Kacper welcomed me home with a bouquet of flowers, including my favorite, a sunflower.
Our floor worked hard to set up and prepare for Sommerfest.
On Friday, the whole dorm gathered for Sommerfest. Entry was conditional on having proof of vaccination or a negative test.
Like any good Bavarian festival, there was traditional folk music!
Another tradition is Schuhplattler, a dance which involves clapping and slapping the thighs and feet. Some of Roncalli’s gentlemen eagerly performed at least three different dances.
One of my floormates played the accordion for one of the dances.
Sommerfest involved some games like this one, where the goal was to drive a nail into the log. The catch? The hammer is made of pipe, so the center is hollow meaning you need to hit the nail with the rim of the pipe.
This game was like shuffleboard where you earn varying points depending on the accuracy of your push.
There was plenty of grilled food, salad, cake, wine, and beer to go around.
Everyone enjoyed themselves!
I spent the day on Sunday in Lermoos, Austria, with Kacper and his family. The biggest adventure of the day was visiting the Zugspitze, Germany’s tallest mountain. From the base cable car station, we could barely see ahead of us.
Unfortunately the weather on Sunday prevented us from fully appreciating the view from the top of Germany.
Despite the cold, foggy, and rainy weather, it was pretty awesome to be on the tallest mountain in Germany.
On our way down, the fog subsided a little. We spotted some sheep on the mountain side.
This view wasn’t even close to the top but it’s still impressive to see the small villages below.
Once we returned to the base, we had a slightly clearer view but we still couldn’t see anywhere close to the top.
Lermoos was quite small but didn’t lack an elaborate church.
My train arrived a little behind schedule in the late afternoon. Kacper kindly met me at the train station and made lunch for me. He even surprised me with some flowers! We spent some time catching up, before I spent the night unpacking and getting re-settled. Wednesday was a work day, mainly trying to get blog posts prepared since I had fallen behind from two jam-packed weeks. In the evening we enjoyed cake to celebrate one of our floormate’s birthdays.
My work on Thursday was segmented by my duties to help prepare for Roncalli’s Sommerfest, which was Friday night. A dormmate and I picked up equipment like a stage, tables, and benches with a rental truck, and then my floormates and I proceeded to construct the stage, set up the tents, and arrange the tables, benches, games, etc.
While working on Friday I watched the Olympic women’s soccer quarter final game between the US and the Netherlands. In the evening the much anticipated Sommerferst began. There was lots of music, food, cakes, Lederhosen, and, of course, beer.
The next day Kacper, his brother, his brother’s girlfriend, and I went to an all-you-can-eat sushi place for lunch and discussed our plans for the next day, since we were taking the train to Lermoos, Austria, to meet up with Kacper’s family for his mother’s birthday.
After minor train issues, we arrived just over the border, and the women rode the cable car up to the Zugspitze, Germany’s tallest mountain. Despite foggy and rainy weather blocking the normally stunning views, it’s still cool to say I was at the top of Germany! Once we rode down and regrouped, we all went out for lunch. Afterward we hung out, chatted, took a walk, and had cake to celebrate Kacper’s mom’s birthday. We then hopped on a train for our two-hour ride back to Munich.
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