Winterferien

Austria....

possibly one of the most interesting, exciting, and painful vacations of my enire life!

Well, we got up at 3 in the morning and headed to Saalbach, Austria. That was the first time that I had ever been to northern Germany or Austria, and it was absolutely incredible. We got to make a stop Munich to pick up my host sister, and it was cool seeing what is the "sterotypical" Germany up close a.k.a. Bavaria. But it was extremely cool.

We arrived in Austria noonish and just chilled for the rest of the day, and met people as they arrived. There was about 35 people total, and one was an old exchange student from one of the families, and the other was a 3 year old. So I didn't have to feel like the only one that was slowing everything down!

For the first 3 days I attended a snowboarding course,and the instructors were mostly from Holland, so their German was relatively easy to understand. At first my snowboard was too small, and I had to run to the place and explain to the guy everything wrong, and then he had my type stuff into a machine, and of course I used the machine in English. Then I had a question and he told me I could use German, and then I had to explain to him that I'm not actually German and that my English is better. He didn't really understand, until I told him that I was an American, but that suprisingly happened a lot in Austria! I was complimented on my German more in Austria than ever before because they all just assume that I have a Berliner accent, wereas in Berlin they all know that I'm American...

Aside from that, I got back & probably experienced one of the most stressful vacation days ever. My class started out with 12, and ended with 5. Needless to say it was a somewhat intensive course. But I managed, along with the other little kids from Berlin who were only 8 and 10, who ended up being my good friends for the week, the second I heard their Berlin accents. But the next day of class was better, there was 5 or so new Berliners, and it was a lot of fun, but the third day sucked because the group got to big and I had a new instructor who was much better than the first, but I got stuck doing the same thing I had already learned with people that I couldn't stand. The third day was extremely pointless, but I did get to speak a little English because my snowboard instructor hardly new German!

After the class I met my host family at the top for a beer, and then we all road down together. I honestly didn't know that I could snowboard! I was extremely slow, but I made it home with only one major fall, where I also fell off the mountain, and it was suprisingly good! The next days went well too, I enjoyed riding with my family but they were extremely fast and they would always have to stop for me, and I was the only beginner in the whole group, so I tried to ride by myself for most of the week.

Aside from snowboarding, it was a very good week just hanging out with Germans and playing German games, and there was ever a few Austrian traditions thrown in. Even though it was often stressful with learning to snowboard, the nights were always a great time and unfortunately I'll probably never get to experience something like this again! It was possibly the best vacation that I've ever had!

Also, ROTARY COFERENCE THIS WEEKEND!!