july 9th

after yesterday's hike, the group was more than happy to make today a relaxing day. so we did. we woke up late -- some got breakfast, some didn't. the weather was beautiful, so we all made our way to the courts for a good hour of tennis and reading (the author will let you decided who did what). benjamin and bruce then led the group to the inn river, the border of austria, to make sure they'd seen everything flintsbach had to offer before they leave. from there, we split up -- the women went back to get bathing suits and floats, the men went to penny markt to grab lunch items. we all met at the hawaiisee for the most relaxing afternoon of our trip, sipping beer on floats, full from meets and cheeses and breads, sun beating down on our stomachs. it could not have been a nicer ending to a wonderful visit from the family.

after we were all pretty burnt and ready to get out of the sun, we made our way back to the room. carissa showered while the rest of us went to falkensteiner for a stein of beer before dinner. carissa met us there, then together we walked for the last time to brannenburg to get pizza and wine at our favorite italian restaurant, barolo. the owner chatted our ears off in german and kept wanting to talk with momar in italian (every time he'd say something to her in italian, she'd look at bruce as if he somehow could help...). after salads and pizzas, the group walked slowly back to flintsbach, stopping again at falkensteiners for one last round before tomorrow's departure. this time, bruce and carissa drank schnapps and benjamin and brent drank steins of beer (the author is sure bonnie drank something. bug juice, maybe? yoo-hoo?). we all stayed there til late, way too loud and laughing way more than a good german would. it was our last night; benjamin and bruce can go back to their german disguises tomorrow.

july 8th

guest bloggers: brent and bonnie

yo yo yo, what up Emeerrika.

july 8th. they day of the hives, part "forever". so here it goes:

(as told by Brent) Duck, still allergic to germantown, woke up at 3:45 in the morning itching her poison ivy/bubonic plague hives and benjamin frequenting the bathroom due to his genetic nervous stomach. (thanks mutt) Bruce was then woken up, did all the work to put them on a train, and they were on their way to the doctor in the next town over at 8:04. ya, 8:04... its germany. Boo and I slept... soundly. sorry hivey. the doctor then called for "frau moser" <--1337, more antihistamines were supplied and they were on their way. (here's what the hives looked like...)

about the same time that married began their trek back to homebase, bruce had risen from his sleep and offered to walk and buy the lunch and snacks for the day. and guess what blog readers? they ran into each other halfway. weird? no... not weird. when there is only one road connecting the two towns, it is not that hard to tell one american from another. anyway, they shopped. they came home. woke boo and I up and we began our hike. no preparation.

(as told by Bonnie) When Ben and Carissa came into our room so early in the morning to tell us they were on the way to the doctor, Bruce noted that we may not be able to make the hike, and that maybe our new friend Christine could just drive us. Though I was concerned for Carisssa, I was secretly beaming inside because (I'm sorry) I HATE hiking and the thought of just being able to drive to the end thrilled me. But, alas, Ben and Carissa made it back and were both determined to make the climb, so the whole group made our way about 11am for what would become a 7.5 hour hike. I'll let Brent tell you about the first part of our journey, because I sort of lost my head about 15 minutes in. Take it away boss...

(the big man) ok. so like boo said she hates hiking, she became mute, no lie, 5 minutes after we all decided to go hiking, and continued to get upset about the idea of actually walking 12 miles through mountains. anyway, enough picking on my soon to be wife....the journey began. We began climbing. walking, climbing, walking in 30 minute intervals stopping for water and fanta. about 2 hours in (1 hour left until the Hohe Asten) we find bonnie to the point of hating everything (including everyone), myself scared that my fiancee is going to throw the ring in my face 4000 feet above sea level for picking on her, benjamin being a loner, and bruce explaining the past 6 seasons of Lost to duck to keep their heads. being a good "potential" husband, i knew that being on the border of Austria, walking a ton of feet up in to the sky, and knowing that there are cows at our first destination, i began praying that there be at least one brown swiss dairy cow in the group. this cow would change boo's attitude for the rest of the trip. i will let boo explain.

