Back again!

Yeah, so I disappeared for a while… Well, not really, I just got lazy, and writing about my life was not up there on my to do list… Sorry.
But anyways, got plenty of time now to think back over the past month and see if anything new has occurred, and besides one big thing, not a whole lot has. The past month has seen about 5 ups and downs in the weather, cold/snowy, warm/muddy as heck, cold/snowy, etc. I am kind of getting ready for spring actually.
Teaching has been going okay, but still face a lot of problems with my schedule and actually getting time to teach my students, oh well.
On the 14th I was able to be in Kiev for an Environmental Working Group meeting where we talked about future environmental projects we want to start in Ukraine, as well as planned a few summer camps based on ecology, one of which I will probably be leading in July. Luckily enough, my girlfriend Megan was also able to be in Kiev that weekend so we were able to go out for a nice Valentines Day dinner at a ‘fancy’ Indian Restaurant. Very good!
On the 15th I took a bus to the airport and took a plane to… Austria! About 3 months ago my dad had suggested that I meet up with him, my mom, and my brother Jeremy in Ramsau, Austria, to do some cross-country skiing for a week. Sounded good to me. After the 2 hour flight I was ahead of schedule and hoping to make a train quickly so I wouldn’t have to wait 2 hours in Vienna, but luck would have it, I got a ‘little’ confused as to which train I should get on to go to the station so I ended up going all the way into Vienna, then back on the metro another 20 minutes to the train station I needed… I wasn’t mad at all!
After a 4 hour ride west with one change, I jumped off the train to see my dad, Jeremy, and my mom all waiting for me at the station. That night we just went back to the beautiful hotel and went to bed, cause Jeremy and my dad were both exhausted after skiing 25-42 km races that morning! Monday we got up early and headed out UP the valley (for someone who hasn’t skied in 15 months or really exercised in about 3, it was a ‘little’ taxing. But let me tell you, it was gorgeous! Tons of snow everywhere, beautiful mountains, just great. Tuesday we were pretty tired so we stayed and watched some biathlon in the morning, then about noon headed up on a bus to ski back to the chalet. It had started snowing the night before so the tracks were pretty slow, and the wind was only ‘sort of’ howling down the valley. We took the bus about as far as we could go, then we began to walk INTO the wind to try to find the trail (in typical Spencer fashion, none of us knew exactly how to get onto the trail, so we ended up bushwacking through about 2 feet of snow and me down a face dive into the snow) The ski was cold, but good.
Wednesday was one of the more beautiful skies I’ve ever had. The snow was as pure and white as you could possibly ask for, and we did a great 15 k loop with some great downhills and some BIG uphills. I also should say that after ski we were able to use the wonderful sauna room at the chalet, and then had about a 4 course dinner with some great beer. Not a bad life for a ‘impoverished’ Peace Corps Volunteer in Eastern Europe.
Thursday was another beautiful ski, with a great 17k loop up and around a small mountain (for any of you who have also been to Ramsau with my parents, you may remember this loop (ANDREA)) and then my Dad, brother and me decided we weren’t quite done yet so we did a 8km out and back loop up part of the mountain, after which (including an incredibly dive I took with my face that created about a 6 inch crevice in the middle of the train and some great goulash soup) we were all very tired.
Friday the weather had turned against us and our ski was kept to only about 90 minutes cause of snow and that we had to drive back to Vienna for the night so I could catch a flight home. The driving was pretty crazy, but my dad did an excellent job not getting run over by the crazy Austrian truck drivers.
Got back to Kiev on Saturday, and while there was snow in Kiev, it just wasn’t really the same.
Over all, the trip was great, and it was wonderful to see my parents and Jeremy!
(I will put some pictures up soon)
Hope to hear from you all soon!
With Love,
Seth