Friday, February 16, 2007
Ski Trip!
So at long last I have a chance to tell you all about my adventures in Austria. The weekend Skiing was really cool. Not particularly relaxing but real fun.
We stayed in a nice hut of a hotel nestled between the mountains in Brixen, Tirol. I went with about 12 colleagues and shared a room with my mate Sebastian who is a real dude.
We travelled with a coach and it took about 3 hours, amazing that the Alps are so close. On the Friday we had a good meal and I stayed up late with Sebastian and Wolfgang dissecting life's trials and tribulations, loves and losses. I noticed at one point that I was so engrossed in Wolfgang's tales I had forgotten I was listening to German. Wolfgang is the old, wise godfather figure of the group and between puffs of his pipe often offers his wisdom and counsel.
Saturday saw the group hit the piste. I wanted to join in but also wanted to have a bit of a lessonfirst. Tired and with a dodgy knee I thought I best have some training before throwing myself down a mountain. Unfortunately there were no lessons on the Saturday so I booked myself in for a lesson on the Sunday and spent the day at the hut on the mountain and soaked up the breathtaking panoramic view. I was never alone as the others popped by for drinks as they hurtled down the slopes. The evening saw us enjoy a bit of apres-ski and drink 'Jagertee' - tea mixed with 80% vol rum. Lethal.
Sunday saw me hit the snow for the first time as I embarked on a day's ski course. My teacher Simon (pronounced See-mon) was about my age and a top bloke and though I struggled with his strong austrian accent I managed to keep up. He didn't hang about and first thing we headed up to the top of the training slope and attempted to reach the bottom which we all successfully managed. Simon had gone through the stance and position and so we were all able to get down the slope and gather a good bit of speed, the thing is, he forgot to tell us how to stop.
As the lady in front of me glanced back with terror as the piste came to an end I flung myself to the snowy floor to avoid the fate of most of the others, ending up in a shallow muddy ditch.
Next lesson was unsurprisingly how to brake and after that we practiced going up and down until lunch. After a bite to eat we headed back onto the snow and did a bit of turning, building up to a sort of slalom.
That was it for the day and I had a really good time, makes me want to give it another go sometime. I reckon if you did it for a week you could really get the hang of it. The atmosphere in the huts is great too.
We then headed home, pretty exhausted. I slept pretty much all the way though was awoken at one point by a pantomime happening at the front of the bus - one with two dames at that. The actually rather manly coach driver had brought his gay lover with him on the trip, a blonde tanned waif of a fellow, camper than a row of pink tents.
All was not well with the two lovebirds however as In the afternoon some people saw them have a tiff and the girly one locked himself in the toilet. Hmm.
Anyway, he had also numbed his emotional angst with alcohol, and obviously a lot. It was actually an announcement from the driver that woke me up - a plea for someone to come forward and control his drunken lover. Eventually someone did and before long he was asleep. This enabled me to continue dozing as we headed back after a really great weekend.
