It was on the evening of Friday, 23rd of January, when the bus to Fügen in Zillertal started its way from Aurich, with 47 12th-grade students, five teachers and one assistant teacher on board. That also was the moment when the fun started to rise. Playing cards, talking, laughing or just having fun – everybody found something to do, except for sleeping. Six days of skiing and seven nights in Ursula’s “Jausenstation” (simple mountain hotel) still lay before us. We would have the whole house for us.
When we finally arrived exhausted on Saturday morning, Ursula’s cleaning staff hadn’t yet finished our rooms so that we had to wait for hours in the dining room. We learnt that our landlady had quite an aggressive nature. When asked how long we would have to wait until we could get our rooms, she just replied: “I wouldn’t know! If you are in such a hurry, go and clean them by yourself” This hard-line manner didn’t change in the course of the week. She also had a rather special sense of humour: After some complaints about the meals she said to one of the pupils: “Today I intentionally put some little stones into your food so that you’ll have something to look for. You don’t eat it anyways” But of course, this didn’t hinder us from having lots of fun – it rather promoted it.
For the ski lessons we were divided into three groups, appropriate to our ability and experience. The IGS-pupils had separate lessons. Each of the teachers, Mr. Kolbow, Mr. Vater and Mr. Birkner taught every group for two days so that they could decide on our marks together. The assistant teacher, Mrs. Baumann, always accompanied one of the groups. Before, they had prepared us with ski gymnastics once a week since the autumn-holidays. In the lessons we either had to do some exercises such as learning how to use the ski-stick, or we just skied down the slope at our speed. Whatever we did, we wanted to do it again afterwards. At the end of the day, the more experienced pupils did the downhill-run to base-station instead of using the cable railway.
We were in our guest house at about five pm, and after having showered, eaten and maybe slept a little bit, we were ready for really amusing evenings which we spent with chatting, playing games or other activities. We all got along with each other extremely well – everybody found it very positive that the Ulricianum and the IGS made this trip together. In addition, everybody described the relation between pupils and teachers as relaxed and constructive. The IGS-teachers even allowed their pupils to address them with the familiar “du”.
We were told our marks on the sixth day, in 2500 meters height. Commitment, learning progress and the style were criteria for the grades. After that, we were free to ski the slopes we preferred during the week.
The day after, Saturday, 31st of January, we had to go back again. Except for one girl with a stretched ligament, everybody arrived healthily and happily.


by Reemt Behrens

last change: 10.03.2004 17:45