Switzerland, Bucket Lists, Injuries and Colors

There are very few things that I would say have ever been on my bucket list.  One of the few things that may have gotten on there is skiing in the Swiss Alps.

Why the Swiss Alps?  Because those are the Alps that everyone seemed to talk about when I was in young and in the United States.

Are the Swiss Alps better than the Rockies or the French Alps?  I don't think so.  The Rockies are great... maybe even flipping [2] great.  I love skiing in Utah, personally.  The skiing is steeper and more extreme than Colorado, it gets more snow than Montana, the snow is lighter and more consistent than California, and I had really shitty snow (aka ice) in Alaska when I went there.  Utah is the best in the continental U.S., in my opinion.  So there you have it.

I've also spent some significant time skiing in the French Alps.  Last year I skied Chamonix with my cousin.  I just got done spending 3 months in the French Alps.  I kicked off the experience skiing in Les 3 Vallées with some German friends and had a blast.  Then I went to Les 2 Alpes and hung out there for about two and a half months.  The whole experience was great.  I managed to go the full time in France without any major injuries.  Sure I hurt my wrist at the beginning and had to ski with one ski pole for about 2 weeks.  And toward the end, I hurt my shoulder whilst trying to do a hand plant on a quarter pipe (it was a miserable attempt and I won't be trying it again). But no major injuries.  Success!! That's including doing flips, backcountry, and some intense couloirs.

Then on the way back to Germany a couple friends and I were road-tripping through Switzerland and I wanted to check something off my bucket list.  My very short bucket list.

I don't keep a bucket list.  I, generally, don't believe in them.  I think that if you want to do something then do it.  How are you going to know what you want to do later on in life?  Figure out what you want to do now and make it happen.

But that being said I had to admit to myself that I did always have a dream of skiing in Switzerland.  Not because the Swiss Alps are so awesome.  Simply because when people think of skiing in Europe they think of skiing in Switzerland in the same way that people think about skiing in Colorado in the Rockies when Utah is right next door and generally has better skiing.  And just like in Colorado, Switzerland is the most expensive place to ski in the Alps.

So I wasn't going to buy a pass.  I just wanted to hike up one time and ski down.  It was a beautiful day to hike up at the Jungfrau resort area, but the snow was absolute sh*t.  I didn't like the conditions so I was going to ski down and try and take it easy.  I had built some little jumps so that I could have a little bit of fun on the way down.

Unfortunately, on the way down I managed to find some ice underneath the snow which took my ski off and I plummetted head first into another piece of ice.

I know that skiing is a dangerous sport.  I try and be careful... and to a large extent, I've managed to go most of my life without too many major injuries from skiing.  I've had a couple of concussions, lost a tooth and chipped others, broken my nose, split my lip open, had 19 stitches on my chin, and maybe a couple other minor injuries [3].

Those injuries were on flips, though.  Which is why every single year I tell my cousin, Andrew, who is often times skiing with me.  "No more flips this year."

Sometimes I dream that I'm skiing.  And sometimes I'm even able to stop myself from doing flips in my dreams.  Even my subconscious is learning!

That being said... I did quite a few flips this year.  No front flips, though!  #babysteps

So needless to say I was a little bit frustrated when I plummetted my collarbone (or Schlüsselbein as the Germans would say) directly into a chunk of ice.  What was that ice even doing there?  I don't know.  But it was there.  And apparently my collar bone wasn't strong enough to take a chunk out of the ice and instead the ice broke my collarbone into three pieces.

I knew it was broken right away.  I heard it break.  The sound of your own bones breaking isn't the most pleasant sound in the world.  I felt it just to make sure I wasn't wrong, and as I expected I wasn't wrong.  I could feel a part of the bone sticking up.

I'm no stranger to injuries.  I wish I was.  It took me a long time to realize that your body is a vehicle for you to get through this life.  Except unlike a vehicle, you can't just buy a new one if this one is kaputt.  Someone probably told me that at some point, but hey... I'm a slow learner!

At this point in my life, I've had a knee surgery, hip surgeries on each hip, wrist surgery, septoplasty (which I like to call a nose job), tonsillectomy, wisdom teeth removed, a tooth implant, ruptured my spleen, and some scars.

I think that's about it for surgeries and injuries.  It's actually quite a lot when you list it out like that, isn't it? It's actually embarrassing to tell the doctors when they ask if I've had surgery before.

So... I'm not a stranger to injuries.  When I get injured I don't cry and panic.  I think, "Goddammit!  Not again!"  And that's exactly what I thought when I broke my collarbone.  I'd like to say that it shouldn't have happened and that I would never have thought that it would happen, but at this point in my life can I really say that?  No one ever expects to get injured... it just happens.   And for some reason, it seems to happen to some more than others.  I'm not even surprised when it happens anymore.  Just disappointed.

