Hiking in Germany

Hiking in Germany photo (actually in Reutte, Austria, near Fussen, Germany)

We've been hiking in Germany almost every week since I've been here which is fantastic.   I’ve done most of my hiking in Germany in the Swabian Albs and the Black Forest, which while beautiful are not true mountains, so I was excited for our trip to the Alps.  It started off like any other hike - we choose our destination and off we went, enjoying the nice views and hearing the cow bells in the distance which always make me chuckle since I can't figure out why cows need bells.

  The service that we walked into - the priest is on the right

A couple of strenuous hours later, we arrived at a mountain hut, which are famous when hiking in Germany and a welcome sight.  The hut was already busy, which wasn't really surprising since it was a beautiful day.  We came and took a seat and then the sermon started.  Sermon?  Yes, that's right; we unknowingly walked right into the middle of a Catholic service.  How we missed the priest and all the prayer books, I'm not sure.  We got up to leave, but the entrepreneurial staff of the huts seeing that we were paying customers in obvious need of a drink soon ushered us to a back room where we were allowed to order drinks just a few meters away from the service and told we had to be "as quiet as a mouse". 

The sign announcing Catholic mas

Thank goodness J.P. was with me.  After a little more than a week of German school I definitely didn't have the German vocabulary to deal with this bizarre situation.  For future reference, the sign on the left means "Catholic mass" I walked right by it thinking that it meant lunch was available after 11:30 - good thing I'm in German school.  J.P. didn't see it.

 After quietly quenching our thirst, we headed out and once we were a safe distance away, burst out laughing,  no longer having to be "as quiet as a mouse".  Hiking in Germany is full of surprises -  you just never know when you're going to crash a church service!