6/17/2008 - Day 1

Dear Parents,

     We have made it!!! It has been quite a day.  We took off from DFW on a new 777.  That sounds better than it is. The good news is that we had wonderful entertainment all the way to London as that plane has the monitors in the seat in front of you and your choice of movies and TV shows. It also shows you your flight path and time zones.  But the bad news is that Coach class is just glorified sardines.  There was no room to move.  If anyone in the 5 person row wanted to go to the bathroom, we all had to go!  9 hours...ahhh!!!!  When we finally got to Heathrow, we were a bit late, but the gate number was not listed on the monitor.  The boys scattered to check out the shops just as the gate was listed (and, of course, it was the most distant gate that it could have been.) Coach went into "mother hen" mode gathering up the little chicks, and we all boarded British Airways for a short flight to Berlin.  Our guide was waiting on us as was a very nice tour bus. But as the trip went on, we realized that the air conditioning was not working as it should be. We were pretty steamy by the time we arrived at our destination, Berlin's Central Station where we scattered to have our first taste of German fast food.  We then headed to the hotel, but in typical fashion we had been given erroneous directions.  The good part is that, as we wandered around, we were passing through a quaint suburb that was quite lovely with window boxes full of flowers.

     The weather is wonderful, cool and dry (as opposed to the bus which should be fixed or replaced by tomorrow's excursion.) It is almost 10 PM (Let's not even think about how long we have been up!) and, because of our location in the time zone, it is not completely dark.

The boys have had a training session tonight and are exhausted and cranky.  We do not have to meet the bus until 10:00 tomorrow for some good sightseeing prior to duals tomorrow night, so a good night's sleep should improve everything.

More tomorrow!

Karen

Day 1 con't.

     After I hit "send" last night,  I ran into Coach in the hall.  I thought that you would want to know his comments.  He was very proud of the boys last night. In spite of telling him for 2 weeks that they were going to get thrown all over Germany, they wrestled a very good club from the former East Germany Tuesday night and held their own.  In fact there is an all-star team from Wyoming that is travelling with us, and our boys made a better showing than they did.  The boys are feeling better about their abilities.

6/18/08 - Day 2

    The "daylight" thing is about to get all of us.  I had the alarm set for 7:30.  I woke up to see that the sky was getting light, looked at the travel alarm (think small hands of relatively the same size), saw that it was 7:15, and decided to just wait on the alarm.  After some minutes passed,  I decided that I had better check that alarm again.  It was really only 3:35 ....but it was getting light.  This was a similar story from most of our adults who very consistently thought that we had overslept because of the sky.  The other end of the day is that as we walked out of the restaurant at 10:00 PM, it was still light.

    We have had a really busy day.  We began with a very good breakfast buffet that included many usual things (bacon, eggs, toast) and some very unusual things (potato salad, pasta).  The boys are having some trouble getting used to the fact that drinks are served without ice and are really not that cold.  We are thirsty but adjusting.

    The first of the day's highlights was a visit to the Olympic Stadium built for the 1936 Olympics. Our tour guide Daniel is quite knowledgable and has a very interesting accent and occasional choice of words that keeps us entertained.  The boys really enjoyed being at the site of so much history and had a picture made in front of the torch.  We may have to photoshop a flame.  We then spent some free time shopping in the area near the Berlin Zoo and Kaiser Wilhelm's Church which has been left the bombed-out shell it was at the end of WWII.

     The next stop on the tour of Berlin was the Bradenburg Gate.  We got off the bus and spent an hour or so in the vicinity.  The Berlin wall ran directly behind this towering gate, cutting the wide street in half. The boys were quite fascinated with it.  Several of them bought their own small pieces of the wall in the gift shop. We drove through much of the area that houses the government and passed the newly built American Embassy that will open on July 4.  The memorial to the victims of the Holocaust was quite interesting being located in the middle of Berlin.

    We had an extra, unscheduled stop when Daniel suggested that on certain days the Berlin Cathedral is free to school classes.  He convinced the operators that we fit the description, so we were able to stop at this beautiful building.  The adventurous souls among us took the 150+ stairs to the top of the dome.  The rest of us enjoyed the ornate beauty of the cathedral.  Although it is built in the style of a Catholic Cathedral, it was actually a Protestant church. We visited the crypt below the cathedral where the boys were amazed to see how briefly people lived in previous centuries.

