Adventures in London: Issues 32 & 33

How can I possibly summarize the past 2 weeks? I suppose I can try in one word...unbelievable! For the first time in nearly 10 years, I took a proper 10 day holiday. It is sad, but true. Aside from attaching days to the Christmas break, I have not taken a full 5 consecutive business day break from work.  The week leading up to the trip was spent tidying the flat (although I do not know why since there is always plenty of dust to welcome me regardless of how much dusting and vacuuming I do before), last minute shopping for more base layers and unpacking from my previous holiday for my next holiday. I could get used to going away every month. Actually, come to think of it, I pretty much am (April: destnation TBD, May: NYC & St Thomas, June: Family in town for visit :-), July: Budapest, August: Rome, Sept: No travels as I have my half marathon, Oct: ??, Nov: NYC, Dec: Albany & NYC) CLEARLY I did not get the credit crunch memo!! 

ANYWAY!!! Back to this past week!

On Friday (27 Feb), a bunch of us left for our Austria Ski Trip. Now I know you are probably thinking, "Does Tini actually Ski?" Well the honest answer is, not really. I learned when I was a kid, but I don't know if you can actually call Maple Ski Ridge a proper mountain. So if you don't count my MSR years, this would mark my 

4th time skiing....NYS, VT, W VA and Austria...not too bad if you ask me. 

We flew into Innsbruck, Austria and spent the night there. It was a nice relaxing day of walking around the old town and getting our bodies and minds ready for the 9 day trip ahead of us. On Saturday, after going to the market, we drove to Soelden! 

Soelden is the largest municipality located in Tryol, Austria. The town is outnumber 3:1 tourists to locals. Now that is a destination ski resort if I have ever seen one. Reckon Gore mountain could ever achieve such status?! Sadly, just when we were moments away from the resort, we got stuck in traffic. We soon learned that the ONE road to Soelden was closed because of a threat of an avalanche. You heard me correct - avalanche threat! Never thought I would say this, but I actually got to see an avalanche, in fact we saw about 5 of them. I wish I had a video camera on me to capture the site of the snowing storming down the mountain and the sound of the trees being crushed in it's path. You will just have to settle for the picture instead. 

When we reached town, we saw the destruction path that tore through the tree line to the road and across into the river. Thankfully, no one was hurt and there was no damage to any of the houses, hotels, pensions in the area. They definitely must know where to build and not build with the avalanche paths. 

By the time we made it to Soelden, we were too late to collect our skis so we went directly to where we were staying for the week. Pension Bergsee was the cutest place I have ever seen. It was quaint ski house with 3 stories owned by a lovely Austrian couple, her mom and her 2 kids. A 4-course dinner with soup, salad, entree and dessert was served at 7:00p and breakfast with coffee, OJ, rolls, cheese, meat, yogurt and granola was served at 7:30a (OYE VEH). For 6 nights we had a different soup, entree and dessert. The soup was definitely my favorite part of the meal. Followed by the salad and the dessert. Unfortunately I was not keen on the entree as they generally involved pork (I am not against pork, just never grew up eating it aside from bacon so don't have a taste for it). 

As for skiing! That experience was definitely one in a lifetime. I don't know if I would officially say that I have caught the skiing bug, but I will admit that I did enjoy the experience (well some of it). On Sunday, we started off easy by skiing on the right side of the mountain. It is a rather scary idea when you take a gondola to another lift that takes you to 2662m peak. If you ignore for a moment that the only way to get down is by skiing, you cannot help but be blown away by the blue skies and mountain tops. It made me wish that I was not terrified out of mind to ski down the 400m to the base.  I managed (thanks to my dear friends for guiding/coaching me) to make it through a full day of skiing and must say for the sites it was definitely well worth it! It looks cold, but the weather that day was actually amazingly beautiful. We were skiing with our jackets open. After skiing we relished in another Austrian tradition - Apres Skiing (aka drinking). I celebrated my first day of skiing with a 1litre glass of Radler, followed by some warm Gluhwien. 

