Day 36

It was a crazy day. Yesterday was so nice and sunny outside. Perfect for the visit to the castle. But we woke up this morning to find out that it had snowed during the night!! So there was a nice layer of white when we looked out the window. It was almost hard to believe. But we packed up our things and went outside a little earlier than we had planned. Because really, when are you going to wake up to snow in California? It was incredible outside. The streets were white, the houses were white, the mountains were covered in snow. It was like a fairytale. The only thing wrong with this picture is that I was wearing tennis shoes that like to absorb a lot of water. And because it was only 2 inches of snow, it was melting pretty fast. And my socks and shoes were soaked. But it was fun. We tried to throw some snowballs, but it wasn’t ideal conditions. So we walked over to the train station and got ready to board. I thought I felt some drops on my face and thought it was raining. But upon closer inspection, I realized that it was snowing! How crazy is that?! We got on our bus and spent the next 45 minutes looking out the window at all of the snow. When we arrived at our transfer station in Ruette, it was still snowing. And there was a lot of it. It was so cool to see that and experience it. We got on and train and about an hour later we were in Garmisch. Our next stop was Zugspitze, Germany’s highest point. We had to take a cog rail to get up the mountain and then a cable car to reach the peak. Now, it’s cold enough to snow outside on the ground. Just imagine how cold it was once we got up 10000 feet. Very. And it was windy! Snow was flying everywhere. And I was not prepared for the weather. Remember how my shoes were wet? Well that was unpleasant in the 13 degree weather (Fahrenheit). And my jeans actually froze! Can you believe that? Zugspitze’s peak is just under 10,000 feet, or about 2900 meters. And on a clear day you can see all of the way to Italy! But not today. We were in the middle of a storm. It was still worth it though and a once in a lifetime experience. After a good bit of time outside and we decided that it was time to go back down. The cog railway took a little longer back but we were in the city by 3. And we were hungry!! So we stopped at the grocery store and I saw something that I had been craving for the last few days. A nice salad. It was ham and cheese and amazing. Even though it wasn’t ranch dressing, which apparently they don’t have in Europe, it was delicious. And I inhaled it. After our lunch we walked around the city for a bit. But it was raining so that made it tough. We saw the town hall and some of the older sections of town. It was really nice. And the mountains were covered with snow in the background. It was really pretty. After we were done, we headed back to the train station and then back to Munich. We had a little less than an hour this time to walk 2 miles, repack our bags and grab some dinner. We must be getting good at it because we made it back with enough time for me to grab a cup of coffee from Starbucks. We boarded our train and spent the next 3 hours watching movies and sleeping. I was doing most of the sleeping. We arrived in Heidelberg around 11 pm and I was exhausted. After a quick peek at my emails I called it a night. This was the best snow day ever!