I look at my situation a little differently than I used to and I'd like to share that view now.  I think some people think that life is filled with good things and bad things.  Black and white.  Sometimes people talk about a middle area that's called "gray."  And the gray area is used to explain to people that the world is not "just black and white."

Here's my question:  Why are we only using two colors?  Even if you insert gray you are still using just a lighter form of black.  There's a whole array of colors available for everyone to use and we're just using the two most opposite available?

And on top of that, one of the colors is considered evil or bad.  Would you watch a black and white TV with the brightness turned all the way up so that everything is white?  The white isn't any better than the black... you need them both and all shades of gray in between.

But color TV is even better.  Every color filled moment is beautiful.

If I hadn't broke my collar bone I wouldn't have skied down and had a nice conversation with an older Asian lady about why I was holding my arm.  She gave me some delicious cheese.

And then I drove down to a restaurant and met a family from Munich and they were nice enough to drive my car down for me and help me into the hospital.  Somehow I managed to have a conversation about politics (#feeltheburn) in German even though I hadn't spoken German for a couple months.  I was proud of myself.

And then I checked into the hospital and the nice people working there took care of me.  The look on the nurse when she saw my collarbone was classic.  She was like, "Just... don't move."  She was quite good looking too.

My friends were there to help me through the whole ordeal.  They said when I got out of the surgery I was speaking in "slurred German" and making the nurses laugh.  I don't remember it, but I'm glad I can keep a good attitude and good humor post surgery.   Look how happy I am:

Now... does it suck having a broken collarbone?  Yes, it does.  I can't play tennis for 3-4 months.  I have to take a week off of working on my master's thesis.  It hurts to walk around and sleep.  It's my dominant hand which means I have to do everything left handed.  Just try brushing your teeth or wiping your ass with your non-dominant hand next time.  I find it awkward myself.

This isn't the first time that I've been with only my non-dominant hand.  I had wrist surgery about 3 years ago and that left me even less capable than I am today.  I was working at the time and it had started to snow that day.  I wasn't looking forward to clearing off my car.  When I went out to my car I saw this:

"Life sux with 1 arm."  Yes... yes it most certainly does.  To this day, this is an awesome moment for me to recall.  The simple fact that someone else out there was willing to do this small thing for me was uplifting.  To this day, I don't know who it was.  And it doesn't really matter either, does it?  The fact is that most people would do something this small for someone else.  And who knows how it will be received.

The gentleman who drove me to the hospital doesn't know how much I appreciate it.  My friends don't understand how much I appreciate them being there for me.

Life sux with one arm... but it's still as beautiful as ever.  This is just a bit of dark color in the painting, but those bright colors wouldn't be so bright without the dark colors, would they?

Plus now I can check "ski in the Swiss Alps" off of my bucket list.  3 hours of hiking and a solid 2 minutes or so of skiing, and at least 1 minute of that was skiing with a broken collarbone.  #worthit

Side Stories that may or may not be relevant to anything:

1. Inserting pictures into this blog is a pain in the ass. Maybe even more of a pain in the ass than brushing my teeth with my left hand. 
2. Feel free to replace "flipping" with any other word that starts with "F" and ends with "ing"  
3. Before you say that skiing is too dangerous, I'd like to mention that I've been injured more times in basketball.  Just to keep it in perspective and defend my favorite sport for a moment.  

Beer Part 3: Is Germany a Beer Snob?

Germany has a great beer culture.  It's just wonderful.  But it's a beer snob in my opinion[1].  In Germany's defense, though... who isn't?  I know I am.  Everyone spends at least a little bit of time talking about which beer is better.   I'll present my argument for why I think so, and you decide for yourself.

Beer is something that bring's people together in a way.  It's fun to try the local brew and experience the almost infinite varieties of beer tastes.  Everyone's going to have different opinions.  I'll get into why Germany is a beer snob, but before that... here are a couple things about Germans and their beer:

- You can walk around with your beers in town.
- You can even drink as a passenger in a car.

- You don't throw an empty bottle away.  You set it next to a trash can and someone comes and takes it for the 8 cents that it's worth.  

- Beer is generally rather inexpensive at Bars (sometimes cheaper than water).  

- They got the Reinheitsgebot and they are quite proud of that.  

- There are 1300 breweries in Germany, making 5000 different types of beer and they are probably all quite good.  

