On the road, Day Three: Walking to watch towers

Where am I? : Ilmenau, Thüringen, Germany

Today was our exciting adventure up to the watchtower on Kickelhahn, one of the small mountains or very large hills near the city. So first, we started off with another amazing brat. I'm sure we'll eat at least one everyday that we're in the city. Then we set off with Mary to the start of the trail, or at least to where the signs that lead you to the trail-head start. The path was steep, though not too long. It's about 3.1 km from where my sister deposited us, 2.6 from the actual trail starting.



Rocky terrain, mostly, though there seemed to be a less steep, though longer, road that we could have taken but did not discover until reaching the top of the trail. A section of trees flattened by a recent storm along the trail provided some nice panoramic views and picture taking opportunities.


-Mom and I on the trail, Ilmenau in the background. We're staying in a dorm located somewhere behind the tree on the left.-


At the top, of course, we found the watch tower.



Not quite as big as I'd imagined it after seeing it from the city below, but still just as cool. We of course climbed to the top of the tower, finding cool little windows on the inside...



...though probably not historic ones, and a neat placard up top indicating the general direction of several nearby villages and large cities such as Berlin, Munich, and Frankfurt.
Despite the presence of a small restaurant a few paces from the tower, we decided against the beer and/or water (considering the steep trail leading back down) and made our way back to the bottom. About five minutes from the end, I, of course, being the most grace-less and clumsy person on the planet, slipped, rolling my ankle and gouging my knee in an unflattering plummet to the ground. However, despite this little hiccup, we made it back to town in generally one piece. Feeling like some child with a scratch on my knee who needs a treat to be consoled, I walked with my mom into the small store with the sign for soft serve ice cream out front. With a rather interestingly dispensed chocolate vanilla swirl sugar cone in my hand, I did, indeed, feel much better. Also, I found it amusing walking through my favorite city center shopping area with a bloodied up knee.

The language barrier is still interesting to deal with. Mom and I walk around speaking in, of course, English. So far, we've had three language impaired encounters with the locals, all of which I walked away from with some sense of amusement. These babbling talks back and forth, about sunglasses, ice cream, and credit cards, have been inconsequential so far, but who knows what we'll need to "talk" to someone about next time. I'm always trying to think of a word that's not german and not english, but has fallen into that category of universal communication. When talking about credit cards, I asked about "american express" since that's the card I'm currently using, however Visa and Mastercard may have been better choices. With ice cream, we resulted in pointing and using our fingers for 'one' to indicate just one scoop. The discussion about sunglasses was somewhere in between with a lot of physical references accompanying babbling on both sides. Everyday though, I'm feeling a little more comfortable here, enough to go into the grocery store and not be intimidated. So far, the trip is going well.