Our Amazing Alpine Adventure

Yes, it’s about time for another lengthy email update on our life and adventures in Germany. It occurred to me that while I put a lot of time and effort into writing these updates, not everyone I send them to may have the time or the inclination to read them in their entirety or—let’s face it—at all. So now we are giving our friends, families, and loved ones a chance to check it out on your own. We’ve created this website as an easy link for you to check up on us any time you’d like. You can also post responses (or clever comments, or jealous remarks) for everyone to read, and view our pics without having to download them off emails onto your own computer which can sometimes be a slow process. So hopefully it works out well for all involved; definitely give us some feedback and let us know what you think about the site! That being said, here goes…

We hope that you all had a good MLK weekend, because ours was awesome! It was a four-day weekend for the army which gave Sam a much-needed break after being in the field for training the entire week prior. We hung out at our place Thursday night and Friday, then took off at 4am on Saturday morning for the five hour drive to our weekend destination—the Bavarian Alps. Growing up in North Dakota I didn’t get much exposure to actual mountains—or much variation in landscape at all, for that matter—so the Alps blew me away. Their sheer size and beauty redefined the meaning to the word “majestic” in my vocabulary, because that’s what they truly were. In addition to the amazing scenery, we had great weather as well. It hasn’t been too sunny around here this winter, but all three days we were in the Alps (southern Germany, aka Bavaria) the sun was shining and the temps were perfect for skiing, which was our main objective.

Turns out skiing—at least for this girl—was easier said than done, at least the first day. Sure, I knew I hadn’t skied for 10 years, but I figured I’d break myself in slowly and it wouldn’t be a problem. The trouble was, there’s no “breaking oneself in” in the Alps; that is, the “easy” practice/warm-up run there was about as steep as anything I’d encountered skiing the huge mounts of Minnesota back in my 9th grade year. So let me say it was interesting and physically painful and—I’ll admit it—severely frustrating for a perfectionist like myself to relearn how to ski, but it was definitely worth it in the end. As for Sam, he was worried about being rusty since it had been a number of years since he’d skied as well, but it didn’t seem to take him too long to get comfortable on the slopes and he was amazingly supportive to me throughout all the falls, tears, and generally bad attitude that made up most of my first day on the mountain. By the end of the day we were both a little sore and tired (me more so than Sam, I think) but we were both feeling better about our stellar skiing abilities and having a lot of fun.

I should mention that another thing that made this Alpine excursion fun was the company—and no, I’m not just talking about Sam! We had actually planned to meet up with a couple of his buddies down there the first morning, which we did, but we also spotted two more of his good friends—from our great view off a ski-lift—on the afternoon of the first day. So by the time we all linked up we had quite a posse—four skiers and two snowboarders—which made it even more fun. That night after we got settled into our awesome authentic German hotel and doped up on hot showers and Aleve, we all met up for dinner and the ultimate cure for aching muscles—beer! We ate some yummy Chinese food and hit up a local bar and had a good time, but we turned in relatively early since we had big plans to get up and hit the slopes early again the next day.

I was so beat by the time we got back to our room that night that I fell asleep with my clothes on; I can’t remember the last time I slept that hard and it felt great. But when I woke up I was so damn stiff it hurt to blink and for a while I was questioning whether I would even physically be able to ski that day. Sam basically said only I knew what I was capable of, and I knew that I wanted to spend time with him while I could, so I decided to give it a try, which was a painful but worthwhile choice. After the initial thinking I was going to die from pain/crash into a tree because I was too sore to turn/torrents of complaints to Sam about how much my shins hurt from the ski boots, eventually my muscles warmed up (or went numb) as Sam predicted they would, and I was able to relax and have a ton of fun. And I found that by taking it slow to avoid more falls and injuries really helped me up there; I was skiing way better and barely falling at all and was able to soak up and enjoy more of the scenery because I wasn’t so concerned about wiping out. In turn, Sam was able to enjoy himself more and had a lot of fun trying some jumps and being a little more daring than he was on day one.

We had a favorite run that took us way up to the top of the mountain and we spent a lot of time there. At the top, they had a building with restrooms and food, etc, and we made a pact to stop and get either a beer or some delicious Gluwein (warm, spiced red wine) each time we made it back up. This allowed us to rest a little bit between runs but it also led us to discover that if we went up on the roof balcony of the building, we had a spectacular view of the Alps all around us, as well as of skiers and paragliders below us. So stopping for a drink turned out to be a really nice treat after all, and we scored some awesome pics too!

