Arosa, Switzerland

This past week was very exciting.  On Sunday I left with some people from the cooperative to go stay at their cabin in Arosa, Switzerland.  It is this tiny town in the middle of the mountains where people come from all over the world to go skiing and sledding.  Here are some pictures:

Before we left, a few of us were looking in the basement for snow gear and we stumbled upon these fantastic outfits.  I was too chicken to actually wear it:)

This is the cabin

The view from the front balcony

On the first day, we decided to go sledding. The trip takes a little over an hour and the path goes through the city and down through the forest. At the bottom there is a train that takes riders back up to the city.  It is one of the coolest things I've done.

Sledding with the cars

Through the woods

The view

At the bottom of the ride with Anna, another volunteer at the cooperative

The train back to the city

The next day we decided to go skiing.  I hadn't been since I was a little girl, so I was a little bit nervous.  But I tried it and it went really well! 

We left Arosa on Wednesday afternoon and on the drive back I decided that I was ready to move on and start a new adventure somewhere else.  So I booked a train to Stuttgart and left the next day.  I am now staying in a hostel for a few nights while I explore this city, and on Tuesday I will fly to Barcelona and stay for a couple of weeks.  

That is all for now!

:)

This week

This past week I got to do some pretty great projects and am continuing to love my experience here.  I struggled for a few days with the cold, but my parents were kind enough to send me some more warm clothes so now I am totally prepared! 

It has been really interesting for me to start to understand the relationships between all the members of the cooperative.  They have been living and working together for over 20 years and the dynamic is unlike anything I have seen.  They all love each other very much, but at the same time there is an obvious power struggle going on.  They try not to have any one person be "in charge," but it always seems to turn out that way.  It's very cool so come in as an outsider and learn about the benefits and challenges of trying to live in such a close community.  

Early in the week I had to travel to Reutlingen to get my computer fixed.  It is a city about two hours by train from Dürnau, so it was a fun little adventure for me.  I found a little cafe where I read a book while it snowed outside. It felt like I was in a movie.

Here are some of the other thing I got to do this week:

  I learned how to make German bread. They make it here every Saturday, so I think it will be my job now:)

 I made two journals. One for me and one for a friend.  I remembered making them in High School, so it was fun to revisit.  I forgot how long it took to make them!

One of the other projects I was asked to do was create a window display for our shop in town.  I decided I needed to make a bunch of paper flowers and enrolled some helpers:

It was amazing to see these rugged German men making delicate paper flowers.  And they were actually really good at it!

Here are some of the ones we made:

And what was really great was that the next day, they were asking if we could make more.

Yesterday I was helping sort Alpaca wool that we are going to wash and then spin into yarn to make socks and hats out of.  It is very tedious work, but it will be worth it.

This last thing is from a couple of weeks ago.  I finally learned how to make a really great fire to heat the house I was staying in (I switched rooms recently).  One of my friends from back home sent me this from Smokey the Bear:

When I showed it to everyone here, they decided it needed to be presented to me.  I felt it was appropriate, seeing as fire building is quite challenging.

This is the guy who taught me how.  

That is all for now:)  More to come soon!

Switzerland and Waldorf Mecca

This week I got to take a trip to Switzerland with some people from the cooperative because they needed to deliver some books that we made to the Goetheanum in Dornach.  While we were there we got to explore and it is so amazing.  The entire town feels like a waldorf school with veil painted houses and doors and windows without right angles.  The original Goetheanum burned down, so Steiner designed the next one to be made completely out of concrete.

The Original

The current

This is the main auditorium that holds 1000 people. This is the view from the stage. 

This is the painting on the ceiling

This is a carving started by Rudolph Steiner and remains unfinished.  It depicts his idea of what the balance in human life should be.  Above we see spirituality and below, materialism is represented.  

The Town of Dornach

My time here continues to be everything I had hoped for.  I changed rooms this week, and now have central heating and hot water that lasts for longer than 10 minutes! Very exciting stuff.  It continues to get colder and colder here. this week it has been around -13 degrees celsius, which is about 1 degree fahrenheit.  It makes working outside a real challenge.  I am hoping to take a weekend trip somewhere warm soon!