- Every location seems to have it's specific type of beer, for instance, each of these places has this and more: 

           - Düsseldorf has Alt 

           - Köln (or Cologne) has Kölsch.  

           - Munich has Helles and Hefeweizen.  

           - Berlin has Berliner Weisse.  

           - Hamburg has Astra.  

           - Pilsner, which is a Czech beer originally and what a Budweiser is, is all over Germany it seems.  You can almost always count on a Pilsner being in the bar. 

           - And Frankfurt has Apple wine[2].  It's not beer, but you gotta try it! 

So all of these beers are easy to find in their respective regions, but in other regions of Germany it may be hard to find.  And I live in the land of mostly Kölsch beer... I'm not complaining, but let's just say it's not my favorite. 

More cultural things: 

- Germany's been making beer for thousands of years and as far as I know the thought of a "prohibition" never even entered the mind of a German.  

- They drink like champs.  Germany has the third highest beer consumption per capita (behind Czech and Austria) while the U.S. is falling in at a measly 14th (pick it up, people!).  

- And everyone loves David Hasselhoff.

It's safe to say that German beer culture is quite a bit different than American beer culture.  Both have their pros and cons.  I can't say which is better.  It would be great if we had the ability to walk and drink a beer in the U.S.  But it would also be great if I could get a good West Coast IPA here in Germany.  I guess you just can't have it all.  

Here's one interesting thing about Germany and its beer.  I hate to say it, but Germany is a beer snob.  

And here's why: 

- Germany basically only offers Germany beer. 
- Cities don't even offer the neighboring city's beer. 
- They call American beer piss... but I'm pretty sure they don't try anything other than the piss beer we have. 
- They have a 500-year-old law that permits only 4 ingredients, and you think that anything else that has more than these ingredients is not beer. [3]

It's an interesting thing actually.  I can even get on board with the idea that "pure" beer only has 4 ingredients.  But you can't say that adding different flavors to beer makes it not beer.  Just because I like a little bit of seasoning on my steak doesn't mean that it's not steak.  

And to not offer beer other than German beer in Germany?  Or not even Alt beer in Köln?  What is that all about?  Seems like an unfair monopoly or something.  Maybe that's the thinking... if you only offer Kölsch in Köln, then you stimulate the local economy a little bit.  Very practical.  No competition.  

In Germany, sometimes you find Belgian beer, but rarely do you find a bar that has anything more than that.  I make trips to Holland to buy some beers from U.S., Belgium, Holland, or whatever.  They have all kinds of options.  But not in Germany.  It's pretty much all German beer. 

You see... I realized all of this in Ireland.  A wonderful country that has delicious beer.   They even sold German beer.  And American, English, Belgian, Netherlands, etc.  I was able to find all kinds of varieties... totally un-snobbish.  They say, "Hey if you don't like Irish beer, here's Budweiser, Becks, Heineken, or Sierre Nevada IPA on tap."   It was a stark difference from Germany.

I'm a beer snob.  I will gladly say that light beer tastes like carbonated water.  And in that case, I'll just have a carbonated water instead (delicious).  And I can even get behind the idea that beer with other ingredients in it isn't really beer in the "pure" sense of the word.  But that doesn't stop Germans from mixing beer with Sprite or Coke.  And I'll take a Summer Shandy over a Radler (which is beer mixed with Sprite) any day.  Summer Shandy while playing some beach volleyball pushes that one up to great. 

Side Stories that may or may not be relevant to anything:

1. Technically, I think only a person can be a beer snob, but I'm personifying Germany, in this case.  
2. You gotta try the Apple wine in Frankfurt.  Apple wine and the American classic movie Wicker Man with Nicholas Cage.  You're in for a good night.
3. I don't even really understand why they have that law.  I've tried to figure it out.  One person told me it was for safety, another was to protect Bavaria from the shitty tasting beers of the north (my paraphrase), another was about controlling the price of wheat and rye.  

Beer Part 2: My Personal Opinion on Beer Quality

Ok.  Part 2 of my who knows how many part series on Beer.   I want to state quickly that nothing I say should really be taken too seriously.  I don't know that much about beer.  I'm just some dude who drinks it and likes to talk a lot.

First, let's recap real quick about "Beer Part 1."  I think that the U.S. has better beer than Germany.  Ok.  Good recap.

I'd even say more than Belgium beer.  They seem to specialize in really strong beers.  For them an 8% alcohol beer is about normal.  I'm used to 5-6%.  That's just me though.  I still like their beer.  Except for their Sour Beer.  I could put a spike in bad beer for Belgium when it comes to Sour Beer.  I tried a sip of it, and that was enough for me.  But I haven't liked sour things so much since I had way to many sour skittles one time.  

