signing off

both bruce and i want to thank all of you for following along with our trip. we hope that it has been fun for you to read and semi-experience all that we did and enjoyed while abroad over the last month. this time for us both was really special - as brothers, as professionals, and as christian's seeking out and taking time to hear what God is doing in our lives. we were blessed to have this time and we're excited about what is to come, to use what we've learned, and to respond by moving in the direction in which we've been called. now, i wont say that everything is clear, and surely, if any of you know me, there is still some remaining cynicism... but we praise God for our trip, for our relationship as brothers, and for the blessing of family and friends that followed along so closely to our adventure of a life time. thank you and know that we truly enjoyed sharing this experience with you.

july 27th, 28th, and 29th

alrighty... home stretch.

27th

we woke up as usual and i enjoyed my second to last breakfast. we wanted to play tennis again so i needed to eat something and make sure to drink my apple juice with bubble water. i'll miss that... it's pretty freakin good. like apple champagne. i wasn't feeling super well, so we laid around the room for a bit, but made it down to the tennis court around 11... walking of course, no bikes.

we went to play tennis and it wasn't horrible... but it wasn't great either. i didn't get frustrated and played pretty consistently. bruce got a bit frustrated actually and, with the rain coming and going, it wasn't the best day for us all together. 7-6 was the first set... and that was it. we left around 1:30 with full intention of coming back to play again. but with having to walk to brannenburg for lunch stuff, we didn't want to stay and play until mid afternoon because if we were to eat too late, it would throw off our dinner (you'll see why that's important).

got our lunch stuff. ate it on the balcony. no lox... they were all out.

after lunch, it was already getting late. i decided to pack my stuff and bruce packed most of his. we were ready to leave... we showered and organized our clothes for munich and the return trip as well as figuring out how to get all of this absinthe, license plates, glasses, and whatnot into our tennis bags.

at 5:30 we left and took the train to oberaudorf one last time. remember, it was georg's birthday, and he had invited us to his place for dinner. we got there around 6:30 to witness christine riding around on a new vespa scooter that georg had bought for his birthday. he'll ride it to work as to leave the car for his wife, daughter, and soon arriving baby. pretty cool. we went inside and were greeted by christine's parents, georg's wife and daughter (lisa), tony (georg's friend), bruce/darla/lucas (friends from 6 years ago), and Andy (a friend bruce knew from the northland group from 6 years ago as well). we were immediately offered beers with the clarification as to whether or not we wanted beers "kuhlschrank" cold or "keller" cold (fridge or cellar). apparently, they keep beer at different temps for people to enjoy based on preference. we both chose keller cold. i drank mine. bruce wasn't feeling very well, so i drank his also. then i had another one. awesome.

dinner was a lot of fun for our last night. we talked with the family, i had conversations with everyone in german, it was a nice family/friend get-together with drinks, food, and fellowship. lisa, the daughter, also happens to be the cutest thing in the world... so we played together pretty much the whole time (bruce/me/georg) with all of her animal toys as she showed us her favorites. for dinner we ate wurstsalat (meat kind of like bologna, onions, salt, pepper, vinegar), noodlesalat (the lisa helped her mother make), breads with homemade spreads, and something that reminded me of a cold bread pudding with onion, tomatoes, and oil/vinegar. it was really tasty but interesting... at first it looked like pork cutlets, kinda round with different shades of color, but they were more like dumplings. i ate about 7 of them... and i wish i'd eaten more of the wurstsalat. it was delish. bruce still wasn't feeling great and, after taking a walk outside and talking with christine's dad, came in and only ate a little bread. too bad really, but... it happens.

we stayed for a bit after dinner where her parents showed us pictures of a hike that they'd recently gone on. bruce was feeling better and we were all sitting together at the table like a big family. this was really special. we talked about a little of everything and all of them were just so incredibly nice and thoughtful... as if they were our own german family. we didn't stay too late as we had to catch the train and Andy had offered to drop us off. we got back to finish packing, skype, and go to bed. tomorrow we begin our journey home... but i cant think of much of a better way to spend our last night, thanks to the fankhausers.

28th
leaving flintsbach...

sad. breakfast as usual, but was surprised to find 2 beer glasses wrapped in bubble wrap (brent) and paper for us to take with... gifts from astrid and her mother. we'd mentioned wanted glasses before but didn't say anything else about it... but astrid remembered and had them ready for me. it was really thoughtful and they are pretty sweet glasses. we were taking the 11:02 train to munich, so after breakfast we had about an hour to finish packing and kind of just chill out, throw stuff away (like our rafts), and take some final pictures. we thanked astrid, turned in our key... and left. it was over.

we saw astrid's mom (our german mom who did our laundry) at the train station and she rode with us to munich. she was heading up north for a funeral and poor astrid was left to do everything herself for the weekend. her mom had opened up to us toward the end, so were talked a bit about what bruce and i will do when we get back, what our plans are, etc. oh... i thanked her for the glasses also. the train to rosenheim/munich always sucks and is always full. so naturally, bruce and i didn't have seats and sat in the doorway between two cars of the train for the hour or so ride. we had all of our stuff too, so we sure weren't making it easy for people to get on or off the train... but whatever. we were tired and we had no where else to go. oh, and we didn't care.

munich... we've seen munich. we've seen munich a bunch of times. we weren't too interested in seeing it again, but what the heck. we stuff all of our stuff into a locker and set off on a mission to buy a doener, find a particular bible that bruce wanted, and spend our remaining euro on the cheapest beer we could find. we walked around a bit kinda north of the main tourist area... it was nice. bruce didn't find his bible but did buy the first harry potter book in german. i told him it was about time he read them... so he compromised and bought it. found a doener... ate the death out of it. and for the beer... we went on the search. we went from tourist-city marienplatz (4,40 euro 0,5L) to the neighboring blocks (3,90-4,10 euro) to finally, and to our surprise, the famous hofbraeuhaus (3,50 euro). they were the cheapest... who'd of thought? but, still to touristy, so we walked to one of the city centers where there are tons of little biergartens and imbisses and bought our 3,70 euro beer. it was nice and relaxing... we sat outside and talked, enjoying munich one more time.

finished beer. time to go. subway to ostbahnhof, sbahn to airport, shuttle to hotel- this took about an hour. we checked into our hotel a little after 4, printed our boarding passes, took showers, and turned the air conditioning on. sometime around 6 we decided to walk to dinner and so we walked to the same little italian restaurant that duck/brent/bonnie had suggested. now, we really had to spend the rest of our euro. i ordered the cheapest pizza they had, bruce had gnocchi, and we both had two beers. we took our time because we had nothing to get back for... and were amused by all of the other americans that were also at the restaurant. we would be home soon. we went back to the hotel, watched "burn after reading" again, and went to sleep. last night.

