Monday, February 18, 2013

Skiing in the Alps



Hello again! I’m going to get two posts in back to back here. This past weekend (Feb. 15-17), I traveled to Munich to visit friends and go skiing in the Austrian Alps! Talk about incredible, this is it. Justin, Anton, Elizabeth, Lauren, and I left Just and Anton’s apartment building at 4:45am to catch the bus that was leaving at 5:45am. Way too early… We drove for about 2.5-3 hours, and finally arrived at the mountain! I was about to experience an entirely different caliber of skiing than the “hills” we ski on in Ohio and the mountain we used to ski on in West Virginia. It didn’t help that I hadn’t been skiing for three years or so.


Of course, at the start of the day, I was overly confident in my abilities. I used to be really good. How difficult can it really be to get back into it? The answer: quite difficult. I probably should have taken a little bit of time on the easy hills to get back into the swing of things, but it worked out okay. Haha! We skied several different routes down the mountain. Anton, Elizabeth, and I stuck to the easier ones before lunch, while Justin and Lauren went off on the harder hills. We all had a few good crashes. It’s actually pretty fun to wipe out on a mountain because the snow is fluffier, and it doesn’t really hurt. Admittedly, when I started to get tired and physically exhausted, I fell on purpose instead of stopping. Haha!


At noon, we stopped for lunch, which we ate at a restaurant at the top of the mountain! Awetastic! (It deserved its own word). You could look out the windows and see all of the mountains off in the distance, serving as a constant reminder that you were eating lunch at about 9000ft above sea level. I had a delicious pork schnitzel that hit the spot. It was a nice break from all of the hard work we were doing. :P


After lunch, we continued skiing down all the runs we could find. We found a ski lift that took us to the highest point of the mountain, and were able to see over the smaller peaks down to the city. It was quite a view. Unfortunately, it was quite cloudy, making the visibility limited. We skied and skied and then skied some more. I don’t know if it’s me getting older, being out of shape, or being a little bit sick, but I was getting sore. By the end of the day, I could barely even bring myself to turn my skis to stop. We were the last group to catch the lift up the mountain, which was an awesome feeling being up there with nobody behind us.


At one point in the afternoon, Anton and I were adventuring on our own. He saw a path from the ski lift in between two of the runs that had a few trees and looked like a nice little detour from the normal path. I followed the leader. We got to this part of the mountain and went off the beaten path, if you will. Unfortunately, we found that it was just huge piles of unpacked snow. My skis and his snowboard kept sinking into the snow, causing us to fall and causing me to lose my skis. Anton was ahead of me and was able to make it out before I could.

I was struggling my way through. At one point, I thought to myself, “Okay, if you go faster, you can glide over the top and make it down.” That worked for a short time. Then I saw a valley in front of me. I was heading downhill, and then it changed directions and went uphill again. Again, I thought, “You got this. No worries. Just lean back and try to lift the front end of your skis up, and go over it.” Please reference the very crude pictorial representation below of the events that transpired next:





No, I could not make it up the hill in front of me. Yes, I face-planted right into that giant pile of snow. Yes, I came out of it laughing. No, I don’t regret going down into that area because it was the funniest thing that happened to me that entire trip. I wish someone could have been there to videotape it.

Little did I know, Anton had made it out of the area and was calling for me. I couldn’t hear him, so I obviously wasn’t responding. On my end, I would try to walk, and fall into the snow up to my waste. I’m not going to lie, I thought at one point that I might fall into a crevice and be buried, unable to get out. So like any engineer would do, I laid on my stomach to disperse my body weight and used my skis to pull myself to safety. It was a totally logical thing to do. Haha! I finally heard Anton yelling for me, and I yelled back letting him know I was still working my way out. His reply, “I thought you died!” Overall, not the best decision we’ve ever made. Would I do it again? Probably not. Would I go back and change it? Absolutely not! (Please note: if I was actually buried in the snow for a period of time or I died, I would probably want to change my decision.)


Anyway, skiing in the Alps was an absolute blast, and I can’t wait to go again on March 2nd!

Köln: Take 2 and 3


Hello everyone! Sorry about the lack of posting lately, but I killed my computer. I broke the hard drive, so I’m currently in the process of navigating the technical terminology of the German language. I think I have just about everything in order, and with a few creative solutions and help from my mom and some friends, it should be up and running by next week (as long as I only broke the hard drive; cross your fingers). P.S. Never in my life did I think I would be hoping that I “only” broke my hard drive. Good times. Oh well…it’s been a unique learning experience separate from everything else that’s going on.

So now that we’ve covered everything you didn’t care about, let’s get down to business: what in the world has Nate been up to for the past two weeks. Holy crap, I have some catching up to do! First of all, my uncle, Uncle Wayne, was in Köln (Cologne, where my European adventure began), and I was able to visit him on Tuesday, February 12th! That was really awesome. I haven’t seen him for several years. He is here with his friends Rick and Kim, as well as the mentally handicapped man he takes care of, Michael. We got to explore parts of the city together, including a tour of the chocolate factory. I would be lying if I didn’t say it was quite a delectable delight! We took a tour of the factory and had dessert afterwards. No complaints there!

We then continued our bus tour about the city, hitting all of the highlights of Cologne, including the zoo and the Dom (cathedral) again. After the tour, we took a short break to get ready for dinner, and I got to spend some quality time with my uncle. I have to say, it’s probably my fondest memory thus far about being in Germany. How is it that I had to travel halfway around the world to connect with him? Haha! We then had a very delicious meal at a local restaurant, Pfäffgen Kölsch Brauhaus. Authentic German food! Wonderful! Unfortunately, I was only able to stay and visit for one day, but I have already made plans to visit them in London.