You see, I'm not a big beer connoisseur, but I enjoy the variety that we get in the U.S.  And I like that in the liquor stores you can often buy beer from all over the U.S.  I threw a few beers into a graph according to my personal opinion: 

The U.S. has a wide spread on the quality axis, and we do have somewhat of a specialty in the shitty beer arena.   

Maybe I was being a bit generous with Budweiser.  

Maybe not generous enough with Leffe Brune.  

I threw in some Minnesota beers at the top (whoop whoop!).  A good Trappist beer from Belgium is always awesome.  

I kept the German beers in the good vicinity.  

I put Guinness in the great category [1].  Partially cause you can always count on an Irish Pub having a great atmosphere.

Yes I did put Alt above Kölsch.  I prefer Alt to Kölsch beer.  If anyone from Köln wants prove to me that Kölsch is better than Alt then I welcome them to buy me beer :)  I'll keep an open mind.

There happens to be a bit or a rivalry between Köln and Düsseldorf.  Everyone from Düsseldorf seems to like Alt beer, and everyone from Köln seems to like Kölsch.  Ok.  That's pretty normal, you tend to appreciate beers where you are from.  I can get behind that.  But the strange thing is this.  They won't even serve Alt beer in Köln or Kölsch in Düsseldorf.  So I like to go into bars in Köln and ask for an Alt beer, just to mess with them.  

Side Stories that may or may not be relevant to anything:

1. We toured the Guinness factory when we were in Dublin.  It was a good time.  The Guinness stew was absolutely to die for.  And of course the Guinness at the end of the tour was delicious as it always is.  I think it was even better in Dublin.  Especially after we learned how to properly drink it and observe it.  Did you know that it's a dark ruby red color not just black?  Apparently it takes really keen eyes cause I can't really tell.  It was a good tour... it may have been even better if we could drink the Guinness while we were doing the tour.  This video with Conan is a pretty good and funny depiction of what it was like: 

German Beer or American Beer - which is better??

And we're back!  It's been a while since I've blogged.  So I thought I'd come out nice and easy.  Try not to hit any sensitive areas.  But then I decided to hell with that.  I'm gonna talk about something that is very dear in the hearts of the German people.  We're going to talk about beer.  It's something that the Germans have been making for thousands of years.  Many years before Columbus sailed the ocean blue. 

Germans have been making beer for a very long time.  They've had thousands of years to perfect it, altering the ingredients a bit and the process of making it.  Now for some reason or another, about 500 years ago, they issued a law called the "Reinheitsgebot."  The Reinheitsgebot stipulated that you could use only barley, hops, and water may be used to make the brew.  And what I can say about that is that those 4 ingredients make a good quality beer.  And Germans are quite proud of their beer.  Which is why I'm nervous to say what I'm gonna say next. 

I think that the U.S. has better beer. 

Now I know that every German is like, "Ach quatsch!  Amerikanisches Bier schmeckt wie Pisse!"  Which roughly translates to: "Fiddlesticks!  American beer tastes like piss!" 

For some reason when I say that American beer is better, they seem to get all riled up and start dissing our beer in the U.S.  Fair enough, but let me form a rebuttal.  

Here is why American beer is better in my personal opinion.  

This graph demonstrates the key idea that I think that Belgium and Germany have lower standard deviations.  They have several different types of beer that are "really good" and "good," but they stick with what they've been doing for the last 3,000 years.  Which means that -- again… this is all my opinion, but please don't hate me… I like German beer! -- it just means that in my opinion, Germans beers are missing a little creativity. 

Which is why I think the U.S. has a wider variety.  The U.S. is a new country.  We don't have a 3,000 year old beer culture and we don't have any law that says we can only use 4 ingredients.  So we're like little kids at the fountain soda machine!  We wanna try all of the flavors1, and we want to try all of the different combinations too.  You never know!  You might invent the next best soda! 

That's what we do in the U.S. with beer.  We throw lemon in there, lime, raspberries, chocolate, probably blueberries (I donno, but probably), coffee, ect. 

I wouldn't be surprised if there was a beer with avocado or something in it.  Ok.  Yup… I just looked it up… Avocado Ale.

Now the fact that there is an Avocado Ale that comes out of L.A. doesn't surprise me at all, but if I were to tell that to a group of Germans and then take a picture it would probably be the best picture of disgusted faces of all time.

