2012-12-01 47 8

Location

The Christian graveyard of Gailingen.

Participants

Plans

Meet at Zurich main station at 1:55pm. Calamus brings train tickets.
Take train to Schaffhausen at 2:10 on rail 12.
Change to the S8 leaving from rail 3 to reach Diessenhofen by 3:13.
This should leave enough time to pass the border to Germany and find the exact spot by 4pm.
Look for cache GC1E3WD.
Get some German beer.

Expedition

Even normal Saturdays are crowded at Zurich main station. But now that Christmas was drawing remotely near, a market had sprung in the main hall, leaving the station even louder.

Calamus and wzc had agreed to meet before 2pm. After finding each other in the oh-so-cheerful general disorder, they boarded the train to Schaffhausen via Bülach and went on to the village of Diessenhofen.

Diessenhofen lies next to the Rhine river, which marks the frontier between Switzerland and Germany, and features a bridge connecting the two countries. This bridge had been repeatedly destroyed by Russians, Americans and the like since its construction in the 12th century, but was currently in a state fit for crossing. However, as the party realized when they got there, it was poorly designed, as it left space for only one lane, and nobody had bothered to install a light signal to moderate the cars coming from both sides. This was no problem on foot, however, so the two of them entered Germany, ignoring the mutual insults of two car drivers who were just trying to cross the bridge and didn't want to draw back.

Germany was as cold as you would expect a Northern country to be. Defying all clichés, the Swiss side was almost snow-free, while the German side was wearing all white. The people here were all talking funny (i.e. German) and there was a notable lack of thrashbins. After a split second of cultural shock, the party continued towards the hashpoint. It took only a few steps for Calamus's nose to start leaving a blood trail in the snow from the cold, which was a good thing: not only would they see their way back, they could also be rescued by killer sharks in case they got lost.

The town of Gailingen is mostly known for two reasons. Firstly, it was famous for many centuries for its high percentage of Jewish inhabitants and the exceptionally progressive social institutions resulting therefrom, which unfortunately changed when the Germans started Christianing around in the 20th century. Secondly, its name has often been claimed to sound like the setting of a bad erotic novel, being roughly translatable as "Hornytown" (at least synchronously).

They arrived at the graveyard about twenty minutes early. The spot wasn't difficult to find, so they started their secondary quest: finding the geocache supposedly present nearby. Even though they looked for quite some time and also were rather creative in their search strategies, they weren't successful.

Another achievement they had planned was thwarted as well (the thermometer showed about 1°C, preventing a Frozen Geohash), so they built at least a snowman and killed it - after all, it was a graveyard, and depictions of living creatures would only disturb the mourning. After Calamus had made acquaintance with German sanitary equipment (the faucet handle fell off when he touched it, and there was no paper), they returned to Switzerland and had a drink in a cozy pub.