    Then on to wrestling....tonight's opponent was a Berlin club that consisted primarily of wrestlers who were much older than our guys.  We got it put to us pretty good tonight, but I think that the intimidation factor is gone now.  We'll do better tomorrow night.

    Dinner was in a building that was built in 1270 as a court.  Coach threatened to mete out punishment as the courts did in those days by lopping off ears, etc.  We had German sausage, potatoes, and delicious sauerkraut.  This was topped off by a wonderful dessert of berries topped with cream.

    We are off to bed now.  More tomorrow if we survive the bike ride!

Karen

6/19/2008 Day 3 

    I am typing tonight on a German computer and the keys are not in the same place, so this may be interesting.

    Today has been spent in Potsdam, a very lovely city about 45 minutes from Berlin. For those who were interested, the day began with a trip to the bicycle shop in Potsdams for the outfitting the boys, Coach Davis, and Tammy Novak with bikes for a 4 hour tour (insert the Gilligan's Island theme song here). The rest of us headed by bus to the heart of the city which is on the Spree River. The bicycle riders took the scenic route and we all wound up in town for lunch and shopping.  It is safe to say that we ate and shopped our way through Potsdam which is quite a mixture of cultures as its name would indicate.

    We then toured the rococo summer home of Frederich the Great called San Soucci.  The gardens were beautiful, and the palace has a large number of pieces of original furniture.  Many of the interior columns are decorated with gold leaf and the floors have intricate patterns of inlaid marble. It was quite fascinating!

    At this juncture Coach Davis wanted me to be sure to let you know how proud he was of our boys today. As I may have mentioned, we are not the only group that is touring in our bus.  The bicycle tour turned out to not only be tiring, but borderline dangerous for some young men who insisted on being reckless and not obeying the rules of the road or of good common sense.  I am pleased to report for Coach that our boys were not among those young men.  Our guys were courteous and respectful. They hung together and had a great time interacting in appropriate and fun ways with each other. Coach was very proud of them!

     Bicycles turned back in and tongues hanging out, we headed for the gym for tonight's training.  This was being conducted by a German named Olaf Bock who Coach Davis tells us is a German hero.  He is a former Olympian who due to a knee injury now only trains other German wrestlers. His facility is nothing like our boys are used to---even our crowded mat room.  The boys were exhausted (I personally think that the bike ride was too much), but soon got into the spirit of the occasion. There was something very exhilarating about watching our wrestlers work with the German wrestlers. They were very considerate of each other, and learned from each other within the competition of the workout. There was a great deal of laughing and slapping each other on the back.  Athletics is such a great equalizer, such a common bond among young  men who do not speak the same language. We will dual this team later in the week.

    Dinner was a German form of chicken Alfredo that was quite good (some of that may be related to how hungry we were by that time!)  Dessert was 3 flavors of Italian ice that we are rapidly discovering merits a stop whenever we see it advertised...yum!  This was followed by a hurried ride to the hotel to watch the last half of the Germany-Portugal Euro Cup soccer game.  Of course, this is a huge deal here, and our boys got right in the spirit of the competition. There were fireworks and cheering when Germany was victorious. It was fun to be a part of that!

    We will be touring more history in Berlin tomorrow with a visit to what is left of the Berlin Wall and a stop at the Checkpoint Charlie Museum.

    Random observations --- life is much slower paced in Europe.  There seems to be a great deal of time to spend sitting in sidewalk cafes and watching the world and its infinite variety of people go by. In fact we're not sure that any of these people ever work. Second random observation --- it is amazing the number of people who smoke in Europe. And lastly, dogs are allowed in restaurants and even department stores.  They are as laid back as the people, but still a startling sight for us.

    More tomorrow.

Karen

6/20/2008 Day 4

Dear Parents,

     I think that today has been a really good history day for the boys.  We spent most of the day in and around the Berlin Wall and its history.  There are entire sections of the wall that are left standing, and the boys were fascinated by all of that.  We started with a section of the wall that is near the Spree River which served as part of the boundary itself. There were actually 2 walls with a no man's land in between that was patrolled by guard and dogs. The boys were pretty impressed with that.  Across the street from this section of the Wall is a building that you can climb to the observation deck and get perspective on the Wall.

