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!

Learning to ski in Austria

Sitting in the aisle of the packed train

The journey to Austria itself was pretty evenful. Firstly, the taxi arrived early so everyone went into a panic rushing around to get ready to go, but then we couldn't fit everything in it and we had to work out a way of taking the car as well and leaving it somewhere. Then the train was late, and arrived with only half of the carriages, we don't know why, so we had no seats and ended up squashed in on the floor in the aisles. After a few more stops the train was packed and it was very obvious that we couldn't fit more people in, so we sat on the tracks for ages until enough people were persuaded to get off and take a second train. Hauke renamed the German rail system 'Fail Rail', as it was clear the conductors just couldn't cope with the situation, their announcements were quite entertaining. We were standing and sitting on the floor for most of the way to Munich.The delays meant we had to really rush to get on our next train into Salzburg, Austria.  

Train station at Göttingen

The landscape changed quite a bit in lower Germany and Austria, there are more mountains and snow, and the houses are made with more wood but with no framework, with the bottom story or two made of I think plaster and the top story or two and the roof made of wood. We somehow made it onto the next train within about ten minutes, which is quite impressive when you are carrying all of your bags and skiis and have to go underground to reach different platforms. It has become quite apparent that Germans are not as relaxed as New Zealanders, Hauke (who has spent a year in NZ) and I have been very chilled out about all of the problems and rushing around and just accepted that there will be delays and we will cope with things as they happen, whereas everyone else has gotten quite stressed out and angry about it all. Hauke gave me German lessons on the train, much to the delight of all the Germans sitting around us, especially because the sentances he considers most important include ordering drinks and explaining that I am drunk or have a hangover! Finally, we took a bus-sized taxi for about an hour to Rauris, through all of these mountains and valleys with a river running through, it was absolutely amazing but the light was too bad for photos.

Church in Rauris

The ski-hire man giving us scnapps

Rauris is a small village that seems to exist only for skiing in the winter! It's nestled in a dead-end valley in the Austrian Alps, perched in amongst these amazing mountains. The church in the village amazes me, it is really tall and thin, and sticks out above everything else. Sara and I hired a couple of bits of gear from the ski shop in town, the guys there were really cool and gave us all shots of homemade Austrian scnapps. As well as Hauke's parents (Karin and Georg) and his brother Arne and Arne's girlfriend Sara, there is another family with two boys, aged 11 and 15, staying with us. The youngest boy is learning english at school and is really cute,  and his father really cracks me up because he is always saying things to me in english, usually in the context of a german conversation that I wasn't following, that make absolutely no sense! I have perfected the "No idea what you're saying so I'll just smile and nod" again.

Carpacio, raw beef

After everyone saying what an epic failure I was going to be at skiing, Hauke and his family didn't have high expectations of me but after some lessons from Hauke and Georg I managed a red slope before lunch on my first day. By about 2pm I was in absolute agony and really tired so I headed back to the hotel early to nap. My sleeping patterns seem really weird since I arrived in Europe, no matter what time we go to bed I always wake up a hour or so before we planned on getting up, but I never feel like I've had enough sleep. We went to another village for dinner that night, in a fine dining but really old resturant where I tried Hauke's raw beef fillet (carpacio) and calf's liver. Karin said I am pretty brave, not being scared of skiing, trying different types of food, and also doing things by myself like catching the bus back to the hotel, which again might be a reflection of the kiwi can-do and eager to try new things attitude. Hauke and I went for a drink after dinner that turned into several drinks and meant I was even more tired skiing on day two!

Me in the bar in Rauris

Day two was more or less pretty similar, we stuck to the same slopes and I just focused on improving my technique. I had morning tea with Georg, the way he speaks with his limited english is really cute, he speaks really slowly and thoughtfully, wanting to get each word perfect before he says it. For dinner we headed into the hills to a resturant they have visited every year for over 20 years, run by a hunter turned fisherman who cooks amazing almond-baked trout. It rounded off my first week here in Europe, but unfortunately my mood wasn't fantastic, I was just too tired to be upbeat and therefore sick of not understanding what people were talking about, not being able to read a menu and pick my own food and of constantly making an effort to smile and follow the conversation even though I can barely make out what is being talked about, instead of just staring at the wall the whole time. Georg and Karin picked up on my mood and kept asking me if I was ok, they are really lovely, but that just made me feel guilty! I am really grateful to Hauke because he is looking after me all of the time and doing things like ordering food that he guesses I am going to like and translating a lot, and then the 11 year old boy perked me up a lot asking me "would you like to play with me Uno" (taking boardgames to resturants is quite common), so I finished the evening on a much better note, and this night Hauke and I took the 15year old, Constantine, for a couple of beers in the same bar - the first time I ordered drinks and was actually understood! The legal age for drinking and smoking is 16 here in Austria, and they are pretty relaxed about things.

Main street in Rauris

It is now the morning of our third day here, and it is snowing! I am really tired, so I had breakfast in bed and am now just sitting here watching the snow fall over the Alps, everyone else has already headed up to the skifield but I will go up around lunchtime. They've set up a big ramp thing for a ski jumping competition tonight, so we will go and check that out later. If it stops snowing I will take my camera up the mountain today, so I should hopefully have some photos of the view and us skiing next post!