“I’m on the top of the world lookin’ down on creation” – The Carpenters
On the Zugspitze summit
How wonderfully exhillerating is this breathtaking country and its people? Ahhh…Deutschland… *sigh*
View on the way up in the cable car
The highs are so extremely high and unlike anything I have ever previously experienced. I visited the summit of Zugspitze, Germany’s highest mountain at 2962m above sea level, and it was one of those days I’ll remember for the rest of my life. It was like flying but with my feet still on the ground. No wonder I felt so tall!
I really didn’t know what to expect other than beer and autobahns in Germany but I most certainly didn’t think Frau Fiona would be flipped quite so quickly by this land of towering giants with their quiet and calm ways. I am in awe of their unhurried lifestyle, their politeness and their obvious respect for others. They are hard workers and yet it feels like every day is a weekend!
Beer Garden in the Englisch Garten
One of Vincent's Sunflowers
Families enjoy long afternoons in beer gardens together while others fill their days strolling art museums taking masterpieces for granted. Instructions are offered slowly and carefully to struggling tourists and once they realise I don’t speak their native tongue, they are more than willing to attempt mine or find someone who does.
I have one English mate here who is being taught one German word a day by his local breakfast stop. After happily living here for six months he’s mastered breads and pretzels and both he and his teacher feel he’s ready now to move on to cold cuts and sausages. This will take him well into 2012 but of course… there is no hurry in this land of the ethereal weekend!
A walk in the park at home
“I love a sunburnt country, a land of sweeping plains
Of ragged mountain ranges, of droughts and flooding rains.
I love her far horizons. I love her jewel-sea.
Her beauty and her terror- the wide brown land for me!” – Dorothea MacKellar
There is no place like home! Just ask Dorothea or even Dorothy and Toto!
A comfort zone extension up to the summit
But… I came away to slow down and to enjoy a little out of comfort zone extension. I always enjoy a change but like most people, I will invest energy in recreating the familiar.
Rusty the dog likes to hang out with me and the ducks in the Englisch Garten
Currently, I find I am torn between the new and the old; who would have thought that new sites would contrast so starkly against old memories; that old events could give power to such new behaviours but most importantly, those old prejudices might be challenged by new acquaintances?
Who would ever have thought that I’d change my abstract ways and attempt drawing realistically in Kandinsky’s town!!
