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Sun 20th - playing with the choo-choos!
Jul. 20th, 2008 06:43 pmA split today - Dave and I got the 8:40 train to Brocken, at which point Team Piggott were still snoring. Saw a black redstart on the way to the station - I was rather pleased that I first identified it by the way it was flying, and only used the colour as confirmation.
Steam trains are fun.... Did the usual shots out of the window on bends, admired the hill-start, gradually put more layers of clothes on as we climbed. It was just above freezing at the top, and raining on and off. View varies between 50-odd miles and "what tower?". Coffee in the station café, then round a couple of exhibitions and viewing towers, then lunch. Chose the highest restaurant (paying extra) for the view, and are currently getting a great view of the inside of a cloud. Dave saw Team Piggott arrive from the observation tower, and used his zoom lens to good effect.
Train timetables look like we'll get an hour's stop at Drei Annen Hohne on the way down.
Language-geekery interlude. Yesterday I was working through a guidebook with a dictionary, and found that "geschichte" meant "history" as in "story". Add "-enerzahler", and you have "storyteller". Putting "ge" on the front of a German word usually means it's a modifier, so what does "schichte" mean? Drop the final e, and you have "layer", "class" or "level". That "zahler" part is "numerator". So a story is a layering, and a storyteller is one who counts the layers. Yes. Considering how many levels I put in my stories (even a 300-worder has at least 2), I like that.
Back at the plot, or rather, Drei Annen Hohne. A pretty little place with a friendly station café that produced coffee, Cola Light, apple cake and "soup of the day" - tomato, and while not as much of a taste explosion as the one in the hotel, still very good. "It's got something different," says Dave. Yes - bacon.
Having been watered ourselves, we've taken pictures of our engine getting similar treatment, and boarded. We'd given up our café seats, put the coats away and headed out into the sun just in time for it to start raining.
It's a shame that all the books about the mythology of the Harz are in German. I'd like to know more about the "Hexen" or witches. I did find one little story about three rocks in a guidebook to the geology of the area. Apparently they were thrown by three giants who were competing for the affections of a lady. She pointed out that the rocks were of different sizes, so the competition was void. I'm sure I could use that in Glorantha somehow...
Station newsagents for German crochet mags for Helen (I'll take a look through, too), then back to the hotel for tea, photo upload, and copying this little lot to the USB stick for upload later.
And now it's later.... it seems the gang got an earlier train back than we did, they more or less looked at the weather, turned round and got the next train back down.
Time to plan the trip home over dinner.
Steam trains are fun.... Did the usual shots out of the window on bends, admired the hill-start, gradually put more layers of clothes on as we climbed. It was just above freezing at the top, and raining on and off. View varies between 50-odd miles and "what tower?". Coffee in the station café, then round a couple of exhibitions and viewing towers, then lunch. Chose the highest restaurant (paying extra) for the view, and are currently getting a great view of the inside of a cloud. Dave saw Team Piggott arrive from the observation tower, and used his zoom lens to good effect.
Train timetables look like we'll get an hour's stop at Drei Annen Hohne on the way down.
Language-geekery interlude. Yesterday I was working through a guidebook with a dictionary, and found that "geschichte" meant "history" as in "story". Add "-enerzahler", and you have "storyteller". Putting "ge" on the front of a German word usually means it's a modifier, so what does "schichte" mean? Drop the final e, and you have "layer", "class" or "level". That "zahler" part is "numerator". So a story is a layering, and a storyteller is one who counts the layers. Yes. Considering how many levels I put in my stories (even a 300-worder has at least 2), I like that.
Back at the plot, or rather, Drei Annen Hohne. A pretty little place with a friendly station café that produced coffee, Cola Light, apple cake and "soup of the day" - tomato, and while not as much of a taste explosion as the one in the hotel, still very good. "It's got something different," says Dave. Yes - bacon.
Having been watered ourselves, we've taken pictures of our engine getting similar treatment, and boarded. We'd given up our café seats, put the coats away and headed out into the sun just in time for it to start raining.
It's a shame that all the books about the mythology of the Harz are in German. I'd like to know more about the "Hexen" or witches. I did find one little story about three rocks in a guidebook to the geology of the area. Apparently they were thrown by three giants who were competing for the affections of a lady. She pointed out that the rocks were of different sizes, so the competition was void. I'm sure I could use that in Glorantha somehow...
Station newsagents for German crochet mags for Helen (I'll take a look through, too), then back to the hotel for tea, photo upload, and copying this little lot to the USB stick for upload later.
And now it's later.... it seems the gang got an earlier train back than we did, they more or less looked at the weather, turned round and got the next train back down.
Time to plan the trip home over dinner.
