I admit it, I like skiing......

The last week of February we had "Faschings Ferien," which would be like if the U.S. had a week of vacation for Mardi Gras. My hostfamily and I went to Switzerland to go skiing. To say I was not a big fan of skiing before this week would be an understatement. I wasn't looking forward to the whole skiing part of our ski vacation. It turned out, however, that now I like skiing, quite a lot actually, and it was lot of fun!
We left on Saturday. There was sooooooooooooooo much snow as we headed south! It was fantastic!!! Driving throuhg the Swiss Alps at dusk is absolutely amazing!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! We arrived around 6, quickly unpacked, and then settled in for dinner. After dinner we played "mafioso" or mafia. It was fun.
They had soooooo much snow you couldn't see out some of the windows!

The house we were staying in was adorable!

The next day we woke up to snow. Lots of snow. There was all ready lots there, but it was snowing more. The 4 boys (my host brother and 3 host cousins) decided to go early anyway. The rest of us decided to wait a while, until the snow lightened up a little bit.
From left to right: Jonas Mario Dominik

We picked up my skis and got a ticket. My oldest host cousin, Mario, was assigned to give me ski lessons for the rest of the day. I had actually never met Mario before this trip. His brothers Jonas and Dominik study in Karlsruhe and I knew them very well all ready. Mario, however, is very very nice, a good ski instructor, and reminds me of my oldest brother, Ryan.
So anyways I had expected that the next day I would be in a ski lesson with lots of little kids (4-6 year olds), but was pleasantly surprised that there were only two other people in my group and they were around my age. Our ski instructor's name was Balzer. The one girl was 15 and her name is Lisa. The other was actually a Chinese woman, named Ellen. Ellen couldn't speak German and my instructor couldn't speak English. I offered to translate. Following conversations all in German......just by the way :)
After hearing me speak English Lisa turned to me and said "Wow you speak good english!"
I laughed. "Thanks, I actually am from the U.S." I said.
"Oh," she said, "Are you here on exchange?"
I nodded.
"I'm studying abroad in the U.S. next year" she said.
"Oh with what program?" I asked.
"With Congress-Bundestag" she replied. (Ok really she said PPP because that's what CBYX is in German)
"REALLY?!?!?" I said, "That's the same program I'm here with!"
Lisa Me and Tabea

What a small world! Or really what a big one AFS is making!
Anyways after one run down the "Baby slope", as my host family calls it, Balzer decided to take us up the actual lift.
We took the entire two hour lesson to come down about a half kilometer. Then our instructor told us that we wouldn't be having a full day lesson, because there were only three of us.
My host mother and Lisa's mother then decided to take it up with the ski school.....not too much more to be said.....
They compromised we got one afternoon of semi-private lessons.
Anyways we continued the course the next day and the instructor decided it was a good idea to take us up all the way to the top of the mountain.
I somehow managed to ski successfully down the intermidiate slopes with out falling :)
As the week went on I learned how to ski in parrallel, I don't have to make a triangle with my skis when I turn. It was exciting! I also started having things said to me like "You stand well on your skis" and "Now you can go down any slope"
On Wednesday we had a fourth person join our ski lesson. Her name was Rose.
She came up and asked if we could all speak German (in German). Lisa and I explained that Ellen could only speak English.
"Cool!" Rose replied.
"Do you speak English?" I asked.
"Ja I'm from England" she said.
"OH, I'm from the U.S."
"Then why the hell are we speaking German?!?" she replied (in English now)
I couldn't help laughing. Rose turned out to be our entertainment for Wednesday and Thursday.
On Wednesday I also went in this cute Church in our village. The thing I liked best were that the people at the end of mass would dip their hands in the holy water and then turn to who was next to them and share it.....
It was REALLY interesting.


By Thursday Lisa(who had been joining in on my afternoon lessons with family) and I finally felt comfortable enough to go all the way to the top (without Balzer).

It was sad to say goodbye to Lisa on Friday but we exchanged email addresses and now have contact with another.
I skiied down from the top of that (the thing on the left)
From Hitzeggen to Vella.....


Saturday we went hiking in the snow. Had a snowball fight. It was fun......

But I actually liked skiing better (never thought I'd say that.....)
I was sooooooooooooooo sad to go back to Germany Saturday! It was such beautiful weather!!!!!!!!!
The snow staircase Jannis made...

On the way back we stopped at a rest stop that, no joke, was called Heidi Land.
View from Heidi Land....

Anyways those are my skiing stories!