The Austrian Alps

Hejj!

I recently got back from a week in the Austrian Alps, one of the best weeks of my life. I hope I will never forget it. 

I was with my host family and around 25 or 26 others, in such a cute little ski town called St. Anton, downhill skiing all week long. It was the most amazing experience I think I've ever had, I have honestly never seen or experienced anything quite like the Alps.

We got there Friday evening after a full almost 9 hours of driving. I made it through one full playlist, a couple extra songs, and two and a half movies (Tammy is such a weird movie...) and finally pulled into Austria around 6 in the evening. 

We drove through Germany, and let me just say, it is so cool when you drive across the German -Austrian border, because you go from small hills, to the Alps surrounding you on either side with snow covered trees as well. 

I was introduced to a drink known as a radler at dinner, which is a mix of beer and sprite. It's really tasty. At the risk of bending the law *a liiiitle smidgen* when I get back, I'd love to introduce ya'll folk to that ;-) 

When the other exchange student Claire and I finally got back to our room after dinner, we were ready to wind down and get ready for the next day full of skiing. So we turned on the TV and realized first of all, everything is dubbed in German. We don't understand German. And shortly after that what should have been a normal procedure took a turn for the more interesting as well. I suppose that if we can't get our entertainment from the TV, we might actually find it in simply trying to work the shower? It made for a very *extra emphasis* interesting experience. Turns out turning on the shower from the outside is a bad idea, especially when you can't decipher the difference between your boiling hot and ice cold water, with jets shooting directly out of it. I wonder how long the floor took to dry...

The next day my host dad spent half of our day trying to teach me how to downhill ski, since I've never downhill skied before, and after lunch he went up to the *real* mountain and I stayed down and practiced some more. 

I went to ski school for the next four days which was not particularly what I was expecting it to be, though actually everything I was expecting it to be. Let me paint the picture: 

1. I'm only five feet and seventeen years old, I'm pretty short. This week however, I was the tallest one there for once in my life, because the ski school kids I was with were no older than 8 years old (possibly younger). 
2. Not only are these kids much younger than I am, they are much more European than I am. Which means they came from mostly German Switzerland, Austria, or Germany. Which thus entails they are not old enough to know English, and speak only German. 

So here I am, five feet and yet still tall, 17 years old, and speaking only Danish and English, avec un peu de Français (with a little bit of French). It was quite the four days I had there. 

My first day I had to jump off the ski lift, because I got off too late, and then had to climb under the bar as well because my pole got stuck without enough time before we had to get off. I wiped out the next three days my fair amount of times, although you can't really call falling in fresh powdered snow very painful, and more times than not me falling resulted in my losing a ski (or both) as well. 

I met a man who really enjoys skiing in the Seattle area on my third day, and he really went for it and impressed me when I found out he even knew what Crystal Mountain, Snoqualmie pass, and Stevens pass are. Kudos to you and your geography skills, foreign man. 

After four days of ski school I finally joined the group of the 26 some others, which started after being so nicely picked up by my host dad after ski school with one last run down the mountain, and over to St. Christoffer where the whole group held an "after ski." Sweet, sweet graduation.

My second day (or first full day) skiing with the whole group was super fun, and I ordered a burger and fries for lunch just to make up for four straight days of kids menu spaghetti. I was pretty sure I was done with the kids menu when I was 10. I suppose not. That afternoon was gong great, I was skiing pretty well if I do say so myself, when I totally and completely bit it going down a pretty steep hill with its fair amount of jumps. I'm not sure how, I believe I just started picking up speed and had no idea what to do with it. So naturally I fall, and the next thing I know I go from sliding on my side to sliding over a jump, flying through the air a little bit, and landing on my back, only to slide a little more. I wish I had it on video. 