29th (4:20 am or 10:20 pm on the 28th to all you east coast americans)

we're up. it's early. we ate some breakfast and had some juice and coffee as we waited for our 5am shuttle to the airport. the shuttle dropped us off at the baggage check area which, slightly surprising, already had a ridiculous line of people by 5:20. we waited in line for almost an hour before we finally dropped our bags off and headed through security. our flight was at 7:10, we got to the gate about 6:30... where we sat and eagerly awaited boarding.

we land in london/heathrow, deboard, through customs, and reclaim our bags by about 8:30 london time (9:30 germany time/3:30 am america time). we had to transfer airports because there is a raquet in place to rip off all travelers to and from america unless you're flying to like 5 particular american cities. orlando is not one of them... so we cant fly out of heathrow, we have to go to gatwick. 40 pounds later (like 60$), we board this bus that takes us through the less-than-scenic parts of outer london on an hour long ride to our terminal at gatwick. yippee. london sucks. tired and carrying our heavy bags, we check our bags at gatwick, lie about the contents of our bags (no liquids great than 100 ml... yeah right), go through security, and have about an hour to waste. we walked around, spent our remaining pounds on drinks and candy, and waited to board the main flight home.

which of course was delayed. we had all boarded, but for some air traffic control glitch, we sat on the runway for 45 minutes... great. the flight is long, but we were expecting that. you cant complain much about it... they feed you, you can watch movies... its just long. after your third movie, it gets a little boring. and bruce and i had the window and middle seats, so we had to keep climbing over this poor girl to go to the bathroom. during "invictus", i'd held going to the bathroom for so long that i considered going in one of my bottles. but, because we were on a plane and not in the back of a car, this was an accident waiting to happen that could potentially ruin the trip for many of our fellow passengers. i sucked it up and asked her to move. from then on (and especially while she was sleeping), we just climbed over her. lean.

we land in orlando at 3:45 pm (9:45 in flintsbach... we'd been up over 17 hours... not too bad), go through customs (which always sucks and I almost forgot my vuvuzela), and finally make it to the terminal to be met by our loving parents. it was great and we were really happy to see them both.

but i'm not quite finished... remember, i live in atlanta. we check my bag in (waiting maybe 30 minutes) and proceed to chili's to kill some time, visit, and eat some chips/salsa/beer. we told stories but couldn't tell much because both mom and dad knew everything from the blog already (like all of you do), so we really just talked about other stuff... that was nice. we hadn't talked to dad much the whole trip, so catching up with him was very enjoyable. we spent about an hour together.

but, once more, i had to go. i said goodbye, went through security, got to my gate, and could not sit still i was so excited... i was almost home. or so i thought. i of course find my plane delayed... ok, 20 minutes... not bad, whatever. we finally board... delayed again, this time because of a storm. an hour later and after 3 false alarms, we finally take off. at this point, many of those with connecting flights are less than thrilled as they're surely going to be cutting it close. we land around 8:50... deboard, baggage, and duck!... she was there! she had parked and come in to meet me... totally by surprise. she makes everything better.

traffic on I-85, we finally get home around 10 (4 am munich time- almost a good 24 hours). it was finished, we'd made it.

july 26th

the inevitability of our trip home became decidedly clear this morning when we were forced to return one of our most beloved items -- our bicycle. after both benjamin and bruce had some breakfast (bruce for the 3rd time this trip), we made our last bike trip to brannenburg, relinquishing our time-savers to a nice bayerish lady at the tourist center. on the walk home (which, as you might remember, takes about 25 minutes longer than with bikes), we stopped at the penny markt to buy lunch items (smoked salmon has recently become one of our favorite lunch meats) and decided to try to squeeze a tennis match in before we ate. benjamin won the first set (a very rare occurrence) and forced bruce to step it up to win the next two. we ran into astrid (the young woman who owns the place) on the way back to our room and decided to settle our debts today, as to allow for extra time to take out money if necessary. and yes, it was necessary; we live in the woods, or said another way, da ends of da ert -- and here, they don't know what a visa card is. everywhere you want to be, except flintsbach. after getting the final total from astrid (roughly 200 euro less than our minimum expected cost!), we went to our local atm to take it out in cash -- which wasn't possible (damn limits put on withdrawals, even when the bank knows you're abroad). anyway, we both took out as much as we could and will have to go back tomorrow to finish the job.

lunchtime was nice. we ate our salmon and nuss-schinken (something like prosciutto) and ordered a few beers from astrid (for the first time, i might add -- perhaps we thought she needed a little more money from us, since our bill was so low). we sat in our room, enjoyed the cool post-rain breeze and sun, and drank beers while playing cribbage and watching 'burn after reading' again. after the movie, we happily galumphed down to the soccer fields for some attempted juggling, realized it was already past 7, and therefore started our recently-augmented-in-time-and-effort journey back to brannenburg for our last dinner with good ol' giuseppe. and he didn't disappoint: after wine, benjamin's brindisina pizza (peppers, onions, olives, anchovies and capers) and bruce's barolo pizza (smoked salmon, parmesan flakes and arugula), we wanted more, so we double-mealed it again, getting another anchovy pizza to share. guiseppe brought us a shot of amaretto as a nice parting gift, we said our goodbyes and well-wishes, dropped by the ice-cream place to help with the return walk, petted a lonely cow for a good while halfway home (until it got shocked after getting too close to the wire), put on the requiem mass once in bed and fell asleep full and happy.

july 24th and 25th

alright schwuls,
rainy... as b-dog said... rainy. all day rainy. we did nothing really. nothing at all. well, we'll start with the usual.

I went to früstuck... naturally, like everyday... and ate my fill. but it was raining... and so I came back to the room and laid down with bruce... waiting. it never stopped. so... we walked to penny markt and returned all of our old bottles for 5 euro in return. we were wet and cold... but it didnt matter much, so we bought our lunch and walked home. we ate on the balcony and bruce beat me in cribbage. he beats me in everything.

alright... now. bored. rainy. nothing. we did separate stuff for a bit- a little reading and email and a couple drinks of absinthe to calm us down (avoid cabin fever) , whatnot. then, we watched "burn after reading". god bless the coen brothers. it was freakin lean. so good. we enjoyed it thoroughly as it was my first time and bruce's 100th.

dinner came... we were hungrig. falkenstein for the last time... jam. raining... still... we went and had to sit inside for the 2nd time all trip. i ate käse spätzle and leberknöddle suppe and bruce ate steak with kräuterbutter and pommes with currywurst sauce. lean. we bought glasses with Falkenstein on them as souvenirs. the kellnerin was friendly and wished us well on our urlaub and trip home. we went home... skyped... and went to bed.

next day...

rough day... here is what happened and it was not lean, we dont really want to talk about it, but here is what happened:

• woke up for church... bruce found a tick on his body and happened to leave the head in... d'oh.
• spent 8 euro to go to oberaudorf for church (meaning, we got up early) but forgot that it was at 9 not 10:30 (this happens once a month).... jam.
• crappy tennis... back in flintsbach. i need to grow up a little when i play bruce.
• no breakfast and no lunch at this point (3:30)
• back for showers... leave at 4 for oberaudorf, riding our bikes, to make sure bruce is there by 5 for practice (service was at 7... yeah)
• alright, so practice went long, i rode around and had some coffee and whatnot, but nothing to eat. it was pretty and fun, but lonely, and i came back right in time for the service.
• service was nice... but went really long. bruce didn't have time to say goodbye to everyone because bruce (and i) were off to...
• abschluß concert for bruce and darla's students. okay... remember they wanted bruce (our bruce) to work with them over the summer in musical theater. they're nice... but we are on vacation. ok. concert. we got there 15 minutes late with christine and the concert lasted about 3 hours. there was some pretty good stuff... but we hadn't eaten anything and it was long and late.
  
