First practice/Trip to Bregenz

First of all, I hope you can excuse the sloppiness of the pictures and text on this page. I plan to get better at this as I go along...Yesterday I participated in my first workout with the Cineplexx Blue Devils. It was an indoor practice at the local gymnasium. There were about 22-25 guys there for the workout. It was great to meet so many of the guys, and even better to get to throw some routes. I spent about 75 minutes throwing pass routes to the guys, and today, my arm is a little tender, but it's definitely a good thing. I thought the turnout for the practice was great, and I am excited to continue building a relationship with these guys both on and off the field.


Today I took a trip to Bregenz, the capital of the Austrian state of Vorarlberg (which is also the state in which I live). Christoph, the teams owner, told me this morning that he and his family were going to go to Bregenz and asked if I would like to go along. Of course I said yes, and I really appreciated him letting me go with his family for the day. We took the bus from Hohenems (pop. 15,000) through Dornbirn (pop. 50,000) to Bregenz (pop. 38,000), which was about a 30 minute trip. We took the train home which was only about 15 minutes. Public transportation is very nice here. All of the buses are Mercedes Benz, and the trains are all very clean, modern, and fast.

Floating stage in Bregenz

    

The first thing I saw when we hit Bregenz was the world famous "floating stage". Every year there is a big opera festival held there, and it is one of the most unique settings in the world. Just Google image search "floating stage Bregenz" and you'll see why this is so. Also, a scene from a recent James Bond film, "Quantum of Solace" was filmed at this location. The stage sits on Lake Constance, a very cool body of water that touches Austria, Switzerland, and Germany. From where the picture below was taken, I could see across the lake into southern Germany. Pretty neat.

View into southern Germany from Austrian side of Lake Constance

View of Bregenz and Lake Constance form inside the cable car.

Next we walked to the cable car that would take us to the top of the mountain that overlooks Bregenz. From the top there was a good view of Lake Constance and the mountains that surround the region. It was a little cloudy today, so the view was a little bit skewed, but still pretty amazing. Even through the clouds I could see southern Germany, the Swiss Alps, and the Austrian Alps that surround the area.

In front of Austrian Alps

Christoph and his family took me to a restaurant in the mountains for lunch. I had no idea what the menu said, so I asked Christoph to order my food for me. Turns out I would end up having my first weinerschnitzel. From what I understood it was fried pork, and it was really pretty tasty.

View of the restaurant where we ate lunch. 

Overall it was a really great day. Now the only thing that could make it better would be a Bears victory in the NFC Championship game. The game starts a little after 9 pm local time here, so it won't be a problem for me to stay up to watch it. The AFC game though, will be a different story, as it doesn't start until 12:30 am Monday morning here. Hope all is well in the states, and I'll be back soon with more news.

Go Blue Devils/Boys! (and Bears!)
Mitch Niekamp

Another view of the Austrian Alps