Harpenden, Durham, Edinburgh

The longer I stay in Austria, the more I realize that there are some ways in which the English language falls short.  My favorite German word of late has been the word 'fertig'.  'Ich bin total fertig' literally translates to 'I am totally finished,' a phrase which makes sense in English but lacks the essence of the phrase.  'Fertig' is finished, in every sense of the word; it is a combination of done, exhausted and overwhelmed.  And you have to say it as though you're melting into the couch at the end of the day, generally accompanied by some sort of sigh/grunt combination (the Austrians are really good at this - it sounds something like 'boaaahhhhh').  After these past few weeks, I am 100% fertig. And my body let me know that it, too, was fertig by accepting a bout of the stomach flu with barely even a fight.

Prior to my crazy 3 weeks, the entire state of Salzburg had a vacation.  Austria's breaks work somewhat like those in New England, where they take one week off in February and another around Easter, rather than two weeks back to back.  It's pretty nice, actually, especially since the different states in Austria stagger their February breaks, mostly so the ski slopes don't get overwhelmed with tourists.

For my February break I caught a cheap Ryan Air flight to London to meet up with Fleur for a few days.  Though we hadn't been apart that long, it was still incredibly nice to see her again.  And it was a welcome change to be able to stay first in her home and then in the dormitory at her college.

My trip was almost over before it began, though, due to a particularly grumpy customs lady.  I'm not sure what her problem was but the man behind me was convinced it was because I was American and "Brits hate Americans."  The man behind me, for the record, was Canadian - I'm pretty sure he's the one who actually hates Americans.  Anyway, this lady wouldn't let me into the country because I didn't have the address of where I was staying.  I had to call Fleur a hundred times, knowing full well that she was getting in on her own flight and might not pick up, in order to get her address.  The lady made the American girl behind me cry, claiming that she not only needed her return ticket booked, but had to have it printed and ready to go when she entered the country so that they knew she actually intended to leave.  Finally, another man took over the second desk in the customs area, and I quickly scooted over to his line and made it through without any problems. 

Fleur and I spent the first night in her house with her mother, sister and boyfriend, enjoying the comforts of home.  The next morning we caught the train up to Durham - her University - where I relived my college days.  It's funny how her college is so different from Bowdoin, but college students are still basically the same everywhere.

After a few days in Durham we headed up to Edinburgh for the night.  Edinburgh is a lovely city, and I wish I'd had more time to explore!  Unfortunately, we didn't - Fleur had to catch a plane out of Edinburgh early in the morning, and I had an evening flight out of Glasgow/Prestwick, which meant I had to get all the way across the country.  Luckily my friend Ali and her parents are the nicest people ever, and luckily she had booked the same flight as I had, so her parents picked me up and took us both across the country to the airport.  If I'm still here next year, I have the feeling that I'll be heading back to northern England and Scotland for a few trips!

With Fleur in front of her house

The dorm room that Fleur and I shared in Durham

The teeny tiny bed in the dorm room.

One of my first impressions of Durham.  "Fancy Dress" parties are the thing to do, apparently, which made this a fairly normal sight to the Durham students.

Delicious fish and chips

Castle

Cool building

A door picture

Door to the Cathedral

Handle on the Cathedral door

These hallways were used in the Harry Potter movies as Hogwart's hallways

Cathedral decorations

A tiny door, perfect for tiny people (like me)

Me, with the Cathedral in the background

The river where the Durham crew teams row.  They're some of the best rowers in the world.  I'm a little jealous of their gorgeous river, though it's not so gorgeous in this photo

Edinburgh Castle by night

Our cold but lovely hostel room in Edinburgh. 

Streets of Edinburgh

The castle from the ground

Ski Weekend in Saalbach

Sebastian, me, Vinci and Anna at the top of the mountain.

Oy vey! I'm very sorry for the text-size problems in the last post.  Hopefully they've been resolved.  I switched over to the new version of the blog updater, and it clearly has some bugs left to work out.  In the meantime, I'm attempting to edit my text size by myself using html codes.  The funny thing is that I'm not even joking.  I would never in a million years describe myself as a technological...well...anything.  I sometimes have issues even connecting to the internet, so actually writing website code is something totally foreign.  So, with my bragging out of the way, we now return to *3* blog posts in 2 days:

I am very lucky in that I have met a ton of people during my time here who have gone out of their way to make me feel at home; the prize belongs to my student Sebastian's family.

