Travel date: May 4, 2024

Hiking in the Bavarian Alps today. I am wearing my adventure pants – ready for sportsing.

But first, we had to navigate the city bus to Almbachklamm, Germany. Bus was 9 minutes late. WTH? If you can’t count on the Germans to be prompt, what can you count on? And our bus driver, Herr Grumpy, wasn’t exactly an ambassador of friendliness.

Bonus: If you want to get OFF at a bus stop, not only do you have to push the giant red HALT button (which we did), but you must also YELL at the driver (which we failed to do). Someone on the bus told us this is the correct procedure. WTF?!? This is some 3rd world Scheiße right here. Absolutely not on brand for the Germans.

So . . . we ended up missing our stop, and getting off two stops after we wanted to. Which meant we had an extra fun PRE-hike. I have never walked so many steps in my life. Pretty sure I have arthritis, or bursitis, or one of the other itis’ in my knees.

Finally got to the trail head for the Almbachklamm waterfall gorge. You have to pay to get into the trail (natürlich). The trail was extremely well constructed, even had some safety rails (rare in Europe), but still ample opportunities for me to kill myself. Beautiful hike, found one Alpine flower.

I was not informed that there would be a fucken CAVE on this hike. Made it through without dying, but Ken said I came w/in a centimeter of a good head wound because I didn’t duck enough.

When you are ready to get OFF of the trail, you must produce your ticket receipt. Could there BE anything more German?!? Fortunately, I knew this little piece of asshattery from an Alpine hike we took with Opa a few years ago. We didn’t have our receipt then, and they literally held us hostage. Opa: “Typical Germans!”

Best part of the hike: the post-hike Radler. The gasthaus owner was actually fun – he mixed the Radlers from the tap. So delicious. He said he once spent a summer on a (and this is perfect) “dude ranch” in Harrisonburg, Virginia.

When we met Mozart the other night, he invited us to his opera concert tonight. Was a little worried this might be cheesy, but the musicians and singers were truly outstanding. Bravo!

Prost!