• after the concert, christine was nice to drop us off at the church were our bikes waiting. we had missed the train so we rode 40 minutes back to flintsbach to get home around midnight.
• we were finally home. but... for dinner, we had: 6 kalamata olives, 4 pickles, 4 small pieces of vollkorn bread (that we stole from breakfast room and tastes like something carissa would like), nutella, 10 pringles, a green apple, and gummy bears. it was crap. everything was closed of course, so we ate crap in our room.
  

so as not to leave you with a bad taste in your mouth, there was a great redeeming quality of the day. remember our friend from barolo... the woman that teaches at LSU... she came to jump start and sat with benjamin at the 7 oclock service. that was special and, even though she knows no german, she enjoyed it and was able to worship with us. it was really great. redeeming even.

july 23rd

i guess you could say that today was the first time it rained the whole day. no matter, however -- it was still fruitful and relaxing. not having much to do around flintsbach (tennis and hawaiisee, i mean), we decided to take the train to rosenheim (the closest 'city' north between us and munich). bruce had a few tasks in mind while there, so before leaving flintsbach, he took the last 10 minutes or so to frantically search the net for addresses and hours of operation. we got to rosenheim around 10:30 and went directly to our first destination -- the equivalent of a german DMV. since living in freiburg, bruce has always thought that german license plates make the best souvenirs, and one time while there, had actually walked into a repository and asks the confused guy behind the counter if he could have some, to which he apathetically agreed. the rosenheim place, however, wasn't as simple; walking in, there were all these germans getting decals, plates, licenses, everything. bruce asked one worker, who led us to another, whom he asked, who led us to the big boss, whom, after waiting 15 minutes or so, bruce finally got a chance to ask, and who agreed to let us have a few plates. success! we left the DMV, prizes in hand, and made our way to the city center. with luck on our side, we decided to try and find matrix two -- the (somewhat bad) movie that bruce saw so many times in german while studying in freiburg. after no more than 3 minutes of looking around rosenheim's karlstadt, we found it for cheap -- something we couldn't even find in munich. on clould nine now, we continued through the city, stopping for lunch at one of the better döner places we've encountered thus far. sitting in the city center eating our döners, benjamin sees christine walking by (she works in rosenheim), so we got to say a quick hello. her lunch break was almost up, so she went back to work and we both sat down outside at a cafe and ordered a couple beers. a 14-year-old singer whom bruce had met the night before came by and waved, so we invited her to sit with us before she left with the train. her name's suzanne, and she opted for english at the table so that she could practice (which was fine by us). after she left for her train, the rains came back harder (they had taken a break while we were sitting outside), so we made our way back to the train station stopping to accomplish the final task -- getting a set of playing cards (they're a little different, by the way). still raining when we got back to flintsbach, all that was left to do was to get dinner, so we manned-up and rode our bikes through the rain to brannenburg for our penultimate meal with giuseppe. somewhat strangely, he sat us directly next to another couple (even with tons of free tables all over the place), but after winking at bruce while walking away, he figured out what the owner was up to -- sitting next to us were the first people we met this entire trip who were native english speakers. and not only that, they were southerners (from louisiana), and christians! the husband is leaving tomorrow for home, but the wife asked us about church this sunday, so we might see her in oberaudorf -- maybe even for jumpstart. after getting back to our room, we played some cribbage, watched a little tv and wrote the blog. it's supposed to rain tomorrow, too, and we don't know of any more rosenheims around here -- which, ironically, might make for a dry blog post tomorrow.

july 22nd

yo.

alright, easy day. i woke up at my usual time and went down for some breakfast. lean... coffee, bread, meat, juice... actually, typing this, it looks like the same stuff that we have for lunch everyday... hmmm. boring. but good and filling. i came back to the room to find bruce awake and ready for some tennis and, as i'd promised better tennis from the day before, we went. bruce stole two rolls from the breakfast room which is against the rules on the sign, but he's done it just about everyday and hasn't been caught yet (not that it would really matter).

alright, tennis. much better. we actually were hitting the ball and i wasn't playing bad-mood tennis. i almost did though at one point, but i fixed my brain and kept on playing. and, even though i double faulted two full games away to bruce, i somehow only lost the first set in a tie-breaker... and then lost the second 6-3... which was ok, i felt better about my playing and i was a bit tired. everything was better.

as tennis finished, it was almost time for the train to oberaudorf where we'd promised christine that we'd meet her sometime after midday. thursday is her day off of work and we've tried to do things with her most of these days. we met her at her place and drove to gießenbachklamm, which is a canyon in the area. we hiked around and walked up to the little river were we just sat in the cold water and hot sun and talked... fighting off horseflies the entire freakin time. it was pretty, we threw rocks and relaxed. nice.

after that, seeing as how bruce and i hadn't eaten our normal lunch and it was already 2, we were hungry... and best of all, because we were in oberaudorf (which is close to kufstein) and there is a mcdonalds in kufstein... well, there was just no decision to be made... we were going. bruce and christine had gone the night before on their night out, but we were going again. and you know what? first, mcdonalds is the greatest place in the world anyone can eat, obviously. but second... they have an ice machine and unlimited refills. this is important, this is important... europe doesnt have ice. but mcdonalds does... and so we gladly ordered our royal mit käse (1:02 in the video) and pommes value meal and drank the death out of ice cold coke and sprite. unbelievable. and the funniest thing is that there were instructions for the germans on how to use this incredible invention of the ice machine. first, it said, fill your cup with ice. second, fill with your drink. third, enjoy. it was funny because it is so foreign to them to have unlimited, or even any, ice. weird. we knew how to enjoy... we didn't need the instructions. thanks though.

we got the food... and we ate. went back to oberaudorf and walked up to the ruins of the old city fortress. it was that big castle for which the town is named after which apparently was burned down by the turks in the 1500's or something. we weren't sure how a stone fortress could burn but something happened to it as there are only a few remaining walls and structures remaining. it was pretty cool and oddly there were a ton of llamas at the fortress. christine told us about some guy in oberaudorf who wanted a llama for himself for like his 40th birthday... and after doing research to find that llamas like german weather, he got one. but then one wasn't enough... so now he has like 20... whatever. they were cool and were not afraid of the people at the fortress. bruce tried to give one some of his sprite, but he (she) wasn't interested.

time to go home, christine took us back to the almröserl, and we parted ways. it was sometime after 4 and bruce, after resting for a bit, got ready to take the train back to oberaudorf for the youth music practice at the church in which he'd promised the pastor's daughter that he'd participate.

this is where our stories divide... i, your humble first author of the night, stayed home, showered, got most of my med school application stuff together (just in case), and read a little german pop culture magazine while eating almost an entire jar of pickles. i wasn't sure when bruce was coming home, but i figured it wouldn't be too late... i'd hate to eat dinner without him again. it was pouring rain and even hailed here, so it was really awesome to watch the lightning and storm move across the mountains from our balcony. lean.

[bruce's train to oberaudorf was nearly 20 minutes late -- almost incomprehensible for a german train. that meant, the 20-minute walk from the train station to the church was much more hurried and stressed than usual -- something not needed, as he was already going into a foreign environment in every sense of the word. thankfully, they were a bit late getting started, so he didn't miss too much. about one song in or so, someone from the group asked about the strange guy sitting over in the corner; after that, it didn't take long for bruce to be at the keyboard. he played with the 4 other instrumentalists and the roughly 15 singers for a good hour and a half, practicing translated common worship tunes we'd sing back home for this sunday's jumpstart (evening modern worship service). the practice was great, many of the germans loved trying out a couple english words here and there, and even a couple were pleased to meet the 'bruce moser' that's printed in their song book as having written two of the songs.

once practice was over, bruce tried to make it to the adult choir practice -- where christine had invited him to go once youth band practice was over. the adults had already started, and having used up his courage with new people for the day, bruce decided to try to make the train back to flintsbach. trouble was, it was 10 till, the train leaves right after the top of the hour, bruce still had to buy a ticket for the return stretch, and it was pouring down rain. nothing a little sprinting through cow pastures won't fix. thanks mainly to the frequent tennis outings and german's relaxed understanding of property rights, bruce made the 20-minute walk in 5 minutes, running directly through anything and everything to make as straight a line as possible. ticket in hand with 2 minutes to spare, the rain quieted down and bruce had enough time to catch his breath before immediately having to talk to the train man asking for his ticket.

