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From Abroad

The semester has finished and we are now officially on our Semester Break! Now in the US a semester break means that your classes are finished and you don’t have to worry about them anymore. But not at BOKU! The break in between means: you have finished classes, but not tests. So before I started taking tests we made one last trip with all the Winter Exchange Students. We traveled on a night train to Tyrol. We booked seats thankfully because the train was full. It was a long ride and six people sitting up all night- well you can image how we all felt the next day.
We arrived in Garmisch, Deutschland at 8am and immediately went to the slopes to ski. I decided to attempt snowboarding for the first time. Everyone thought it would be a bad idea, but I wanted to try new things and my good friend Melissa was going to teach me. So Abbie (my trusty buddy from our Skiing trip) and I strapped the boards on and were ready to go! Melissa showed up how to stand up and explained the basics. Well when I stood up, all the easy basics just seemed to go out the window. I couldn’t get myself to stop to I fell and then ran into a snowplow. Don’t worry it was parked. Then I proceeded to try and get out, but I had to take off the board because I was sliding further under the parked snowplow. So again and again I tried- falling every time. Abbie on the other had been doing great. She fell a few times but in general didn’t hurt herself and really was enjoying herself. Argh? that Abbie.
Now, one would think that light fluffy snow wouldn’t hurt that bad, but I think it was as bad as falling on concrete at times. So we started down the slope because that was the only way I was going to get the feel for it. My pride REFUSED to take off the board and call it quits. Especially since it had only been 20 minutes. The anger raged inside of me as I hit the snow, again and again, oh and again. It started hurting really bad, because I kept falling on the same hip. In addition, I noticed that my legs were on fire and yet numb from being in the boots. I started to get angry at the world, especially myself, Melissa, and Abbie. I kept trying to be rational and view them as my friends that are taking time out to help me learn something new. But I was in so much pain I couldn’t take it. I just stayed mad and tried to do it in spite of them.
There were a few moments of victory where I could stay up for almost a minute. The exceeding happiness that would flow just overwhelmed me. Then in my high, I would suddenly flip and land on my butt, again. After about an hour there was no hiding the tears that flowed out every time the snow and I made contact. My tears where a mix of frustration and pain, but I refused to stay down. I could see the end in sight- the ski lift. I slowly skid my way down. I came to a gently sloping area right before the lift. So I slowly started down it. I made it most of the way down and then started going WAY too fast. I tried to turn to slow myself down but I crashed instead. I lay there, exhausted. I just closed my eyes from the pain and exhaustion. What seemed like 5 seconds later, I looked up the slope at all the people coming down and decided I should get out of the way. I took off my board at this point and walked down to Abbie and Melissa who were waiting for me by the lift. I was just relieved that this lift was not like the other lift that I fell off of skiing. I could sit on this one! Then Melissa informed me that I had to put my board back on to get on the lift. I was soo depressed and bent over to put on my board. Then things started to get a little fuzzy. I remember standing in line and trying to get on the lift. While on the lift I remember talking with Melissa and Abbie about why snowboarding hurt so much. I started to cry again.
The next thing I remember was asking Abbie if I made it off the lift okay. She said, “Yes Kellen, you have asked me that 5 times now”. Then it hit me. I couldn’t remember anything. Melissa was holding me up and there was a group of people around me asking questions. I started freaking out; I didn’t even remember where I was or what I was doing. I sat down and started to drink some water. Once I started coming around and remembering more things Melissa started tell me what happen during the 15 minutes that I could not remember. I continued talking some on the lift and then was able to get off the lift okay. I went a few yards and then just fell over. Melissa kept calling to me thinking I was being silly because I was just in the path for others to get off the lift. Melissa was on her way to me when a guy ran over me with his snowboard. He laughed and kept going. Once Mel started to help me up, I started crying and saying “Mel where are we? What is going on?” That was when she realized that I wasn’t joking around.
I went to the Paramedics that were there and they checked me over and told me I had a minor concussion. That part I was okay with and could totally believe, but then they said I had to go to the hospital. I had already filled out a bunch of paper work so I was sure I was okay. Plus, I felt fine and there was no need to spend all that time and money to go sit at a hospital. In spite of saying “no thanks”, the doctor insisted because of course, it could get worse and I could die. So reluctantly I went. Melissa so graciously decided to come with me; so we returned our snowboards. I felt bad because she had paid all that money to go snowboarding and now it was going to be wasted after only 2 hours. I was super thankful that she came with me though. One of the paramedics came with us as we went down the mountain. Once at the bottom I got to ride in an ambulance! Oh boy. It wasn’t quite like the ones in the states. It was a little van with a stretcher in it. This was my first time in an ambulance and they didn’t even turn on the lights. After about five minutes Melissa was asleep in one of the chairs, but I wasn’t aloud too. I started filling out paperwork again. Actually this time she filled it out and I had to tell her everything. She was German and couldn’t understand any of my Austrian German so we had to work in English. That was a mission to spell everything. We finally gave up and I just wrote everything.
Once we got to the hospital after about 20 minutes only to wait in the waiting room for 20 minutes. Then they put me in a bed in the hall. Then guess what?? More paper work. This time I was so tired after the second page that I gave it to Melissa and had her fill it out. Then I sat there for about 1 hour. They rolled me into the doctor, she looked at me, said you have a minor concussion, you must stay the night. I was already bummed because she didn’t even touch me or inspect me, no x-rays, nothing. She just asked me my address and birthday- what I had already filled out on three different occasions in the last few hours. So there was NO way that I was going to spend the night. I refused and this time she actually said okay just sign here. I thanked her for being able to speak English and not making me stay. She gave me the bill and that was it. No pain medicine. Just make sure I don’t die in the next few days. That was easy. I rolled out of the bed and almost hit the floor. I had spent so much time thinking about my head I forgot about my hip. Oh it hurt. I slowly limbed my way to the cashier. Total price €100. Ouch! I rationalized the cost and thought that was for everything. No came the hard part. We had to get back to the mountain where the train station was. Taxi was too expensive so we decide to catch the bus. We had to walk 20 minutes to find the right bus stop. We were even tried to hitchhike but no one wanted two girls.
I was moving like a ‘Granny’ at this point. While waiting at the bus stop a group of elderly outdoors people were waiting too. They could more twice as fast as me, but I still had to give up and let them sit on the bus and I had to stand. I didn’t care too much because sitting and standing was painful. We made it to the train station in time to catch the train going to Reutte, Austria. Reutte is a cute little town in Austria. We toured the Schloss Neuschwanstein in Bavaria, Deutschland. Then we went snowshoeing for a whole day. My hip hurt a lot, but the view from the top was great.
In the next few weeks I found out that I was wrong very wrong. Oh how I hope my insurance will cover all of it. Four more bills and €500 later, I finished my winter break Adventure. It was probably not the best decision to learn snowboarding after not sleeping for 48 hours, only eating a granola bar and not even thinking I needed to wear a helmet. That was fun telling my parents that I got a concussion. I am sure that I made them proud.

Soli Deo Gloria!
Kellen