Hiking and Ordering Tea

On Thursday I had enough energy to go on my first hike. I had big plans to hike up to a restaurant at the top of a mountain. I picked that hike because a) it was the only hike I knew about, and b) the view from the top looks like this:

The problem was, I couldn’t figure out where the trail started, so I accidentally parked too far down the mountain and ended up hiking 90 minutes in the fog and never made it to the top.

The “hiking trail” is also a one lane gravel road, and people who live on the mountain are allowed to drive all the way up, so every now and then I’d have to grab Coach and flatten myself against the side of a cliff to let a car pass.

Eventually I started having those anxious thoughts of “what if I fall off the road and tumble down the side of the mountain” and that’s when I realized I don’t know how to call 911 here, and even if I did, I’d have to hope they understand English. I was like “I’m going to have to open maps, get my GPS location, text it to Derrick, and then have him ask his coworker to call Liechtenstein emergency services.” Which sounds like a good way to not get rescued.

Not all was lost. First of all, I’m proud to report I didn’t fall off the side of the mountain. Second, on the way back down there was a break in the clouds and Coach and I stopped to watch some cows grazing in the distance. All the cows here wear bells, so between the bells and the moo-ing, it sounds like music.

On Friday, I had enough energy to hike again, but I wasn’t willing to do the same hike (because the town is so small I was sure they’d recognize my dog and my car and I was embarrassed I hadn’t made it to the top the day before). So I drove to Vaduz, which is the capital city, and has a little trail running up the side of the mountain behind the castle.

Coach and I walked for about an hour when suddenly! We stumbled upon the ruins of a second castle. In retrospect, we had definitely been told about these ruins, but my brain had filed it under “probably good to know but not as important as how to get home and how to ask sprechen Sie Englisch?” and I had promptly forgotten.

We explored the ruins, which had a lot of signs on them. I took pictures of the signs to translate later. It turns out the signs said things like “danger” and “enter at your own risk.” I’m not sure I would’ve explored as much if I had understood the signs. But we survived.

We did plenty of exploring the ruins and a little bit of dog training (I am desperately trying to teach Coach to heel). Everything was going well until Coach barked at a random octogenarian for no reason on the way back down the mountain.

On Saturday we had brunch with Derrick’s coworker and his wife. I ordered a “black tea with sugar, no milk” in German and everyone was very impressed with me. The waitress didn’t even switch to English right away, which is a good sign.

I was warned before we got here that German-speaking people are not friendly and that they will be very annoyed with me if my German isn’t perfect. Luckily, that is only true for people in the north of Germany (and maybe Zurich).

People in Switzerland and Liechtenstein seem to be really enthusiastic about my efforts, as pathetic as they are.

People here also smile at strangers and say hello. Every now and then, I’ll say hello back so convincingly that the other person tries to continue the conversation in German and then I just have to smile real big and apologize.

I think we’ll start German lessons in a week or two and I’m really looking forward to stumbling through some more advanced conversations.