back in flintsbach, benjamin had thankfully waited for dinner, so we both went to our favorite and got our favorite -- beer. dinner was awesome as usual, we came back for a game of cribbage and a short conversation with carissa, then bed.]

july 21st

today was the kind of day we had been dreaming about since we started planning this trip. we were both still in bed at 10:30 (benjamin had gotten some breakfast and had gone back to bed), slowly got up and made our way to the tennis courts. no one was there, so we took our time spraying the courts down with water (they're clay, of course) and warming up. we played 5 complete sets of tennis -- sometimes good tennis, sometimes bad tennis, all the time tennis surrounded by huge mountains and 80 degree blue skies. when we finished, we sat alone under the shade of the clubhouse and drank water, relaxing after a good, long workout. already 2:30 or so, we dropped our stuff off in our room, biked to the penny markt for lachs, schinken, bread and cheese, and went directly to the hawaiisee, where we leisurely ate canned asparagus, pickles, kalamata olives and the aforementioned before taking a nap right there next to the lake. an hour or so of digesting later, we took the floats out for another hour of uninterrupted relaxation -- the only two souls in the water that afternoon. around 6:30, we knew we needed to get home, since falkenstein's polka-band wednesdays start at 7 and this is the last one we'd get to take part in. we got home, got changed, and got to the restaurant in time to find the last free table. over the next 2 hours, we enjoyed the music, steins of beer, raspberry schnäpse, and two genuinely german meals: käse spätzle (kind of like mac-and-cheese with onions) and a cold meat plate, full of blood sausage, liver mush and the like. i'll let our humble readers deduce who ordered what. the winds and dark clouds of an upcoming storm blew in, and we made it back to our room around 10 -- just in time for a cribbage game, absinthe nightcap, and a short conversation with mom. tomorrow's christine's day off, so she'll assuredly have something to show us.

july 20th

kranzhorn, rodelbahn, and schweinshaxe

alright all you worker-bees... today you can envy us no more as we rose this morning with the sun, we were both awake and ready to go by 6- yes, both of us. georg, christine's brother, was taking us on a hike. bruce knows georg pretty well from when he was over here 6 years ago and they had previously hiked together the staggering heuberg which we can see from our town. well, georg is a baker. today was his day off. on a normal day, our friend wakes up sometime between 3 and 3:30 in the morning for work... naturally, he has to bake all of the breads for the customers that begin coming in at 6. so, 6 to him is nothing... we pretended it was also nothing to us and were ready when he pulled up to the almröserl at about 6:15.

off we went. we were not quite sure where he was taking us after he explained that heuberg is closed for hiking due to wood working that is taking place near and around the summit. i took this to mean some type of forestry work, lumbering, or preservation instead of "wood working" like we know it where people are building chairs and cuckoo clocks... but i could surely be wrong. anyway, were didn't go to heuberg and georg continued to drives us into austria to the giant kranzhorn. kranzhorn is next to heuberg and is actually a bit higher with a splendid peak of its own at 1366 m.

we began hiking right before 7. bruce and georg did most of the talking and i was pleased that i understood about 95% of what was being said. at least, i thought, because i understood what was going on, i was actually part of the experience and not just a bystander, even if i didn't say very much. i talked here and there... but i enjoyed listening. we hiked and reached the top sometime maybe 8:15ish (about the time i'm usually getting up). the view was incredible... better (according to bruce and georg) than the view from heuberg.

we were across the river from flintsbach and it was really cool to look back at the mountains behind it (the same mountains with riesenkopf and maiwand). we had a birds eye view of everything including hohe asten which was really cool to finally see where it was in relation to all of the other mountains and to finally understand the lay of the land for all of the places to which we'd previously hiked. also, we could seen brünnstein (for which bruce is famous for hiking in flip-flops), all of the towns from rosenheim to kufstein, and even the alps in the distance as far away at italy. it was incredible. at the top, there were two crosses- one was austrian, one was bayerisch. there was also a stone between the crosses that acts as a border marker between the two countries as the mountain summit is actually split between the two. pretty cool... we had conquered the kranzhorn. we walked to the little chapel that is also at the top, wrote our names in the book, and headed down.

we got back to the car around, 9:30?... i'm not sure, but still pretty early. georg wanted to take us into oberaudorf to show us basti schweinsteiger's footprints in bronze in the town square. he is there local superstar soccer player (for those of you who don't know who he is... and, now that i think of it, if you didn't know who he is, how are we friends enough that you're reading this blog?). it was like that street in hollywood where the stars put in their hand prints... but basti is a stud and naturally used his feet. he was one of two people with sidewalk squares, but i don't remember who the other one was.

now, to rodelbahn. christine had mentioned rodelbahn to us a few weeks ago but we were not super interested as we weren't quite sure what is was. well, georg invited us as well and we couldn't turn it down twice especially after he teased us about being afraid of it. so we went rodelbahning... or however you would say it. rodelbahn takes place at the local ski slopes where they offer both summer and winter rodelbahn tracks. i won't explain much, but basically, you sit in a little cart where you can control only the breaks, and you go from the top of the mountain to the bottom on this aluminum track. here is the exact rodelbahn experience from oberaudorf... have fun! pretty sweet, huh?

we survived, we wiped out, and georg dropped us off a little after 11. we were still tired from yesterday's hike with hana/pavel and probably still from our weekend in freiburg, so bruce and i took a little nap. about an hour later or so, we woke up hungry, rode to penny markt, bought lunch (more lox), came home and ate on our balcony. lean.

bruce then had to take care of some logistics with resignation stuff for winter park and i again, after reading some bunte magazine articles (which is like german us weekly), fell asleep. once bruce finished, we decided to try and play some tennis...

i was awful. i was tired and had no energy. bruce seemed to have a bit more, but neither of us did particularly well and i just couldn't get into it. we played some pretty crappy tennis to a 6-2, 6-4 victory for bruce... but i promised him that after a good night's rest, i'd play my guts out tomorrow. he was pleased. we finally have no plans tomorrow. we can sleep, eat, swim, read, and play whenever we want. i'll be ready.

lastly, the schweinshaxe. as i, your humble author, could never leave you without talking about our food, i'll re-introduce the delicious pork knucle. ok, so if you remember, way back when during the "week of the hives", my beautiful little wife ordered a man meal of schweinshaxe after we'd hiked the bichlersee. i was so jealous. well tuesday nights are the one night of the week when our family falkenstein serves this gourmet man-meal. we've missed it every time so far (one week coming before the meat was ready, another week coming too late). i wasn't going to miss it tonight. bruce and christine had decided to go out together tonight, just the two of them, which left me free to myself. he took the train to oberaudorf. he was going to play some piano at the church, go get pizza, and whatnot... i was going to schweinshaxe the heck out of my dinner. i got there about 6:30 and it was super crowded with almost every table filled or reserved. crap... there is no way they'll have any left. i sat at the high table, in the sun, and waited anxiously for the kellnerin to come to my table. she came, asked me for my drink order, i ordered a weißbier, and at the same time asked about the beloved schwein... they still had it... "i'll take one"... not waiting as usual to order food... not me, not today. i had my knuckle with sauerkraut and my bier within about 3 minutes. it was perfect.

