Schwarzwald Skiing

Well, everyone, we're back from our weekend ski trip in the Black Forest on the Feldberg. All I can say is that it was an all-around great time.

The slopes were great -- winding, steep, unpredictable slopes racing through the thick wood all around us. There was one funny moment where we'd decided to take a red slope, the Fahler Loch, but we'd heard that it became a black slope later on down the run. Well, the sign said it was red and we decided we'd take the risk anyway. (In Europe, ski runs are color-coded: blue=easy, red=medium, black=hard).

So anyway, long story short is that it most definitely DID become a black slope (a nearly vertical one) and we discovered the hard way why its name is the "Fahler Hole." But it was so much fun and the challenge definitely kept you on your toes. I've reached the point in my skiing ability where I'm not worried about getting hurt and actually view the red/black slopes as a fun challenge.

The weekend started off with a Schneeschuhwanderung (snow shoe hike) up the mountain, which is called the Feldberg. I think it's about 1 400 meters (little over 3,000 feet) high. We had some great views of the Schwarzwald (black forest) and the Alpen (alps), which were about 200 miles away or so.

That was all we had time our first day -- on Saturday we were a bit late starting off, hitting the slopes at 10am or so. But we made the most of the day and skiied almost nonstop till the lifts closed at 5pm. Today we woke up earlier, got everything ready to go, and were on the slopes at 9am when they opened, tickets in hand. Unfortunately we could only ski till noon, but it was still a great time.

The last lift we took carried us straight up the mountain through a very thin opening in the trees. We were up in the clouds, so it looked foggy, there was fresh snow covering everything, and it was so peaceful and still -- I could have stayed up there for hours if it wasn't freezing.

The ski weekend was, all in all, an amazing time. I almost decided not to go, but now I'm so glad that I chose to come along. I usually don't really feel "rested" at the end of active vacations like that (I usually need a lot of lounging around during vacation) but somehow those two days of constant skiing really just cleared my head and relaxed me (and exhausted me) more than I've been in a long time. It was good to unplug a bit and just have fun with good friends, and get away from Tübingen, away from school, away from everything on my mind.

Well, almost away. I had a lot on my mind the whole weekend, including the internship. Over the past couple days it's really sunken in just how amazing of an opportunity I had to watch slip away -- and that's difficult. But all I can tell myself at this point is that there really wasn't much I could have done -- and even if I could or should have, I'm sure that the Lord will have something out there for me in the future that will be just as good, if not better. Gotta just rest in that at this point.

Weird thought that hit me the other day: it's been WEEKS if not a good month since I've thought of home. What I mean is that whether I like it here in Germany or not I've stopped thinking of this place as a "home away from home" and rather as home proper. It's hard to explain. It's mostly just that I don't think about being anywhere else anymore. I was going through some friend's pictures online the other day and saw some photos of friends at ASU at a football game this past fall. And I just stared at it in confusion for a second and then thought, Ohhhh...right, they're all still back in Arizona! Life has actually been going on without me there! It was definitely a really weird moment and it made me wonder whether it will be easy to fit back into things there when I return.

Tomorrow we jump into a new week and the start of Matt's Frantic Pre-Finals Studying Extravaganza. If anyone needs me, I shall be temporarily moving into the reading room at the library.