(Bonnie) As I type, I'm feeling guilty for being such a poor sport about this whole hiking thing (since Ben and Carissa are running on no sleep and are full of hives AND we are being passed by German hikers that are probably 50 years my senior), but my bad attitude only lasts for a few more minutes because we are drawing near to an opening from our evergreen-heavy hike. As we walk farther, I can see rolling hills of the most luscious green grass you've ever seen. I look to my feet and there are cow patties everywhere. YES! That means there must be cows! I finally see them in the distance and to my surprise, hidden in a pack of slightly obese Guernsey (a dairy breed with red and white spots) cows is a BROWN SWISS!!!!! {side note: for those who don't know me, I grew up showing dairy cows and am an All-American dairy "judger"....like Pedro from Napolean Dynomite. Brown Swiss are my favorite breed of cow and I've been obsessed with seeing one in the Alps (their native land) since I was a child. So this day is kind of a big deal for me} My mood does a 180, which is great for the rest of the group, who have quietly endured my whining. I the begin to tell my future family about what makes the udder of a cow desirable. Here are a few pointers, in case you've ever wondered: 1. udder depth: a saggy udder could lead to something very unfortunate. Like a cow stepping on her own teats. (yikes!) So we like to see an udder that is held above the hocks, otherwise know as the elbows 2. cleavage....teats that point too far out or in make for difficult milking, so one should always choose a cow with squarely placed teats. How do the teats take on this form you ask? A magical thing called the medial suspensory ligament. Essentially, cows with cleavage are the best. 3. capacity: cows need to make milk. and the more the better. so the bigger the udder, the better the cow. for some reason all of the German cows here tend to be on the heftier side, and have very small udders. not very efficient with their food if you ask me. There are many other factors in judging an udder, but for the sake of time, I'll stop there. Just know that God put that Brown Swiss on the top of that mountain just for me and I'm very thankful for it. After practically worshiping this majestic little cow (with her petite horns and cheerful bell around her neck) we walk up to a Biergarten atop the mountain for lunch. Meats, cheese, bread and an odd looking fruit that looks somewhat poisonous are what we have packed and make for a scrumptious meal. (here's what it looks like from Hohe Asten.)

The men conclude our stop here with a glass of the local beer and we merrily (sans my pouting) continue on our way. The remainder of our hike is fairly easy. There is little climbing left to do and we are making our descent now to Bichlersee. Sometimes the trail gets a bit confusing because there are so many crossroads, but because the Germans are avid hikers (and according to Brent, do everything right), there are signs pointing in the right direction and little red dots to follow along the trail. (Here's Bichlersee.)

(Brent) alright. its getting really late here and i am going to make this last part pretty short. Bain and I swam in the 60 degree water while the rest slept for an hour or so. we finished the food, relaxed, and then realized that we have a couple more hours to walk. the worst. being tired of hiking and then realizing that you have to walk "down" the mountain. We walked down towards Oberaudorf, left the trails, continued walking on the side of the roads and out of nowhere we see the car of Christine, bruce's friend from a ways back, anxious to give us rides to where ever we need. We all decided on a dinner place to grab a big beer and some bavarian food in her little town. oh, but wait. its not the 1337 USA. its germany. people dont drive Suburbans. they drive Fiats that fit 4 small sized people. not even one me. so being gentlemen, the boys picked up the bags, put the ladies on their way, and continued hiking. what is the difference between 11 and 12 miles. nothing really.

we got to the restaurant we sat, we relaxed, we chatted with Christine, but most importantly we were done with our hike. dinner was dinner, great as always, but it was funny because the skinniest, most petite girl i know ordered the most manly order of all time. we all are sitting there as our plates began to arrive and "wow that looks good", "nice pick man", "yum" were said. and then comes duck's meal. A roasted pig knee with a giant skewer and knife stabbed in to the top of it, served with potatoes and and delicious sauce. probably 2500 calories on a plate. our jaws dropped in envy, and ducks meal made bruce, bain, and myself look like we were watching our weight. Not Man. Ducks meal = Man. Men on the hike = not Man orders. (she only had about two bites of the meat and three bites of the potatoes, all washed down with a coke light. so i guess it was bains order.... Man!)