[edit: although bruce's dinner was nowhere near as german as a schweinshaxe, one aspect should be mentioned. as she and he caught up for too long, leaving all kitchens in germany closed for business, we had to go into the larger town of kufstein in austria to get ... mcdonalds. and for those reading who have been here recently, YES, they had an ice machine. all the drinks and ice you need -- refill after refill after refill. might even beat having schweinshaxe, no?]

i'm home now- blogging, skyping, showering, and reading. oh, yeah, and waiting on bruce... but i wont wait too long, i'll have no excuse tomorrow if i'm tired on the tennis court.

july 19th

with grand plans to hike to riesenkopf, hike back and get hana and pavel on the road to italy by 2pm, we knew we had to get up early. hana and benjamin did just that, leaving for penny markt around 8 to pick up good hiking food. bruce was oh so happy to have found another similar late-sleeper (hana's boyfriend pavel), so they both slept while the two early birds went shopping and ate breakfast. but all that effort to get started early was wasted with the lost time trying to get our hiking backpacks together. a long 30 minutes later, we were finally on our way -- a mere hour later than we'd planned. up the mountain, hana found comfort in talking to benjamin in german (we'd been forcing her to speak english so that pavel could understand), and bruce learned a lot about programming for airplane computer chips from pavel. two-thirds the way up, we stopped at hohe asten for a beer (even though pavel and hana were in a hurry, they weren't in that big a hurry). after one, hana still had half of hers left, so we all ordered another. the german hikers around us all chuckled over the mix of czech, german and english, especially after we began getting louder (that'll happen). the remaining third of the hike was fun, and when we reached the top, the clouds covering the peak when we left had moved on, leaving pavel and hana a great view of flintsbach (and perhaps leaving benjamin and bruce their last view of flintsbach from riesenkopf). here's hana, pavel and benjamin at the top:

we didn't leave the top until after 3, so their plans of getting on the road by two were pretty much shot. an hour or so down the mountain and another 45 minutes or so packing the car, we finally said our goodbyes around 6 and they got on their way. it was absolutely wonderful to spend the week with hana, and meeting her great boyfriend was an added bonus for these last two days.

exhausted, benjamin and bruce lumbered back to our room for long showers and skype conversations with momar, christine and beth. without having eaten dinner at 8:15, we leisurely took our bikes to our buddy barolo (which we found out isn't his name -- it's giuseppe), ordered two pizzas to go (a spicy salami and a salmon/arugula/parmesan), enjoyed them while watching the moon rise over the mountain peak from hours earlier, and made our way to the room. we start at 6:15 tomorrow with georg (christine's brother) on some kind of hike (not sure yet, we'll know tomorrow), and still exhausted from today, we really should already be asleep.

july 18th

our first sunday in church was wonderful. all three of us took hana's car to oberaudorf to the lutheran church bruce worked with 6 years ago. every bit of the service -- the message, the readings, the stories and the music -- had to do with a mustard seed (which we received taped to one of the songs we sang). most of the 30 or so congregants in the service stayed for the gemeindefest following worship (a celebration of their congregation, with special music and services, eating, drinking and fellowship), but we left immediately afterward for münchen to pick up hana's boyfriend pavel. an hour there and an hour back, the 4 of us arrived in flintsbach and hung around the room, snacking on leftover breads and fruits for a makeshift lunch and getting to know pavel better (he doesn't speak german, so hana was forced to remember some of that english she learned while in the states). we left flintsbach around 4 to catch the end of the gemeindefest in oberaudorf (a 15-minute drive that bruce had to make, as he was the only one who hadn't drunk anything). it was as nice as the morning service -- a brass band and the pastor alternated playing sacred music and reading psalms and stories while the 20 or so attendees simply listened. bruce caught up with the fankhauser's (christine's family) after the concert, since both georg and herr fankhauser are part of the band. after he planned a bit for our remaining days, we all left for home and our favorite restaurant, falkenstein. a relaxing 2-hour meal ensued, benjamin eating a calf head (sorry bonnie). when we got back to our room, benjamin chatted with momar for a long while (we'd been in freiburg the last 2 days, so they hadn't spoken) and the rest played a board game called brändi-dog (which is a lot like sorry, but with slightly more skill involved). hana and pavel are planning on leaving for italy tomorrow before 2, so we're all in bed before 11 to be fresh for tomorrow's early-morning hike.

july 16th and 17th

freiburg!

alright, we're going to freiburg... remember, of course from the earlier post the you read, bruce and hana both studied abroad in this beautiful town and is where they met. enough of a reason to go for me (plus, i've been there twice so i have my own memories).

we woke up bone-early on friday, sometime between 6-7, and were on the road to freiburg in hana's car. freiburg is in baden-wutenburg which is the neighboring "state" in germany from where we're staying in bayern. freiburg is very west of us and it would take us about 5 hours to get there. hana drove as she knows all of the rules of the autobahn, i talked to her, and bruce slept in the back... the whole time. it was a decently pretty drive as we went through a ton of farm land in the very southern part of germany, drove past the bodensee (which is a large lake that touches switzerland, austria, and germany that bruce rode his bike around), and into and through much of the schwarzwald (black forest to you americans) where freiburg lives. nice.

we arrived and, for the first time on our trip, we kind of had an agenda. time for the "stroll down memory lane" which would come in 9 parts, take more than 24 hours, and get us lost twice. awesome.

first, second and third- hana's apartment, the school, and bruce's apartment. we drove into town directly to the school where both bruce and hana studied. we parked and walked around, first by hana's old apartment which apparently is a new color. we kinda looked at it from the outside... cool. luckily, because it was so hot, hana's apartment is on one side of the campus, so we didn't have to go far as we walked in and out of some of the buildings, observed some protest about soldiers in the classroom by some of the students, and noticed that all of the graffiti on the walls hasn't changed much... perhaps it is a bit more updated. it's not a very pretty campus... but, were weren't there to take wedding photos, this was just to spark some of the aging memories of 7-years ago. yes, it was as they remembered... and as i remembered, as i had seen bruce perform there briefly on my last visit back while he studied there. cool. off to bruce's old place (pictured)... which is closer to the town. we found his place, parked, walked around it, remembered, and were finished. it was kind of neat as bruce and hana talked about all of the memories that the have- riding bikes to and from eachother's place late at night, different people that lived in their buildings, etc. we were all glad to visit these three places.

but now, more importantly, eating... which is the 4th and 5th part of our journey. the döners couldn't come fast enough. we walked from bruce's apartment into town and made a bee line to his old döner shop. not much had changed except, to our surprise, their normal döner is now a döner kebab and not a dürüm döner. ok... yeah, big deal, right? well... it kind of is. see, to the döner aficionado, the type of döner is very important. the dürüm is basically a wrapped döner, almost like a burrito but with delicious döner meats, vegetables and sauce. the kebab is more like a gyro to the american... which, is boring and much more messy... delicious still, but not the same. well, you used to be able to walk into this place and say, "3 döners bitte", and you would get 3 dürüms... well, that is now different, and we got 3 kebabs. we still ate the death out of them as they are the best thing anyone could ever eat except for maybe landjäger. yummy lunch. after our meal, it was naturally time for dessert. we walked to bruce's second preferred place called portifino eis cafe. the german's don't really have their own ice cream style- actually, it seems that the entire continent of europe benefits from the italian's ability to make delicious desserts and coffee. as you can tell by the name, this is an italian ice cream shop, full of beautifully decorated choices of gelati, coffees, antipasta, and alcohols. really, it is a splendid place. hana ate stratiacella , i had a bowl of amaretto eis, and bruce had limoncello eis. it was perfect.

the 6th part wasn't super exciting but necessary as we needed to walk through the town and see all of the other places- bahnhof, movie theater, the church, and whatnot. we split up from hana for a bit as she searched for an old friend... bruce and i sat down, bruce fell asleep, and we rested for a bit. see... not super exciting.

after an already long day (remember our car ride), we decided to get out of the city center and go relax by the river (part 7) that runs next to and partially through freiburg. it is called the dreisam and is bascially a large creek with rocks to throw and on which to sit...which is what we did... for quite a while. again, we all have a bunch of memories here and it was exactly what we needed. we talked, i took a nap, we played rock throwing games... the water was crisp and cold, it was very refreshing.

part 8- the adventure takes a wrong turn, literally.

