FRIDAY, 8/31:
I'm thinking that after just one day
we've gotten our money's worth out of our new rain jackets.
Greetings once again from Fussen,where
it did nothing but rain again today. And I'm not talking a gentle
little mist or the delicate pitter-patter of a few drops here &
there. Nope: I'm talking full on downpour almost from the moment we
woke up until the time I type this a whole bunch of hours later. In
fact, the German national Weather Service says over two and a half
inches of rain has fallen. And it's still only 5 pm right now, so
who knows what the total will be before the day is through. Before
we came over, we both bought some high-tech rain jackets from Getz's for the hike we have planned for Sunday, a hike that will take us up
a gorge with a big waterfall in it. Little did we know that they
would actually come in handy for several straight days before we
actually planned on using them.
Oh well. At least the rain is supposed
to end, with any luck, some time tomorrow. So if you have an “in”
with Mother Nature, can you put in a good word for us? Thanks in
advance.
I'm actually writing this a whole lot
earlier than usual, and it won't contain all of our day's activities.
Why, you ask? Well, I answer, because of this--
That's right—we're getting dressed up
& going to the theater tonight, to see a musical based on the
life of the slightly uncommon King Ludwig II. Sure, the show's all
in German, and sure, we'll have no idea what's going on, but we're
going out to see some thee-ah-tur with a thousand of our closest
friends. And Loraine's already folded the tickets exactly the instructions said,
so with any luck, they'll actually let us in.
Come back tomorrow to find out if they
did.
Our big task for today was the tour of
Ludwig's castle masterpiece, Neuschwanstein. This is the world
famous castle, the fairy tale castle, the one that was the
inspiration for the Cinderella castle at Disney, the one with all the
hype. And I have to admit something—it didn't disappoint. You're
not allowed to take pictures in there, but I'm sure if you Google
“Neuschwanstein” and then find interior pictures you can see for
yourself what I'm talking about.
The most magical part of the day,
though, occurred even before the tour began. There's a pedestrian
bridge across a gorge near the castle, and if you walk the hill up to
it and then onto the bridge, you're supposed to see the castle in all
of its glory. Well, between the rain & the fog, when we got
there this is what we saw--
It was a disappointment, not only to us
but to the other dozen or so other couples & families who had
walked up there to see the castle. As we were standing there,
wondering if there was anything else to see, I started listening to
the dozen other couples & families, all speaking different
languages. You could hear German, French, Mandarin, Russian,
Spanish, and a bunch I didn't even recognize, but all probably saying
some variant of what we were saying.
“Shucks”.
Then, if by magic, the wind picked up &
started blowing the fog away. Soon, you could see this--
And then this--
And then, finally, as if Ludwig himself
had decreed it, you saw this--
And those dozen different couples &
families, all of whom had been speaking a dozen different languages
just seconds before, all of a sudden found they had at least one word
in common--
“Eeeee”, shouted in delight and
almost in unison as the castle finally pulled back its curtain of
fog.
Even an overly sarcastic smart aleck
like me had to admit it was kind of a cool moment.
Since the fog had lifted momentarily,
we tried to recreate one of Loraine's favorite pictures of her
favorite king, this one--
We came up with this--
which I know isn't an exact copy but I
didn't have the original as reference. I'll do better next time. I
promise.
The other thing we had hoped to do
today was climb up a hill right outside of Fussen called the
Kalvarienberg (Calvary Hill), which is supposed to have a great view
of the town. But with a rainy & slippery climb like this ahead
of us--
we decided that being responsible
adults was the prudent thing to do, and gave up. After all, we have
theater tickets tonight, and would much rather be there than in an
emergency room in Fussen.
That's about all I have time to write
today. You'll get full details on the theatrical experience
tomorrow, along with the story of King Ludwig's very mysterious
death. Oh—and you'll find out if it ever stopped raining, too.
Keep your fingers crossed.
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