     We next travel-led to the former Checkpoint Charlie in the American sector. There is a museum that completely documents the history of the wall and the escapes that were attempted and made. The museum is full of poster-sized pictures of tunnels, people jumping out of windows, guards stopping people at the border and as much verbage as you can stand to read.  This museum indicates that 134 people died trying to escape, a fact that made an impression on the boys.  They understand the historical concept of people building a wall for protection but the idea of building a wall to keep people IN was a foreign idea.  It was a real education.

     Next we journeyed to our "training" for this evening against the Turks.  They were again older than our guys but very nice.  Our guys just did GREAT!!!  We won more than we lost.  We were so pleased (I hate to say surprised, but you should have seen those other guys!)  It was quite a successful evening for many of our wrestlers and should be a real confidence booster.  Coach was, needless to say, very happy.

      Dinner at the HardRock Cafe Berlin was also a rousing success as we had rarely had better hamburgers (everything is perspective!).  The wait staff was particularly fun and enjoyed interacting with our boys.

     Turkey was playing in the Euro Cup soccer game and managed to win in a shoot out.  That's who we were pulling for since we had just spent the evening with the Turks, so even that was successful.

     Again, your boys are behaving quite well and make us proud to be with them.

This has probably been a bit disjointed as we have had all kinds of problems with our technology tonight and it is quite late.  I'll try to be livelier tomorrow.

Karen 

6/21/08 Day 5

Dear Parents,

       This message almost didn't happen tonight because we are having further technical difficulties.  In fact I am sitting at the end of the reception desk typing on a German keyboard because the clerk took pity on me (and probably was really tired of seeing my sad face).  Now you may ask what possible difference the keyboard makes.  As you notice my mis-spelling, you will understand.  The y and z are switched and the shift is only on one side.  If you are really bored, go back and count all the y's and the capital letters, and you will know how many times I have had to go back and correct.  Ahh!  I'm obviously not a very quick learner.

      This has been a low energy day for everyone, I think.  We were really dragging early. We started out today by visiting the Holocaust Museum.  It is a very strangely constructed building.  Much of it is in the form of an elongated Star of David that is 5 floors high.  The lines (corridors) cross each other, and it is very easy to get lost in your journey through history.  Regardless, it is a very sobering experience, but one that I'm not sure the boys got all they could have out of.  But when they returned to the bus, they talked about what they had seen and been surprised by.  Many of them had not seen the same things, so they were able to share their experiences.

     We had lunch at a very modern section of Berlin complete with a beautiful mall which resembled any of the high end malls in Texas. Much of the history of German food revolves around the potato (There is even a monument to the man who brought potatoes to Germany).  Meals are not complete without some sort of potato.  So today a number of the adults had various forms of potato pancakes for lunch...crisp on the outside and just the right softness on the inside.  Yum!!!  Can you tell that I was one of the indulging adults? Some of our kids had McDonalds --- in a two story building.  They thought that was great fun!

     Then we were off to the Charlotenburg Palace, the summer home of the first King of Prussia.  It was beautiful, again with much gold in the decorations.  Much of this palace had been destroyed in "the 2nd War of the World" as Daniel would say and then restored.  Coach decided that it was very good to be king, but I think most of the boys felt it was a great place to live, but they didn´t really want to visit there...it doesn´t take them long to get enough of palaces.

      We wrestled Olaf´s team tonight back in Potsdam.  Again our boys gave as good as they took.  You can see the confidence that they are gaining.  After our "training" we were treated to very good steak and pomme fritz (potatoes) with tirmasu for dessert.  It´s a good thing that we are doing lots of walking or we would waddle onto the plane.

