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Vienna 1971—A Student Journal
A year of music, study, travel, sightseeing & friends.

Day 156 — Great skiing; world conversations
05-January-1972 (Mittwock—Wed.)

TRANSCRIPT

St. Anton
A full day. St. Anton skiing. Had a lesson. Good. The way it’s been working is that in the morning, we work on our points and then we go skiing in the afternoon. Today, we went down the other side of Galzig and ended up past St. Christoph and had to walk back.

It’s good to have this “ski-schooling” because, while learning, you also ski a lot (practice) and also see the different slopes.

Night. Listened to a discussion of the situation back in Northern Ireland between two Catholic Irish (young—they live in the middle of violence) and the rest of us (including a British officer). I learned a lot. I can’t say it was enjoyable because it left me feeling very hopeless—with regards to a solution. I sort of sympathize with the Catholics but not with the violence.


REFLECTIONS

Great skiing; great ski school. Now, I’m getting it—we practice in the morning and then ski in the afternoon. I remember this day, because in the afternoon, the ski instructor took us down the other side of the Galzig mountain. It was a long descent and trip through a lot of new skiing. That is a benefit to having an instructor. Without him, I would never have gone down these unmarked slopes. So, it was great to experience this less-used skiing venue. We ended up past St. Christoph. I’ll check it out on Google Maps, hopefully. I say that we walked back, but I think we partly walked and (perhaps) took a shuttle bus back to St. Anton. Great skiing day. I want to go back. Now! (Please let me win the lottery.) The opening photo and this photo (left) both show great skiing venues. I do not know exactly the name of these slopes.

Skiing article. Here is an Internet article link to an article by DCSki columnist, John Sherwood. There is a lot of detail about their ski trip to St. Anton. If I knew, back in 1972, that I would be blogging in 2008, I suppose I would have written more detail in the journal. I love articles like Sherwood's that give a lot of practical info about travel places.

Great dinner conversation—Ireland and Britain. I also remember this particular conversation at dinner. Remember, that our gasthaus housed mostly students (from all over Europe) who came for a ski vacation. In our gasthaus, we ate dinner at the same time, together. (It wasn’t a restaurant; think of a large private home where you had lodging and meals, just like a bed-and-breakfast.) So, at tonight’s dinner, we may have had some new students. There was a young Catholic couple from Northern Ireland and a young British soldier as well. Imagine the emotion behind the conversation, especially from the Irish couple, who perceived Britain as occupying their country. And the point of view of the British soldier who faced the violence. In those days, I believe, there was much more violence happening in Northern Ireland. It was a very powerful and emotional experience and conversation. If I remember correctly, the conversation was civil and nothing bad happened, but there was intense emotion present. I think the rest of us were trying to understand and discuss all of this. Of course, I didn’t agree with the use of violence. The thing to be learned here is that the emotion of each side is real and affects how things play out in real life. When you read about events (book-learning), you are naïve and don’t truly understand the feelings behind such conflicts. Being in the middle of that conversation was a learning experience.

John

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Tags: St. Anton, St. Christoph, Galzig, skiing, ski school, students, Northern Ireland, Irish, British, world events, DCski