting to be so close to the racers!! The Grandstand was quite packed on Friday (with 16,000) people at the race. There were 22,000 there for the Women’s Relay. Where we stood was reasonably quiet, we saw lots of skiing, and watched with some young Canadians who used to compete with Scott & Christian. We followed the shooting on the LiveData (internet).