Revisiting the past in Mittenwald, Germany

This past weekend Dawn and I traveled down to Garmisch, Germany to do some camping at the Edelweiss Lodge and Resort's "Wilderness Campground". One of us will put up a full post on our trip soon - probably once we're finished going through the 600 or so pictures we both took (pics now done and can be found HERE). Now, however, I'd like to share a little story about one of the most memorable incidents that occurred on my student exchange trip to Germany back in 1990. The pictures in this post are mostly from my trip to Germany back in 1990. The last 4 are from our trip last weekend.

Nineteen years ago, I and a rag-tag group of Roseburg High School students, traveled to Germany to take place in the German-American Partnership Program student exchange. The first month of our trip was spent in northern Germany around the town of Lüneburg where we attended some classes, explored the countryside and lived with our host families. The next month was spent traveling to other locations in the country which included spending a week in Berlin, taking a boat trip down the Rhine River and eventually ending up in Munich.

This story begins in Munich, my favorite city, by far, on the trip. At this point in my life, I had never seen a city like Munich before. The architecture, the plazas and squares, the unique Bavarian lifestyle, the Alps in the distance, the enormous English Garden city park...... It was almost too much for me to take in and appreciate at the time. On one particular day while the rest of the group went to visit the Dachau concentration camp, I was allowed to roam free, unencumbered and unsupervised, around the city. I had already been to a few of the concentration camps with my host family in northern Germany and asked not to go on this particular trip. I wanted to explore more of Munich on my own! This was truly one of the most fun days I ever have had in my life. I'm 17 years old, in a foreign country, visiting an amazing city and there was no one to tell me what to do or where to go. It was fantastic! When I reconnected with my group later that evening, I learned that we would be taking the train to Garmisch-Partenkirchen in the Alps south of Munich the next day. I couldn't believe my luck. All day I had been enjoying Munich, but off in the distant loomed the Alps, teasing me with their green slopes and snowy peaks. The only thing that could beat the day I had in Munich would be a trip to those distant mountains, and we were going the next day!

The train trip the next day to Garmisch only took an hour and a half but seemed like an eternity to me. I really had no interest in the town of Garmisch itself, I just wanted to get up in to the mountains to do some hiking. Upon arrival at the train station, I was ready to start climbing. After my previous day of freedom, I thought that it would be no problem to take off on my own to do what I wanted while others did what they wanted. This would not be, however. As a group, we slowly wandered through town, looking at cheap souvenirs, admiring the kitschy Bavarian tourist crap displayed in the store fronts, finally ending up at the Hausberg Gondola two hours later. It was torture for me. I had no interest in cheap lederhosen or felt hats - I wanted to get up in them thar hills and do some exploring! Finally, as a group, we loaded in to the gondola and headed up the mountain. The views were spectacular and just wetted my appetite for what lay even further up the slope.
After exiting the gondola, Jamie Peters and I asked for permission to wander off on our own. We were granted this permission but given explicit instructions to be back at the train station by 5 PM. "No problem", we thought. "We'll climb this mountain and be back down there with plenty of time to spare!" And climb the mountain we did - and fast! We found a nice trail that headed uphill, ending up near the ski jumps that were used in the 1936 Winter Olympics. One of the most memorable things from the hike up was getting passed by a guy going downhill on a bike. I'd never seen a mountain bike before and thought this was the coolest thing ever (and a new hobby of mine was begun upon my return to the States). After snapping a few photos at the top of the mountain, we quickly headed back in to town as time was getting short. We did get a little lost trying to find the train station again, and in our wanderings, ran in to our group who were also lost. Finally, our fearless leader and chaperone on the trip, Frau Barr, got us going in the right direction but we had to run to make the train back to Munich. I think Jamie and I took the "Run!" command a bit too literally, sprinting well ahead of the group and hopping on the wrong train. We also led another of our group astray who ended up joining us on the adventure to come.

