My second overdue post: The weekend after Winter Blitz, I went to England and Scotland. As staff we had 2 days of comp time, days we didn't get off from having the trip that we normally would have, and a few of us decided to use them to travel. I went with Storey from Hohenfels, Germany, Dale from Lakenheath, England, Elizabeth from Menwith Hill, England and laura from Vicenza, Italy. They are all Club Beyond staff at these different communities. I flew into Stanstead in England and then we drove up to menwith Hill and we all met up and drove to Scotland. The trip was from Wednesday night to Sunday night. I spent around 28 hours in the car traveling to these different places and some hours at the airport and flying, but it was all time well worth it.
We stayed in Edinburgh, one of the biggest cities in Scotland. We did some sight seeing, and a lot of time relaxing and enjoying not working after a very busy while of planning for and then running Winter Blitz. In my travels I have decided that when traveling, it is, in my opinion, much better to relax and have fun seeing the things you really want to see instead of racing around madly trying to see everything. If you do that, you don't enjoy the things you want to see and you wear yourself out trying to see everything. Thankfully, all those on this trip have the same viewpoint as I do. It was a great weekend. Enjoyed seeing the things we saw, and definitely enjoyed the company. I love working with the high school and middle school students with all my heart, but every no and then it is nice to get away for a few days and just relax.
We are now back in the swing of things with club. We have also picked up a couple more volunteers to help lead. This is very needed, and we still need more. Both clubs continue to grow steadily. We are getting over 50 high schoolers for each club, and right around 40 middle schoolers. My goal, just for fun, is to get 100 high scoolers at a club this coming semester. If everyone who has come to club at some point comes the same week, we would have more than 100 students. We'll see what we can do.
Friday, January 21, 2011
Overdue - Winter Blitz
Hello all. I am very overdue for some posts, so I will be making a couple of them today. This one is about Winter Blitz. WB was an amazing trip. We went to Axams, Austria, and stayed in a hotel up in the mountains. The ski lifts left from right behind the hotel, and the runs all ended at the back of it. Very nice set up. As I said in the last post, went snowboarding for the first time ever. It was a lot of fun, but I did break a rib doing it. It's ok, a little painful, but it's fine.
The highlight for me for the week, besides the amazing location, was getting to spend good quality time w/ the teens who were on the trip. Some of them a knew pretty well going into it, others I knew very little. It was a great week of relationship building. I also had the opportunity to spend good one on one time, asking personal questions, talking about how things are going in their lives. I got a lot of very honest, and sometimes very painful, answers and we had some great conversations. I have been able to continue certain talks in the weeks following winter blitz. That is something I love about trips. Spending a week straight together develops relationships at a very accelerated rate, which is useful when many of the students I am working with are moving in the summer.
Let's see, other highlights....This place had the best sled run I have ever seen. It was 6 km long. Not sure how fast you could get going, but it was really fast. Towards the end of the week it became pretty dangerous and had to be shut down. I would guess you could get going 40-50 km hr or so. That is just a guess. Really cool. One days we went into Innsbruck and went to a water park. The best thing about that was the slide that had two loops. Only double looped slide in the world, apparently. You stepped into this tube, and the doors closed around you. The floor then opened up and you shot down into the slide.
I have tested my snowboarding skills once since winter blitz. We went on a day there was no school with 13 high schoolers. It was raining, which wasn't a lot of fun, but the snowboarding was. Thankfully, I have improved a lot since the first few days of Winter Blitz. I am now able to make it down the run w/ out falling on my face or backside.
I suggest looking at pics on facebook, i am tagged in different ones from winter blitz to give you an idea of what it looked like. My camera was broken, so I didn't take any myself. Sad, but there are a lot from other people.