*flashback: freiburg sits in the middle of the black forest surrounded by rolling mountains. one such mountain (the second highest in the black forest at almost 1200 m) is called hinterwaldkopf. bruce has hiked it a million times as has hana. i had hiked it myself twice. even my mom has hiked it (well done mom). we couldn't go to freiburg and not hike this mountain... it was kind of like bruce and hana's "old stomping grounds".

we're off! we stop by a penny markt wannabe, bought our things (this lox as well), drove to where we would start, packed our bags and tent, and didn't look back... at least for awhile. it is kind of confusing and it had been seven years, i really do understand. you see, one can see hinterwaldkopf from distance... as it is the mountain amongst all the other mountains with a bald head (no trees on top). but when you are at the bottom, it is hard to remember which other mountains the bald head lies behind.

what did we care... we've done it before. we start. it is about 7. we hike for about 30 minutes and i'm not recognizing a thing, but bruce is still pretty confident that we should just keep going up and that we'd be fine. we find a path that has been cut by some ridiculous machine that can climb a 45 degree angle and decide to painfully follow it straight up the mountain. the gravel path turned into grass, into underbrush, into bushes, and into finally the amazon jungle. we were a bit lost. as we came to our senses, we took a quick break to "reevaluate" how we were going to get to the top... now that darkness was approaching and we weren't quite sure where to go.

this is our first "thank the lord" moment- when we stopped, i turned around to ask bruce something when in front of me, at what seemed like 10 miles away, was this giant bully of a mountain towering way over us... looking almost as if it were sticking out its tounge. hinterwaldkopf- we were climbing the wrong mountain.

crap. now what? it is 8:15. we think we have an hour of light left (and no, we don't have flashlights) and decide that if we go now, we can make it (yeah right). we book down this mountain and through a very steep cow pasture to a road in the valley between the two mountains. there was a house there...

our second "thank the lord" moment- there was a nice man out of his house with his dog and as we were about to trek through his land, bruce and hana decided to ask him if he could guide us toward hinterwaldkopf. he told us it would take 2 1/2 hours from there and explained the way. but because he was so nice, he then offered to drive us most of the way up. he easily cut 2 hours off of the hike that "would not have been". we talked as he drove us and dropped us off... we were going to make it. (here's a view from the last part of the hike.)

we climb, arrive at the very bald top of the mountain around 9 with plenty of light left to set up our tent, unroll sleeping bags, change our sweaty clothes, prepare for the night, and begin to relax and eat as the sun begins to set. it was beautiful... and because we were so high, you could see that darkness had fallen on one side of the mountain but the other side still was lite. pretty cool. it didn't actually get fully dark on our western side until well after 10. we ate, watched lightening in the distance, joked around as we were so happy to be there, read some bible together, and went to sleep.

i woke up around 8, ate some breakfast and drank a warm beer as i waited for the others. to my surprise, not long after i was awake, a couple (let's say in the 50's) were right outside our tent and had hiked there that morning for the view and to seen the monument at the top of the mountain that commemorates those from that area that died in WWII. crazy old people and their waking up early... they must have started hiking by 5:30, on a saturday! whatever... they were nice, hana took a picture for them, ok.

we ate, cleaned up, packed our stuff again and, because we still had to drive back to flintsbach, decided no to hang out too long on the top of a mountain. we still had to hike down, but surely, it wouldn't take too long... it's down, and we know where we're going.

well... kind of. you see... sometimes, the problem with things that are familiar is that you start to believe that they are more familiar than they actually are. we were all guilty of this. as we hiked down we decided to take a different route, one that we recognized.

finally, we knew where we were going and we hiked down towards our car. we'd be there in no time. not exactly... after taking a few turns on trails/paths/roads that we thought we recognized or whatever, we finally made it to the bottom, but just on the other side of the mountain. we had no idea where exactly we were and, more importantly, were we had left the car. and it was about to rain. it is pretty funny at this point... hana even joked that we looked like a gypsy family carrying all of our stuff through town. we walked toward the close town of kirchzarten, knowing that if we reached it and got on the main road we could find our car. hana's gps (which she had so smartly not left in her car) helped us with by-foot directions. need i say more, after another hour of cutting through town, turning around, getting rained on, and walking on the side of the road, we made it back to our car... 3 1/2 hours later.

ok... our last and final destination, part 9 of our long adventure (i do apologize for it being so long, but it needed to cover both days)- schlappen. schlappen was bruce's favorite place to eat while at freiburg and they have the best spaghetti bolognese in the world. it's not even an italian place, it's more like a beer pub, but it is fantastic. we all ordered it, with beer, and an order of flammkuchen (which is like flat bread pizza). satisfaction, just like we had remembered it. we topped our trip off with coffee at portofino and left freiburg, driving through downpour all the way back to flintsbach where it is still raining. we all showered and were to tired to eat.

tomorrow pavel comes (hana's boyfriend) before they head off to italy for the rest of their vacation. i'm going to sleep... we have church in the morning.

july 15th

today was one of the most relaxing days we've had here -- resting up for our freiburg trip tomorrow. hana and benjamin had breakfast as usual while bruce slept. when they came back to the room, we decided to hike to the petersburg church -- a nice 45 minute hike with a great view of our little village. benjamin and bruce went first to penny markt to buy our daily meats, cheeses and bread while hana did computer things. we left almröserl around 11am and took our time getting up there. once there, we sat overlooking our town and all drank weißbeers. it was a cool day, overcast but dry, which made for a perfectly relaxing extended lunch. after our first beers, we opened up our meats and cheeses and took a good two hours (and another beer each) to finish our lunch. we walked down, even slower than before, laughing and telling stories from hana's trip to america, benjamin's trip to czech republic and hana and bruce's time in freiburg. we got back to our room, relaxed a while, then took hana's car to get a quick something for dinner as we wanted to get to bed early. we took hana to our friend barolo, and even after recently eating and drinking pounds of meat and pints of beer, benjamin ate an entire pizza. bruce could only manage a small salad. we packed the car once we were finished with dinner and were all asleep not 30 minutes after we got back to our room, knowing we had to get up early tomorrow.

july 14th

hana! (and halfway through our trip)

we had an exciting day today... and i knew it would be (if one could only know) as soon as bruce joined me for breakfast. yep, he actually got up sometime after nine and met me at our table (which was the second weird thing because our table set for two could easily sit 8-10 people) where i was eating and reading some german bible. we ate and talked a bit and decided that we would play tennis before our friend hana would arrive (more on hana later).

we went upstairs, got our stuff, jumped on our new bikes (lean), and rode to our courts for the almost-daily tennis match. we warmed up and started to play... and even though on the clay i hit like a girl (sorry duck, i dont mean girl in a bad way), the third exciting thing of the day happened. i won (i=ben)- 4-6, 6-4, 7-6(4). lean... comeback king. i am sure that it is because bruce got a bit frustrated because, as i said, i wasn't hitting the ball super hard as i was more worried about keeping it in. but it worked!

tennis was over at about 1 and we still had time before hana was to arrive. we expected her around 3-4, but as with anyone... that would probably be sometime like 4:30-5.

