Today I arrived in the Tegernsee area, about an hour outside of Munich, but a world away. I took two trains from Munich Ease to get here, then a taxi to the hotel. The hotel is fine but isn’t the one I meant to book in…it’s a bit further away and out in the country which means it’s quiet, I can hear cowbells more easily than road noise, a nice change from last week!

Tegernsee is a lake (See means lake in German). There are mountains rising up behind the lake which are covered with trees and are quite green now; in winter, from about December to April this becomes a ski area.

I had arranged to hit with someone from the club, which was good since there was no one at the courts from the tournament. My friends who live in the Munich area had other tournaments this weekend. We finished about 4:30 after a solid 90 minute hit and about fifteen minutes later there was a tremendous thunderstorm with heavy rains and lightning. I could see it moving towards the club, gobbling up the view of the mountains with white rain. Then about 20 minutes later the sun came out and it was pretty dry the rest of the afternoon.

After tennis, I thought I’d check out the Aldi supermarket nearby but it was closed despite having a big sign saying it was open on Saturdays till 8pm. It didn’t seem to be out of business, but it definitely wasn’t open at 5:30pm! So I continued into Rottach and checked out the Penny Market, and same thing, open till 20hours on Saturday, but closed today. (On the other hand, the McDonald’s was open and doing booming business.). I knew the gas station was open, so I went there, got a few things and took the bus back to near the hotel. On the walk back I saw the cows whose bells I’d heard earlier from my room, and also some horses.

The weather forecast looks iffy this week, but hopefully the rain will not go on all day. I have another hit tomorrow morning if it’s dry, then I’m hoping to bike around part of the lake in the afternoon.

The draws are up, I don’t think I’ll play till Wednesday here. I’m the top seed and Olga Markova, my first round opponent from last week is the #2 seed. There’s another American in my draw, but she lives in Europe and plays my friend Bridget from So Africa first round.

Below are photos from near the club, of the stream in town, the view from my room and the weather forecast.