The following weekend, Matheus, his cousin Diego, and I traveled again to Cologne for the Kölner Karneval (Cologne Carneval) to celebrate. It was absolutely nuts! There were people everywhere dressed up in colorful or ridiculous or spectacular costumes. We found a square block where people were celebrating; eating stew and drinking beer and enjoying the moment. The stew was delicious and warm (thankfully, because it was freezing outside). As we ate, a band marched by and performed on a stage in the center of the area we were in. Following the marching band, a famous German band performed some of their famous songs for us (I have no idea who it was, sorry!), and people all around were singing these anthems and beloved tunes. It was quite an incredible sight.

After the performance, everyone started to head toward the Dom and the city center, so we followed the crowd. We walked around the central train station and the Dom for a while, looking at all of the costumes and soaking in the ridiculous nature that was the Kölner Karneval. We saw Power Rangers, Dragon Ball Z characters, Barbies, Marios and Luigis (even a Wario), Gorillas and Bananas, Doctors and Nurses, German men dressed up in Lederhosen and German women dressed in Dirndl. We even saw a few German men dressed in Dirndl. Anything and everything you can imagine, we probably saw. If we didn’t see it, I’m willing to bet someone there was dressed like it.

 (I'll post pictures from the carneval as soon as my computer is up and running)

We ended up finding an area near the Dom playing music with people of all ages hanging around dancing and drinking and enjoying the moment. We danced. We sang. We enjoyed the crazy atmosphere and the company around us: people we had never met before, just happy to celebrate carnival together. It was a special event to be a part of.

Friday, February 1, 2013

Wie gehts?

Hello all! Thank you for all of you support and help over what has nearly been a month since arriving in Germany. I don't have anything spectacular to share, so I'll just give a general update about my planned adventures, sight-seeing in Bremen, work, and my personal life, in that order.

First of all, I have some good stuff coming up that I'm really excited about! I'm a little bit nervous that I won't get to sleep in the near future, but you only live once (YOLO) right? Newest development, my uncle will be about 2 hours away by train, so I may take off work on Tuesday to go hang out with him. This is as of 20 seconds ago. The 8th of February is Matheus' birthday, so I'm going to let him decide what's on the docket then. On Friday the 15th, I will jump on a train to Munich. We will spend the 16th in the Austrian Alps skiing. The bus leaves at 5:45 and will bring us back later that day. Then we will explore Munich on the 17th. I, being the smart person that I am, decided to take the late train back, so I will arrive in Bremen at 7am to be at work by 8 or so.

The following weekend, a group of us are traveling to Prague on the 22nd-24th. Of course, I booked overnight trips so I can make the most of my time exploring. One week later, I will be going on another skiing trip similar to the previous ones. Different mountain in the Alps, same bus schedule and weekend plan. Crazy! Some of us plan to spend our Easter in Paris. Will and I want to go to Disney World while we're there. I can book really cheap flights from Bremen to places around Europe, so I may try to fit a trip in before Easter (I probably will). No rest for the wicked!

Last weekend, I finally had the opportunity to see Bremen...kind of. My explorations were cut short by rain. I'm told it rains quite a bit here. The climate is very similar to that of northern Ohio. It gets fairly cold and receives some snow in the winter and mildly warm in the summer. Anyway some pictures are below.


The Bremen Dom (Cathedral)




Nothing like Bremen in the winter!

The Dom in the middle of the snow
Once it warms up I will go around and take more pictures. There are a lot of really awesome older buildings around the city that have been preserved, and I have only seen parts of the city myself.

Work goes pretty well because I like the people I work with and sometimes what I do. MATLAB (programming tool) pisses me off sometimes, but I guess that happens. I have yet to receive the key to my office, so I moved into the room with the rest of the interns and students. I may just stay there. They're fun to be around when I need a distraction. Thimo and I talked about "How I Met Your Mother" for quite some time today. He knows it pretty well, which makes me happy! Here's a picture that shows you the development plan of DLR and the German space program:

lolz
On a personal level, things are going pretty well. I have made a few challenges for myself while I'm in Germany. I want to get in shape to do a triathlon when I return to the United States. My cooking abilities have already increased dramatically (easy to do when the only place to go is up), but I plan to challenge myself a little more in the near future. Homemade pizza coming soon. I also challenged myself to write to my little brother 3-4 times a week. He's in basic training for the National Guard right now, and I want to keep him busy when he gets free time. I told my coworkers that next week we are only allowed to speak German. Thimo said he would give me the silent treatment unless I'm talking in German. I came here to learn the language so I guess I should get on that. Another coworker, Ali, and I are going to play in a volleyball league on Tuesday nights! This past week was awesome, and I'm excited to be playing, even if I don't understand most of what they're saying to me. Despite being on the other side of the country, I'm still pretty involved in SigEp (my Fraternity). I am constantly talking with those guys, meeting with them via the internet, and sending them things on Facebook. Plans are in the works to talk to my grandparents this weekend on Skype! That is going to be awesome. Finally, I want to get a bike, hike, and travel as much as possible. There's no time to waste, and I don't plan on having any money left when I'm done. I'm 100% sure I'm going to exhaust myself, but that's why I'm eating healthy and exercising regularly so my mind and body can keep up with each other.