Germany: Soccer Camp Ends, August 5

Saturday, August 4, was Heinz's birthday. Heinz and Hella had worked all day to make some home made gnocchi, which was served with roast and vegetables. Excellent. Here we are drinking sekt (German champagne) before dinner. Joachim, Mathias, Lena, Hella, Susanne, Kerstin, Cliff and Heinz.





Heinz and Hella were the perfect hosts, not only letting us stay in their apartment for many days, but also serving us meal after meal. But occasionally we actually did help out. Here's proof:





This, by the way, is the setting for our stay with Heinz and Hella -- the pretty little town of Simmern.




Up on Sunday morning after the birthday party, Kerstin and Heinz decided to relive their youth and take a motorcycle ride to a rock music festival in the countryside nearby. "Nature One" it was called -- a weekend gathering of 50,000 German "techno-freaks."


Just kidding.


But they did take the bike to drive to the airport where Kerstin was going to pick up the rental car we were going to use for the rest of our trip around this part of Europe.

With the rental Cliff and Kerstin drove back to the town of Lütz where Thomas had his soccer camp. Time to pick him up at the end of the week. Mom's worries proved totally uncalled for: Thomas had had a wonderful time.

He had made friends immediately. He had played a lot of soccer, of course -- very tough training. And the entire camp had gone to see a top-level professional soccer game in Mainz featuring the defending Bundesliga champions.

Thomas said that the level of play of the boys at this camp was higher than for boys the same age that he has played with in the US or Sweden. If your German is good and you want to have a day-by-day description of his camp, visit http://www.fv-rheinland.de/html/aktuelles_hunsruck-mosel.php?cs=4745

Here are our pictures. Look at this incredible setting, at the foot of the mountains.

Thomas himself did really well. There were a total of 56 boys in the camp. In the campwide skills contest -- passing, dribbling, shooting, etc. -- he came in number 2. That ensured that he was selected to the all-star team that played against the camp counsellors on the last day of camp.

The All-Stars waiting for the game to start.

Thomas almost scored.....

and was very happy after the game.

Sunday evening, after we returned to Simmern from the camp, was our last with Heinz and Hella. We went to a romantic little village on the Rhine river, Ober-Wesel, where we had some traditional German food and wine from the region, of course.









On the hill above Ober-Wesel this old castle could be seen in the sun set. We decided to drive up and insepct the castle and the view from the top.