Diploma Party

So I was talked into this entire diploma party thing, you know, and I had no choice... No honestly, the idea of a welcome, goodbye, and diploma party was proposed to me and I liked it. So I made up the following official party invitation and invited all my close friends and relatives, in a total around 33 people.

Indeed, most of them came, and also some others that I didn't remember inviting... Anyways, we had a great time and, as usual in Bavaria, some beer and wine ;)


But before that some official preparation had to be done, such as organizing a small pub in our town. Luckily, I know Markus quite well who runs one of my favourite bars in Bad Tölz, the Bodega.


I covered the drinking costs and asked everybody to bring some exquisite finger foods. Especially all my aunts were kind of excited of this idea. The drawback was that I and Katrin had to prepare some stuff, too. But with some help of our MacBooks and the internet the fog quickly cleared...


... and we decided to prepare Samosas, which took us four hours or so. So let's get the party started and let me introduce you to some people attending:

My Dad and my friends Franz, Lara, and Adrian


Gertrud, Petra, Tom, Rosi, and Sylvia


uncle Markus and aunt Karin enjoying wheat beer


Petra, me, and Sylvia in a conversation


My cousin Berti, his girlfriend Petra, and my Dad in a discussion


My three litlle bros Domi, Chrissi, and Tom drinking beer


Somehow people liked the idea of fingerfood, at least the buffet was always busy :)


The stuggi connection a.k.a. Katrin and Adrian


The "younger" party guests including me


My parents decided both to give some moving speeches


and I was pleased and clapping.


So we had a good family evening, me, Mom, and Dad, ...


and aunt Annelies and my grandmother.


All my guests enjoyed themselves,


there were some nice conversations going on,


and a lot of drunk people in the end, right?

It's a pity that there's only one diploma in a lifetime, but you always find good reasons for family gatherings :) Oh yes, if somebody is interested in my final bill, here it is:

Skitouring Right Before New Year

What the hell have we done wrong again? That's what Achim and I asked ourselves standing on a stormy ridge looking at the clouds rolling in from the East? Actually, the weather was supposed to be perfectly stable for the next days in the Swiss-Italian Sesvenna area. After fighting our way along this stormy ridge in waist deep snow, we returned to our cabin and hoped for the better weather the next morning...

As it still wasn't good we decided, after a small argumentation, to leave into the Lechtal area in the Northern Alps. So we descended, got some coffee and made our way to the Arlberg,were we had a perfect bluebird day!

It was truly nice and the only drawback was the three hour hike to our cabin carrying all our gear and all our food. Puuuhhh!

Finally, we arrived at the cabin, dropped our gear, and tried to reach another summit before dusk finally captures us.

It was a still long way to the summit

but finally we reached it and had a wonderful sunset up there. Even the descent was really good although it didn't snow for a couple of weeks. So far nobody dared to go straight down the steep and deep summit slope. Well, we took the slight avalanche risk and had a lot of fun!

But when we arrived at our cabin, I was a little bit sunburned and very exhausted from a long and intense day. In the cabin we met Eddie and Stefan who have been in the area for two days now deflowering virgin "powder" slopes (more or less).

After a fun evening we woke up with another bluebird day! Hell, yeah!

So we got our skis on and followed Eddie's tracks to the first summit.

Another magnificent and immaculate day!

Right underneath the summit, we left our skis

and climbed the last meters to the summit.

Only Achim and Eddi were bold enough to go all the way up, while Stefan and I thought about the technical difficulty of climbing this flake with ski boots - la pierre philosophal :)

The snow quality of the downhill run was better than expected. and ater a short lunch break we ascended another summit.

After this pleasant and lonely day in a beautiful mountain scenery, we skied all the way down into the busy Arlberg valleys.

A great short skitouring weekend is over and New Year's Eve is about to come. Franz organised a little party in his house and we had waaaayyyyy toooooo many drinks and beer, a funny intense night, and a really dizzy start into 2009 ;)

Christmas Holidays Back Home Again

After we spent the last Christmas holidays in Calgary and in the Rockies, we were looking forward to be home again this year. Since my internship ended in mid December, I had plenty of time to go skiing and snowboarding with friends. I don't wanna show you the routine "such-a-great-bluebird-powder-day" pictures, but rather some stuff around that. For instance, having friends over after boarding in the Zilletal a.k.a. Chiller Valley and making pizza.

Or drying my wet hair under the newly set up lamp and being laughed at by Kat ;(

I guess my friends from Stuttgart know by now who this guy is, right?

I and Katrin also had to prepare our TOEFL and GRE tests with our old Windows computers... I am so relieved this is over now, both the tests and the Windows machines :D

And finally, there was Christmas and everybody was getting ready for it. Especially my Mom was preparing a lot f stuff, such as 3kg of cheese fondue.

But we are hungry bros, right Tom?

Here Tom is apparently worried that Wolfi might steel his share of the fondue!

And after the usual gorgeous and endless eating ceremony, we finally had time for our skew Christmas tree. In fact, Tom "organized" the tree at 6pm on Christmas eve ... ? True story, ask him!

So it was time to open the sometimes amusing presents,

celebrate together with Oma,


and have mastermind discussions with Wolfi.

In the end, I fell asleep in front of the Christmas tree while waiting for Anna and her boyfriend Adam. Well, they showed up the next morning and Adam was truly surprised about his present, a dolphin fairytale.

Last but not least, Mom and Fini also got what they always desired - Aragon, at least on paper :)

It's so good to spend the holidays back at home, now I know it again!