First Real-Life Glacier
It has been a whirlwind of a summer. Things skyrocketed at work - we went from about 1000 lessons given per month to 2300 given in July. I was promoted as well to assistant director of our "little satellite school" in Heilbronn. My partner in crime (our customer service associate) and I were able to keep the place afloat and deliver this huge volume successfully and even came out as one of the most profitable schools in all of Germany for the first half of the year.
As you can imagine, I am now in dior need of a vacation! To keep my sanity, we built in a few weekend trips in the past month.
First, we spent three days at a house in Holland with 7 of our Kleinbottwar homies barbecuing, swimming, sunbathing and butchering the Dutch language with zero agenda.
Next, we went hiking in the Alps with our friends Felix and Silvi. This time we were in a completely new region of Austria, a four hour drive from home and very close to the Italian border. In fact, we could have pulled a Van Trapp family getaway and actually hiked over the border, but instead we chose a path that went past a beautiful glacier.
Unfortunately, the weather wasn't the greatest. At one point, I twisted my knee and had to use a hiking stick in order to climb down past the glacier. I'm no weenie, but when it started hailing I had a weak moment of panic. When you see lightning in the mountains, bad things can happen quickly! But we were safe, just cold and wet. Felix taped up my knee to support the muscles so we could get to shelter as fast as possible.
We spent the night at one of the Hütten (which seem to be getting more luxurious and less rustic with each visit). This time we had -gasp!- warm showers and the mattress hall wasn't overcrowded, so we could spread out and snore and not care.
The next morning we found out that the forecast wasn't much better, so we hiked all the way back down into the valley, packed up our things, and drove an hour south to Bozen - the capitol city of South Tirol (a region that technically belongs to Italy but is actually bilingual and quite Austrian in culture). Here we found the last available room for rent at a winery in the hills.
We ate pizza and walked about town, drank strong coffee and marveled at the narrow, steep streets that snaked from the city up into the hills. Inside the city limits there were three gondolas you could ride, but we explored on foot.
The weekend ended too soon, but I am also looking forward to my first grown-up, European vacation in September (meaning I have joined the ranks of Germans and can afford and talk about exotic-sounding trips and moan about how much I'd rather not return to work afterwards).... we are going to Croatia! And we're driving there. It's comparable to reaching the ocean from Missouri.
Will keep you posted on our travels... until then, Liebe Grüße!
As you can imagine, I am now in dior need of a vacation! To keep my sanity, we built in a few weekend trips in the past month.
First, we spent three days at a house in Holland with 7 of our Kleinbottwar homies barbecuing, swimming, sunbathing and butchering the Dutch language with zero agenda.
Next, we went hiking in the Alps with our friends Felix and Silvi. This time we were in a completely new region of Austria, a four hour drive from home and very close to the Italian border. In fact, we could have pulled a Van Trapp family getaway and actually hiked over the border, but instead we chose a path that went past a beautiful glacier.
 |
| Check out that ice! |
Unfortunately, the weather wasn't the greatest. At one point, I twisted my knee and had to use a hiking stick in order to climb down past the glacier. I'm no weenie, but when it started hailing I had a weak moment of panic. When you see lightning in the mountains, bad things can happen quickly! But we were safe, just cold and wet. Felix taped up my knee to support the muscles so we could get to shelter as fast as possible.
We spent the night at one of the Hütten (which seem to be getting more luxurious and less rustic with each visit). This time we had -gasp!- warm showers and the mattress hall wasn't overcrowded, so we could spread out and snore and not care.
The next morning we found out that the forecast wasn't much better, so we hiked all the way back down into the valley, packed up our things, and drove an hour south to Bozen - the capitol city of South Tirol (a region that technically belongs to Italy but is actually bilingual and quite Austrian in culture). Here we found the last available room for rent at a winery in the hills.
 |
| The view from our bedroom balcony: the steeple of an old, shabby-on-the- outside church which was covered top to bottom in frescoes on the inside. |
We ate pizza and walked about town, drank strong coffee and marveled at the narrow, steep streets that snaked from the city up into the hills. Inside the city limits there were three gondolas you could ride, but we explored on foot.
The weekend ended too soon, but I am also looking forward to my first grown-up, European vacation in September (meaning I have joined the ranks of Germans and can afford and talk about exotic-sounding trips and moan about how much I'd rather not return to work afterwards).... we are going to Croatia! And we're driving there. It's comparable to reaching the ocean from Missouri.
Will keep you posted on our travels... until then, Liebe Grüße!
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