now, we haven't talked about it on the blog, but bruce is in the process of job hunting and was given an offer at our old high school to teach some advanced math classes. well, he is also holding on to a position at his other high school where he would teach guitar. interesting... what should he do? he wasn't (or still isn't) quite sure yet either and he must let lake mary know by tomorrow (thursday). he wanted some advice so at this point we split up; bruce went to the room to skype and write our family members for their opinions and i rode to penny markt for the normal lunch stuffs. i went in a hurry because we both wanted to be sure that we had time to go swimming again and try again our awesome idea of somehow making these german drinks cold. oh yeah, another thing, before i left, bruce was speaking with the nice woman that runs our place and found out that she can and will do our laundry. we have a german mother! she told us that she has two daughter (one of them is the other woman that helps run the place) but that she also has a son so that we need not worry about being embarrassed over our incredibly dirty and stinky clothes.

i returned with the goods and bruce had talked with a few of the family (including bonnie) and we headed to hawaiisee. well this part was not very exciting. we've been trying all of the meats and cheeses that one can buy at our lovely penny markt and we are almost through them all... all but one. it is called esrom. so i bought it... naturally, we hadn't had it yet and it is cheese, it must be good. wrong! it tasted like trash, filth, like the manure stench that we have described in previous posts. i, ben, the kid who eats everything, could not and would not eat more than my half piece. absolutely gross. bruce ate a piece or two... but that was it. at least the meats were good- turkey and some salted ham that was almost prosciutto like.

alright, for the next not-so-exciting part, our make shift "drink-cooler-downer", didn't work. we tried it again using bonnie's idea about not sinking them into the muck at the bottom only to pull up our fanta and beers to find them just as warm as they had started. great. at least fanta doesn't taste bad when it is warm, so we drank it and left the beers for another day. the idea is simply brilliant... we really cant believe that it didn't work. but here we are again- beerless. jam.

alright, so to hana. hana arrived at about 4:30 and after we unloaded her fully packed car, we all decided to again go swimming.

flashback: hana is a friend of our family's who originally met bruce while he was studying abroad in freiburg. she is from the czech republic and she was also studying there at the time. since then, she has visited our family's house in lake mary for a month long trip where we traveled around florida and whatnot. brent and i stayed with her in prague and throughout the czech republic for a week and a half during the world cup 4 years ago. and also, my parents and sister stayed with her in prague sometime a few years back. she's been a great friend and we were excited that she had overlapping vacation time and decided to drive to flintsbach for a visit.

we went swimming for a bit, caught up, and just relaxed after our tennis and hana's 5 1/2 hour drive. it was nice, the sun was out, and the water was not too cold at all.

alright, the next and probably most exciting thing, dinner. we cleaned up and went to our regular falkensteiner's for our delicious german meal. and, if you remember, wednesday is when the polka band plays... and even better, today there were dancers. awesome...and that's not all. we ordered two large beers (and a small one for hana which she took nearly 2 hours to drink), a salad with grilled turkey (again, naturally for hana), and two man meals- grilled fish on a stick! fantastic- way better than that poop-cheese that we'd had for lunch, these fish made up for anything bad that we'd eaten yet... except they were not quite so filling. no problem... we ordered a jägerschnitzle after our fish. very american... not so german. double meal! our dinner was perfect and we sat around and talked (in german, of course) until almost 11 where we then came back to zimmer 1, relaxed, and prepared for bed.

tomorrow, who knows what we'll do. i'm just glad that i won tennis.

july 13th

today is the day we finally own the mountain outside our room. benjamin woke up at his normal hour, got breakfast and spent an hour or so writing emails. bruce slept as normal, waking about the same time benjamin was ready to get the day started. it didn't take long to decide that we're hiking riesenkopf today -- the second and higher cross that looks over flintsbach. it took about 5 minutes to get to penny markt, and after buying some meats, cheeses and bread for the hike, we rode our bikes to the bottom of the mountain and got started. it was clear that benjamin wanted to get there quickly, so, without many breaks at all, we hiked a 3-hour, 2500 foot hike in about 1.5 hours, going through 3 liters of water between us. of course, on our way, we passed the sign from our last hike and couldn't help acting like americans for a second or two:




we got to the top, wrote our names in yet another book below the cross, and relaxed with all the food we could eat. once we were finished, we took a couple pictures and made our very own world cup video:

for those interested, here's the view with a couple of important places in flintsbach labeled (click on the picture for a larger view).it took even less time to get back down the mountain (we're getting pretty good at iking by now), and so we were back home around 4 in the afternoon. bruce took a long shower while benjamin relaxed, then after benjamin's shower, the two played cribbage, drank spezi and relaxed. we wanted to try a new restaurant for dinner (one for which we had seen many signs the last few weeks), so we got on our bike around 6 and started out towards our new destination. it took about 10 minutes by bike, and as we were trying to look our bikes up, a strong-accented bayerish lady told us not to lock them there. she pointed around the corner, which we followed, locked our bikes and sat down. bruce put his feet up as usual, and within seconds, the bayerish lady told him not to put his feet on the chair (a folding chair, of all things). of course, by now, bruce was ready to leave and go back to our old-faithful, falkenstein, so we ordered a stein of beer each, drank them and left. we got to falkenstein, ordered another beer each (3 liters between us, to counteract the water we drank earlier), and had a nice relaxing dinner: benjamin ordered liver noodle soup again and a beef stew with fresh horseradish, bruce lamb cutlets with roasted potatoes and green beans. we made it back to our room around 10, in time for a good night's sleep before hana arrives tomorrow.

july 12th

fahrräder!
today we finally did something that we've been talking about the entire trip... we finally rented bikes. after a nice sleep through a very windy night, benjamin woke up early as usual, went to breakfast, read some bible, and kind of hung out until lazy old man bruce woke up. he gives me some crap, but it's understandable... we are on urlaub (vacation) and he isn't really sleeping all day. he typically misses breakfast (which is supposed to end at 9:30) but he is always up soon after that. i don't miss it... i think my wife would be a bit disappointed seeing as how she is the only one working right now and, well obviously, we're paying for it. she has taught me well. anyway... to the bike part. awesome.

ok, so bikes. because i hate walking to brannerburg (which i did a million times extra during the week of the hives), we took the train this morning to the tourist center and we rented bikes for the rest of the trip. bikes make everything so easy... we're spoiled in the usa where we simply drive everywhere, which is awesome, but we don't have a car, and please don't forget, we're in flintsbach. we're not in a big town... no one comes here except for a few german tourists... this is small town germany and so everything is some distance away (including our neighborhood penny markt).

we haven't looked back. we rode home, rode back to penny markt to return all of our empty bottles (you get money back for doing this), bought new drinks, lunch stuff, and rode to our very own hawaiisee. yeah, we pretty much own it by now. oh and we had the greatest idea ever!... well kinda. we figured out a way to make our beer cold in this land without ice or refrigerators. it really was a brilliant idea... bruce bought some laundry line at the penny markt which we then used to tie on 4 beers. we then sank these beers to the bottom of the lake, tying the other end to benjamin's float, which also worked as an anchor. lean. we thought, duh, the water is colder at the bottom... and because it's freakin cold on the top, it must be nearly frozen down below. if only we could put our beers there and wait, say 30 minutes, we would pull up some ice cold beers to enjoy while we float out here... beating the germans at their own beer drinking game!

yeah right. gross. we could not tell the difference and ended up pouring the beers out (sorry brent). after this disappointment, a storm looked to be coming and we rode (on our bikes) home. lean... this now takes like 2 minutes instead of 20 or 30. everything is so close now.

