August 28 - September 3

Monday

The weather was really bad! It had been raining quite a bit.

On this day I caught a train to Fussen and back! Along the way I met Jesus. When I got to Fussen to catch the train back, a guy asked me how he could get to Heidelberg. I said "are you sure Heidelberg?" (it's halfway across the country). He said yeah. I looked it up on the DB app and told him he'd have to change train 6 times and it'll take 6 hours (I was surprised it came up with anything). He was happy "great!" He put his hand on my shoulder and then said "I love you". I thought it might be a strange misunderstanding of his English. He was just happy I helped him. I said "no problem!" Then he said "by the way, I am Jesus." I said "okay!" and went to find a seat.

Halfway back to Munich the train stopped at a station for quite a while. A lady spoke on the speaker system and said "uhh we're just waiting here for a while until the police arrive." ooo. I was looking out for the police. I didn't see them arrive, and then the train kept going.

It had been raining for quite a while. Many rivers looked like they were flooding. There have been floods in Austria and other parts nearby.

The main purpose of my journey was that I had loaded up my laptop with a few programming essentials. I have cloned the repo for the Mozilla website, which is the oracle for all things like HTML, Javascript, CSS. Vanilla stuff. I've also cloned some other documentation sites like Styled Components, and a few other React type things. I have some base projects set up with these. So now I can ride the trains to wherever I feel like going and do programming while consulting the documentation. It's a good activity for a rainy day.

Tuesday - I did nothing! I suspect it could have been raining still?

Wednesday - I caught a train out West and then did a really casual walk

I was feeling in a slight funk. It's been raining too much!! When I went out to Fussen I passed a forest that looked pretty cool. So I caught a train out there and just walked through some forest. Nice!

Firstly I caught a bus up to... I think... Laim. I stopped at Aldi, and, would you believe it? They had ApfelTasche. Excellent. I bought two.

Thursday - I did a 100km ride out West

I decided to just go riding. Why not. My strategy was to put a semi-random spot on the map and then head for it. What was nice was that almost all of the riding was on paths separate from the road. At about 55km I stopped and bought two bananas. But I was feeling a little hungry at the end, so I will need to eat a little more next time.

(I have a small feeling that I don't understand how the geography of this place works. When I go on a larger bike ride I get the feeling of understanding a little more. It's a sufficient speed that you can feel the different hills and sort of internalise it)

Friday - I did a hike up a precarious mountain near Geitau

I went for a little hike. I plotted some course. 16km https://www.strava.com/activities/9763384801 

South towards Bayrischzell. It was an excellent hike. The only thing was that one section involved a scramble up along a ridge to the summit, and it was quite exposed! Actually it was pretty safe. The route was technically pretty easy. But it seems like my brain is doing weird things with anxiety; I keep thinking things like "what if the whole side of this mountain just collapses? Can it really support the weight of you as well?" and I walk carefully. I don't know why I'm thinking this way. I think I need to carefully expose myself to some more of these situations. So while I was hiking up here, at times my legs were almost shaking, and I was looking down the sides of the cliffs next to me, that I would fall down if my hands slipped, and I had to try to deliberately reconfirm "this is actually pretty safe". I'll need a few more of these sessions.

Actually this is the first time I thought I would take pictures of various trees so I can figure out what they are, because I have no idea, and I think it can add to an experience to know what you're seeing, whatever that is. So I'm calling this one a "spruce". Probably "norwegian spruce"? Seems to be everywhere, so it's good I have a name for it now.

I walked up that white cliff from left to right. It was a bit of an exposed climb!

When I got to the top there was a guy with a mountain bike who had just walked up, and there was also a younger guy who had rolled out a sleeping bag! Guy with the bike called out something to me and said "ich spreche kein deutsche!" and I felt less embarrassed than normal and just said "oh yeah I come from Australia" and they were really friendly. We spoke about stuff. I told them "I just climbed up that cliff back there! I think my legs are still shaking" and they said I was a crazy Australian. I saw the guy had rolled out his sleeping bag and I said "oh are you sleeping here!" he said "yeah" and I was pretty curious. Apparently it's quite illegal and the German people are really against it, partly to protect the environment, and partly because maybe they love policing each other (that seems to be a thing). And I tried to make it clear that I just think it's pretty cool, that he's going to wake up and see the sunrise! And I said I wouldn't tell anyone. I was curious to see someone attempt it in such an open way. I'm pretty sure the guy on the bike, after he overtook me later, reported them to one of the huts down the mountain! So that guy might be up for a 1000 euro fine.

When I was heading back into the village to get my train home it was getting slightly "afternoon"-y. Google said it would take me 40 minutes to reach the train station and the train would leave 20 minutes  after that or something like that. So, no problem. I had to walk on a road for about 100 metres. A car stopped near me and the guy and his wife asked me if I would like a lift into the town! He said "just letting you know that in an hour it will be dark!" Nice people. I thanked them for their offer. My plan would be fine though. I also had a torch.

Saturday - Parkrun!

I think that in the afternoon I checked out the city. I wandered around, just trying to see where things are. I found another outlook of the popular book shop. Also I found a music book store and it was acutally very cool!

Later in the evening I decided to get some macaroni cheese and beer from the Hofbrauhaus because I had only been there once before this year! But I felt it was a slight disappointment. I ordered Sauerkraut and it had ham in it, so I couldn't eat it. I thought it would be vegetarian.

Sunday - Nothing? I stayed in doing something.