What that means is yes, we have a lot of shitty beers in the U.S.  So I agree with the Germans when they say that our beer tastes like piss.  It certainly is.  But we do things to these shitty beers to shift them to the right on the quality-axis… maybe getting it to "not bad."  We add pickles or olives to beers like bud light (again with the disgusted faces).  But what you need to realize is that we're taking our shitty beer and trying to make it better!  That's the creativity that I'm talking about.  Americans all over the place are doing whatever they can to make shitty beer taste better. 

I'll do an experiment with you to prove my point about this.  I hypothesize that if I google "How to make a shitty beer taste better" I will come up with all kinds of options, but if I google in German "Geschmack von Bier verbessern" on google.de I won't come up with anything. 

Ok…

So it turns out that the first option on google is some sort of invention to make beer taste better that looks simply like a french press, but it's for beer.  And every site after that had ideas as well.  One was to drop a jolly rancher in the beer! 

Now on google.de I see that the german wiki how has an idea of adding some lemon, tomato juice, Tabasco, and salt.  Sounds delicious!  I'd try it!

The next one is where a guy talks about how beer tastes better in a glass then out of a bottle.  He even makes a stab at American beer by saying that American beer always comes without a glass.2   And then he goes on to say how pouring the beer is very important, bla bla bla. 

Actually, it's what I would expect for an answer.  Ask a German how to make a beer taste better and they say, "drink it out of a glass that way you can smell it too." Ask and American person how to make a beer better and they start throwing jolly ranchers in it and pulling out their french press and mixing stuff in with it.  It's because Germans are mostly drinking good beers (see graph above) and Americans are very often stuck drinking lots of shitty beers (not necessarily by choice!  You just can't escape it!)… in which case we throw in pickles or olives or something.  If we had mostly good beers in the U.S. we probably wouldn't do it either. 

The next German site on google was about what Alcoholic free beer tastes like.  And I'm not going to tell you the 4th result because it's so irrelevant an definitely not appropriate for this conversation!  (check it out if you're interested) 

So in conclusion of the experiment, you can see that I have a point. 

Now you may be thinking, "sure Brian, Americans like to throw stuff in their shitty beer and they think it tastes better.  Big Deal.  You still only have "not bad" beer." 

But wait!  There's more!  Our need to make shitty beers taste better evolved into something that I like to call the Beer Revolution. 

You see… it was a long time ago (in American standards… so a few hundred years) that our colonial mothers and fathers were kicking back with a cold one made from the local brewery. 

There were thousands of breweries back in the day.  And in the late 1800s some German immigrants got in on the action started up some breweries like Budweiser, Coors, Miller, Pabst, Anchor, etc. 

But leading into in the 1920s we experienced a period of grayness that turned into utter darkness.  One of the darker times in our nation's history.  Thousands of breweries turned into just one thousand.  And in 1918 the 18th Amendment signaled the Prohibition.  A time with no alcohol, and thus no beer.  Beer production halted and the love that American's once had for beer was lost in the darkness.  It wasn't until after WWII that beer production started up again. 

After WWII, only a few of the companies survived the blow that was caused by the Prohibition, and beer was growing in popularity again.  And a few companies produced one style of beer and dominated the market.  Macrobreweries like Budweiser and Coors followed a pilsner style lager with shitty ingredients.  Giving rise to the "Shitty American Beer" that tastes like piss. 

By the 1970's there were only 60ish breweries (down from 4000).  And the major breweries dominated the United States. 

But then… through the evolution of a few people trying to make shitty beers taste better.  Microbreweries started forming in the 1970's and 80's and rising up to over 3,000 today.  And now everyone is starting up breweries.  Almost every city has one, and if it doesn't I bet there are tons of people doing it in their garage. 

And they are throwing raspberries and chocolate and everything they can think of in there to try and make a great beer. We've had too long of a time without any beer at all, and too long of a time with shitty beer to settle for just "good" or "very good beer"  We are reaching for the stars.  Everyone is trying to find out what's better than "great."  Perhaps we can find "Awesome" or "F#*king Awesome" and beyond! 

The U.S. is in the midst of a Beer Revolution!  And more and more people are climbing aboard.  And once again, we are enjoying a cold one out on the porch like our colonial mothers and fathers.  They would be so proud.

So if you do go to the land of "Shitty Beer" make sure you stay away from the macrobreweries such as Budweiser, Coors, Miller, Pabst, etc.3

And if you're in the U.S. then drink an IPA for me… they are hard to come by where I'm at.

