Skitag

Hey, all!  Since Ben is far braver than me, he's going to tell you about his experiences skiing in Austria.  (I promise I'll try to go skiing at some point.)  Enjoy!  - Jen 

So, last week I was invited to go on a school ski trip to Flachau, Austria.  I have never been skiing in Austria before, for which I have no good excuse. So, I said “Ja, gerne komme ich mit.”, and I arrived early to school to find 3 enormous buses lined up outside. Dozens and dozens of students were filing in and depositing their ski gear in the rear-bus-trailers. Every student had their own gear. Oh yeah, skiing is important in Austria, especially to those Austrians from the mountainous regions of Tirol and Vorarlberg.

The bus ride was breath-taking. We weaved around, over, and through towering Alps. The weather was decent and importantly not too cold.

Arriving at Flachau, most teachers were too busy with other students to lend me advice. So, I winged it. I placed my lift ticket oddly into my coat sleeve pocket, instead of hooking it on the outside of my jacket, as my experience at Greek Peak, NY suggested I do. 

 I waddled over to the “Rent a Ski” hut in my full winter get-up. I was not prepared to answer questions about my weight in kilos and height in meters when asking in perfect German that I needed some “rails and shoes”. I had not yet identified the correct word for “skis”, which I was told later, is simply “ski” pronounced “shee” in the singular and plural. The man at the counter assumed I was using some hip, young lingo. I managed to give my parameters after doing some awkward mental math, swirling my fingers in the air to mime my thought process.      

The ski equipment was the same, so I stepped out, slapped on my skis and pushed myself toward the ski lift. There, I found bizarre rotating entry bars. I hesitated in front of it, and thought that the ski lift ticket in my sleeve may just be “smart”. Proximity reached, I pushed on to a second waiting gate, where strangers lined up around me. The bars opened and the people launched out. I, nearly missing the incoming lift due to my delayed understanding, managed to wedge right in-between a family of five. 

Eventually, I found the student groups for the school and was graciously invited to join the least-experienced group. “Perfekt”, I said. Our skills were matched. 

Needless to say, the slopes “Pisten”, auf Deutsch, were longer, more extreme, and a lot more fun than the hills of New York.

We even stopped to enjoy a lunch in a kitschy, traditional cabin. Outside the cabin, English pop music poured out over the powdery inclines and cliffs, such as Aleshia Keys' "Girl on Fire".

I ate a Brettljause because I wanted to be traditional and I also wanted to load up on fatty "Speck" for energy. The "Speck" is the bacon-esque item. It was like chewing a small book made of taffy that had been gingerly salted. The coarse fat slowly melts in one's mouth, which I assumed to be the appeal of the dish.  There was also another beautiful restaurant on the slopes, but we preferred the comfy cabin. The mountains provided an "atemraubend" experience.

We went non-stop from 8am-to- “drei viertel vier”  literally meaning 3/4ths of 4, or 3:45. The slopes, mountains, and the towering pines trumped any words attempting to describe them.

It was beautiful. It was different and more difficult. Es war gemütlich.