Today will forever be remembered as the day I was introduced to German sledding.
Also known as: the day I sledded down the Alps.
(I have no idea why my point and shoot is making everything blue. I think it has just about had it with all these winter sports.)
Let’s start from the beginning.
Today, my German friend Melli came to visit, all the way from Stuttgart (about 3 hours away)!
Heh. She’s fun :)
As I mentioned earlier, Melli and I were roommates when I was living in Prague teaching English in 2008-2009 — she was there working at the time and we became great friends. It was wonderful to see her again :)
And no, I don’t speak German — Melli just speaks really good English!
She got in around 11 and we spent an hour excitedly catching up on life while walking along this beautiful waterway we stumbled upon in Garmisch:
Gorgeous views, pretty sunshine, and great company :)
After catching up, we headed to a cute cafe in the middle of town for a little lunch and pre-adventure fuel.
I started with a veggie soup and some bread — delish! I’ve been loving soup here with all this cold weather.
And Melli and I shared this beautiful dish — a sort of Mediterranean chicken with tomato, eggplant, and zucchini. Yum! With potato cakes on the side.
Melli also got some of these boiled white Bavarian sausages! They come in a cute hot pot (that blue/white pattern is the Bavarian flag!) filled with some water/broth. Melli told me that traditionally, these are a breakfast dish! Some places won’t serve them after noon.
She also told me that the key to these sausages is to:
a) Peel them
b) Eat them with this sweet mustard, made specifically to go with these sausages!
How interesting! I tried a bit and it was tasty… but I think I’ll stick to my cereal and oatmeal for breakfast ;)
And then, after fueling up — it was time for our big adventure. We wanted to snowshoe, but apparently it was a bit too late to do that — so sledding it was! And boy, did we go sledding.
Even in my wildest childhood dreams, I could never have imagined the extremeness that was today’s sledding. We’re talking a whole mile worth of triple black diamond slopes… but for sledding.
To sled, we were instructed to take the gondola up the mountain with the skiers and snowboarders, and then make our way back down. You know, without killing ourselves. I don’t understand how anyone in this nation lives to see 30.
Did I mention we began our sledding adventure up at 4,000 feet?!
It was quite an adventure, to say the least! We couldn’t turn very well or stop on the plastic sleds, so once you got going you were either going to spectacularly crash or somehow manage to bank yourself in a snow drift, ha. There were many wipeouts, a lot of screaming, and even more laughing :)
Runaway sled:
I lost my sled twice — once it flew out from under me because I was going so fast I tried to slow myself with my feet, but instead just sprayed a gallon of snow right in my face, which sent me falling backwards, ha! The other time I flipped off of it and it almost fell into a stream. No big deal.
This was the most insane hill of them all… the photo doesn’t even do it justice. It was SO steep we decided to walk down it since we’d almost died on the other less steep hills, ha.
Somehow we made it down alive, still laughing. We thought about going up again… but decided once was enough ;)
Mountain, I own you.
Post-sledding, we decided to go back to the same cafe for a little treat before Melli hit the road — we earned it! :)
That was as epic as it looked — a super thin little pizza pastry type crust with pieces of apples, cinnamon, and some sort of sweet creamy spread. SO GOOD!
Plus — hot chocolate. I’ve been craving it my whole time here but hadn’t gotten any yet! This kind was really fun because they brought you a piping hot glass of milk and 3 little chocolates…
…which you dropped into the milk to melt and become hot chocolate! So yum.
I’m pooped — tomorrow is sadly our last day in Germany (we leave on the morning of the 5th — but I’m off to another fun country with my brother for a few days before heading home on the 8th!) so we have another beautiful castle trip planned! Hitting the hotel gym in the a.m. before we go — which we’ve been doing every day here, except those when we went skiing :) Gotta balance out all this delicious food somehow!
Have a great day, friends!
That looks scary! And fun! But mostly scary :) I’m a wimp.
That looks so insanely fun! (and I do mean insane) And the hot chocolate! I want your day!
This looks so fun! I don’t know anything about skiing/snowboarding but sledding I’m all over.
I went night sledding in Switzerland and it was so much fun!
That looks so so much!! Hope you have fun in the next country — can’t wait to find out which country it is!!
Wow – you’re doing so much! I am abroad teaching English in France now. I hope I can stay in touch with my friends here after I’m done!
Wow that sounds insane & fun! I thought we were crazy about our mountains here, but Germany is too!
Those sleds are too much. Nothing like the trusty old Flexible Flyers of “back in the day!” Great adventure!
I always tell people “Germans have better English than most Americans”.
I love a good sledding trip – but that looks insane! I think I’d stick to baby slopes. I wonder if the Germans have embraced snow tubing??
I love Garmisch!!!! I visited a friend there in 2007. It was so beautiful. Have a wonderful time!!!!
Wow is all I can say.
OMG… there’s no way I could do that! You have waaaaay more guts than I do!
Congrats on keeping up with the exercise while on vacation!
Sledding there looks like sooooo much fun.
And those hot chocolate balls? WOW.
Looks like you are having too much fun! Love the pics! Makes me excited for my trip to Switzerland in a few months! I <3 Europe! :)
That looks like so much fun!
Those sleds look intense! And those chocolate balls… amazing. Enjoy your last day in Germany! :)
wow, all of your photos from germany are amazing! i went once in middle school, but i think it was a little young to fully appreciate it all. i definitely want to go back!
and it looks like alp sledding could be the newest olympic sport. intense!
Ha – it totally should be!
Looks like so much fun!!! And that hot chocolate sounds great! :)
I am totally going to miss your mountain adventures!
I love the pics! Even though they are a bit blue… ;-)
It was sooo great meeting you and surviving sledding together!
Enjoy your last day and have fun in country xy :-D
Hope to see you soon again!
That sledding looks very treacherous! I would be terrified! That entire day had some seriously good eatin’…
Wow! I’d love to go sledding like that! God is so amazing! I just love seeing all of his beautiful creations!!! Enjoy it!!
Thank you so much for the pics. Military living in Germany. I absolutely love Garmisch; it is so nice to see it through someone else’s eyes. Thanks for the tip on the sausage, maybe I will order it again and peel it…maybe, just maybe it will taste better…lol…Enjoy your travels. Europe is amazing. My family and I are so blessed to have the opportunity to live here.