anyways, enough of that crap. we ate. we paid. we walked to the ice cream store right next to bastian schweinsteiger's parents store. ate ice cream. and then parted ways with christine. walked another 1,999,328 miles to the train station, bought tickets and returned. finally, back in flintsbach.

boo and hivey came back up to the rooms and showered and chatted, while the MEN came in, dropped the bags and made their way to Beer. delicious beer. i love beer. so much. we sat, like men, with giant steins and schnapps and got a little relaxed. We then returned to the rooms. watched the movie Platoon in german. and snoozed....should have gotten more beer. always should get more beer.

july7th

tag der nesselausschalg... our attempt at the day of the hives.
nightmare... on elm street, no joke. benjamin's cute wife, our sweet carissa, was overtaken by the itching, ridiculous histamine response of our body for reasons unknown to us. It was almost midnight. as bruce mentioned, the uruguay vs. netherlands game had just finished and as we return to zimmer 1, we find that duck is totally covered in hives. hmmm... ok, so she took some allergy medicine that bonnie had brought and, again as mentioned, used some slavic cream to soothe her erupting skin. it worked... for about 3 or so hours. benjamin didn't sleep all night, in fear of the worst, and kept making sure duck was breathing. this is small town germany. there aren't stores open at midnight. there is nothing open at midnight. the trains hardly even run at midnight... there was nothing that we could do. ok, so duck, being the smart nurse, takes all of benjamin's clothes and lays them over the bed being sure not to touch the sheets (they may be causing the hives!), rubs herself down with slavic cream, and goes to sleep. benjamin doesn't sleep... he's nervous like his mother, so he basically stayed up as long as he can and set his alarm to check on wifey. 4 am--duck wakes up and is again covered worse than before! the earliest we can do anything is 8, so we still have time to wait and try to sleep before a visit to the pharmacy or, at worst, an ER. duck calmly covers herself with the remaining cream, puts socks on her hands, and goes back to sleep. benjamin waits... seeing almost every hour, until 7... time to get up and walk the 45 minutes to the neighboring town to visit a pharmacy as soon as they open. duck's legs and face are so swollen, she tells me that she looks like someone from Buffy the Vampire Slayer... but, of course, I have no idea what she is talking about. I think she looks more like the beast from that old beauty and the beast tv show. Either way, she looks bad and she is miserable. we get to the pharmacy right at opening, benjamin explains in german but the pharmacist needs no explanation and we buy their antihistamine equivalent. duck takes it, we wait an hour or so, and she begins to get better... finally (we now think it must be an allergy to an antibiotic that duck was taking). so, we get back to flintsbach to find everyone still sleeping... duck and benjamin now exhausted and the day begins. we decide to go into austria to a small city right across the border named kufstein (a huge city compared to flintsbach's 2000 people). we all eat döners for lunch and walk around for a few hours. the city was nice, but between making fun of duck's angelina jolie lips and not really knowing anything about the city, it didn't take too long to walk through everywhere we wanted. we eat ice cream and headed back on the 12 minute train to flintsbach. we had to get back for bruce's phone interview. the 4 youngers napped as bruce phone interviewed and then we 4 went to play tennis and headed to the hawaiisee again where bruce met us. we swam and relaxed just a bit before heading to patrick's for the germany vs. spain semifinal. bruce's friend kristine came, so the 6 of us drank beer (yes, even bonnie and duck), ate grilled foods and watched the germans get totally outplayed by the magnificent spanish. it was fun but sad... and when it ended, we headed home. tomorrow, we all thought, would be our day to hike to bichlersee, we needed our rest.

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.

july 5th

Guest blogger today: Carissa

I started my trip yesterday with a early romantic run with Benny through the quiet streets of Flintsbach. We had the same lofty expectations for today but instead slept in (courtesy of last night's festivities). We were finally roused when local scents swirled in through our open windows. You are probably expecting that aromas of edelweis wafted up through our nostrils but alas, the fragrance of cow manure awoke us to a new day--which after a few days here feels familiar to us. Four of us went down to breakfast and then all of us readied ourselves for some tennis...on clay courts. Patrick soon joined us and the boys played a sweaty and grueling game of doubles while Bonnie and I found shady spots on tops of grassy knolls for reading.

