Dear Friends

Katie & Lisa came to visit me (I mean us) last week. One thing I'm noticing as we have more visitors is that I am beginning to take more and more pride in my new found home (guess it's the Texan in me). I want the people that visit us to love Germany as much as we have come to. I think Katie & Lisa loved it....mission accomplished.

Though the weather was not as temperate as I had first told them it would be...I think my exact words were, "We're on the verge of spring here!" (see previous post) - they still saw some of Germany's "must-sees", tasted the "must-tastes", saw a fairy tale winter wonderland and gave me a fabulous dose of girl time (don't worry, Steve gets a big ole dose of guy time in three short weeks).

Among the places I visited with them was Luxembourg, a city Steve and I visited last summer. However, one new thing that I learned about Luxembourg is that chivalry is alive and well there. We parked in this parking space for the day...

I almost passed it by, assuming it was for expectant mothers or something (you know, like at Babies R Us). But, Katie in her French fluency insisted that this was for all women, expecting or not. And judging from the size of the pictured girl's waistline, I was inclined to agree. Score.

Here we are overlooking some ruins that we never fully identified. Of course, since they left, spring has returned and we are super excited about the extra sunshine starting tomorrow (daylight savings time for us). So for those of you interested, we are back to being 7 hours apart instead of the 6 that we have been for the last three weeks.

Welcome to....Spring?

On the fourth day of Spring, our neighborhood looked like this.

On the sixth day of Spring, our neighborhood looked like this.

Hmmm...I think Germany is confused. We would have loved to see more of this in the winter. Now, we're pretty much ready for flip flops and skirts and tank tops - not snow.

There was no denying it was beautiful - but so is today, sunny and 55 degrees. That's more like it.

Steve needs a new expensive hobby

I decided since I don't have my boat to sink money into anymore, I needed a new hobby. This weekend James, a friend from work, and I started Paragliding lessons. I found a school in the nearby town of Weinheim. I have to say it wasn't quite what I expected. We had a couple hours of instruction, then we headed over to the Weinheim Flugplatz (small airfield). A storm was just passing through, so the winds were pretty strong. We started out by getting used to controlling the canopy. At one point it was pulling me across the grass. When I looked back, you could see where my boots had scraped all the grass off the ground, leaving ruts for about 15 feet. James actually got flipped over on his back at one point. It was exhausting, you wouldn't believe how much effort it took to keep control in the wind. I felt like I had run a couple of miles and lifted weights. By the end of the exercise, I could stand pretty much still with the canopy above me. At one point, I was actually lifted about 5 feet off the ground. By reflex, I quickly pulled the brakes and dropped back to the ground. We have to do about 20 hours of ground work before we get to head to a training hill in the Odenwald for our first real flight, but I can already tell I am going to love it. I can't wait to head to the Alps and fly in the mountains.

Kleinwalsertal

So, I left that last ski trip post on such a sour note. We had another ski trip, with another ski group (this one German...yikes!) the weekend immediately after Zell Am See. Steve's friend, Miles (the one on the right) has lived here for 15 years, speaks fluent German, hangs out with the Germans and they had a couple extra spots, so we took them.

We didn't even unpack - well, except to wash our almost unused ski gear. We were definitely apprehensive about going with another large group.

We awoke at 3:00am - guh - to meet the bus departing at 4:30am. Steve failed to inform me of this little detail until after we were paid in full. This was probably a smart move because I would never have agreed - and it actually turned out to be not that bad at all. We slept on the bus (why I can't do this on an airplane is beyond me) and - it was great because we arrived just in time to eat breakfast at the top and hop on our skis at 10:00am. So we got three days of skiing with only one day of vacation from work - not bad.

We were pleased as we approached Kleinwalsertal to see that there was, in fact, snow on the ground. The snow was not bad. It snowed on us a little the first day and was gray, but really not that cold. The next day we went a few minutes down the road to Mittelberg where Hans (our new-found ski buddy and friend) said the views were nicer and the crowds, smaller. He was definitely right about the view. I don't know if the Alps are actually prettier than the Rockies or if it's just because they're The Alps, but it was this - in all directions.

The skiing was fun - I don't know if my legs have ever been so sore. I don't know if it's because I was trying desperately to not be the last one down every run or if it's because I was 5 days shy of my 30th birthday :( but I was so sore.

The Germans were good to us. They were so gracious and always wanted to know if we were having a good time, if we were okay. We made a few new friends and probably picked up a new word or two, had some amazing food and skiied our little hearts out....until next year...

Zell Am See

Our first experience skiing in the Alps was kind of a bust. We went with the Frankfurt Ski Club and loved the part where they plan and organize everything and all we had to do was hop on the bus and enjoy the ride. Zell Am See is about a 9 hour drive by bus from Frankfurt - a tidbit we failed to inquire about when we signed up for the trip. We arrived late Friday night and loaded all of our stuff on the gondola for a quick ride to the top of the mountain where our hotel was located. It was a ski-in, ski-out in a great location (pretty cool, right?)

Saturday morning we awoke to rain, yes rain, at the top of the mountain. By the time we ate breakfast, rented skis and managed 3 runs in the wind & rain, all lifts were closed and we found ourselves at the bottom of the hill waiting for a break in what was now officially a storm so that they could run the gondola to get us back up to our hotel. We spent the rest of the afternoon enjoying the view from our room...

Sunday morning, the wind was still strong enough and the lifts still closed that we (the whole group of 30) decided to call it quits and head home. We got all our stuff together and waited for the men-in-charge to decide it was safe to run the gondola and get us down. Four of our group had decided to ski down (for one last run) and meet us at the bus. Instead, by the time we got to the bottom (where there was no storm), a very few lifts had opened up and they decided to keep skiing the few green runs that were available (did I mention there was very little snow and the skiing was pretty worthless to begin with?). No one was happy about it, but apparently since our originally scheduled departure was 3:00pm and the lifts were "technically" open, club policy dictated that the trip captain was not to terminate the trip early. So we had no choice but to wait impatiently for 2 1/2 hours while they skiied their little hearts out on crappy snow.

I'm pretty sure I have learned the life lesson before about trying to do anything with a large group of people (especially one with whom you are not well acquainted). Unfortunately, we were forced to re-learn it the hard way. While several club veterans assured us that this was not the norm & were equally frustrated by the situation, we will think long and hard about traveling with this group again. Check back next season. We may have completely forgotten our lesson learned by then.