Side Stories that may or may not be relevant to anything:

1. I once was at a gas station, and had been really looking forward to drinking a cherry coke.   It was a long day skiing and a cherry coke was gonna hit the spot.  We got big gulps.  We weren't messing around.  That is… we weren't messing around until I realized that they had flavoring options.  I thought, "hey… maybe extra cherries in my Cherry Coke would be good."  So I did it.  I put extra cherry flavoring in my Chery Coke and it was terrible.  Apparently they have added the perfect amount of cherries to the Cherry Coke.  Don't try it. 
2. I got an idea buddy.  Add a jolly rancher to that beer!
3. Interestingly, I found that these were all started by German immigrants. 

Ketchup and Mayonnaise

Buckle up for a very important blog post.  I'm going to talk one of the most vexing things about Europe.

One of the most common things that I am asked here in Europe or back at home is, "what is different?"

To introduce this topic, please watch this convo from Pulp Fiction* and note what Travolta says about french fries.

Did you catch it?  They drown their fries in mayonnaise.  At it really is as crazy as Travolta makes it sound. I'm as appalled by it as Samuel Jackson is there ;)  He is right about the small things too.  Just a bunch of little things that make the huge difference.

I myself, am a huge fan of ketchup.  And sometimes it's embarrassing asking for more ketchup, because they think I'm crazy.  They think I'm crazy because they bring the ketchup out in these tiny little packets.  You know, like the ones you grab at McD's or BK.  When I grab those in the US, I grab a handful.  So when I say to the server, "Can I have some more ketchup?"  Well naturally, he asks, "How many do you want?"  And now imagine my dilemma.  I start thinking to myself, 'How many is too many to ask to sound crazy?  The answer is of course somewhere around 4.  If you ask for 5, that's a handful.  That's a lot.  So I figure 4.  However, I need way more than 4.  I need like 10.  And now even most of the Americans, are thinking, "Whoa Brian, I was with you till you said you needed 10.  That's a bit overkill."  So, I ask for 4, and I'm learning to really enjoy my ketchup.

Why this is so important is because I like ketchup on my french fries and on my burger.  There's not enough for both!  If I don't have ketchup, then I might as well just skip the french fries.  So that's what happens.  People ask me how I've lost so much weight.  (People actually did ask me that when I was back in the US).  Well, the answer is simple.  I don't get enough ketchup with my fries, so I don't eat as many french fries.  That's gotta be it.

That or it could also be because I do a bunch of walking and biking to class.

Or perhaps because when I go shopping for food, I only have enough room in my bag for the necessities.  By the time I have water**, meat, veggies, fruit, eggs, and bread there is no room for pop or candy.  Just that little bit of inconvenience is enough to stop me from eating a bunch of junk food.

Or perhaps it's because they have different brands of candy, and I'm not willing to do the search for my new favorite types.  Look, I've spent my whole life developing my fine tuned taste for candy, I can't just start liking other candy!  Well, I could.  But it's too much effort to learn that all over again.  I got enough stuff to learn here.

So ketchup is in short supply here in Germany.  For me that is terrible.  But there are all kinds of other sauces, and some of those are good.  But I still haven't tried this so called "joppie" sauce (pronounce the "j" like a "y").  I think that's what it's called.  It's apparently all the rage.

Do you know where french fries were invented?  Someone asked me why we in the US call them french fries if they were invented in Belgium.  I said, "no, they're freedom fries."  But I didn't know they were invented in Belgium.  I looked it up on Wikipedia and it said that there has been an ongoing dispute about who invented them, France or Belgium.  I have no idea, but apparently France has our buy-in in the US.

Get this too!  I was at McDonalds, I asked for ketchup, and I was told I had to buy my ketchup!  At McDonald's!!  How ridiculous is that.  First I gotta buy my water?  Then I gotta buy my ketchup too??  Where am I!?  What is this world coming to?  (And that's when I had my first major culture shock mental breakdown).

Side stories that may or may not have anything to do with anything:
*I like how he asks what they call a "whopper" in Europe, and Travolta says, "I donno, I didn't go to BK."  I'm sure McD's payed for that... but still, I haven't been in a BK yet, and I don't think I want to, so I find it funny.
**For those of you back in the US:  Yes, I do buy water.  And I buy it proudly with carbonation.  I know most Americans don't like it, but it's delicious.
***In Brazil, I'm pretty sure I remember them putting Ketchup on their pizza.  Maybe that's where I belong.

How to become a problem solver... create problems for yourself: Ski Trips with the Schwandt's

Guest Post by Tom Schwandt.  My comments in blue.

Hello followers of Brian’s Blog!  I have the honor of being a guest writer on Brian’s blog, I will try to write clearly, descriptively, and hope to stay on topic much better than Brian does when he writes blog posts, and that shouldn’t be too hard.  If you are new to Brian’s blog, welcome!  His blog about his time in Germany, if you come to learn something about a different culture, you’re out of luck, here it seems you will find out about just every random thought that goes through Brian’s mind such as inefficient double doors and stroopwaffles, which I find somewhat educational, let’s get started..

