New Years, a history lesson, and the end of a week in Austria

Written on Tuesday 4th but not posted until now, sorry!

View from the top of the skifield, 2210m

So after my last post I headed up the mountain to meet up with everyone else, but twisted my ankle on my first run. It was a pretty bad day all around, it was foggy and snowing so visibility was really bad, everyone was tired and sick, and Georg injured himself on the same run down with me. Not fun, but after dinner we went to see a ski jumping show put on by the locals, that was really cool.

Traditional costumes used in Christmas celebrations

The next day I took it pretty easy, Hauke and I went up early and the slopes were pretty empty as everyone had been out partying after the show the night before, so we had some beautiful runs down in the fresh snow. After lunch I headed back to Rauris and went with Georg to see the National Park information centre, the local catholic church and the museum. The church is amazing, its about 15m tall but quite narrow, and all beautifully painted and gilded on the inside, I can't believe how much effort has gone into a church in such a tiny town! The graveyards are amazing too, on the grounds of the church. A lot of them have beautiful wrought iron headstones, and they all have Christmas decorations and miniture trees on them. The museum was quite cool as well, Rauris actually reminds me quite a bit of like Wanaka and Arrowtown in NZ, some of the buildings in Wanaka are obviously styled off traditional alpine houses here, and they are both have old mining industries.

war weapons

Mining began in Rauris before 700AD, with settlers coming from the south across the Alps. Rauris was very prosperous between 1460 and 1560, being the centre of gold production in Salzburg province. It has some interesting history, like in the museum we saw old weapons like a spiked ball, with these kinds of weapons being used by the locals in the first Peasant's War in 1525. Two hundred protestants were banished from the town in 1732, and the current appearance of the paish church goes back to 1780 when they rebuild it. Skiing here dates back 120 years, and now Rauris has the only zero-energy balance skifield in Austria, as they produce all their own power. They take their environmental status very seriously and offer things like free buses to and from the skifield (although things like smoking and throwing the butts into the snow is really common!). Rauris also has the oldest mountain weather station in Europe, the Sonnblick observatory, at 125 years old. It is the highest year-round observatory in the Alps. It takes about 5 hours to walk up there and is quite big, and when they built it they had to carry everything they needed up on their backs. The farming history also interested me, farmers here keep their animals inside barns all winter as it is so cold, and then in summer they let them out to range the mountains, traditionally putting bells around their necks to keep track of them. The mountain grass is better quality and produces good diary products. In summer they made hay and stored it high up in the mountains, and then the farmers walked back up and rolled the bails down when they needed them in winter time!

Georg infront of a weather-station replica

Now Rauris has a population of 3200, tourism and skiing are obviously huge in winter as both our hotel and the one Hauke's family are staying in are fully booked. Our hotel is actually pretty interesting too, the building was built in 1389 by the barons Von Grimming, and then brought by another family in 1780 who still own and run it today. There are really old traditional clocks, cupboards and paintings everywhere, I had to laugh when Hauke pointed at a cupboard and said "look bro, that's probably older than your country".

Food, one of the two pillars of this holiday!

That night Georg organised for us to go to dinner in a horse-drawn sled, it was absolutely amazing to go through all of the snow under the stars. They moved surprizingly fast, I would guess it took make 20-30 minutes to go about 10km. To top off a perfect day we all had a drink afterwards. Arne told me that the pillars of this annual holiday are skiing and eating, but we seem to drink quite a bit too, I am finally starting to get used to this schnapps business!



My final day on the slopes was amazing, Hauke and I headed right up to top and other side of the mountain. To get there we took gondalas, and at 2210m we could see right around the Austrian Alps. Turns out this is where the easier slopes are, so after four days of being on the red slopes I felt like I was flying down all of the others! Hauke took some video on his Iphone, its a bit shaky but we made a quick movie out of it, so you can see me skiing here:

Claire learning to ski in Austria

Schnapps

New Years was pretty straightforward, everyone went out for dinner and then sat around the hotel playing games and drinking quietly until midnight, although I didn't understand the rules of the game at all so I lost every round and had to drink each time - maybe quietly doesn't descibe my own drinking so much as eveyone elses! At midnight a whole lot of fireworks went off, I think both done by the council in the market square and also from people's homes, it was quite cool as they echoed off all of the mountains. Hauke and I then went out and partied with in the local bars - I didn't join everyone else for skiing the next day but caught up on some sleep and errands!

Hauke on a foggy day

Our final dinner was at an amazing resturant with a four-course meal, I was very impressed and took the chance to say thank you to everyone for welcoming me along on their holiday and making me feel so included in everything. We were up early for the 8hour train ride the next day, although this time we didn't have to change trains and got our seats so it was pretty straightforward. After we got in we were joined by a pair of kiwis, and then a pair of Aussies, although we didn't talk to either, it just felt kind of funny. The Aussies reminded me of why I don't like most Australians, they were very rude and arrogant! Hauke spend another couple of hours teaching me German, and it actually all seemed to fall into place, and after a week of only knowing a couple of sentances and words, I got off the train and surprized Hauke's parents (who were in another carriage from Hauke and I) by making up whole sentances about things! I am a bit disappointed that I don't have longer to learn the language, I really want to come back later on and work here too now!

Me on the chairlift, Rauris in background

The last couple of days since we got back have been pretty quiet, we've just lazed around Göttingen doing nothing much. I went to see Hauke's friends play indoor football, quite a weird feeling to be the foreigner taken along to indoor football rather than the one taking foreigners along, and we watched movies, drank and made a 2am trip to MacDonalds with other mates. Today we made a pretty succesful pavlova for dinner, and I gave Karin and Georg a big canvas of a picture of Wellington as a thank you gift. Tomorrow Hauke and I are off to Berlin for three nights before we go to his university city, Mainz, I am really excited!