Snowboarding+Austria+Nicole+cool people=one AWESOME VACATION!

So! Happy 2010! I'll say it has started out QUITE well for me! I spent my Silverster (New Year's Eve) with 2 other exchange students, Olivia and Hayley. We had sooo much fun! Then on the 2nd it was Hayley's birthday! So we had a little party! It was really awesome and fun and everything!

Thennnnnnnnnn........ on the 4th, we left for Austria, for the Alps! It was sooo pretty up there! The snow covered all the mountains and the trees, and it was just like it looks in all the pictures and films! You'd really have to see it, its AMAZING!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! I really thought I should skip through the snow singing about how the hills are alive with the sound of music! Somehow I managed to refrain myself, though...

So we stayed in this tiny little cabin with a bunch of other people! It was crazy, there were around 30 of us in a tiny little cabin! It was awesome though! I quickly gained a following of little children; 7 of them, in fact. They all thought it was just the coolest thing that I was from California. They all wanted to learn English and hear about what my life in America is like. AND whoever said the best way to learn a langauge is to hang out with little kids... was completely correct. I learned sooo much German in these 5 days, just from listening and talking with them.

I decided on the second day, Tuesday, that I was going to take a snowboarding lesson for 2 days. Kai, my host brother, and I signed up for a course, and rented out snowboards, shoes, and helmets. Then, at 9:30, we started to learn. It was sooo awesome! I'm not half bad! The first day, we learned to stand up, stop, and fall down correctly. It's not so difficult, I got the hang of it pretty quickly. Except I did spend a LOT of time on my butt the first day.

The next day, we learned to turn, and how to really SNOWBOARD. It was awesome! I had a small problem with stopping though. Let's just say I ran into a tree once. Only once! But by the end of the second hill, my teacher told me that I could graduate from the bunny hill to something a little bit bigger....

The third day Kai bailed out on me. We didn't have any course more, and Kai had fallen a couple times and hurt himself, so he said he didn't want to snowboard anymore. Leaving me on my own. I decided to take my teacher's advice and try something bigger. I did great! Someone asked how long I'd been boarding for. They were SOOOOooooOOOOO surprised when I told them 2 and half days!

The fourth day, that would be Friday, or today, we were going home. But I wanted to do a little more snowboarding so I got up REALLY early (6:15) and went from 7 until 10. My entire body is now sore. It's funny... I didn't notice the pain while snowboarding, only afterwards!

Alright, well, I'll update again soon! Hope you all had a great beginning to a new decade!

Ciao!