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.
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