Bernhards Random Ramblings BACKUP

Pascal gave me a jar of home-made fortune cookies for my birthday. I usually take one after dinner.  Tonight's fortune has a lot of truth to it:

I usually clean the solar panels in the summer months. It's July, so it's time. Pascal helped. In fact he did all the hard work, and I could take photos.

Together for the first time.

A Settlers of Catan drama tonight. Blue wins without building even a single street. 2 cities, most knights, and four (!) winner point cards. well done, Pascal.

The RegionalBahn to Munich is ready for boarding on track 1 in Garmisch-Partenkirchen station. Goodbye snow-capped mountains, it was nice to meet you. Arrival in Muenchen-Pasing. ... and now we wait for ICE 596, which didn't show up at it's scheduled departure time. Instead the RegionalExpress that would normally run behind the ICE stopped at the platform. While the platform information showed a 5-minute delay for the ICE, the DB Navigator app showed it 10 minutes late, which was indeed accurate. There it is. Apparently there was a door problem that prevented on-time departure in Munich. By the time we got to Ulm, our ICE had made up the delay and we were on-time for the remainder of the journey. There are no high-speed tracks between Munich and Stuttgart yet, so we got to enjoy the fall scenery, as well as the steep grade and tight curves of the Geislinger Steige, Wuerttemberg's steepest section of main line track. Pusher service was the norm here for many years. Even toda...

Heute geht's auf die Zugspitze. Zunaechst mal mit einem Zug bis Grainau, wo wir dann in die eigentliche Zahnradbahn umsteigen. Warten auf den Zug in Garmisch Es ist kalt. Sturm "Hertweg" hat die Berge mit Schnee bepudert und sogar unten im Tal gab es Bodenfrost. Nach 80 Minuten Fahrt kommen wir im unterirdischen Bahnhof Zugspitzplatt an. Die Aussicht ist grandios. An Gelaendern, Treppen und Zaeunen hat sich Eis gebildet. Die Pisten wurden fuer die Skisaison vorbereitet. Lang kann es nicht mehr dauern. Deutschlands hoechstgelegene Kapelle. Der eigentliche Gipfel ist nicht so fuerchterlich beeindruckend. Die Baustelle der neuen Seilbahn dafuer um so mehr. Fantastische Fernsicht heute. Oesterreich Richtung Innsbruck Deutschland Richtung Schwarzwald  Die Grenze zwischen Oesterreich und Deutschland verlaeuft quer ueber das Gipfelplateau. In Oesterreich Eis und Wind produzieren bizarre Gebilde. Kann man da hoch? Ja, das kann man Zurueck in Deutschland. Wetterstation Zugspitze u...