Obersteichbach: Sports Camp

Thinking that Obersteinbach is on the way to Stuttgart (southwest), I planned to spend the weekend between week 5 and 6 with Emily; however, Obersteinbach is actually in the middle of bum-fuck nowhere northwest of Nürnberg, smaller than Wernfels…if you can believe that! There was only a bakery and the next nearest “larger” town was about 8km.

The first week was the worst group of kids I had all summer.  Nineteen boys and five girls, four of which were not athletic, 3 of which were not remotely interested in sports! Question: why the hell would you send your kid to Leolingo sports camp?- (emphasis on the sports!)  Apparently Andrea tried explaining to the parents that there are other options for camps and that this camp was not fit for their girls, but they insisted and claimed that they wanted their girls the learn how to play sports and [hopefully] enjoy playing them in the end.  Sorry, but once a girly-girl, always a girly-girl.  The two girls in my class, instead of asking for a water break, they literally asked me, ‘Sarah, we have break for make-up?’ Helllll nooo, go run a lap, and while you’re at it, run an extra 5 just for asking me that question! Dumb!  Then, I pretty much agreed with Alfie and Brendan when they said that that week would have been better with just boys. The presence of those (3 main) dramatic girls changed the whole dynamic of the group.  Because of them, that created the “cool” group of guys who ended up bullying other boys, staying up late, and making messes, trouble, girls cry, and other annoyingness.

At the happy-ning, we always tell the parents how awesome their kids are and how much fun we had during the week.  This was a stretch for me, and at the end of the show we joke in telling them, ‘this concludes our show, you can take your children home now, please.’ It always gets a chuckle from the group but this is the first week where I was SO serious about that.  To add to the shitty week, Frau Dragon (the housekeeper) became very upset with the three of us for various reasons: not turning off lights, not enforcing house shoes, being loud at night, making messes of our rooms, etc. etc. etc.). Much to our surprise she wasn’t actually there all week, so there was no way for us to hear of her frustrations until Andrea showed up on Friday.  Andrea ended up just rolling her eyes because she knew that we were just as confused as she was.  In fact, Frau then told Andrea that she didn’t feel like taking us to our Bed and Breakfast that weekend, so she screwed over Andrea. Whatevs.  For a good fifteen minutes we were unsure then of our plans for the weekend, but in the end we just wanted a relaxing weekend.

The B&B was absolutely DARLING! The couple that ran it also ran the only restaurant in town so it was * the place * to be for meals and on the weekends.  Despite the fact that Alf nor I spoke a word of German, the body language was enough to express mutual appreciation for the other’s company.  There were 4 elderly gentlement staying at the B&B as well, all about 70.  It was a total “bro-weekend” for them: hiking or activity during the day, then come back for meals, and a haldful of beers every night.  By the end of the weekend, they were such a hoot!  They were all interested in us and what brought us to Germany.  One spoke little English, but Brendan spoke about the same amount of German so we managed.  Again, the body language was priceless, and everyone knows what PROST is!

Saturday came and we asked the host couple if there was a place to swim on Saturday and she actually gave us 3 bikes and a map to explore around.  The nearest “real town” was still 6km away but we went for it. Upon arrival into Scheinfeld, we came through their main market street where we found everyone in the streets watching a parade of people with a band, dancers, and old men with guns, all dressed in traditional Bavarian [colonial] wear.  FUN!  I honestly love this town! The houses were beautiful and at the top of the hill was an abandoned castle.  The market had lots of shops and restaurants, and I went in the town church… lovely!  We found the amazing pool and lounged there all day, then headed back into town to see the ceremony of the tree.  While we stopped at the Italian ice cream shop, we found our 4 favorite friends from the B&B there… man they love life, and man would I love to live like them when I’m there age! Anyway, there we were, in the middle of the town square, experiencing  a piece of Bavarian tradition. 

In the summer, each town cuts down their tallest tree, decorates it, then stands it up in the town.  It’s my understanding that from then until Christmas, they must defend their tree from other towns attempting to steal their town tree.  There are traditional watchmen, etc. who protect the tree, etc.  HAHA so then came the tractor halling in the tree on a trailer, and the volunteer firefighters using huge posts and chains to push it up to stand and clip into the side of a roof.  One of the men pounding the trunk into the ground had a chainsaw and was trimming the bottom while wearing sandals!  Post big laughs for all three of us, they finished with the parade of dancers, band, baton tworlers, singers, etc. while walking to the volksfest fair grounds a couple blocks away.  The boys and I had never been to one, but we had to get home for dinner and, of course, BEERS!  We did just that, and cards!

The rest of the weekend was so relaxing, we hated leaving.  We walked back to Obersteinbach (about 3km) and started week 2!

Week 2 was 100x better than week 1.  First of all, we had about half and half boys v. girls and all of the girls at least wanted to play sports, or at least tried to play!  Everyone was positive, and there weren’t any terrible cliques!  I had the older group again (grades 6&8); Alf had grades 4&5.  The English skills weren’t the best; however, the attitudes and morale of the group made the week that much better.  This group of kids competed with the week 2 of Wernfels, which I never though would happen.  By the end of the week, we taught the kids the phrase “Don’t wake the Dragon” and we learned in German as well! Frau wasn’t there again the entire week, but damn, we tried extra hard to follow rules, clean up our messes, etc. etc. etc!.