Day Trip to the Alps

They have a day ticket in Bayern that's only 5 Euros each for a group of five and you can go anywhere you want on the trains and buses, so we rounded up some friends and took a trip to the Alps :))

It was a GORGEOUS sunny day where you could actually see the Alps in the distance, and we were all sitting in actual seats again (yay!) so it was a quite enjoyable train ride. Our train took us to a cute little town at the base of the Alps, where we caught a bus that took us to the other side of the mountain by way of a winding road beside a lake that was as smooth as glass and through trees that were starting to change color :) It dropped us off on the side of the road next to another calm lake, so smooth I wished I could water ski on it, but I'm sure it was freezing.

We then had a short gondola ride that took us up to this magical view:

There was a short trail that led from here to a mountainside restaurant, which we stopped at for some lunch. I had the same thing here as I did my first meal ever in Germany aaand I actually took a picture this time! It's essentially the best meal ever, called "Schweinebraten mit Kartoffelknodel", which (sort of) translates to "Roast Pork with Potato Dumpling." 

I can't even tell you how delicious it is. Most of the international students I know are not particularly fond of the potato dumpling, due to the very strange texture. It's kind of...gooey, haha but I love it so much! I'm attributing this to my German ancestry. 

Back to the hiking. We hiked passed the restaurant for about half an hour to the peak of the mountain, and in the shaded parts there was snow on the ground! but it was rather warm and sunny, by the time we got to the top I was just in my t-shirt. On the way up we saw the CUTEST Husky puppy of all time, and also this woman carrying a pug in a backpack, haha but I learned how to say "Your dog is adorable" in German: Ihr Hund ist niedlich. BOOM, so useful. Now I can pet puppies.

Snow :)

View towards Munich, with the cute little town on the lake we caught the bus from.

View towards the rest of the Alps.

We hiked back down to the restaurant and all shared a dessert of strips of pancake covered in powdered sugar with apple sauce on the side. It has a specific name that I've heard a few times now but can never remember. I'm sure I'll be having it again though! 

On the way back our bus driver was craaazyyy. The bus goes in a big loop so we didn't go back down the way we came, we continued along the road through some more very cute towns on VERY narrow country roads with cars going in both directions and through streets with buildings on both sides and no sidewalks and he just sped along around curves and corners like it was nobody's business. A BIT frightening. We did make it to our train on time though, so we were grateful. 

I was facing the back of the train and could see the Alps out the window almost half of the way home, before it got dark. I kept seeing this one section of mountain in between the buildings of the towns we passed through, and I felt really nerdy but it was cool to see the change in direction of the train the farther away we got :) ALSOOO on the way home my Cal Poly friend started singing Hakuna Matata in English, then a friend started singing it in French, then another friend sang it in Finnish. Definitely one of the greatest things to have EVER happened :))