Shortly after realizing we were on the train heading to Mittenwald and not Munich, we became a bit panicked. Hearing our worries, an American backpacker on the train tried to help us out but only informed us further of the predicament we were in. There were no stops between Garmisch and Mittenwald and this was the last train of the day between the towns. This was not good. We had to be on a train to Frankfurt the next morning at 10am. Although fully appreciating the pickle we were in, I took it all in stride. The views from the train window were amazing and the Alpenglow hitting the peaks at sunset was beautiful. Bolstered by my 'alone' day in Munich only 24 hours earlier, I decided we would make the best of this. Upon arrival in Mittenwald, I would ask around for alternative travel back to Munich. If that failed, I would then try to book us in to a hotel for the night with plans to take the first train back to Munich in the morning. We had a couple of obstacles facing us, though; first, none of us could speak German very well, especially in a Bavarian dialect. Second, we were very low on money. Our chaperone doled our money out to us daily, leaving us with little on-hand cash (in retrospect - what a stupid policy - especially for instances like this!). This was before the days of ATMs or cell phones, which leads us to the third obstacle - our chaperone had no idea where we were!

I tried to remain calm once we arrived in Mittenwald while Jamie and Jeff were going a little crazy. To help further keep my wits about me, the first thing I did was find a beer garden and order me a half-liter pilsner. Hey, when in Rome (or Mittenwald)......... After enjoying the beer, I found a hotel and asked about rates for the night. I don't think we had enough money between us to cover even half the cost of one room which was pretty pathetic. The desk clerk at the hotel was very nice, though, asking around about buses going back to Munich that night. She said to check back with her in an hour or two to see if she had found us any seats. So, there we were in Mittenwald with little money, no travel options at the present time, no room to sleep in and no real plan except to wait for the train in the morning. What to do? Yep, go get another beer. Jamie and Jeff were still pretty frazzled, but I did get them to calm down a bit and enjoy a small beer each. We eventually headed back to the hotel and were informed that there were no available buses that night. At that point, I really didn't care. It was a beautiful evening and we were in a beautiful place. I would be happy sleeping on a park bench, waking up to the glow of the sun on the mountain peaks and taking the first train back to Munich. Jamie and Jeff conceded that this was the best option available to us and that it was smart to stay in one place in case anyone was looking for us.

Across the street from the Rathaus was a nice little park with some cozy little benches - one for each of us - with a beautiful view of the Karwendelberg Mountain which towered over the town. For the first hour, the plan was working fine. We sat around, chatted and laughed at our predicament. We started to get tired and decided to try to catch some sleep. That's when the Polizei (Police) showed up and kicked us out of the park. They didn't speak English, our German was bad and they weren't very happy that three Americans were destroying the beauty of the town by sleeping like bums in the park. Fair enough, but where to go and what to do now? That's when we heard it - the shrill voice of Frau Barr, calling to us from across the street. It was close to midnight at this point and she was in a state of irate panic. Relieved, yet angry at the same time, she came over to us thankful that we were okay, but pissed at the situation we had put ourselves in. She kept mentioning parents and the embassy and a bunch of other crap that I just blocked out. We were fine, we stayed put like we should have and handled a bad situation the best we could. She was lucky it wasn't some of the other kids on the trip because it could have turned out a lot worse for some of them!
Frau Barr was able to get us on a bus at 1am that night that took us back to Munich. It turned out to be a bus of older travelers on some kind of tour of Europe. They got a kick out of us being on the bus with them and the trip back wasn't bad at all. We made our train the next morning, arriving in Frankfurt at our hotel, the whole group back intact. I wonder if we should have told our parents that the hotel Frau Barr booked us in Frankfurt was in the red light district with hookers hanging right outside the front doors? Nah, we'd put her through enough!

So, that's the story. While down in Garmisch last weekend, we ended up having some time to kill and decided to drive the 20 minutes to Mittenwald so I could relive this experience from 19 years ago. I was able to find most of the places we visited in the town and take pictures of the places I'd been. A lot had changed in Mittenwald, but it was great going back. I never thought I would see that place again, but there I was. At first, I kind of wandered around with a silly grin on my face remembering the experience and taking it all in. I eventually snapped out of it and Osu, Dawn and I had a great couple of hours exploring the town. Thanks, Dawn, for taking this trip down memory lane with me!