On Sunday morning, Mummy took me to the airport in Perugia so that I could catch a flight to Munich. When I got to Munich, I ran like nobody's business through the baggage claim and out into the lobby, where I was greeted by a driver who drove me to the train station. I would say that we were flying in on two wheels, but that would hardly be fair to the driver. I ran and caught the train to Nürnburg with just a few seconds to spare. A little over an hour later, I got to Nürnburg and ran through the train station checking which trains were on which platforms, because I couldn't find the central board that had them all. I got on the train by the hair of my chinny chin chin. A two-hour trip later, I was at Hof and I had four minutes to change trains, but I did so without any problem because my darling mother and brother had found out that it was just on the opposite track from where I got in. I took that train to Zwickau, an hour away, and then got off. I had a long layover so, for the first time that day, I bought a ticket (to Breitenbrunn) in advance and got something to eat, other than a nasty airline sandwich. So all was well with the world. While on the train, I called the swim camp and, after a few failed attempts, I managed to arrange my pickup. I got there just at bedtime: 9:00.
The next morning at seven-thirty, my roommate and I started getting ready for breakfast. At five minutes before the cafeteria let our group in, everyone was in the lobby waiting. Evidently some stereotypes are true; I cannot imagine that ever happening in Italy! After breakfast, we had a two-hour workout with a long competition of rock/paper/scissors for who got to do push-ups. Another new exercise for me was a teamwork drill: we had to swim while holding hands. In another drill, one partner kicked while the other pulled. Then we had lunch, a bit of free time, and then another two-hour workout. Have you ever tried swimming backwards? Well I have now. Not only were our feet in front, but we also had to do the pull starting from the bottom and going up. It was insanely hard. After practice, we had an hour and a half of free time, dinner, and an activity of choice. I chose swimming. (Don't worry, it was just hanging out in the pool).
Tuesday, I practically had to fall out of bed because I was so sore. I had another similar day in front of me. Breakfast at eight-fifteen, workout from nine-thirty to eleven-thirty. This time, we had to play the little boy slapping game to see who had to do streamline jumps. Once again, we did teamwork exercises, but instead of being in pairs, we worked in groups of seven, and then three and four (there are seven people in a lane). Sometimes we had to swim in a chain, so we would pull with one arm, and hold someone's ankle with the other. Then we had to swim in a weird sort of circle. Basically we swam slowly in a line, and whoever was at the back of the line had to sprint to the front. Another group effort exercise involved half the people floating in front, and the others in the back pushing them. My favourite was when we were grouped into threes and fours. One person had to swim underwater with his or her hand on the floor. When he/she needed to breathe, someone else had to go down and touch the for and take over. Only when the relief had taken over could the person surface. I liked it so much because the guys I was teamed with were responsive to my signals, so it felt like a great team effort. We also played leap frog. It's a lot harder when you have to tread water while the other person is leaping over your shoulders, let me tell you. Then we had lunch. After lunch, we had "trampoline time" and then another swim practice. This time instead of trying (and in my case failing) to swim backwards, we did fifty-meter relays in groups of three, and only doing twelve and a half meters at a time. Then almost immediately after practice, we had dinner. And can I tell you about dessert? It was a piece of boiled bread that had been stuffed with thick blueberry jelly before it was boiled, and then covered with runny vanilla custard. It was delicious. After dinner, we had about an hour of free time and then we went rock climbing. Turns out I'm extraordinarily bad at it, which I think I already knew but had forgotten. At nine o'clock, we were sent off to bed, none too soon for me.