Due to an Apres Skiing injury (and no I am not telling you the dumb move that I made), I took the following day off to rest my back. I spent that day walking around Soelden and did a bit of hiking. That evening we all went to the clubs since the girls wanted to dance. Dancing to German pop was rather interesting especially since I decided to only drink fizzy water. But a beat is a beat, so we dance and sang (aka we made up our own words and screamed them).  I think the most unusual experience was waltzing to Rihanna's Disturbia....that song is not meant for the waltz, yet it strangely went. The next was back to the slopes. This time we went to 2 of the Big 3 peaks. The first peak, Innere Schwarze Schneid, was at 3340m and the second, Tiefenbachkogl, was at 3309m. Skiing that first peak was truly phenomenal. The second time we skied that peak we skied through  a tunnel to get to the other side of the mountain. For a lack of better words, that was the coolest thing.  I will admit, in the words of my friend - I bit is hard. I hit a section of snow and was unable to turn; resulting in me going head first into a snow bank. I snapped out of both my skis and flipped over landing on my back in the nice powdery snow :-) :-)

The ski down after lunch was no walk in the park. During lunch a snow storm came and the clouds were such that you could not see 10 feet in front of you. Pat and Silas were absolute gentlemen and helped me ski down the mountain. Si would ski in front of me so I could see where to go and Pat would ski behind me so other skiers would not cut me off. For the first time seeing a Yankees cap calmed me down. It took a good 45 minutes to make it down, but we all did. Thank the stars for pizza and french fries!!! I was shaking like a leaf in the storm after the run, but that did not deter me from skiing the next day. 

At one of the peaks, I noticed a few people hiking to the top. Naturally that got me curious, so on Wednesday I joined the gang to the top of the peak again, but ONLY so I could do the 90m hike to the summit. It was a difficult endeavor, especially with the snow shooting at you like bullets from all directions, but once we reached the top it was all worth the pain. With my heads in the cloud I found a sense of clarity. I learned a lot this trip. My mom once told me, people can loose your job, money will come and go, but your experience - those no one can take. Before this trip I did not fully understand that. I do now....

During our descend back to our skis the storm started getting worse, so I called it a day. While the others did a few more runs, I entertained myself in the lounge. The weather was worsening and to my luck they swiftly closed our side of the mountain forcing me to take a red (intermediate) trail down to the village. There was no other choice to get down so I said a little prayer and went for it...I am happy to say that I did it and even managed to look up to soak in the views along the trail. That said, I was rather pleased to return my skis after that run. We still had a couple of days of skiing, but I figured I would end on a high note.

The next day I went for a nice 6.5 mile run around town. In case you were wondering, Soelden is NOT a running town. Everyone looked at me strangely wondering what I was doing. Why didn't I have long plastic things attached to my feet? Why was I only wearing base layers and no snow pants? Well despite the looks, the run was truly one I will remember. The clean crisp air, the views, and even with the altitude I felt like I could continue. The hills however were a good reality check that I couldn't.  On our last day, before heading to the Soelden snow party at the top of the gondola, I went for a 3 hour hike in the snow. Walking through the fresh snow on untouched trails was extremely soothing. The hike started out on a typical note, I read the map wrong and found myself hiking in snow up to my knees. I then found another trail and continued on that. I hiked over 500m before I decided to turn around to join the rest of group. 

Saturday we drove back to Innsbruck. We were all rather bummed that being back in Innsbruck meant that the holiday was almost over and we would be leaving for London soon. I cannot find the words summarize this trip. It was just what I needed. We had a good balance of people, we skied, we danced, we played cards and uno, we ate meat sticks, I ran and hiked and we laughed!!

It has not even been a week since we came back and I am already counting down to my next holiday. Sevak ladies, where are we off to in April?!?!?!

Well I am off to get some sleeps. I have two very dear friends coming in town for a visit. The thought of seeing them tomorrow literally makes me smile. I cannot believe I am going to see my best friend in a couple of hours :-) :-) :-)

Hope you are all well. Speak to you in a couple of days. 

xx

T