We were soon ravenously hungry and walked to the Penny Markt which we knew would be open today. We loaded up on cheeses and meats and grapes and juices and had a feast by a creek in Brannenburg. We kept on walking, farther from our home to a local tennis shop to have a couple of our rackets restrung. We then took a detour to find a local thrift shop, "this way" a sign tells us. After walking through yards and down neighborhood streets and stopping two different women for directions, we arrive at a garage full of some traditional Bayerisch garb, German books, and discarded trinkets. After no purchases, we retrace our steps, finally back to the Penny Markt when Bonnie has the best idea of the day: floats for swimming in our local water hole. By the time we have made ourselves out to be unmistakable American tourists (swimwear, flip flops and matching blown up rafts and inner tubes) the weather is cool and wet. But we are set on swimming after so much walking. And we do, though its cold and not very refreshing.

By now, the butter cheese and paprika salami have worn off and we are ready for dinner (back in Brannenburg) at Barolo's, an Italian gem. We order pizzas all around. We are nearly satisfied but Venezia (fabulous gelato stop) is just across the street. We walk home after another rain storm and all stumble into one of our rooms for cards, blogging, skyping, and lounging. Another beautiful day in Germany, so schön.

july 4th

independence day, the first full day with everyone, was as fun as any we've had in the states. we woke up rather late, and after breakfast, went on the dime tour of the village ending up at the soccer fields. we started juggling, and after about 20 minutes, 5 middle school kids showed up and wanted to play us 5 on 5. we played them for about an hour, having a great time listening to them trying out a few of their english phrases. near the end, patrick showed up, and we played a bit more seriously at the end, beating the germans by two in the end. from the soccer fields we went to the badesee (also called the hawaiisee) and swam for a while. hungry and tired, we wanted a nice big lunch, so we decided to walk to the penny markt (halfway between flintsbach and brannenburg) to get all sorts of meats, cheeses and breads. naturally, though, it's sunday, and they're not open. needing to get something, we walked back into town to the one place that seems to always be open, we sit down there and a nice german lady comes up to us, asks us what we want to drink, and answers bruce's question with, "no, the kitchen's closed until 5:30 -- only drinks." so, for lunch, the males had a stein of beer each ("lunch in liquid form," the german waitress said) and the females split a bag of skittles. a little drunk from drinking beer without eating, we decided to set forth on a short hike to petersburg kirche, stopping often along the way for some sips of water and/or jagrmeister. at the top, brent and benjamin had a beer (there's a small cafe up top), we came back down and went directly to restaurant we were at earlier, ordering a huge meal of lamb, currywurst, schnitzle and beer. full, satisfied and loopy, we walked at dusk to the soccer fields, grabbing one more beer at patrick's before he closed up shop. we spent the last hours of the day juggling poorly, laughing americanly and shooting at each other in the dark of night. it's amazing we made it back to our rooms.

july 3rd

another beautiful day here, even more than normal since the family arrived today. we started the day by playing our daily match, then went early to patrick's to get a good spot for the game. we watched deutschland beat argentina 4-0 with a bunch of flintsbach locals, drinking beer and eating grilled meats with bread. here a video of the environment after the 2nd goal:

we came back after the game to play a quick game of cribbage, then both cleaned up to meet the rest at the train station. they arrived just in time to drop their stuff off in the room and get to the first half of the spain/paraguay game. after brent had a couple quick beers, we came back home at halftime and the lovely fräulein who runs the place made us a great dinner.

