After we viewed the church, we started walking further through town and eventually reached an incline that led us up the base of Zugspitze. We got (not very far) and found a small outlook that we all went to and the view of Grainau below us was amazing. We could even see the other mountain that is across the valley (not like you could miss it since its only slightly smaller than Zugspitze). We found our way down and decided to find lunch. We split up since some people wanted Italian again and some others didn't. I joined the group that did not want Italian and we found a little German restaurant. I got the gulaschesuppe, which is Gulash (it's a stew if you don't know what that is) and it was very tasty. It was helpful for the cold I fear that I am getting... I had a runny nose all day XP Everyone's food was very good and, here again, another observation; the beers seem to be getting larger the farther we move out, not the picture above of Dr. Sofer and his giant beer. Patrick had split a steak with someone else, and I got to try some. It was the most delicious steak I have ever tasted in my life. After lunch we headed back to the girls' house and met up shortly to figure out what we were doing. Some people decided to take naps and some people decided to do other things. I went with Dr. Sofer, Shannon, Patrick, and Adelle to take a hike, farther up the mountain than we went earlier. We were supposed to meet at 4:00, but we missed that one since we were trying to get back and didn't get there until 4:20. It didn't really matter since most people slept through it anyway. After the fake meeting, we went to explore some of the shops. We went to a drug store, or so we thought, it was more of a convenience store, and I found some cold medicine. I took some and it helped my runny nose somewhat. Unfortunately, all the instructions were in German, so I couldn't read them and had to use my German to English dictionary to kind of deduce that I can take 2 of the 500mg pills. I later had Maggie and her husband verify these dosing instructions. I also bought, at this store, a 1.5 L bottle of Mezzo Mix and it was an excellent deal, I think, since it only cost 1.49 euros and a .4 L drink in a restaurant here usually costs over 2 euros. Finally, my thirst is being quenched, which I don't think it has since I got here since the drinking portions are so much smaller and the water isn't free.
After the store, we went throughout Grainau and found a little grocery store and looked in it. I found the candy aisle pretty quickly and they had gummy smurfs! I was excited by that, but they were kind of expensive even though the container was large. At that point we had to meet up again and Dr. Ribble told us that if we wanted to, we could meet Maggie and her husband at a little bar/tavern for some food and hot drinks. We had some time until then so some of us decided to go GeoCaching again. Our original group went (Patrick, Adelle, Shannon, and I) and we were joined by Dr. Sofer, Karen, and Kat this time.
We set off in search of our first geocache and found it by a little shrine (Kat found this one) and it was in some rocks, in a little crevice. Next, we set off in search of a second one. It took us nearly an hour to get close to it, even though we were only .3 miles away from it. It was dark and we couldn't find a road that would take us in the right direction. Eventually, we got within 500 ft of it, but it was getting late, and to get to it, we would have had to go through someone's yard, and that is kinda sorta not allowed, so we didn't find it.
We headed back to Grainau, which wasn't so bad since we accidentally made a circular path to it. After we got back to town we separated again, the girls went to their place and the guys went to theirs. We sat around for a few minutes to recover from the cold and get whatever we needed, and then we headed to the small tavern to meet Maggie and her husband (can't remember his name...) Some people got hot chocolate, I didn't but everyone said it was good. We also got tomato soup, which was different than I am used to since it was slightly spicy, and it helped my runny nose. We sat at the tavern for a good while and enjoyed each other's company but departed once it got around 10:00. We were informed that we had to be at the girls' place at 9:00 because we are supposed to catch a bus that will take us to see a castle tomorrow. I just hope I don't really develop a cold... I'm trying to stop it before it starts. So, I will return next post with new stories of a new castle :)
Train Ride
Everything we did today (Jan. 11) can be described by the title. We woke up really early to catch a train that would take us to Munich (Munchen in German). That train ride took us four and a half hours O.O I read for a while and slept some. I was slightly excited because the train had WiFi on it, but you had to pay 6 euros for an hour, so I decided it wasn't worth it.
we got in to Munich and met Maggie Teisson, who is a friend of Dr. Ribble's. We tried to find some lockers in the train station to put our stuff away so we could tour Munich, but the lockers were too expensive for our tastes, so we decided to head on to Garmisch-Partenkirchen. So, we took another train that took over an hour (and the train was packed so there were few seats and we had to sit apart) until we reached Garmisch.
Once in Garmisch, we took a bus ride that lasted 25 minutes and we finally arrived in Grainau, which is a little town at the base of Zugspitze, the tallest mountain in Germany. We didn't really know it at the time because when we got to Grainau, it was dark and we couldn't see anything. Maggie helped us find our guest houses, which are slightly different than I thought. They are like little privately owned hotels. After we got our stuff settled, we went to dinner in a little Italian restaurant. It was very good, I got some pasta that had ham in it.
After dinner, we headed to our rooms and slept in very warm beds that were very soft. I think another observation is in order here: German pillows seem to all be extremely soft and do not hold a form at all. They sink in when you lay your head on them, and I am generally not used to sleeping with my head flat on the bed. But, the beds are comfy, so I'm not complaining. Sorry this is so short, but we really didn't do anything worthy of noting, I didn't even take any pictures. So, next, you will hear about my first day in Grainau!