I am ready to go to the top of Germany!  I dreamt about my grandfather Otto last night, perhaps he is travelling with me today.  No one wants to go - so I head out solo to the train station.  The train ride was gorgeous and it is snowing.  The towns we pass through are quaint.  There are clouds but I know I will go right through them on the way up to 9,000 feet and the Zugspitz. It's like a movie.  Lots of teenage skiers get on the train. We have to change trains for the one that goes up to the top through the tunnel carved out of the rock.  The last cable car I rode was in Colorado over the great gorge there.  It is -17 degrees Celsius at the top they say.  Once you reach the top where the skiers head off from there is a cable car to the peak and then you can take a cable car directly down 2 ½ kilometers to catch the train at the bottom.

It's neat to be here but it's not as much fun alone.  Maybe that's why Otto has decided to keep me company (or is it me him?).  It is so peaceful in the train watching the snow-covered landscape and forests go by.

So there I was sitting on the top of the world drinking weisbier (of course) marveling at the amazing view! I bought more film and used up 2 rolls on this trip!  This is the most marvelous view!  The Alps above the clouds, it is like heaven or the Himalayas.  Truly a peak life experience (pun intended!).  I can't believe they didn't want to join me!  What mountains, what a view.  Islands in the sky.  Ragged snow-covered mountain jags and lovely stretches of white fields.  Lots of skiers, too.  The sound of the train was so much like the Orient Express (in the movie anyway).  What a great ride. The snow and the tunnels, it was like being in another century. To the summit now, by cable to the little restaurant at the top, gleaming gold in the sunlight.  Just a 4-minute ride.  I took panoramas at the summit, the sun was so bright and the sky so blue. Then down the very steep cable car a la James Bond (where was Jaws??).  It was just breath-taking coming through the clouds and descending into the snow laden forest of pine trees around the Eibsee Lake.  Back on the train (only 2 of us!) and back to town.

There I met Dad sporting a new hat and met the shoppers.  We had lunch with Gluhwein and I had cheese spatzel and onion soup with a potato pancake in it (instead of bread).    Bought a wonderful pillow to take home and Dad got me a nice warm headband and a tiny windup clock like one I had as a child (that they had brought back from Germany).  We went to the Christmas shop and that was great.  Bought some great ornaments and a top for my tree, a gorgeous peacock with a real feather tail and some poinsettia floating candles.  I got some nice gifts for my family and boyfriend too.  We headed back to Munich in the evening and ate at home, cooking potato soup and eating cheeses and breads and cold cuts (and Gluhwein).

Tomorrow we go to the science museum in Munich.

        

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