We arrived on Monday afternoon where I met my host parents, Hans and Hilda Gohring. My roommate for the week was Michael from Belgium…he wasn’t initially in our cast, but joined us in Europe as our truck driver and show technician. Really great guy! About our host family: My host parents were absolutely amazing.
We lived in a beautiful German house right on the edge of the forest. Every morning was fresh bread, eggs, and a ridiculous spread of bratwurst, sausage and black forest ham. It was amazing…finally a European family that did breakfast right. 
My host dad Hans used to own a Renault (French Auto) Shop in Zell and also raced on a Formula 3 circuit. He had 13 Renault cars, 4 of which were in racing shape. One afternoon he took me for a ride through some of the hills and mountains deep in the black forest. It was the most amazing ride of my life, but I was absolutely scared out of my mind. We were doing in excess of 140 km/h on some 
one-lane roads twisting through the mountains. Cars were moving in both directions and the only way to know was by slowing down at the sharp turns…lets just say my host dad didn’t know the meaning of slow down. To Hans and Hilda:
Hallo zu Hans und zu Hilda. Einer was für großen Zeit ich das Bleiben in Ihrem Haus hatte. Ich bin zurück bald. Ich hoffe, daß Sie genießen, die Abbildungen auf meinem blog zu betrachten. Halten Sie, nach einem schwarzer Waldmädchen für mich heraus zu schauen. Hooeeyyy!
On Tuesday, we worked CI (Community Impact) in and around Zell. There were 4 different sites including 2 groups at secondary schools. My group went to “Haus Maria Frieden” a sort of hospice home for Cancer and AIDS patients in there last days of life. It sounds depressing, but the overall mood at the home was different from what you would expect. It’s a beautiful piece of property high in the hills of the black forest. There was space for 12 patients, each with there own room. A large staff also lives at the house to take care of the patients 24/7. The hospice is totally funded by donations from a number of sources. For most, the stay is shorter than a year, but for some of the AIDS patients who are more treatable, the stay will be longer. It’s really a place for the terminally ill wanting to spend there last days in this kind of environment. We interacted with the people and performed a small BTS (backing track show) out on the back patio of the house. There were around 10 of the patients along with some family and staff from the home. They were so happy for our performance and it was hard to not think that for some this could be one of their last experiences. I felt honored to be apart of it all.
Because of facility scheduling, our show day for the week was on Wednesday. We were in the Schwarzwaldhalle (Black forest hall) where a large stage and around 800 chairs were set up. The show was once again done completely in German with all of our MC’s. Myself, and a fellow German cast member Stefan, performed a popular German song by recording artist Xavier Naidoo. It’s called “Was wir aleine nicht schaffen” and was most notably performed at the 2006 World Cup in Germany. I was quite nervous singing a German solo in front of that many German speakers…luckily everything went great and it was a powerful ending to our show. Shout out to my buddy Pierre for coming down from Stuttgart to see us perform in Zell!
Thursday was a regional learning day in Zell. We started in the morning by visiting the Kulturzentrum factory. It’s a very well know German ceramics factory that produces products sold worldwide. We had a private tour of the ceramics process from beginning to end. All of the products produced in the factory are hand painted,
just as they were when the factory first opened. At the end of the tour, our entire cast was given handmade ceramic mugs with each of our names on the side. Hopefully it gets back home in one piece! We then departed for a famous castle ruin near Zell. A local professor and expert on this particular castle gave us a tour of the old ruin. My first German castle experience! We climbed to the top of the ruin almost 60 feet above the base and had an amazing view of the surrounding cities. It was built atop a hill to give the castle views of all the land under its control. 
We had a great time, but it was absolutely freezing and rain was falling that I couldn’t believe hadn’t turned to snow. That night we arrived at a monastery in Zell where our staff held a hunger dinner/banquet for our cast. I’ll do the best I can in explaining what this was…Basically our group had an activity earlier that day where 100 coins were spread on the ground. We were told to grab as many as we could until all the coins were picked up. Then we had the opportunity to give away as little or as many coins as we would like. Then for the hunger banquet, we were split into 3 groups based on the number of coins we had. Around 15% of the group with the most coins sat at a table in the room, 40% were in chairs on the other side of the room, and the last 45% were in the middle of the room on the floor. These groups were a good representation of the upper, middle, and lower class/poor in the world. We had a presentation on hunger and poverty
as we stayed in our groups. Then the group representing the upper class began to be served food by the staff. They had a 3-course meal with bottled water, soda, bread…anything they needed. Then the middle class group (my group) was allowed to get up and get their meal, which consisted of basic cooked pinto beans and rice. We also had water poured into a small glass and our meal was on a plate with a fork. Last, the lower class group was allowed rice out of a big pot, which they had to eat on a napkin with their hands. They were given a large pot of hot water to serve themselves with a ladle. The point of the activity was to obviously represent what really happens with hunger in the world. We heard stories from cast members who had really experienced these kinds of tough conditions in their lives. I wish I could explain the entire banquet better, but it would be tough to give it justice. I would say I was definitely affected by this activity.On Friday we toured a museum in Zell that depicted the typical farm family from that
area in history. We then when on a 8 km hike through the black forest which took around 2 hours. It was beautiful…the black forest is so thick and totally different from the mountains of Colorado. We ended the hike at a restaurant where we ate some great German food were entertained by an accordion player. That night, my host family took Michael and I to their local Football 
soccer) Club. They were celebrating Oktoberfest that night; so many people were dressed up in Lederhosen. My dreams were answered when I realized that you could actually get a 1-liter beer in Germany…not a myth. Lets just say it was the most stereotypical German night of my life…
Beer, bratwurst, lederhosen, drinking songs, drinking contests…awesome! So this blog is already way to long…I hope some people were able to make it to the end. Were heading north to Prenzlau Germany in what used to be the DDR when the Berlin wall was still up. TALK TO YOU ALL SOON!!
