Cuckoo

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Today was a really fun day. We got up, had breakfast, and left to go back to Triberg. We went to see the waterfall. We parked in a much better spot (not all the way at the top). We walked down, paid to get in, and continued to the falls. This one is broken up into 7 different levels/falls. It was more crowded than the other one, but still really pretty. We walked to the bottom of this one. It was also really cold by the fall! When we paid to get in, the lady gave us a map of things to see int he area, so after the waterfall we set off to see the world's first largest cuckoo clock. It's in a small town, Schonach, and off on a small road by a bunch of residential houses. It was cool though. You walk in the front of the house, and can see the enormous cogs and gears of the clock. When you go out the back door the entire back part of the house is the cuckoo clock. It was cool! We waited about 20 minutes to see the clock chime and the bird come out. He moved out slowly and gave a pretty pathetic hoot. It was hilarious. There was also a wood-chopper whose armed moved to chop a log. It was impressive for the size of the clock to have moving parts as well. After, we figured we should go see the world's current largest cuckoo clock in Triberg. It was much bigger and had a giant pendulum swinging. It was way more crowded at this clock. A crowd gathered to watch it go off. It wasn't much better than the other one, but I think the bird said a more defined "cuckoo." The crowd sort of let out a sigh of disappointment but then started clapping. It was silly, but fun to see. On the other side of the building (there was a big clock shop by this cuckoo clock) there was a clock you could pay to make music and have the statues move. Lucky for us there was a group of tourists who put some euro in! The figurines started dancing in their doorways and the clocked played Edelweiss...and then the crowd started singing! But not very well, and only on the parts they knew...except one lady who kept right on singing loudly. It was awesome.

Next we went into the main part of Triberg, parked and walked around looking for some lunch. We grabbed some toasted baguettes and ate them outside by the river. It was really nice. We went into a specialty store and sampled some black forest ham. We walked around some more and went into some clock stores (there were some neat modern cuckoo clocks) and after awhile started to head back. We pulled off the side of the road at one spot and went to walk in the forest for a little bit. It was cold in there! We got back, read for awhile, and then went downstairs for dinner. We got some hefeweizen's to drink and ate the buffet dinner. There were 2 types of black forest ham: one from the hip and one from the shoulder of the pig. One tasted very smokey and salty and the other one not so much. They also had some sort of fish on bread that was okay. They had some cherry schnapps to drink, and it was powerful! For desser there was some fruit salad, an apple pie torte, and a custardy-cherry one. Both were great. I was very full! The couple that runs this place apparently play music and sing. After dinner they cleared away the buffet and brought out a keyboard, had wireless microphones and even a color changing spotlight. They started singing German songs (and even Blue Hawaii). It was great! It felt like a really perfect end to a fun, cheesy day.

Tomorrow we pack up and head north towards Heidelberg.

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