On Wednesday, the day started the same way as the previous two days. Breakfast at eight-fifteen, and two hours of practice, but instead of working on teamwork, we mainly concentrated on turns. We did some of the funkiest turns I have ever seen. For example, a backwards flip turn for a backstroke to breaststroke turn. And all the turns that I thought I knew, the coach wanted me to do a different way. After practice we had lunch, and then we were split into a couple of groups, each doing a separate activity. I chose to do lacrosse. It's a really fun sport, although one little boy got overly competitive and spoiled the game. After that, we had another practice. For drylands, we had to play rock/paper/scissors for who had to do push-ups. One boy made the mistake of commenting that I always played rock, assuming that I wouldn't understand. Unfortunately for his friend, I did. After we were thoroughly tired of push-ups, we got to play the little boy slappy game for streamline jumps. By the end, I was so tired that my hands were shaking. Then we had warm ups. The most interesting part of that were the four hundred, where you had to get out every fifty meters and do give squats, and the backwards sprints. Then we did dives, but only about the last three were legal. They were mostly how high you could go, or how far out (jumping feet first). The last one was interesting, though. The coach would give us a simple arithmetic problem and then start blowing short blasts on his whistle when he got to the number that was the answer, we had to dive in. Mine was 1+1+2+4 so I had to dive in on the eighth blast. After that we had a competition for underwaters, but I had to drop out when there were just six of us left because unfortunately my back had been hurting since warm-ups, and I couldn't stand it any more. After practice, a meal always follows. This it was dinnertime. I had a delicious ham thingamabob and bread. It was scrumptious.
Thursday, I woke up early and showered. Which, as it turns out was pointless because I went and got sweaty just after breakfast. From just after breakfast until right before lunch, we were in the "Kleterwald" which literally means "climbing forest." It is a series of jungle gym-type courses all through the trees, with zip lines as well. If you think about a man-made structure that a monkey might be at home in, you've pretty much got it. The way they do security is really cool because once you are clipped onto a course, you can't get off until you are back on the ground. After hanging out all morning, we went into lunch, without even stopping to put our jackets in our rooms. Pretty much straight after lunch, we went and got changed into swimsuits, and then we were bused to a lake where those who wanted to braved the cold water, and those who didn't hung out playing various lawn games. I had a lovely nap in the grass. After a couple of hours, we all scrambled back into the bus and rode back to the camp, where we had a grilled dinner. After dinner, we had a talent show which had everything from dancing to organized games to the oddest play I have ever seen. It seemed to be based around the sounds that the group found on an app on their phones. After that, we went off to bed.
Friday morning, we got up extra early and packed everything except for our swim gear. At eight fifteen, everyone was out of their rooms and eating breakfast, after having deposited their suitcases in a stashed storage closet built just for that. After breakfast everybody hung out in the lobby looking at each other thinking to themselves "now what?" until it was time to get ready for our last practice, which, after a couple of warm ups seem to consist of chicken fighting (the game where you try to knock each other off of each other's shoulders) and a variant of tag that involved the pool. After that we had lunch and started shipping out. I got a ride from the swim camp down the station. I managed to catch all of my trains without a problem, although I never managed to get a ticket for my trip from Breitenbrunn to Zwickau. The Breitenbrunn station is so small that they don't even have a ticket office! After wandering around for quite a while, I finally found my hostel despite several misdirections and useless bits of "help". I was very glad to arrive, and crashed onto the bed immediately.
The next day, Saturday, I wandered around Munich, looking to see what I could see. I mostly saw the outsides of churches, as most of them were closed, and I didn't feel like getting arrested for breaking into a church. The order of the city hall was gorgeous. It was a Gothic style with all of the arches and spires to match. I did manage to get into Saint Peter's church, and I even climbed the bell tower since Jeremy wasn't there to do it. St. Peter's was done in a toned down version of Rococo. It was really well done. Awe inspiring, but not suffocating. I also walked to a museum of "antiquities" which turned out to be Greek and Etruscan artefacts. They are really cool, especially since I had been right near some of the places that they had been found. I know it doesn't seem like I did much, but by the time I had been and forth several times, I was well worn out by the end of the day.
On Sunday, I got up at seven, had breakfast at seven-thirty and left the hostel at eight. By eight-thirty, I was on the s-bahn to the airport. I had arrived by nine-twenty. I printed out my boarding cards, and checked my bag. Everything was automated self serve! The first time I had someone help me was at security. I got to the gate nearly an hour early, which suited me just fine. At about ten-thirty, boarding started, and we were bused out to the plane. I was surprised at how empty the bus seemed. As we were coming the stairs, I got to see my suitcase going on, which was cool. As I thought, the flight was almost empty, and nobody had to have an annoying seatmate, as there were probably more empty seats than full ones. When I got to Perugia, I was greeted by Mummy and Daddy.
A great end to an awesome trip.
Love,
