Skiing at Steinplatte

Sorry this took so long everyone and rest assured I am alive and well. When I got back from skiing the place that is *suppose* to be open until midnight on weekends was closed (angry face!). That is my only source of wifi on this entire base. Then, Sunday was Three Kings Day which is a German Holiday so the wifi lounge was closed again because they observe German holidays as well.  So I am currently standing outside of the building and getting just enough signal to post this.

So anyway… Skiing. Again, jetlag struck again. I went to bed around 9pm and woke up at 10:45 and couldn’t get back to sleep until roughly 2:55am when I had to be awake for 3:30 to get ready to go skiing. Good thing I had a three hour bus ride to sleep on! The people who went on the trip were very friendly and lighthearted. There was a family of 6 (husband is an engineer on base then his wife and 4 girls), a father and son, a couple single soldiers, and a few married/dating couples. The majority of the group had skied or snowboarded before so the beginner’s class I took consisted on me, one of the 8 year old girls, another teacher on base, a single woman soldier, and the mom. Our instructor was very hopeful and funny for our entire lesson and wouldn’t let any of us give up on what we were trying to accomplish. 

                                                        The place where we were skiing

                                                                         Mountains 

                                                           Other part of the mountain

                                                            Ride up the mountain

We rode the little trolley cars up the mountain (Did you know about Germany fact #1: Germans do NOT wait in lines, they will cut you if you don’t move fast enough, and they have very little patience). After that we started the day of learning around 9am with the basics of skiing: what each part of the equipment is called, how to put on the equipment, maneuvering with one ski on, then two, then going around in a circle using the poles, then how to slow down/speed up, practicing going down a little slope MANY times, and finally working on turning and shifting your weight/ pushing off the ski. We worked on all of that and repeated what we needed to in 3 hours—I only fell three times within those three hours. I am really bad at being able to turn on my skis and this became my downfall for the trip.

We took a break for lunch at noon and took a “Magic Carpet Ride” up to the little restaurants. This is basically a rubber conveyer belt with little textured circles to take you up the hill while on skis or in boots. I wholeheartedly suggest that Eau Claire gets one of these for up the hill!

At the restaurant I ordered a coke and a wiener schnitzel (fried pork) that came with fries (see the picture!). Did you know about Germany fact #2: They are not allowed to use high fructose corn syrup in their drinks—only real sugar. Lunch was okay, the pork mostly tasted like bacon so I wasn’t a huge fan of it.

Our first “down-hill” experience was after lunch when we had to ski down the hill because there was no Magic Carpet going down. Well, for me, this is when the real falling started happening. After taking an hour break for lunch, my legs were so sore that stopping became very difficult because you have to push out on the edges of your skis with equal pressure. Well, that’s very hard to do when your calf muscles are consistently being suffocated by ski boots—your legs get tired very quickly. So I fell over while trying to go down the hill (which, in my defense was steeper than it looked!). I ended up sliding down some of the hill because I couldn’t stop either.

                                                          Part of the hill down from lunch

                                                         Coke and the Wiener Schnitzel

 

                                                              Skiers down the small hill

                                                                             Trees 

After that experience, our instructor decided it was time for us to go down the last little hill that everyone must go down when they take the chair lifts up; this is also the hill that all of the little children go down. It involves taking hold of a moving pulley that lifts you up the hill and you have to let go at the top and stop yourself—harder than it seems, I fell twice. This was also about the time where the water finally soaked through my waterproof gloves and my fingers started to go numb, and since I wasn’t prepared to go skiing, I was only wearing long underwear and a pair of jeans from one of the guys who lives across the hall from me. So needless to say, some tears started welling up out of frustration. To make matters worse we had to ski down this hill that was pretty steep and you can really pick up some speed. Well to make a long story shorter, I went down that hill about 5-6 times, fell a lot, and needed some assistance to get down on a couple tries. I ALMOST made it down completely on my own before falling—so naturally I got back up the hill and wanted to show it who was boss—I fell again. No, I never made it down that hill without falling, but I did try many times and that it what is important. I decided to opt out of doing the chair lift because that requires more coordination and skill than I have at this time. Overall, it was a successful trip and I am very happy that I went on it! I do have some epic bruises on my legs from the ski boots and my calves still feel like I have those boots on. And yes, I just HAD to take a picture of me and the “I’m a Blugold” sign. J

                                                  Looking up from the middle of the hill 

                                                                       Chair lift 

I'm a Blugold! 

 

                                                     Rope on the left, chair lift on the right

Again :) 

More random Did You Know about Germany Facts!

#3: Things are very expensive here—on the way back, we stopped at Burger King for dinner. I got a whopper meal with onion rings (no extra charge) and a small coke—6 euros! What?! And there is no euro menu either!

#4 You have to pay ,70 euro to use the bathroom at any rest stop! What is this!?! On the way there I refused out of principle! That’s pretty much a dollar to use the bathroom, why!? Even when I used to play Rollarcoaster Tycoon I only made my customers pay 10 cents and it was only for a month of time.

#5 German drivers are crazy! We were in a slight traffic jam on the way back and this car decided it was going to get around it by driving on the shoulder of the rode