The past week we all spent the week in Montana snowskiing at Big Sky (our uncle is nice enough to let us stay at his condo).  Kevin (brother), Megan (girlfriend, not mine Kevin’s), Ryan (friend), Brian and I.  The story starts like any other, we were enjoying a relaxing vacation, the weather was warm, in fact Big Sky had never had so little snow, we were enjoying catching up with Brian.  Now, if you’ve ever been on a Schwandt Ski trip you would know this, but I’m convinced that if there is a Schwandt along… something bad will happen automobile related, it’s just the reality.*

Anyways, the weather was warm, the snow was not very good, it’s been one of the worst winters for Montana skiing in 25 years.  Instead  of paying for an expensive lift ticket, we decided to do some hiking and snow shoeing at a place called Beehive Basin (it’s free, you park, hike up and ski down).  SO, the five of us head out that day, and hike up and ski down once, it was a fun time.

Day 2, We all head up to Big Sky, the snow is still sub par.  Kevin and Megan decide that they will ski the day, Brian doesn’t really want to and I have a season pass at Big Sky so I have skied enough good days to not ski at Big Sky on a somewhat crappy day.  So I tell the group I’ll go hike up Beehive Basin again with Brian no problem.  Ryan has his work laptop and has some work to do so he stays in the lodge that day.  Brian and I head off to Beehive Basin.  We park the car, we open up the skibox on top with all our equipment, load up, and head off hiking.  The hike itself to the top takes us about 1 hour, maybe a little bit more.  I think it was more like two hours due to me being out of shape.

We get to the top, set all of our stuff down and sit at the top of the mountain for awhile, then I feel for the keys (Brian drove) and say  “oh Brian, I don’t think I have the keys, you have them?..”  Brian then replies, without checking his pockets, I don’t even know if he comprehended (I do this a lot) what I said “yup, got em!”, and both of us, like the idiots we are, didn’t question it!  Now let me tell you problem number one, Brian and I are really spacey and scatterminded, you never send us off to do anything, not alone and especially not both of us together, the results are bad when it’s anything organizationally related.

We ski back to the car, and brian looks through his pockets.. yes, no keys haha you couldn’t make this stuff up.  We search our back packs, my pockets, the car.. “who had the keys?” We don’t know.. “Did you put them in your pockets? I don’t know”.. let’s retrace our steps, ok, just a mile of snow between here and the top along with another mile of tracks we crossed to ski down.  Brian searches the car, and works on hotwiring the car via the internet (he’s an electrical engineer, how hard could it be? Like his recent power electronics exam, he worked in power electronics, how hard could it be?  I've seen movies... it takes them like 12 seconds... i really thought this was an option)  I hike back up to see if I can come across the keys.  Long story short, nothing and nothing.  We find no keys, we can’t hotwire the car.  We grab our stuff and start hiking up the road on our way out of beehive basin back to Big sky, about 5 miles away.  It’s snowing and there’s already two inches on the pavement.  After a mile a nice family from Maryland gives us a ride to Big Sky. 

We reunite with the rest of the group, and they take the news well, probably cause they’re not surprised that Brian and I would do something so stupid, and they probably blame themselves for letting me and Brian go by ourselves in the first place.  The next few days are a blend of us analyzing schedules for busses and shuttles, calling ex boyfriends (Megan's... not mine or Tom's) for rides, walking, running, hitchhiking, taxis, valet services to the Yellowstone club, jalapeno poppers, steam rooms without steam, phone calls to car dealerships, and much more.  It would take too long to tell but it’s worth hearing so please ask Brian and you’re sure to enjoy it J.   But in the end Brian and I went to Bozeman and got another key made for our car and we made it back to Fargo safely and on time.  Brian and I are engineers, you see, we think critically, we’re good at solving problems… we also usually cause the problems, maybe that’s why we’re good at solving them?? Food for thought..  Thanks for reading, and tune in for next year’s family ski trip, it’s bound to be an exciting one!

It should be noted that we let the car sit in the backcountry of Big Sky for about 3 days.  Prioritizing is important, and our priority was to enjoy the snow that was about to come.  Right after we lost the keys we got a lot of snow.  We skied the Yellowstone Club the next day, which is where billionaires like to ski (seriously... google it), then we skied big sky the next day.  Great skiing!  By the time we got to the car... it looked like this: 

When I got there people were checking out the car wondering if someone had died in an avalanche or something... Nope!  Just a couple people that can't keep track of their keys!  

