Skiing, Stuttgart, Easter, and much more!

      Sorry it's been so long since I last wrote!  I've just been pretty busy.  Mid-year meeting for YFU, tests at school, Berlin, birthday parties, and-- most recently-- enjoying my Easter Break!  Which included a trip to Austria.  To go skiing.  Yup, you read that right!  I got to go skiing in the Alps with my family! 

     We got to our vacation apartment in Muehlbach am Hochkoenig Saturday afternoon.  Some relatives were vacationing in the same town, so they came over that evening and we played some games and chatted.
     On Sunday I started Ski School.  The lady asked me if I had ever skied before, and I said yeah.  As a little kid, I did actually go skiing.  Once.  My host family had advised me to mention that, because otherwise I'd get put in the beginners' course, where they hardly do any "real" skiing, it's just on the practice slopes.  Plus, I'd catch on quick, they said, and if I were with the beginners I'd neer get anywhere.
     So, I was put in the Intermediate group.

     As soon as our teacher got there, he asked us to go a bit up the slope and ski down-- nice and slow-- and do a curve, so he could judge about how experienced we all are.  Now remember, I had skied once in my life.  And that was as a 6-year-old or so.  Since that day, I had never stood on skis again.  So, I stood at the top of (what seemed to me) this steep, intimidating, mountain.  Alright, we were really only about 30 feet up the slope, and it was only the end of it, but keep in mind that I come from Mid-Michigan.  More specifically, the Saginaw Valley.  I consider just about any hill to be huge, so what am I supposed to think about this mountain, that is coincidentially about 1,820 meters tall?!

     Somehow I managed to get down the slope without falling, flipping out, or doing a proper curve.  Still, the teacher told me that I should come along on the lift, and we'll see how it goes.  His hope, I guess, was that I'd have a breakthrough and remember how to ski or something.

      Well, what really happened was probably a disappointment (and quite frustrating) for him.  I personally found it rediculously hilarious, because I could hardly ski ten feet without falling over!  At the end of the day, my snow pants were soaked from all the snow they had come into contact with.
     But I didn't let that get to me.  I figured, hey, one day-- you can't judge too much based on that.
     So I went back the second day, still excited and eager to try my hand again.  The good news: I didn't fall down as often as the day before.  The bad news: I still fell often enough to not even bother with counting.  (Haha, so I guess that I don't really know if I fell less often, but it certainly seemed like it)  And, I kinda got the technique and feel for skiing, although I still had trouble.  I felt like I was close to being able to ski well, and that was my encouragement to keep trying!
     That afternoon, after "class" was over, I met up with my family and went skiing with them.  We only went down the "blue" slopes (blue is the easiest grade of slope, followed by red as middle, and black as difficult), but I managed to only eat snow three times in those next two hours!  So I called it progress.  My family was impressed, and said that after two days of class, I was already doing well.  That made my day!  Of course, I could tell that they would have rather gone down other slopes (they all can ski for many years), but I appreciated that they stuck around to keep me company.

     The third day of school was my last.  Ski school is pretty expensive, and I wanted to have a few days to just ski with my family, as well.  But that third day was the day that it suddenly clicked, and I could ski!  Some others in my course joked that it wasn't as much fun when I didn't fall down all the time, because I only hit the snow a grand total of three-- three!!-- times that day.  Then it was as though there were no more limits; we went down a lot of new slopes, and even dared to do a few reds.
     That afternoon, after she saw my "amazing" progress, Mama commented that it is incredible that, after three days of school, I could ski so well, when she herself took about three years!

     The rest of the week went by really fast.  Once or twice I even went down a black slope, but as a general rule, I stuck to the reds or blues.
     Next thing you know, it was Friday.  Our last day on the mountain.  There was fresh snow, but it lay on top of the prepared snow on the slopes.  The weather took a turn for the worse (the whole week it had been sunny and about 45 degrees), and it was windy and cold.  Nevertheless, we went up and decided to give it a try.  You couldn't get going too fast, because the snow would make you break all the time.

      But the snow was good for something else-- snowman building!  Jonathon, Mathilde, Papa, and I had a huge snowball fight, and afterwards we built a snowman.  We stuck some skis underneath him and then it was finished!  After that we didn't want to ski much more, so we went back to the car and waited for the others to come.
     So, that was skiing.  One of my favorite memories of this year, I'm sure!  After all, how many people can brag that they learned how to ski in the Alps?

      We didn't go straight back home after the trip.  Instead, we stopped in Salzburg for a few hours, and then spent a few days in Stuttgart by relatives.
     While we were in Salzburg, I found this Chrysler minivan.  I just needed to take a picture of it!  Notice how much larger it is in comparison to the cars parked behind it.  And that is a Mercedes, which is already a pretty large car for Europe!  Haha, I guess the stereotype about "huge American cars" is true!!!

      In Stuttgart we took a walk around the city.  In the park, the Magnolia trees were in bloom, so we stopped and took pictures.  We also went to a museum there, where there is an exhibit about protests against the new train station they're building in Stuttgart.  That was interesting-- the people are very creative in how they make their point.  They made posters and strung them onto the construction wall around the building site.  At some point, the wall was removed (or replaced, I'm not quite sure), and the "Protest Wall" got put up in the museum, where the people can come and see it.

    Easter was a great time!  I played clarinet in church, and introduced "I Know that My Redeemer Lives" to the Germans.  They found the tune beautiful, but they couldn't sing the English so easily.  What do you expect?  Try singing a hymn in a language you hardly, if at all, know!  Pretty hard.
    After that there was the Easter egg hunt at home.  30 hard-boiled eggs were hidden somewhere in the garden, but we only found 28.  So, there are still two somewhere out there!  We gave up after about 45 minutes of searching for these two eggs.  Then we divvied up the chocolate and treats; there was plenty for everyone!
     Yesterday Margie and Sandy were here!  That was really fun, we spent the whole afternoon chatting and laughing.  Of course, it was a bit difficult with the language barrier (for my family, I mean), but a few of them (Mama especially) tried out their English.  It was a great time, and I was sad when the day was over and we had to bring them to the train station.  But, as Margie informed me, I've only got 87 days left here!  So, I'd better enjoy it while it lasts, right?

Happy Easter from me and my family!