july 6th

one of the first rainy days of the trip was also one of the most relaxing. bonnie and bruce slept while brent, carissa and benjamin ate breakfast and went to penny markt for lunch things. they got back just in time for the rain to start, so we all sat in zimmer 1 and played cards, drank beer, spezi and fanta, relaxed and watched the rain. around noon, it was still rainy, so we opened up all the meats and cheeses and had a feast. the rain died down a bit, so we attempted to play a doubles match. bruce and carissa dropped a set to benjamin and brent but were up 2-1 in the second when the rains came back. we all sat under the roof of the tennis clubhouse, chatting with another set of older tennis women who were just as happy to sit inside and drink. a relaxing hour or so later, the rain subsided again and we kicked the soccer ball around in the drizzle. wet and cold, we got back to our rooms for showers and decided to eat again at falkensteiner.

another great dinner later, bruce and brent walked to the penny markt for ice cream and brought it back to zimmer 1, where we all sat watching the uruguay/netherlands pre-game and eating the delicious, creamy german ice cream by the spoonfuls. brent, benjamin and bruce left the mädels right before the game to get to patrick's before the start, where we had a couple beers and were the only three in a 40+ person room who did not want uruguay to win. before going to bed, we dropped by zimmer 1 again to find carissa swollen and hived. bruce asked around the hotel for some benadryl and found a nice women and her mother who had a couple cremes with some crazy slavic words on them, but they helped a bit. not enough, though, which leads us to july 7th: the day of the hives.