Coming home always feels a little special, even more though with the prospect of catching up with family & friends over the annual village festivities in Naundorf and the 70th anniversary of my old football club (SV Struppen).
Admittedly the number of people that i still know in Struppen, having played my last game here 19y ago, weren’t all that many. But there were some like my best boyhood mate lars.
His wife didn’t drink and took me over to my home village Naundorf where the annual festivities were in full swing. Mum and alex were still there though headed home shortly after. I spent time with grand cousins and other familiar faces from the village. Many congratulated me to reaching Lhotse summit.
After many beers and sausages we headed for the place of my grand-cousin sandra and continued on her terrace. Was fun, but having woken up more than a day earlier in st pete i was basically dead and hit the sofa-bed. The morning turned out a bit blurry for all of us. A good german breakfast brought about some recovery and we made it (belatedly) the the ‘Frühschoppen’ – a german tradition that basically means you come back to the party and continue to drink. Mum and alex where waiting. It was interesting to peep back in time with a display of 30 years of festivities – even found a few pics of myself.
In the afternoon, mum and I headed to the village of Rathen. A rather pretty be it slightly touristy place that offers some great hiking up to the ‘Bastei’ as well as an amphitheatre. We watched ‘Der Freischütz’ (carl maria von weber) after a brief delay due to rain. Its amazing how much more you can do in an opera outdoor – horses running about, fireworks etc. Great place and something i had wanted to do for a long time.
In the evening we stayed home and spent some quality time with somewhat distant relatives from france who had been visiting. Thank god they spoke german – no chance for me with my rudimentary school french.
Monday was a hot and sunny day. Alex and I packed our stuff and went back to naundorf to see grandpa. I handed the flag I carried up Lhotse for him and, as expected, was told not to do such dangerous thing again. Let’s see ;o)
Afterwards i made true my promise to alex to spend some time in my childhood places – the forests surrounding naundorf called ‘Bärensteine’. We had all provisions for an overnight stay in one of the caves (referred to as Boofe in saxony). We gathered wood, played music, made fire and mum and dad joined for dinner. Great night out in the woods though we were dirty like coal workers next day and smelled worse i reckon.
After a fair amount of time cleaning ourselves and the gear we went to dresden to meet my cousin and alex’ godmother Denise alongside husband mitko and son anton. Kids enjoyed themselves and so did we. First over coffee and cake at home, then in a nearby beer-garden.
The remainder of my time home was filled with more visits to relatives, a family pizza dinner and the arrival of my sister on Thursday evening. Time was up and after a few goodbyes Friday morning, we drove to hradec kralove (1,5h behind prague) for a hip hop festival.
Good bye Germany, see you in December!
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