Holy crap, it's snowing!

Just received the latest from the Germany crew, wonder how the Miami kids are liking the snow?

Yes, I used the “s” word.

We had our usual lovely breakfast of crusty rolls (Andrea often eats about 3 of them with chocolate spread on them) and various cereals, cold cuts, cheese, butter and so on. Then to the indoor soccer gymnasium, where we played as a country team for the first time ever. While we didn’t lose any games, we tied the eventual winner of the bracket and the tournament. (We also tied our other game, while the top team beat their opponent.) The match against the eventual winner, Poland, was very intense and easily the best match of the day.

After some debate, disagreement, discord, our team has decided to stay together for the tournament tomorrow. The dilemma was that it is a 4v4 tournament, we have six players and no one wants to sit. With assurances that I will manage the subs, everyone has agreed that it would be better to have a couple of subs throughout the day. We’ll probably play about eight 10 minute games in about 5 hours. I’m glad that has been resolved and that they would stick together. (The boys voted to “let” the girls go find another team and the girls just seethed. Luckily, my vote counts for 5 so the girls win.)

After a lovely lunch of fish, mashed potatoes and gravy, we were ready for the workshops. The choices were freestyle soccer (juggling tricks demonstrated and taught by a world-class professional juggler from the UK), graffiti, video editing and drumming. Our kids split up between the graffiti and the freestyle. When we went out to the pitch for the freestyle and the graffiti, it began snowing. Not really hard and it didn’t really last too long. Just the fact that it was cold enough to snow was a bit jarring for most of us. The kids didn’t seem to mind it, though. Our kids just put on their warm ups and shrugged it off.

We then had a bit of free time before dinner, then it was time to get our little country presentation together. We decided to do a skit. It was ‘a-ight.’ It was a lesson on how to pick up American girls, with our boys being clearly outclassed by Barack Obama. The girl called them out, “You’re a jerk” and the New Boyz took over from there. After some “jerking”, “Barack” told everyone that he’s a jelly donut in German and the whole sad affair was put behind us. We managed a few cheap laughs and got a few people to bust a move, including me. All in good fun.

Our “surprise” for the evening was a night walk “treasure hunt.” We’re surrounded by woods and it is only a short walk through them to the castle. We then came back by way of trails and pastures and eventually found the treasure. Walking through the damp woods, in the dark, with 40-odd teenagers is an experience not to be described. Laughing, yelling, screaming, joking, etc. Fun to watch … that is, if you could see. I tried to shoot a little video, but I doubt that anything will actually show up. The sound track should prove to be interesting though.

By the way, the treasure turned out to be a chest full of candy and snacks. Just what any teenager would want at 11:00 at night. Pleasant dreams… once they come down from the sugar high and get to sleep. I imagine our team’s performance tomorrow may be a bit suspect. We’ll see.

G-night from cold, damp Beichlingen.