coolcool

So meine Lieben, die Krokusse blühen, die Vögel zwitschern und es wird Zeit, die Winterjacken in den Schrank zu packen. Zum Abschluss von diesem hervorragenden Schnee-Winter gibt es noch eine kleine teilnehmende Beobachtung aus dem verschneiten Schwarzwald. Da mein Nebenfach Englisch ist, habe ich diese zur Übung auf Englisch geschrieben. Habt Ihr den Schnee dieses Jahr genauso genossen? An die Wintersportler*innen: Freut Ihr Euch auch so darauf, wenn die Lifte nächstes Jahr wieder öffnen und wir zum Skifahren oder Snowboarden in die Berge fahren können? Und die wichtigste Frage, zu welchem Team gehört ihr: „lässige Snownoarder*innen“ oder „zackige Skifahrer*innen“? 

Genießt die blühenden Pflanzen und die Frühlingsluft und gönnt Euch ein tägliches Eis.

In diesem Sinne, viel Spaß beim Lesen.

xoxo Lissi

Today I’m on the mountain pass Notschrei located in the Black Forrest. The passes height measures 1.120 meters and the thermometer shows minus five C°. It is a quarter past eleven and I am sitting on my wooden sleigh facing a ski slope. The sky is gray and the slope is covered in thick snow as well as the dark green fir trees surrounding it. Their branches are heavy with snow and bow towards the ground. The snow on the slope is crisscrossed with irregular traces probably caused by the people, which are walking up the hill to ride their sleighs, ski or snowboard downhill. On the left hand side is a ski tow. It is out of order and a sign informs that this is due to the Covid 19 pandemic. The scream of a child brings my focus to the events on the slope. A blue, unoccupied, plastic bobsleigh slides downhill, the screaming child runs behind it. The child is dressed in a blue snowsuit with white patches. Suddenly it trips, falls, slides a little bit further downhill on its belly, stands up again and continues to pursue the sleigh. Close to the ski tow three people tramp up the slope in a row. Two adults and a child each of them shouldering a pair of skis. Two snowboarders emerge between the trees and proceed downhill one after the other. A black-brown barking dog is running next to them. They stop a couple of meters to my right with it producing clouds of snow powder. I assume it is a man and a woman. The child that pursued the sleigh runs to the woman who just gut rid of her board. She hugs the child. From a closer distance I can identify the white patches on the child’s snowsuit as polar bears. It starts to snow and my feet and hands are cold. Meanwhile the three people with shouldered skis reached a flatter section of the slope and put on their skis. Now they start to ski down the slope proceeding slower than the sleigh riders which shoot downhill next to them. All three are skiing with their ski tips almost touching and the ends spread apart. This sight reminds me of giant pizza slices sliding downhill and I recognize it as the typical ski beginner technique, since I learned to ski like that many years ago. A girl with bright red pants and a wooden sleigh shoots over a ski jump. She looses her grip of the sleigh and lands on the bottom in the snow while the sleigh proceeds downhill on its own. I wonder if she will have a bruise from this incident. To my left two teenage girls appear. They walk towards me carrying mini sleighs called “Poporutscher”. Both girls have long, brown hair, are about the same size and wear black ski clothes and beige bobble hats. I wonder if they are dressed alike on purpose. I bring my gaze back to the slope and spot the child in the polar bear suit once more. This time it is sitting on the blue bobsleigh and shooting downhill. I feel happy for the child. According to its laughter I assume it enjoys the ride. I look at the motionless ski tow to my left and I am overwhelmed by the uselessness of the whole invention. What is the point of it if it is not running and fulfilling its only purpose of pulling people on skis and snowboards uphill? The idea of non-places comes to my mind, and I wonder if I would consider a skiing area one of them. Indeed I would because even if winter sports and the mountains have a personal value to me it wouldn’t really matter if I am in Switzerland, France or the Black Forrest in order to pursue that interest. My watch says 12:17 now. The snow has become heavier and the treetops started to vanish in fog. I can’t feel my feet and hands anymore and it gets more and more difficult to take notes with my cold hands. It is time to take my cross-country skis and go for a tour to get warm again.