I discovered on my first day in his class that Sebastian and I have some odd people in common. It turns out that he went to camp Chewonki, which is literally a few miles from Bowdoin's campus. Therefore he knew all kinds of facts about Maine, New England and even Bowdoin when I asked about them in my introductory lesson. Not only that, but two of his counselors at camp went to Bowdoin with me; one dated my sophomore year roommate, Marissa. Who would have thought that I would find someone who had personal connections to Bowdoin all the way over here in Austria?

Apparently he and his family were just as shocked as I was to find such a connection. Days later, I received an invitation from his family to join them for skiing in Saalbach, where they have a house. At first I declined - it felt kind of weird to accept an invitation to go skiing with a student, especially one who goes to a Catholic all-boys school. But after invitation number 3 I finally gave in. Honestly, when else would I have gotten such an experience??

The family has a gorgeous apartment in the town of Saalbach, which is 4km away from Hinterglemm, where we spent our week of orientation.  The two towns share the same mountains.  Sebastian, his father Clemens and his friend Vinci picked me up on Friday afternoon at my apartment, and together we drove the 2 hours to Saalbach, sharing music and cultural tidbits.  At first I tried to speak German the entire time, but eventually we settled into a system where I would interject into their conversations in German, but mostly everyone addressed me in English.  Luckily, Sebastians sister - Anna, 12 - and brother - Ferdinand (Ferdi), 7 - haven't had the English training that everyone else has, so that forced me to use my German a fair bit during the weekend.

The apartment itself is in a fairly generic, 60s style building in the town above the grocery store.  The hallways are dark and the elevator is old, but the family has decorated the corner apartment to look like a little mountain hut, complete with old wooden beams on the ceiling and hand-painted antique wooden cabinets (very typically Austrian).

The first night, after I picked up my skis and boots, we sat around getting to know one and other over a dinner of Fritattensuppe (soup with stringy crepe bits - sounds odd but tastes delicious) and various meats and vegetables.  Then the boys (Vinci and Sebastian) and I went out to find their friend at his work, which ended in us playing a game of 'stump' at a bar.  Stump is a game involving a tree stump, a hammer and nails.  It generally goes hand-in-hand with drinking, making it even more dangerous.  The fact that the game gets played in a bar tells you something about Austrian Apres-ski culture: it gets a little wild.  The three of us eventually found the friend, played a few games of air hockey at a different bar, then went back to the apartment for a solid night's sleep before our first day of skiing.

I am by no means an excellent skier.  I am fairly athletic and very stubborn, and never liked getting left in the dust by my brothers and cousins at the bunny-hills in Ohio, which means I've built up some ability to ski over the years.  The Austrians, on the other hand, seem to be born with skis on their feet.  I kid you not, there were three year olds on the slope who probably had barely learned to walk before they strapped on skis and headed off down the black runs.  I hadn't skied in two years and have never even SEEN mountains as big and steep as these, let alone thought about skiing them.  But like I said, I'm stubborn, therefore when we took the gondola all the way to the top of the mountain I said nothing.  And when we teetered over the edge of a red run before I'd regained my ski-legs, I gritted my teeth and went for it....and promptly fell.  But I got back up and kept going.  All in all, I only fell three times each day; six times in total.  Not bad for me!  We skied mostly red runs.  Austria has only three colors: black (the hardest), red and blue.  The colors are determined based solely on the steepness of the slope, without any regard to moguls, ice, stones, etc.  So what we skied, which were labeled red, could be anywhere from a red to a black in the US (since in the US they take the obstacles into consideration when labeling the slopes).  Not bad for someone who's only been skiing 6 times ever!  By the end I was exhausted, but had actually begun to feel comfortable on the skis.  I still prefer easy skiing (like the blue slopes) and I still don't feel entirely comfortable going fast, but at least I'm making progress!  If I stay here for a second year, I've got to learn to keep up with these Austrians somehow!

Me post fall, with my goggles falling down and everything.

Mountains!

Me, excited to be skiing (after I'd fixed my goggles).  The logic behind my bright blue helmet was that I'd be easily found if I fell off the mountain.  It certainly makes me easier to spot!

Anna, left, me, and Ferdi, right.  These two kids left me in the dust when it came to ability, but they kindly took it upon themselves to "teach" me how to ski. 

Again.

And once without goggles.

Solo shot on the mountain

Anna building at our lunch stop on top of the mountain

More of the beautiful mountains

The town of Saalbach from above

Sebastian and I.  The poor kid had hurt his knee a week earlier and therefore couldn't ski that much, but we managed to get a photo in.

Action shot!