Alas, it wasn’t all fun and games and there were some questionable moments up there on the mountain. All of us wanted to max out our skiing time so we were some of the last people up on the slopes that second afternoon. In deciding which route to ski back down to the lodge, we happened to pick a couple trails that were—unbeknownst to us and not very well marked so—closed. As you can guess, managing these un-groomed trails was interesting for a novice skier like me. At one point we were navigating a “cat trail”—a winding trail that isn’t that steep but that is extremely narrow—and I slipped on a patch of ice and went careening right over the edge, which was a pretty steep (but snow covered) cliff. Luckily I didn’t slide very far down and one of Sam’s friends was close by to grab my hand while Sam quickly ditched his skis and hauled himself over the edge to help me up. So potential disaster number one was averted, and we moved on to potential disaster number two.

By the time we stopped at the next break in the trails, it was getting dark and the only other skiers out there were the ski patrol. We regrouped and picked a trail and off we went, only to find that the trail that had looked so promising on the map was in fact a closed trail and was almost sheer ice all the way down. Needless to say I was wiping out and losing my skis every couple meters, which normally wouldn’t be a problem but which sucked here for a couple of reasons: Number one, the said ice was hard and it hurt like hell every time I went down. Number two, the icy/steep combination meant it was nearly impossible to get my skis back on after losing them, and after a couple slow tries Sam finally told the other guys to go ahead back to the lodge. Then the going got worse. On wipeout number twenty-seven (or maybe it was seven, but it sure felt like twenty-seven) I lost a ski and it went sliding out of sight down the mountain and into the dark. So my only option—because the hill was seriously too steep and icy to walk down—was to slide down on my ass and keep an eye out for the missing ski. This worked for a couple meters until the % grade won over the girl and I began sliding uncontrollably down the side of the mountain. I eventually regained control and stopped sliding ironically close to lost ski number one, but not before I lost my other ski. Luckliy Sam was there to save the day, or at least to make a valiant effort. He skied over to where I was, took off his skis, sent me to slide on over to pick up missing ski number one, and took off on a hike up the sheer ice face in his ski boots to retrieve missing ski number two, which we could see peaking down at us from about twenty feet uphill.

You have to close your eyes and picture this, because it’s pretty damn funny in retrospect. It wasn’t funny at all, though, when we were up there…Kind of perilous and frustrating there alone in the dark as I was trying to inch my way over to the first ski while being terrified that I would lose control and start sliding again, and every time Sam would get within reaching distance of the other ski he would lose his fragile footing and come sliding down the ice again. Just when I was about to call it a night and make camp up there, a German man came skiing up out of nowhere and helped recover my skis. (Note: Whoever said Germans are rude was wrong, because all of them we have encountered have been great, especially this guy.) Just when we had things under control, the infamous ski patrol showed up and instructed me just to “slide on my butt” (think of this in a German accent) down to where it was less steep and I could put my skis on. This I did—carefully, because I was still freaked about my previous slide down the mountain—and got back into my skis. Just as the ski patrol was leaving—that’s right, to let us ski the rest of the way down alone on a closed trail in the dark—one of Sam’s friends came huffing up the mountain, lugging his snowboard behind, just to make sure we were ok. How cool is that? That is the kind of friends Sam has made over here—guys who will do anything (like hike up an icy mountain in the dark without being asked) for you. So we made it the rest of the way down and turned in our gear, and that was the end of our skiing adventure. We went out for another awesome dinner and drinks that night, and also caught some of the NFL playoffs on TV, then headed to bed for another night of solid sleep during which I may or may not have had nightmares about sliding down a mountain, off a cliff, and into an endless, icy abyss. Luckily I was too tired to remember.

There is one more thing I have to say about this trip, and that is thanks again to Sam for being so amazingly positive and patient all the time. I know I can be a real baby and a complainer and even slightly negative at times—and I proved it on this trip—but no matter what, he didn’t let it faze him. Looking back I could almost kick my own ass, and yet he remained so supportive the entire time. You’re the best, baby!

We made it back home on Monday and then Sammer was off to work again bright and early Tuesday morning. He is handing over the platoon to the “new guy” this week and will supposedly start his new job at the clinic next week, so that should be an interesting change. Sam also got promoted to 1st lieutenant last week and I was invited to the ceremony to help pin him with his new rank, so that was pretty special. As for me, I am getting some positive feedback from Central Texas College (which has campuses over here) where I applied for a job, so I may be employed yet! We’ll keep you updated on that and any other interesting developments over here on our side of the world.

We love and miss all of you so please take care and stay in touch, and the invitation still stands for you come visit any time you’d like! Also please do let us know what you think of the site and feel free to pass the link on to anyone you think might be interested. Talk to you soon!

Love,
Jenna