Train, train - 走っている行く!
Swiss and Bavarian weather men were of exact opposite opinions this week. When good weather was being broadcast from the south of Germany, Switzerland predicted rain. When zee Germans changed their minds, so did their Swiss counterparts that cloudy weather would surely beset blue skies. In Immenstadt at Meike's parents holiday house it looked like sunny weather, so you decided to believe the Bavarians and have a family weekend.

If only you'd allowed more than two minutes to change from the bus to the train that morning... You'd planned for twenty minutes at the airport to have breakfast and buy tickets, but only two to make the connection. Missing it meant skipping the airport, breakfast and buying discounted tickets to Germany - bummer! Via Lindau in Austria the only shop which accepted plastic had troubles with their machine, so still no breakfast; and platform 7 was a bit confusing, so there you sat in a train on platform 6 watching your next connection shunt slowly away beside you. It was a total clusterfuck - one fuckidy fucking fuckup after the next - to put it bluntly.

You eventually made it to Immenstadt, passing lots of cows and the lake where your lady learnt windsurfing, to meet Angelika and Norbert. You set off hiking up the hill behind the station, past the landslide which once totalled the factory below, and up along the ridge. There were innumerable berries lining the path, as if no one had been interested to stop and bolt down a blueberry or ravish a raspberry. You spent quite a while a-snacking away amongst the wild bushes, having a blue-tongued grand ole' dine.

The absolute highlight of the day - and possibly month - were the very friendly donkeys we met on the way down. Meike paid just enough enough attention to them to get them interested in more pats and scratches, and so they followed through the field. It wouldn't have been at all worth mentioning until Angelika was taking a photo and the brown donkey rammed her from behind - his way of requesting move petting! Meike screeched with laughter, as did his friend the black donkey who began rolling around on the ground, assumably laughing his ass off.

Neuschwanstein
After a nice sleep-in on the lounge - territorial disputes over feet room aside - and a tasty breakfast, you all drove off towards Neuschwanstein: the Bavarian castle upon which the Disney was modelled. My god, there were a lot of tourists! They'd already filled all tour groups to actually enter the castle up until six pm, while the rest choked the roads on foot and by horse-carriage.

Those buggers sure do a good job of being as obstructive as possible while talking group photos. You decided to make a game of how many photos you could ruin: bumping people, pulling faces and walking in front of the camera were all allowed. To be honest, the game played itself since they never made room for anyone; you were basically shoved into them by the crowds. One especially shitty group of Chinese - henceforth to be known an a push of Chinese (see List of Collective Nouns) - wheeled their stroller into the middle of the very crowded bridge, and let it sit there while trying to pose for photos. The two seconds of viewing time you had of the castle was not bad.

Below was a waterfall and a hiking trail to its base. You escaped the masses and were treated to a beautiful scene of lush forrest and crystal clear river. The Swiss must have been past - there were stone towers everywhere! The trail followed the river along its cascase down the valley. There were lots of teeny tiny frogs along the way. You had to take care to miss them.

Back in Immenstadt you went for icecream. At this particular cafe the menu was borderline pornographic. Every page had a different icecream creation accompanied by a partially-obscured naked lady (un)dressed to theme. It was such a distraction with its nipples dripping with chocolate, you decided to move on. The ride home was far more successful, with only one missed connection.