The whole experience was pretty exciting.  We still don't know who to blame for loosing the keys.  It was probably Tom... but it could also have very well been me.

*We’ve had transmissions blow out, hitchhiked, slept at mechanics shops overnight, had dead batteries, had people fall asleep at the wheel, been rear ended by grey hound busses, had Ski toppers fly off, people throwing up, etc. etc. and etc.

Why I need health insurance for my trip home

Last night I had a dream.  I dreamt that I needed to figure out how to get my health insurance to work in the United States.  It's been something that's been on my mind, but I keep forgetting to do it.  It is a dire necessity, and I'll explain why.

I go back home in about a week.  Land of the free, home of the brave.  People ask me if I miss home.  Of course I miss my family and friends, and I finally get to see my nephew, "The Little Lion Man" as I call him, next week when I go back. 

But one thing that I miss is doing crazy things with my buddies.  You see, growing up, my friends and I lived in a little place called Fargo-Moorhead.  That's two towns on the boarder of ND and MN.  There's not a lot going on there other than farming and some lakes.  Those lakes provide tons of entertainment, but we have no hills at all. People here say the Netherlands is the flattest place in Europe. I don't have to imagine, for I come from the land of flatness. In the winter time it gets so cold that you either have to hibernate like bears, or you have to get creative. 

Well, me and my friends have a history of getting creative.  Here's what I miss.  I miss my buddies, Steve and Lief calling me up:

"Brian!  We're going to the lake, we're going wakeboarding!"  (this call usually comes the day of, but it has been in their head for years)

I say, "It's February" (which in our part of the world means it's most likely -30 degrees F)

"I know right!?  It's going to be crazy" 

I respond, "Yeah… it will be that." 

"So you in?"

Now I have to be honest, I don't always participate, but when something this crazy is going down, how can you say 'no'.  So I respond, "Yeah… when are we going?"

So today I woke up to a video* from a friend of mine that I have been looking forward to for quite some time.  It's the video that I wish had my name in the list at the end :)  

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jQgAdClKvDE 

This is just the stuff that we do.  Crazy creativity at its finest.  Mostly involving skiing, wakeboarding, climbing, or something random.  Studies show** that boredom is good for your creativity.  Well they should take that study to Fargo-Moorhead, because I think we've already proven it.  Here's a list of some things that me and/or my friends have done.  And just for fun, I'll mention which ones were stopped by cops.

• Made a ski jump in the parking lot of Little Caesar's (little pizza joint).  - stopped by police***
• Climbed churches - stopped by police
• Climbed the University buildings
• Pulled a couch behind a pick-up truck on the ice - stopped by police (probably a good call on their part)
• Random back-flips with my brother Dan
• Several times wakeboarding through ditches - often stopped by police
• Pond skimming on snow skis or wakeboard
• Wakeboarding in the winter
• Making a ski jump at the skate park - stopped by the police
• Crazy 4th of July shenanigans
• Skiing in speedos  
• One of my favorites was making a ski jump in Steve's grandpa's back yard, which we did twice.  To do it justice, I need to show a picture to properly appreciate the craziness.

(That jump may or may not have involved two cracked teeth and 19 stitches).  Also, remember we don't have hills, so that jump meant we had to pull behind a snowmobile at about 

I also miss driving 17 hours with my cousin Andrew to go skiing and then sleeping in a Walmart parking lot because we were low on cash. 

People in Europe think it's crazy that we drive so far for things.  And I don't disagree.  But when you've driven 12 hours to go skiing for two or three days so many times, you start to get used to it.  These same guys in the winter wakeboarding video above have driven 14 hours to Colorado to go skiing.  I don't remember if it was for 1 or 2 days, but I remember telling them they were crazy.  They responded by telling me I was crazy for not coming :)

My brothers and I one time sat in our parents room and talked about our near death experiences.  We've all been dangerously close… it's amazing we've all survived this long!

People always tell me to be careful when I go out to the mountains to go skiing.  "Be careful!!"   What's funny is that I probably need health insurance more for when I am in Fargo-Moorhead. So I gotta get my health insurance figured out, because Steve and Lief still live there, and they will most likely call me up to do something crazy. 

Side Stories that may or may not be relevant to anything:

*If you want to see more, just go to YouTube and search "Steve Ystebo."  There is a lot more where that came from. 

**I haven't read this study, nor do I know if it exists, but I heard something along these lines one time.

***The cop was befuddled that we would do this.  He said, "Look I'm sure this is fun and shit, but just, well, do it in Fargo next time."   You can see that we have lots of experiences