july 1st

we got up early, since we slept through breakfast yesterday. should've slept through it again, though, since bruce couldn't eat any of it. too early. benjamin had a bunch: brötchen mit nutella, ham, salami, coffee and eggs. bruce had tea. that's rights, tea. then we played a quick tennis match (6-3, 6-4 bruce) -- we're definitely getting better on clay. we came back and played a game a cribbage, then got ready to be picked up by christine, an old friend from 6 years ago. she took us to hechtsee, where we met darla earnest (another old friend), her 3-year-old lukas and a couple other americans who are here studying musical theater with darla and her husband bruce. on our way back from hechtsee, we stopped to eat, meeting bruce, darla and lukas for some wurst and beer. speaking english with the earnests was a nice break from german, but now that we're back, jetzt geht's schon wieder mit dem deutsch los. to get back to flintsbach from kiefersfelden, we drove through oberaudorf, the village bruce spent most of his time in 6 years ago. we grabbed some ice cream and walked to the lutheran church, saying hi to the pastor while we were there. (he remembered bruce -- it seems that everyone here remembers him for 1 of 2 things: either as the one who sang this german praise song "ich stehe in deiner gegenwart" [which he didn't write, but says 'lyrics by bruce moser' in their hymnals], or, as that guy who hiked brünnstein, this 1,600 meter mountain in the area, in flip-flops. he's like a legend here.) after a long day of meeting lots of old friends, hearing about lots of job opportunities and making more appointments every minute than we've made in the last 5 days, getting back home felt great. we came in, picked up our new soccer ball and went straight to the fields, juggling and shooting for about an hour. a short cribbage game and a spezi later, it's blog time then bed.