*later that evening, when talking to bonnie (our resident landscape architect), she thought that the beers perhaps got covered in the muck at the bottom and therefore didn't get cold. we're going to test this advanced landscape architect theory tomorrow.

after losing in cribbage (me=ben), we decided to play tennis as the storm really only teased and on clay courts, you wet them down before you play anyway. we played for almost 3 hours where i (ben) lost again 6-2, 6-4, 7-5. at least i started to make it close and have yet to lose to some 16-year-old who only slices the ball (bruce). but what can i say... i cant hold serve very well and i do get a little frustrated. but we had fun as always. after that we showered and went to brannerburg (on our bikes= 5 minutes, maybe 7) to eat at Barolo. we are home now to read and blog... it's supposed to rain tomorrow. maybe this would be a reason to sleep in. we'll see.

july 11th

your guest blogger today, for the first part at least, is der martin kirchberger. at about 8:00, bruce was awoken by the phone in our room. it was patrick, the owner of the kneipe at the soccer fields. he had a tennis emergency -- a 4-person team from an hour away had just arrived to play flintsbach's 4-person team. problem was, 1 of flintsbach's players couldn't make it, so they were short one man. he asked bruce if he'd play, which of course was easy to agree to. when bruce got to the courts some 10 minutes later, patrick quickly took bruce aside and explained that he was martin kirchberger, a flintbach native for more than 10 years. he made it clear to everyone that bruce was simply a nickname, so when patrick mistakenly called bruce bruce, they knew why. because of martin's rank in the town, bruce played 1st on the team -- meaning, he had to play the best player from the other village. his name was michi, a 16-year-old who couldn't have been 5 feet tall. of course, as a 29-year-old playing a 16-year-old, bruce was pretty confident as he waltzed out on the clay courts, only to get absolutely eviscerated 6-0, 6-2. the whole time, patrick's saying it's okay, no worries, you're doing fine. turns out, the 16-year-old is ranked 5th in bayern and that the remaining 3 players on the team were happy not to play him.

after 4 matches of singles, of which 3 were lost miserably to the opponents, we played two matches of doubles to finish up the day. bruce and his partner manuel did not get matched up against the wunderkind (who won his doubles match 6-1, 6-1), so he salvaged a little pride and served the hell out of a 6-1, 6-2 win. when all was said and done, flintsbach lost 102-100 (total games), so a couple points here and there would've done it. it didn't seem to matter to anyone else, however; they all happily got in their cars and went drinking together. bruce would've gone with, but having already spent 4 hours playing tennis (during which time benjamin waited in the room, read and slept) he decided to bail and hang out with his brother.

what we did next was awesome. christine had told us of a dorffest (a little village festival) in mühlbach (a tiny village between oberaudorf and kiefersfelden) in which her family was participating. benjamin and bruce got on the train, walked the 30 minutes to mühlbach, and got there just in time for a couple brass quartet pieces and a stein of beer. the fankhausers (christine's parents and brother) were happy to see bruce again and get to know benjamin, and they invited us to georg's birthday party (christine's brother) on the 26th. after eating nothing for breakfast or lunch and playing 4 sets of tennis, needless to say bruce's 3 beers (a stein's worth in the states) went to his head. benjamin didn't play tennis that morning, but he had 2 steins -- one normal and one raddler (half beer half fanta), so he was just as happy as bruce. we said our goodbyes and lumbered back towards oberaudorf, stopping at the lügsteinsee for a quick swim and another beer (why? why???). we made it to the train station, went one stop back to flintsbach and waited our beer out in our room for a while. for dinner before the finals, we went to our favorite, falkensteiner: benjamin ordered liver noodle soup, a matzaball-looking mess of liver and pasta in some kind of broth; bruce ordered jägerschnitzle, a tasty piece of pork covered in a mushroom sauce with spätzle to mix in. nothing alcoholic this meal, that's for sure. we had planned on going to patrick's to watch the finale, but as tired as we were after dinner, we decided to watch it from the comfort of our own beds, which was nice. we both kind of wanted the netherlands to win, but the way it turned out wasn't too bad. spain deserved it, in this author's opinion.

july 10th

munich!
the week of the hives is over... as it turned out, after duck and i slept our last night on the uncomfortable futon with only my clothes and jackets to cover us and of course no pillows, apparently duck was allergic to the sheets and covers from the hotel bed. weird... i know. we had briefly tested that a few nights before but had started to late. she woke up in the middle of the night itching after sleeping on a bed of my clothes. well, because she was itching, we put my clothes away only to wake up 3 hours later with hive city all over her body. the last night at the almröserl was nice as all 5 of us shared a room. i had made the mistake of booking the room with bruce for one night too short... oh well. we snuck them in and we left early. no problem.

so... to munich. munich is about an 1 1/2 northwest of flintbach and we wanted to get into the city early so that we could spend the entire day together. we caught the 9:08 train north. bruce and brent went to buy tickets, duck/bonnie/i went to the bakery... chocolate croissants, lean.

after sleeping in and out on the train and switching trains in rosenheim, we arrived. we stuffed all of brent/bonnie/duck's stuff into one of those bourne identity lockers at the train station and began our walk from the ostbahnhof to the city center. bonnie was the only one who hadn't been to munich before... so we figured we had to show her something kind of munichy- like the glockenspiel at marienplatz or something else touristy. all brent wanted all day was a döner and a vuvuzela at which point his trip would be complete. he made sure to remind us all of this the entire day as we walked through the tourist world of munich.

it was hot. and, sorry mutt, the glockenspiel is less impressive every time... and we were even a bit unlucky, if you want to call it that. we walked into marienplatz around 11:15 to find out that the clock plays at 11 and 12. hmm... would we wait? let's ask bonnie. bonnie, do you want to watch the glockenspiel? "no... it's ok". awesome. so we walked down to karlsplatz (another bourne location... "he's on the tram") and played in the fountain before heading to the olympic park.

flashback: brent and i had traveled to munich during the world cup 4 years ago and spent most of our time at the olympic park. this is where the fan park was where you could watch the games with a million of your closest friends. we wanted to show everyone this place, not ignoring the fact that it is a really pretty park.

ok, we go to the olympic park. every one enjoys it. we walk to the top of the hill in the center of the park where you can see the entire city and eat at the little biergarten... curry wurst, naturally. oh, and a salad and cola light for duck, naturally... except i preempted her leaching off of my plate and ordered for her her very own portion of pommes. she didn't want me to do it, typical, but dont forget duck... you ate them. good husband.

back to marienplatz for a little shopping before heading towards their hotel where we would separate. bruce wanted to go into the kaufhaus to look for the Matrix 2 in german (the movie he saw 7 times in a row when it came out while studying in freiburg)... we found the sports stuff and, yes, brent bought his vuvuzela. he also bought one for beth and i and bought bonnie a shirt. his trip was nearly complete. bruce didnt find his movie. we then went into a bookstore where duck and i bought a large hard covered tome of the entire Chronicles of Narnia... naturally, in german. i'm reading The Last Battle now.

walking back to the train station to pick up there stuff, brent got his döner. and it might have been the best one of the trip. he was ready to go... his trip was complete. we took the train to the airport, found the shuttle to their hotel, and waited for what would be the end. duck and i fought a little... i guess we don't do super well when we're sad. but all is ok... they left, got to their hotel, ate pizza, and enjoyed their AC. not a bad way to end.

bruce and i turned right around and headed back to flintsbach. exhausted, we arrived, showered (i think) and went to patrick's for beer, grilled meats, and the Germany vs. Uruguay game. Germany won 3-2, taking third place in the world cup again.

the day was over and our visit with the family as well. we had a great time with them and miss them already. so now it is back to german... no more english for 2+ weeks.