And thus began our last day skiing, Friday. It started out great, we took a couple lifts and skied our way over to the other side of the mountain, took a gondola up to the peak, and stopped for a small break. While the adults were still enjoying their break, Claire, me, and two other girls on the trip with us decided to go to the fun park. We took a small detour after we saw there were many people there already, and ended up skiing down the wrong hill. We saw the only lift going back up was not the one we wanted to take, seeing as how it took us farther up the mountain. So we decided to find our own trail going to our designated chair lift. Turns out the trail we took going down was really an off pist area (off trail), which then lead to a story that really, is just a little crazy. 

I decided that I didn't want to ski down an off pist, I'd probably not make it out of the Alps if I did that. So I took off my skis with the intention of sliding down on my butt. I had my poles in one hand, and skis in the other. I start sliding, though after only a couple feet I was gaining way too much speed, with really no where to put it. So I put one foot out to try to stop myself. Wrong idea, I gained more speed. All of sudden both polls are out of my hands, one ski is sliding down the mountain, the other left behind me. I hit a jump again, flying over to my stomach, sliding down the mountain with uncontrollable speed, snow in places where there really shouldn't be snow, and I finally slow down next to my missing ski, after screaming to myself a couple times "you will survive this Grace," with a couple extra profanities slipped in there as well. 

By the time we made it to the chair left we originally intended to take, I had successfully (and a little unconventionally) off pisted (I suppose that depends on your definition of successfully), and we then broke for lunch. 

The last three hours of the day went by way too fast, and the next thing I know we're all breaking before we ski down the mountain for some hot cocoa. I also tried an Austrian food that I cannot spell nor pronounce (that seems to be the norm this year...) anyway, it tasted not quite like what it looked like.... I thought it would taste more like chocolate.

And then our slightly more kid friendly rendition of Wednesday nights after ski ended. I put my headphones in, blasted my music, and have not ever skied faster than I did my last round down the mountain. Of course my version of bombing down the hill is a little bit different from the others seeing as how they all had to pause for me to catch up every now and then (and I may have fallen once as well). When I got back down, I had to go back up once more before the lifts closed. The sun was close to setting, we were the only ones left on the mountain, and it was still warm out from the day while the snow was still cold... it was fantastic.

I really hope that this week was not my last time skiing, because it is so, so fun. Saturday afternoon we drove back, and stopped in Hamburg, Germany for two hours before we had to pick up my host mom who had been in India for two weeks. And then, we returned home.

In about a month I will be going to Istanbul, Turkey for a week with my class for our class trip, so I'm super excited about that, and will definitely have a blog when I return. 

I will definitely be returning to the Alps in the near future, they are just absolutely stunning. For now though, that wraps up my most wonderful ski week in Austria. 

Vi ses! :-)

And then I was halfway there

On August 9th at midnight, I watched my countdown on my iPod, which I had been so vicariously watching throughout the last couple months, turn to "0 days until Denmark."

I had been rotating from clock to countdown, watching the minutes as the date was yet to turn. I anxiously watched in anticipation as the clock continued to turn. At 9 I closed my computer, saving my "first night questions" document that I was yet to use in two days when the day finally came that I arrived in Denmark. At 10 I turned off the TV, the last time I'd turn off my own TV in my own living room for a year. I was halfway through a series I was so determined to finish two weeks earlier when I stupidly started it, yet to travel to a foreign country. 

10 o'clock slowly turned to 11, and I started messaging my friends on facebook. And slowly but surly, the clock creeped to the last 10 minutes of August 8th. I watched as 10 minutes slowly became five, and five slowly turned to 11:59. I laid on my bed with the white fluffy blanket that I couldn't take to Denmark with me, with my phone in one hand, and my iPod countdown in the other. I slowly waited, waited until my countdown "Days until Denmark" turned from not 1, but 0. And surly enough, the day came. 

I woke up and went about my routine, the only thing being, that all of my clothes were packed tight in two purple suitcases in the living room downstairs. I graciously gave my mom half my serving of eggs with ham, cheese, and onions (which I came to regret later that month when I had scrambled egg withdrawals), and then got up to shower. I put my hair in a bun, got out my outfit that I had set out, the only outfit that could ever go good with a navy blue blazer with multicolored pins, and then set my backpack in front of me. I shoved a bag of kit kats, a bag of goldfish, and a tray of oreos in my bag. 

