anyway, yea, about the ski-trip. was a lot of fun!
friday: miserable morning, had to leave the house at 4am wearing our ski outfits because we were told we would be taken straight to the ski area. what made it worse was that there was no public bus at that hour, so we had to walk the 20 minutes wearing the uncomfortable clothes, heavy rucksacks on our backs, and the heavy skis and boots on our arms. then a 5-hour bus ride. the bus ride was uneventful but nice because we had an excellent view of the colorful sunrise against the light mist and pine trees. we hardly noticed passing the border into austria. we could see the abandoned border posts, and a lonely sign read "Austria". we didn't even have to slow down.
once we got off the bus at the ski area in mellau, freezing rain welcomed us. but we decided to go up anyway. the weather was getting worse all the time, the wind howling around us as we were pelleted by icy rain. we beginners braved it all to learn some skiing. walking uphill was a BIG pain, but the graduate student acting as our instructor said we weren't ready to take the ski-lift yet. anyway, after about an hour and a half, it was announced that the ski area was closing due to bad weather. Scheiße! so we went back to our lodge and did what the germans do... drink! a lot of glühwein this time. it's german hot wine and gets to you really fast. i love it! the lodge was a nice place, all wooden and warm... with a ping-pong table, a foosball table and a fire going.
saturday: today we left for the ski-area in damüls. it was a much bigger one. but with yesterday's lesson, i felt confident. i took the ski-lift and got up to the beginners piste. with the 'instructor' by my side, i started down the hill. i was picking up speed really quick! i tried using the slowing-down technique i had learned yesterday, but it didn't seem to help. so i just let go and crashed into the orange plastic barrier that they had on the beginning section of the piste. a little embarrassed, i picked myself up... though not without some help because one of my skis got entangled in the fence thingy.
i made sure to go slow from the very start this time and did better. but the next downhill was even steeper. i was actually scared to even start going down this one. but after much persuasion, i let myself slide into position. and soon i was skiing faster than i could control and just let myself fall. in fact, that became my new technique. everytime i felt myself going out of control, i would just fall into the soft snow. it worked great. this gave me confidence to go down steeper slopes. and as the day wore on, i was falling less. i had sort of mastered the slow skiing technique with the skiis in a V-pattern.that night was another night of drinking. there were lots of drinks, glühwein, vodka, beer, chocolate milk with rum (or sth like that), but nothing for the non-drinkers. suffice to say, it was a crazy night.
sunday: i went up on the ski-lift with much more confidence on sunday. my last run on saturday had been very promising. but i soon found out i had gotten much worse! i was falling more than ever again! maybe i was taking it too fast. a slow run, and things began looking up. in fact, i started to get the hang of it. by the end of the day, i could do runs without falling once! and then, while i was enjoying it most, it was time to go! :(
the weekend was the most fun i've had in a while. so although it's left me almost broke, it was well worth it. and it's always nice to be able to say i learned to ski in the alps!
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