      Another random thought --- there is a great deal of graffiti all over buildings and walls in Germany.  But it is not graffiti like we think of it; it is more like artwork.  The boys will have lots of pictures of it, I´m sure.  What makes it even more fun is that Daniel refers to it in his pronunciation as "gravity," putting the accent on the wrong syllable.  You can brace yourselves for any number of Daniel-isms when we return.  Two notable ones will be his phrase asking us to follow the blue "base cap" (baseball hat) as he waves it above his head so we can see above the crowds.  When we go into museums, we often have to leave our ruck sacks (back packs), so you can expect that one too.  We did teach Daniel the word  "escalator" today, so we are trying to be equal in our cultural exchange.

       Tomorrow is a sleep late kind of day.  We will be off to the Concentration Camp in the afternoon which should be quite an experience for these guys.  More tomorrow if I can find a computer that works.  If you don´t hear from me, do not be alarmed.  It just means that I couldn´t find a computer that worked.

Later ---

Karen

6/22/08 Day 6

Dear Parents,

     I´m on!!!  Let´s see how far I get before it kicks me off...

     Today has been a very somber day of learning for our boys.  We went to the Zoo station for lunch and then spent the remainder of the afternoon at the concentration camp outside Berlin. It had more pictures than anyone wanted to see.  It also has one of the original crematoriums, a trench where the ashes were buried, an infirmary where medical experiments were run, guard towers, razor wire, roads paved with ashes.  It was quite an eye opener, one that I believe will stay with the boys for a long time. Talk about history come to life....

       On a lighter note, we have come up with some lists for you all at home as you think about welcoming us back.

Things we will now expect when we get home:

DOWN COMFORTERS

happy prices, fresh money, and good hours (These are all Daniel-isms.)

silent water

sleeping with the window open at night

KaDeWe -- an amazing department store (It has an entire floor dedicated to chocolates and pastries ---see Nancy Walters for explanation)

potatoes with every meal

dessert with every meal

Things we won´t miss:

British breakfast which seems to include potato salad and pork and beans.

no ICE in our slightly cool drinks

sodas (very expensive sodas) served with lemon in them

no refills

having to pay for using the WC

sundown at 10 PM and sunrise by 4 AM

walking on cobblestones

smooth, well-maintained, but skinny, scary roads

no wash cloths

Wyoming boys

I´m not sure that I will get on tomorrow night.  We wrestle in Frankfurt Oder (on the Polish border) and will return late.

Talk to you all soon!

Karen

6/23/08 Day 7

Dear Parents and Friends,

     Surprise!  I made it on!  We are packing madly, so this will be brief.

     Today has been a really good day.  The boys may not say so now, but I think in retrospect, particularly after some REAL sleep, they will agree.

     We started the day with a boat trip down the Spree River.  It was very lovely to see the beautiful buildings from that vantage point.  Then we went into the Radio Tower and got to see things from a very different perspective. Hopefully we got some great pictures from both excursions.  We ate a late lunch in the area of the Radio Tower and then headed to Frankfurt Oder, a very quaint town about an hour or so outside of Berlin. 'I wish we had had more time there.

     The boys were hoping to dual rather than practice, and so there was much grumbling that they had driven so far only to practice.  But they quickly learned that they really didn´t want to dual this group. Evidently in Germany there are 4 divisions (states, regions, whatever).  This is the Sports School for this section of what used to be East Germany.  It is very nice, by far the nicest we have seen. This is where the big boys train.  In the group tonight were 2 of the wrestlers that Germany is sending to Beijing.  And the man who was leading it is one of the Olympic coaches. What a workout! What an amazing opportunity for our boys.  I think that when they look back on it, they will realize how special this was. Right now they are just pretty much like rag dolls. They DID get thrown around a bit....

      After the practice, everyone was ravenous.  We ate at a quaint restaurant that resembled what you might think an old German inn would look like.  The food was delicious complete with potatoes that weren´t fried, generous portions of boneless pork chops, sauer kraut, and cherry strudel for dessert.  This restaurant was located on the Oder River which separates Germany from Poland.  So after dinner we took pictures on the river and then walked across the bridge to Poland.  We didn´t stay there long, but we have been to Poland!!!

       We are now trying to settle up the bills and get everything together for a 5AM bus call, so I´d better send this and get on with my packing.

       We will see you soon now with all our stories and our pictures...and cokes with ice!!!

Goodbye from Germany!

Karen

Journal by Karen Grogan

PHOTOS Here!

Newspaper Article Here!