What is your second language?

Every day brings new experiences and new surprises. Today we wanted to go from Fussen to the top of the highest mountain in Germany, the Zugspitze. We could not take a train, so we took a bus, which enabled us to meet some very interesting people.

As the bus traveled the route, we passed through some of what must have been the most beautiful green rolling hills in Germany, and each little village we passed through had houses with huge windowboxes brimming over with gorgeous flowers.

When we passed through Oberammergau, an elderly German lady boarded the bus. She spoke hardly any English...and you know we don't speak German, but we communicated. She asked where we were from, and even nodded the she was familiar with Alabama. Who knows? Olen pointed to her and asked if she had ever had a part in the famous Oberammergau Passion Play. She shook her head and said, "Bad feet. Diabetes." I assume somehow that disqualified her from having a part in the play. It is such a small little town that we thought most of the residents had a part in the play at some point in their life. I guess not...if they have "bad feet".

She bid us "good-bye" and two girls got on the bus struggling with their suitcases. Olen helped them and they thanked him profusely. They called him a "gentleman" and told him that they were very impressed. (I wondered how I would ever get him off of the bus since his head was now so big I doubted it would fit through the doors!) Anyway, the girls were very interesting. They said they were thirty (but looked easily ten years younger) and were visiting from Taiwan. They spoke excellent English and even referred to something as "cool", so they were fluent in slang also. We talked about jobs and working. When Olen told them he was a retired aerospace engineer they admitted that all they knew about space was "from Hollywood". Then they asked us what our second language was. Now, being from Alabama, English probably qualifies as our second language, but not to be outdone, Olen told them he was learning Spanish. They knew a few words in Spanish, and there we sat on a bus in Germany, talking to two girls from Taiwan about Spanish. How bizarre is that? I gave the girls one of our cards with the blog address on it, and by the time we all got off the bus at Garmish we were good friends. We all took photos and bid each other good-bye.

We ate lunch and started the trip up the Zugspitze. This involved a train ride, a cog train ride, and finally a cable car to get to the top. Once at the "Top of Germany" it was extremely cold and windy. It was one of those "been-there-done-that-took-a-picture" stops to avoid frostbite. The Zugspitze lies on the border of Germany and Austria, and at one spot at the buildings on the top you can actually have one foot in Germany and another is Austria. The buildings are a few feet from the actual summit, and Olen posed on the viewing platform to show the actual summit behind him. We did not...I repeat, did NOT climb the ladder and hang on to the wire just to say we reached the summit. The viewing platform was far enough for us.

We rode the cable car back down to Garmish and caught the next train to Innsbruck, Austria. Our hotel for tonight is actually a zimmer in a building dated 1634. It is the larger blue building in the photo. Our room is the bay window on the third floor (no elevator). The view out of our bay window is of the Inn River and Old Town with an old church and the Stradturn Tower showing in the distance. Perfect!

We left our big backpacks in the room and went to walk around the Old Town area. We climbed the 148 steps to the top of the town tower, the Stradturn. It was built between 1442-1450 as a watchtower. The views of Innsbruck in the afternoon sunshine were spectacular.

We had dinner at a streetside cafe on one of the pedestrain-only streets, and had a view of the Stradturn and the Golden Roof built by Friedrich IV in the early 15th century. The roof is actually made of 2,600 copper tiles which were originally gold-plated. After a wonderful dinner (chickenschnitzel, potatoes and salad) , we walked around Old Town some more, passing the Hofburg Palace and other old buildings before running into someone's clever idea. They had set us a huge picture frame for photos. We asked a nice oriental man who spoke no English at all to help us. We pointed to ourselves and the camera, and he took a great photo. Charades works when language fails.

We are back at our room for the night looking out on the night lights of Innsbruck. I wonder who we will meet tomorrow, and where they will be from. We hope you made some new friends today. You can never have too many friends...even if you have to talk to them through signs and gestures.