Was für ein Unter – schi – ed

These posts are a bit out of order, but I'll try my best...

In mid-March, the 2nd form of the HAK took a ski trip to Saalbach/Hinterglemm. I accompanied them. It was my first time ever skiing. Of all the people I talked to about going to Austria, each of them said (with little variation), "You must go skiing!" So I did.  

Here you see the big lift up to the ski area -->

<-- And here you see the little town of Hinterglemm. Saalbach is about 3km from Hinterglemm, and if you need such things as medical assistance, you'll have to go to Saalbach. If you want to drink away the pain, you can stay in Hinterglemm. It has plenty of Après-Ski opportunities...

I must admit, the ski week seemed like one of the rare times during my stay in Austria where I could actually speak German, because I was not surrounded by Austrians wanting to improve their English (like at school), but Austrians in their natural *habitat* for not just several hours but days at a time! I think I spoke more German in that week than I have the entire rest of the time I've been here. Perhaps this means I am self-segregating while in Amstetten - and I should be more outgoing, or whatever - but I maintain that the Austrians confident in their English abilities will still try to sneak English into conversations regardless.


The whole school trip experience was really amazing, and more like what I had expected my time here to be like. By that, I mean the speaking German all the time part. As reluctant as I am to admit, I must say that Austrian German (and various dialects) and Standard German are different enough in a spoken context to be confusing to me. The longer I'm here, the better I get at understanding what people are saying.

One fun cultural experience was games. The teachers taught me how to play Lügen, or "lying," which is similar to the card game Cheat (otherwise known as Baloney, or its saltier name, Bullshit) where players try to get rid of all of their cards by placing them in a pile face-down in the middle of the table. The player doing this makes a claim as to what the cards are, i.e. two Jacks, three Queens, etc. The cards are laid in sequential order, 2 through Ace (or Ace through King). If you don't believe the person who put down the cards, you can call "Cheat!" or "Bullshit!" and have the other person turn the cards face-up. If they're wrong, they take the whole pile of cards. If you're wrong, you take the pile!*


Lügen is played with dice rather than cards, and something akin to a Yahtzee cup is used to obscure the number on the dice from the rest of the players. The numbers go from 31 through 65, with doubles (11, 22, 33, 44, 55 and 66) being the next sequence. The trump number is 21 (Mäxchen). Again, order is important. However, only the person next to you can call you out on whether you're lying. for example, if one player rolls  a 4 and a 3 (43) but needs to roll a 65 or higher, they can say whatever they want. If the next person doesn't think they can roll higher, they can call the person out. If they're right, the person who just rolled loses a chip, but if they're wrong, they lose two chips!*

I also watched the teachers play a sort of Bridge that was too complicated for me to actually figure out and play with. First, there were seven of us, and only four at a time can play. Second, although I have subsequently learned the names in German for the cards, I didn't know them at the time. The deck we played with was very ornately decorated with designs that, to me, looked almost like Tarot cards. They were very cool, but confusing.


The names of the face cards and suits in Austrian (A) German and Germany (D) German are:

Jack - Bube (Knave)

Queen - Dame (Lady)

King - König (King)

Ace - Aß (Ace) 
Hearts - Herz (heart)
Diamonds - Schelle (A) or Karo (D) (bell, or square)
Clubs - Eichel (A) or Kreuz (D) (acorn, or cross)
Spades - Blatt (A) or Pik (D) (peak, or leaf)

The Germany German names are derived from the French deck of cards (what we use in the USA). The Tarot card-type cards are the traditional Bavarian cards. Photo below (from Wikipedia):

The top parts of the cards are Bavarian, the bottom parts are French  

Also, of course, on the skiing trip, I went skiing. That was a brand new experience for me, and I really enjoyed it - once I go used to the skis. I didn't make it past the bunny hills all week, but I felt really proud by the end to be able to ski down the hill and directly to the lift (rather than skiing past it and having to climb back up the hill) five times in a row...yes, I know that sounds pathetic. But, please. Give me my joy! I was also surprised to find that Alpine skiing is hardly an aerobic sport, but mostly about muscle control. I don't exactly know what I expected, but I guess I expected more cross-country skiing...for whatever reason. Delusion? By the end of the week, I had a major Muskelkater (Charley horse) but this is all an expected part of the sport. Plus, once I got home I could totally ice it with the vodka I bought in Poland ;) You might ask why this has not been drunk yet? I'm not actually a fan of vodka...

Speaking of vodka, the students (though they were all 16) were not allowed to drink on the trip. Since it was a week intended to promote exercise and physical well-being. Which excludes alcohol. However, this does not mean that no students went drinking. They were given free time to wander about the sprawling metropolis of Hinterglemm, and, according to some very candid students, it was no trouble to grab a few beers away from the watchful eyes of their chaperons...

We stayed at a Jugendheim, sort of like a youth hostel that caters especially to school groups and young people, which was very nice. We received full board - and ate excellently - although because I and the biology teacher, Hermann, are both vegetarian, we got a lot of guff from the owner. He was a character! Quite outgoing, and, once it was revealed that I was American (no riddle there once I open my mouth), he refused to call me by my name, preferring instead the moniker "America."

Other news? Oh! The students did a competition one night, which was HILARIOUS!!!! It was the basic camp-style team stuff, where one team tries to beat the other at refilling glasses with straws, making paper airplanes and doing goofy dances with Coke bottles on their heads (by the way, Coke still actually comes in bottles in Austria! And is made with real sugar, not corn syrup!) and the like. I was incredibly amused. And, the best part, I think, was when the teachers all sang "Once and Austrian Went Yodeling" as a sing-a-long. I hadn't heard that song for ten years! It tickled me that Austrians would know it.

view from inside the lift "box"

*NB: Regional differences apply. I use the rules I am familiar with... :)