Chooooooooocolate!

It was sad to see the Austrians go yesterday. I told him I love chocolate so Christian gave me some of his leftover chocolate from the climb because European chocolate is so much better. I can get the same brands in the US, but it's still not the same. They use different formulas for export because the US has weird laws regulating what percentages of things have to be in the chocolate to be able to label it a specific way. Ritter Sport dark and milk chocolate with hazelnuts and a Toblerone. He said they each had 2 kilos of chocolate with them for when they climbed the mountain. That's about 4.5lbs!! Yikes! He apologized for the shape the Toblerone is in - the packaging is beat to hell from being up on the mountain, as you can sort of see in the picture.
He also gave me a whole bunch of the leftover energy bars from the climb, which I haven't tried yet. I looked up one of the words on the packaging - it said 'fitness riegel,' which translates to 'fitness latch plate.' haha, I'm assuming it means 'fitness bar.'

I'm going to have Frenchy get me his address (they have to stop by there before the airport because she let them store the mountain climbing gear in her garage) so I can send him some marshmallows. They had never seen marshmallows before, nevermind roasted marshmallows, so they assumed they're not available at the stores at home.

This is random, but there was just a Total Gym commercial on and I happened to look up at it - Chuck Norris is rocking the 70s/80s 'Stache these days! Wowsa, that thing looks ridiculous, especially because his hair is short. If you're gonna go with the giant 'stache, go all the way, Chuck! You gotta balance it with the voluminous hair!

The American Way

Last night I sat by the fire with the Austrians again. I have to clarify what I said before, though, Christian and Gerhard are mountain climbers and Barbara is here visiting them for the last leg of their journey, so I don't think she's a mountain climber. Christian is headed back to Austria at the end of the week while Gerhard and Barbara stay behind to travel a bit more. I feel bad for them because when they get back from their trip they all have to work the next day! There is a 10 hour time difference between here and Austria! Ouch! I told Barbara to take the day off because she's an anaesthesiologist. I'm sure they'll be okay.

I had a good time talking with them last night. They're very intelligent and interesting people. I learned about a new way of building tunnels pioneered by the Austrians, which is something these guys are involved in I think because I'm assuming the new tunnel they're working on is being built that way. Usually in tunnel construction they blast out tons of rock and then cement the hell out of the inside. This new way they blast out the rock and then they pay attention to it for some time to see how the rock behaves on its own and they tailor the inner tube of the tunnel based on the rock behavior so that it can move with the rock instead of being crumbled away when the rock shifts over time (or at least that's how I understood it). I told them they were more than welcome to come fix The Big Dig! Turns out they do have a few offices in the US, too. They're building something in San Francisco right now, but I'm not sure what.

I've been talking with them about my plans after here and I mentioned I'm considering where in Europe I'd want to visit, so they told me about some areas. They've all traveled all around the world because other countries know how to have a vacation, damnit! They get 2 months vacation EVERY YEAR! It isn't just their professions, either, that's somewhat normal! We Americans need to work on that. There are a lot of things we need to work on! At one point, Gerhard asked me, "how is it that you got to be so critical of the American way of life?" hahahaha!! At first I thought I wasn't and I thought he asked because I was making fun of fried fish, talking about how gross it is and how it ruins the delicate flavor of fish. Before that I think I was making fun of the people that go through the drive through, get the supersize meal and then order a diet coke to offset it and be 'healthy.' And before that I was making fun of how Americans live by the clock when they eat at a restaurant so it's not a leisurely thing, and how Americans live by the clock in everything else, for that matter. So, yeah, I suppose I am critical of the American way of life.