And later I was off to the airport. 

And to my own shock, that day was already six months, half a year, two and half families, and many many memories ago. Whatever happened to me telling myself as I was gaining altitude in the plane on my way to Amsterdam "Your year is just getting started, you still have a whole year ahead of you! You have plenty of time." 

When I think about my first six months, what I can really think is that I'm living the life I had back home, here in Denmark. To me, that is the best way to describe it. It is not easy, nor is it strenuously hard. I have many great memories with the many special people I met, and yet I have times as well that I remember, sometimes more than I'd like to admit, where I would feel incredibly unproductive. Going from being a straight A student, to not even being able to participate in class even when you know that you could have something productive to say is frustrating. Knowing what you go home to, not home in your home country, but home in your host country, creates a balance between the days that leave you in an unproductive rut, and the days that you make you think that you're more at home in your host country than you are in your home country. In the end, this balance is what matters the most. 

Many people think exchange is "the life," is "super easy," or otherwise "a relaxing year." Granted, I definitely don't have the same stress as I did back home with my school work. When I say you leave things behind back home, if I were talking about myself, I'd say I left large amounts of school work back home. When you drop 6 hours of studying, you tend to relax a little bit more.

However there are hidden intricacies of exchange that people don't see from the outside. Many people view not being able to do school work because it is in a different language as easy. People are jealous that we have the excuse to essentially exempt us from doing our school work. I was jealous of myself last year that I simply had to wait a year to have that excuse. Now that I'm here, I'd say thats one of the intricacies of exchange. It is not fun not being able to do work. Sitting in class and not being able to do anything because you cant understand the language your teacher is speaking in gets really tedious after a while.

Switching families three times, or in some students cases four or five, is not fun. Settling in, getting to know a whole family, and then suddenly three months later having to drop everything and forget the previous family isn't always ideal. Make new relations, make new inside jokes, and create new homes. What happens if all you had before was special to you though?

In the end however, some of the more negative intricacies do help create a new perspective on yourself. After not being able to do much for the last six months, I can't help but remember when my school work was one of the paramounts in my life, and it has changed my perspective on what I think about the U.S school system. I don't want to say I like it more than the Danish system, nor vice-versa, I think they're both good school systems. However I have gained a new appreciation for what I came from- the U.S system, and have come to realize that the U.S system is not as corrupt as everyone likes to say.

Although I'm not particularly fond of having to drop everything three times to become one with three different families, I'm glad that I get to have three different families abroad, along with my one family back in the U.S. I'm not fond of the moment that I have to leave, however I quite enjoy having an abundance of things that are acutely special to me as they are as well to the families, things that others can't quite specifically relate to.

Exchange is not a trip, it is not simply "an adventure." It is taking what you have back home, leaving some of it behind, and applying the rest to a different culture, to a different language, and to three different families and their own way of life. And in doing so, you end up with some of the most special relationships with some of the most special people.

Six months ago I watched as the sun set in my own familiar surroundings, and watched Seattle get smaller and smaller, until I could see it no longer, and wouldn't for a year. I watched the sun rise again only six hours later, mid flight, which was a false friend because it was still dark outside at home. I landed in a city completely foreign to me, one I had only seen on google images. When I finally found myself sitting down to dinner in a kitchen foreign to me as well, with people who were strangers to me, yet were family together, is when I finally realized what is happening, and I will remember this forever. The only thing I could think was, and I quote "What have I gotten myself into."

The rain continued to pour outside and a year stretched on in front of me with no end.

That night, I never could have imagined that in what feels like such short time, I'd already be writing about six months in Denmark. I never could have imagined that I'd find such a family in some of the most unexpected places, and I never could have imagined that in a foreign country, it could become such a home to me, where my life leads as normal as it does back home, with some of the most extraordinary memories.  In the last six months that I've been away from the U.S, I've surly left a lot behind, however I feel as though I've gained much to remember and hold with me in return.  

So there you have it- six months abroad in a nutshell.

Vi ses! :-)