The highlight for me for the week, besides the amazing location, was getting to spend good quality time w/ the teens who were on the trip. Some of them a knew pretty well going into it, others I knew very little. It was a great week of relationship building. I also had the opportunity to spend good one on one time, asking personal questions, talking about how things are going in their lives. I got a lot of very honest, and sometimes very painful, answers and we had some great conversations. I have been able to continue certain talks in the weeks following winter blitz. That is something I love about trips. Spending a week straight together develops relationships at a very accelerated rate, which is useful when many of the students I am working with are moving in the summer.
Let's see, other highlights....This place had the best sled run I have ever seen. It was 6 km long. Not sure how fast you could get going, but it was really fast. Towards the end of the week it became pretty dangerous and had to be shut down. I would guess you could get going 40-50 km hr or so. That is just a guess. Really cool. One days we went into Innsbruck and went to a water park. The best thing about that was the slide that had two loops. Only double looped slide in the world, apparently. You stepped into this tube, and the doors closed around you. The floor then opened up and you shot down into the slide.
I have tested my snowboarding skills once since winter blitz. We went on a day there was no school with 13 high schoolers. It was raining, which wasn't a lot of fun, but the snowboarding was. Thankfully, I have improved a lot since the first few days of Winter Blitz. I am now able to make it down the run w/ out falling on my face or backside.
I suggest looking at pics on facebook, i am tagged in different ones from winter blitz to give you an idea of what it looked like. My camera was broken, so I didn't take any myself. Sad, but there are a lot from other people.
Wednesday, January 5, 2011
Back..and tired
Hello all. We are back from Winter Blitz, and it was at the same time awesome/exhausting/fun/painful/and almost any other adjective you wan't to throw in there. The location of the week was amazing. It is easily in my top 10 most amazing places I have ever been, and I have seen quite a few things for my 25 years. The resort was up in the mountains, with a number of ski lifts that were immediately behind the hotel. It's nice and convenient when you end a run down the mountain at your hotel. I tried snowboarding for the first time in my life, and it was.....interesting. I showed a lot of improvement from the first to the last day, but then went on a run much above my skill level and took some pretty good falls. I am fairly certain I broke my rib on one of them. Not a lot of fun, but it's not a huge inconvenience.
We had a speaker come from Oakland, John Smith, and the music and work crew were all from Oakland as well. They did a really good job of presenting the gospel and making themselves available to talk to the teens.
This has to be a short post, I have little time. I will post more on Winter Blitz soon, and will put some pics up on facebook that you guys can take a look at. I am heading out today to the other side of Germany to spend the night at a fellow club beyond persons house in Spangdahlem, then tomorrow flying to England, meeting up with 3 more staff people (2 from england and one from Italy) and then we are all heading to Scotland for a few days. Spending a week in Austria snowboarding may sound like a relaxing time, but it was absolutely everything but. Great time, but exhaisting and stressful. So a long weekend in Scotland is much needed, and not trying to toot my own horn but I feel it is much deserved. I am spent in every way, physically, emotionally, spiritually, from last week, just gave everything I had, so I need some time away.
So in the next post, look for stories from Winter Blitz and also from Scotland. Man, I love living in Europe.
We had a speaker come from Oakland, John Smith, and the music and work crew were all from Oakland as well. They did a really good job of presenting the gospel and making themselves available to talk to the teens.
This has to be a short post, I have little time. I will post more on Winter Blitz soon, and will put some pics up on facebook that you guys can take a look at. I am heading out today to the other side of Germany to spend the night at a fellow club beyond persons house in Spangdahlem, then tomorrow flying to England, meeting up with 3 more staff people (2 from england and one from Italy) and then we are all heading to Scotland for a few days. Spending a week in Austria snowboarding may sound like a relaxing time, but it was absolutely everything but. Great time, but exhaisting and stressful. So a long weekend in Scotland is much needed, and not trying to toot my own horn but I feel it is much deserved. I am spent in every way, physically, emotionally, spiritually, from last week, just gave everything I had, so I need some time away.
So in the next post, look for stories from Winter Blitz and also from Scotland. Man, I love living in Europe.
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)