Friday, Apr 10: Getting High in Germany

We showered for the last time with the broken shower head at Hotel Atlanta and drove 1 hour to Garmisch-Partenkirchen. Our first stop was the Information Office, since we hadn't booked a place in advance. I had printed off 13 pages of hotel options. Todd flipped to the 2nd page, pointed to the first one with a photo and it was decided that we should sleep at Frau Rosemarie's B&B. She had converted 3 rooms in the upper floor of her house into guest rooms. Ours had a deck overlooking the Zugspitze mountain peak. This was probably our favorite place to stay, with mountainesque wood paneling and two separate duvets on the bed. Not having to share covers with your spouse? Pure genius, Germans.

We dashed off to catch the train to the peak. Deb and Allen decided to save the 36 euro per person and spend the money on a boat ride in the Cinque Terre. While in line, we met people who live in the Kalamazoo area. Todd and I took the train out of the village to where a cog train or cable car takes you up. We picked the cable car to go up and the cog train to go down. Looking up was pretty scary for me - I think cable cars and lifts are the worst part of skiing. Todd comforted me by remarking that the last so many feet of the cable were unsupported. The ride actually wasn't too bad. At the top, we partook in Germany's "highest" stuff - highest souvenir shop, highest bier garten, highest restaurant where Todd ate (and liked) vegetables, highest internet portal, etc. FYI: Wherever there is something of note, Germans put a bier garten next to it. We crossed over to Austria and took photos there. I was disappointed that I couldn't get my passport stamped. There are no more border crossings within the E.U. The path to the peak with the gold cross was closed due to snow - and the cross wasn't there. We took a smaller cable car to meet the cog train and saw where the ski resort was, along with Germany's highest church. We didn't have time to climb through the snow to visit. There were several lounge chairs outside in the snow. The Germans take their sun tanning pretty seriously. We joined the mad rush to board the train and got sandwiched between sweaty skiers and their dripping skies for the 45 minute ride.

Back down in Garmisch, we met Deb and Allen at the train station. They had passed the time by visiting the Olympic Center from the 1936 Olympics. We drove to the Eibsee, a frozen-over lake Todd and I had seen from the cable car. There was a 1000 meter (6 miles) trail around it, but since we didn't want to walk that much we just posed for pictures on Allen's camera. The lake's bier garten was closed for the winter. For dinner we had to go meatless and picked an Italian place for cheese pizza. I wasn't sure whether to order in English, German or Italian. So we did all three.