Wrote this with Annette:

Our third day together started with a group massage. And on this note if you’d like to skip the rest of this blog and scroll down to the end, you will find more saucy details about the physical nature of day 3 of the Bertelsmann – Stiftung [pronounced Shhhhteeff – Toong] Young Leaders Exchange Program at Kloster Irsee, Bavaria, Germany, Europe, the West.

At the break of dawn, about 09:05 in the morning, the seminar room was transformed into a bizarre casino hall, where an illegal card game was about to be played [reporters for this blog, after a quick check with the Kloster Irsee management, has discovered that the facility has no gambling license]. Participants in the program were broken up into competing groups, which had to place a full deck of cards according to a pre-arranged sequence and the group that took the least time won. We were placed on the cold, rock-like ground covered by rough carpeting [no tables or sofas were provided to the weary participants]. The rules of the game, which if broken, resulted in brutal, inhuman, maddening disqualification, were: do not speak after a whistle was blown at you; do not touch the cards before inspection by casino guards is completed; and even the smallest, most innocent mistake in the order of placement of the cards was severely punished. [Remember, if you want the juicy physical stuff scroll down]. Continue reading →