The Fellowship of the FeG Jugend

The sky is blue, the weather is warm, the tractors are out in the fields ploughing up the rich, dark earth, and the flowers are blossoming. Yes, Spring has come to Giebelstadt, and it is wonderful to see blooming daffodils in everyone's gardens. I would say that it's a nice change from the freezing cold winter, but we didn't really have winter here. It just didn't happen. Except for one week, were we went in search of snow in the Austrian Alps...

The FeG youth group always goes skiing together for a week during the Faschingsferien (winter holidays), when all the schools have a week break, and many employees have a Sat-Tues long weekend. After several fundraising events (eg: candlelight dinners), we all deposited 300 euros into the church bank account and packed our bags.

We left on Saturday, February 17 at around 10:00 AM. We rented this 20-passenger travel bus with trailer...


Then we headed down the big A7 freeway and into a load of traffic (the Saturday before the winter holidays are one of the single busiest days of the year on the German Autobahn, in particular the A7, as it's one of the only major routes south to the Alps - everyone's destination for this week). I spent most of the ride in the back, partying it up, as the back of a bus is always prone to do. And we didn't have much reason not to - the weather was nice, the friendship was grand, and we weren't going anywhere fast. Even if we wanted to go fast, the bus could only manage 100 km/h.



Kind of a random pick. The hand belongs to Michael, and the girl inside is his sister. Here we are having a washroom break at one of many (I forget the English word, the German word is Rasthof), shoot!, ah, yes...REST AREAS along the A7. These rest areas are huge, with large parking lots for trucks, restaurants, gas station, washrooms...usually you have to pay for the washrooms. Something which I consider a montrousity. I mean, it's a basic human right to be able to sit down on a toilet and relieve yourself. On the way back we stopped at one of these rest areas, and there was a forest with a large wire fence by the side of the parking lot. At any one time you could look down the length of the fence and see at least five people taking a leak. It struck me as kind of wierd, here we are in a upscale, Western nation, and people are lining up to take a leak by the edge of the road. Kind of surreal. Anyway here is the picture.


Yes, I pissed on the fence, too. There was no way I was going to stand in line for 10 minutes and shell out my hard-earned cash for the chance to tinkle in a white bowl.

So, we continued on our way, and finally reached our destination in Zell am See at 8 in the evening. It had taken us 10 hours to cover a distance one normally could cover in 4 (with a good car on the Autobahn). Needless to say, we were happy when we finally arrived.


To give you an idea where Zell am See, here is an overhead view: (Würzburg is just East of Frankfurt am Main)


And here a more detailed view:



We each got a five-day ski pass that could be used on both mountains. The first day, we headed up to Schmittenhöhe, with an elevation of 2000 m (the valley was at 900 m), as the weather forecast wasn't too great, and Kaprun is pretty open (bad for foul weather). But, as soon as our youth group stepped on the mountain, it got sunny (it ran more or less like that. Maybe the guy in front of me was responsible. I don't know. I'll give myself the benefit of the doubt).

Waiting for the bus (came daily at 8:40):


View from the slopes (near the top):


View from the same place, but looking down into the other adjoining valley, towards Kaprun (the ski area is to the right of the picture; the next mountain practically)




And this is Michael, about to throw a snowball in my face. But, he didn't because I had Katie's camera in my hand, just after taking this picture of that sweet tree that you can see in the above pic. Michael is a great guy; he roomed with me. The girl on the right is his girlfriend (pretty much his fiancée). Isabelle. But no one calls her Isabelle. "Itsel" is her more common name. And Michael is usually called Tschmi. Actually, almost everyone in the yoth group has at least one nickname that is used on a regular basis. For some, you never even hear their real name (like Mimi; I've only heard one person refer to her as Miriam, and that was an adult). I'm referred to as "der Kanadier" (e.g. "the Canadian"). I'm the brunt of many good-natured jokes, most of them based on the so-called fact that all Canadians are loggers or fisherman. And live in the stone age. Some of their jokes are pretty funny. Especially when they come out of Tschmi's mouth. He's all-round a pretty funny guy. He wants to come visit Vancouver. So does his girlfriend (she has English has "Leistungskurs" [main subject] in school). Maybe they will. Would be an ideal honeymoon.


Here's a self-portait of your truly, having the time of his life.


And another one for those whiners who were requesting that I post pictures of myself. Who do you think I am? Vain, or something!!??

And just to prove without a doubt that I really am vain, I'll post another sexy picture of myself (sucking on a piece of Hanuta, if I recall correctly).

So, the first day was full of beautiful sunshine. And warm temperatures. Even at 2000 m we couldn't really find winter. It was spring skiing in the middle of February. I rode most of the week without a toque, only sunglasses, and the first day I rode without gloves (till I slid out on ice and instinctively shoved my bare hand onto the ice at 30 km/h to brace myself. Yowch.

I wore gloves after that.


We skiied till 5 and took the 5:15 bus back to our cabin. There were several buses that ran every half-hour or so. The 5:15 was the last one. Which was the one I (and the people I was skiing) always took. We were usually the only group to ski that long. The rest went home early. Weaklings.

The evening program ran like this:

-we came home, showered, and ate dinner at 6:00, prepared for us by Daniel and Frank (two of the leaders. Frank came along specifically to cook. They always left the slopes a bit earlier to prepare), as well as the four people who were on cooking duty that day. After dinner, we had a small break while the cooking team cleaned up, and then we had "input" (as we called it) at 7:30. We all came together in one room and had praise & worship, then a person gave a small mini-sermon, then we broke up for discussions. It was always very good, particularly the discussions. You know, after you ski together, live together, eat together, you start feeling a bit like a big family. Kinda cool.

Okay, some more pics:

We slept in 3-er or 6-er rooms. I had two roommates (Tschmi & Christian, who you will see later), and we had our own washroom, shower, kitchenette, and porch. Here is a panoramic view:

The perspective is distorted, as this is a 140 degree view. On the right you look south down the valley (refer to map), the "hill" in the middle is actually the opposite side of the normally straight valley, and the valley on the left is the perpendicular east-west valley that leads to Zell am See (again, see map if you're still confused).

I don't have any decent pictures of our room. It wasn't anything extraordinary...

Our room as seen from the door. The bathroom is to the right. We slept on Futons in the main room, which also had a table with chairs.


The view from the window. The closed door on the right is the main door to the stairwell.


A better view of the kitchenette (which we didn't really use as we all ate downstairs in the big dining room)

The house itself is fairly poorly designed, with a tall, narrow form factor, forcing you to walk endless miles of stairs to get to your room...

As the big dining room downstairs wasn't very comfortable to do bible studies in, we met in one of the bigger rooms...

(That my pillow to the left of the table)


And one more picture of the valley in which we stayed in. Looking south.


Whew, I think I got to stop. I was actually planning on getting a lot of emails sent out today to my contacts in Europe and really get ahead with my planning. Hm. I'll stop here, as I've GOT to send a few out tonight. Blogging takes a lot of work. Thinking, writing, uploading, doing something else while waiting for the upload to finish. Thinking again, writing again, uploading again. Takes hours. But I do it all gladly for you, ______ (insert your name here. Unless you're Alex; then insert the word "baby").

I'll add more to this post when I find some time. Hopefully tomorrow. Maybe Sunday.

I'm expecting a phone interview from Barnabas in five minutes. I've never had a phone interview for a job before. Maybe I can learn something.

Love you all