The next morning, at breakfast, we where having a nice quite meal of meat sandwich, bad cereal, and coffee, when the old loud guy showed up again. It's hard to describe him, but you probably know someone who thinks they are the only person in the world, are the most important think people should be paying attention to, and have no social skills whatsoever. Much like an electrical engineering professor, perhaps.

Cable car to doom!

So this day we were going hiking in the mountains. How Lin-Wei convinced me to go for yet another half-day hike was beyond me. Do I have some sort of short- AND long-term memory loss? Am I just dumb? Probably.

The mountain in question was called the Wank. How's that for a fun hiking mountain name? Leon the Gray himself transported us to the base of the Wank, were we talked over our hiking plan with the ticket lady. She pointed out that our clothes may not be sufficient for the cold weather on top of the mountain, but we figured we'd warm up after hiking for a bit. She also advised us on what trails to take.

So Lin-Wei was raring to go due to the fact that we wanted to get a good hike in before lunch, and not be caught on top of the mountain with no food (though she did pack some granola bars and applesauce). I, however, had to take care of a little business first, which dragged on for a bit. Needless to say, when I was done, she was in a fuming rage. And that set me off, so on the cable car ride up to the top of the mountain there was stony silence. And fake smiles all around.

We started out moderately happy

At the top, we started to hike, only to realize that I left my hat in the cable car! A Samarian Gorge incident was averted when the moderately unfriendly cable-car operator found it for me.

At the top it was quite cold indeed, with a very strong wind, but the views couldn't be beat, and Lin-Wei took her opportunity to imbue the hills with the sounds of Wang-Bonneys.

On our map of the Wank trails, there were various areas marked as food stops, so we started down the mountain towards one of those, figuring if we got there before lunch we'd have a snack. Well, an hour later we were mostly lost, but still mostly heading downhill. The downhill was quite steep and tough again, and though it was no where near as hard as going up, it still was not what one would consider "fun". But after another hour we reached flat ground, about halfway down the mountain, and got to the "food" area. It took the form of an empty, boarded up ski-lift station.

Poor.

I'm having fun.

No food for us. Fine, we ate some granola bars and set off again. Now we reached a crossroads where each direction seemed to lead us away from our destination, with a cattle ranch right in the middle. Our map was no help, and after a while heading down the branch to the right we figured we were going the wrong way. Double-back, take the left branch, and that seemed to be better. Now picture two Bonneys walking down a very steep road (much like the one at the Partnach). As we had been walking for a while, all the members in the party took the opportunity to use the natural facilities, with varying degrees of success...

On our way down, we saw some very very tired groups of German hikers and bikers making their way up our steep mountain. Some asked us how far it was to the top, agony on their faces. They still had a loooong way to go. Ha ha!

So this hike down really really sucked. I had been hiking all vacation, and we were totally lost (though heading in the right general direction, according to our hand-drawn map), I was starving, and my feet were killing me. We did stop for a brief snack of applesauce, but that was running out, and I had had enough. Voicing my opinion didn't really do much, as I was told that I was having fun, and this was good for me. But I felt that may not be entirely correct.

Eventually, however, we did make it down to the bottom (and I stared with amazement and not a small amount of evil glee as I saw even more groups start to head up the way we had just spent hours going down). When we got back to the car I was shaking from weariness and hunger. I just sat there for about 10 minutes staring an nothing. After much prodding I started the car, and aimed Leon in the direction of a sushi place we had found on the internet. And we found it!

Redemption via Sushi

Now we're having a good vacation!

It was about 2pm when we got there, right at the end of "All you can eat" lunch. Lin-Wei thought maybe we'd order off the menu since the all you can eat conveyor belt didn't seem to hold much she was interested in, but I told her she was crazy. We pulled up some chairs to the conveyor belt, got our sodas, and went to work.

Rarely, if ever, has there been such an eating display from the House of Bonney. Salmon sushi, California rolls, chicken wings (!), all went down a seemingly bottomless pit created by the Wank. I was reminded of a passage from Chapterhouse Dune when one of the main character is so hungry that he eats bowl after bowl of soup, without stopping, for about two hours straight.

Ebisee and Zugspitze

Never had the phrase "That...hit...the...spot!" fit so well. Holy mackerel that was some good eats! And I'm positive we got WAY more than our money's worth.

Later that afternoon, after one of the top ten naps of all time, we went over to the Ebisee to take some pictures of the lake and the Zugspitze. There was the potential of another hike there, but that sort of talk was quickly put down.

Dinner on the town "square" was had, as well as a little internet before bed. We were leaving the next day, continuing our swing through the German Alps, to the East.

Crazy Kings and dirty Indians