july 2nd

a long day, but a good one. bruce slept in again while benjamin went to breakfast and had a nice little conversation with the lovely fräulein who runs the place. we needed to pick up a few things (benjamin's tennis racket, most importantly) before everyone else comes (tomorrow), so we left for brannenburg, the city about 30 minutes by foot north. of course, we didn't think too much about timing, so naturally the sport shop was closed for lunch when we got there. instead of waiting an hour and forty-five minutes, we decided benjamin'll just go tomorrow while bruce sleeps. on our way back home, bruce got a dönner and we bought a couple of healthy things for the others and alcohol for brent. we dropped all the stuff off and went straight to the tennis courts to play our daily match, leaving directly from there to go swimming at the badesee. with only 20 minutes or so before the start of the brazil/netherlands game, we didn't swim too long. we watched the game at the sportplatz with the locals, drank a couple beers each and had fun juggling during halftime. after the surprise ending, we wanted italian for dinner, so ... we went back to brannenburg to the restaurant we visited three days ago (the waiter that served us has waved to us every time we walked by). you may think that a 30-minute walk is a bit too long to make just for dinner (especially since we'd already gone there and back once before today), but it's not like it's an ugly walk. here's benjamin about 15 minutes in:

dinner was great, we made sure to eat some vegetables, and we were back in flintsbach by the beginning of the second game, uruguay/ghana. we also watched this game at patrick's, but this time without beer (we'd had enough today). by the end of regular time, it had gotten cold enough to think about leaving, so we rushed home to catch the extra time plus penalty kicks in our room. and now it's over, we're emotionally and physically drained, and brent, boo and mo come tomorrow. oh, it's gonna be fun.

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.

june 27th to 30th

june 27th

we arrived around 7:30 and went straight to the almröserl. after we checked in, we went to the soccer fields to watch the argentina/mexico game and bruce ran into an old friend of his - patrick. he was 15 when bruce was here last time, so he's about 22 now. we drank a couple beers during the game, went back to our room and fell asleep.

june 28th

we woke up, had breakfast and started exploring. we went first to brannenburg, the village about 2 km north, about the same size as flintbach. there we visited the tourist center and asked about renting bikes. on our way back, we bought a couple things for the room: bread, müsli, gummy bears, granola bars, landjäger and shampoo. we got back in time for the netherlands/slovakia game, and after a few beers we walked to austria (a 10-minute walk), came back to our room to pick up our tennis stuff, then played tennis for an hour or so. we finished in time for the second game (brazil/chile), but the restaurant we were going to watch it at was closed (ruhetag), and so we had to walk to brannenburg (about 30 minutes away). we had italian food and spezi during the game, came back for the end of the second half, and fell asleep.

june 29th

we woke up and decided to go hiking. we went first to petersburg kirche, about an hour up the mountains to the west. once we were there, we thought we'd go a little further, so we went another hour up the mountain to hohe aston, where we had lunch and beer. on our way back down, we thought we'd try to find the cross that looks over flintsbach from the west at the top of the mountain, so we took a left turn and hiked another hour up the mountain. at the top, we didn't reach the cross, but we could see it -- so, we hiked down a ways and tried another route. here, we came across a sign that said something like, "life-threatening danger, only experienced climbers beyond this point," so we knew we were on the right path. to get to the cross, we had to hold on to some rope while leaning backwards against a pretty steep rock face and repel down 40 feet or so. once we got there and stopped sweating, we wrote our names in the little book in the box underneath the cross. the view from the top was fantastic. after a 3-hour hike back home, we watched the paraguay/japan game from our room, grabbed something light to eat for dinner, then went back to Patrick's kneipe for the spain/portugal game. once we finished our beers at the end of the game, we made it back home and crashed.

june 30th

we woke up at 11:00, having missed breakfast. bruce went down to ask for a couple bowls and some milk, and he ate müsli on the balcony while writing a couple emails. after that, we went to brannenburg to get new strings for benjamin's racket (he broke them two days earlier) and a soccer ball. on our way back, benjamin bought himself a dönner and we both pitched in to carry a crate of 20 spezi back to the room. once here, we fell back asleep for an hour or so, then decided to try out our new soccer ball. afterwards, we came back to pick up our tennis stuff, went to play for a hour or so, then came back and went to dinner. wednesday is grilling-day at the restaurant we were at, so we enjoyed good food with a 15-person german polka band as entertainment. after a couple steins of beer and 2 schnapps, we came back to start out blog.