Bad Reichenhall (Sunday brunch: September 8, 2013)

City Hall

Sabers has been taking German since he started junior high, and the teachers here have an exchange student program each summer.  The exchange is with a school in Bad Reichenhall: a Bavarian town in the very far southeast of Germany, not far from Salzburg, Austria.

One thing I learned is that Bad Reichenhall is the “Salt City” of Bavaria, so I mentioned my home town of Syracuse and shared my salt potato recipe with our guest Tobi.  Meanwhile, Tobi has been attending school with Sabers, doing some sightseeing, and getting a taste of what life is like for an American high schooler.

So the next few posts will intersperse some culture and scenery with the puzzling.

The Wall Street Journal has a variety cryptic by Hex called “Alphabet Soup.”  Like some of their other WSJ puzzles, this is not as hard as it looks, so be sure to give it a try.  If you can’t figure out where to start, I’ve posted some hints elsewhere on the blog.

The Bavarian Alps

Hex’s straight cryptic in the National Post is blogged remotely by Falcon.  There’s no thumbnail in the post, but the link works.  Harder than usual.  There’s some name-checking going on too.

The New York Times has a Hex acrostic this week (behind the paywall).  Subscribers also have their monthly bonus puzzle from Fred Piscop.

The new issue of Contingencies is out, and rather than a cryptic, Tom Toce has an anagram puzzle in it.

Xanthippe has aimed for a little more polish in her British cryptic titled “Marge lets Norah see Sharon’s telegram (So many dynamos!)”.

Nathan Curtis’s weekly puzzle is a Snake Charmer.  Nice bonus in that Nathan is also sharing some observations with us from the constructor’s perspective.