On Day 3, I woke up to gentle rays of sunlight pouring through the window. I ran out to the balcony and saw glorious sunshine!
Hoping that the sun stayed around, I packed my gear for downhill skiing. During the morning coffee break, I conversed with my labmates and discovered that yet again, they would return to the farmhouse for a nap. Wanting to take advantage of the sunny day, I met up with my Uni-Würzburg buddies again and secured skiing companions for a day. As soon as the morning session ended, we drove to the market, picked up some food and water, then ate our way to ski lift 25 minutes away. After arriving, we quickly found the ski rental shop recommended by the lady in town (12 Euros for a half day rental!), strapped on our boots, and headed to the slopes. One of the Uni-Würzberg colleagues had never skiied before. Since the only other colleague only knew how to snowboard, I ended up teaching the new colleague how to ski, a frightening prospect considering that I had only skiied 8 times in my life, usually on a fake mountain in Indiana. I had never skiied on a real mountain. My most realistic ski experience was two days skiing at a Michigan resort. (Michigan is not exactly renowned for its ski terrain). In fact, I had not stepped into downhill skiis in over 2 YEARS!. However, the colleague insisted that I could teach him, so I spent the first hour of my downhill day remembering how to fall safely, turn, stop, and slow down (in that exact order). I couldn't complain too much as the view from the idiot hill (direct translation of the german word for bunny slope) was still pretty amazing.
Wenlan, was a fast learner so he soon felt confident enough to navigate the easy slopes on his own. Volker (snowboarder) and I (skiier) then took off for the real hill. I was mildly anxious. Mostly because I was still exhausted from the day before. However, I refused to let tiredness overtake me, so Volker and I hopped onto the six seater lift (it even had a little shell that you could close to keep the wind out) and rode to the top. The view from top was AMAZING! The pictures below do not do it justice!
Volker and I rushed down the hill several times. I learned that falling in fresh snow powder isn't very conducive to downhill skiing. AFter a few wrong turns, we ended up on an advanced slope, where I learned that running into snow piles (although a fairly unpleasant experience) does keep you from running into a tree. Note: The Europeans do not block off hazardous slopes, they just assume that you aren't dumb enough to try them. They also don't really tell you which slopes are really hazardous until you are already on them.
However, Volker and I managed to find our way back to the more basic slopes with just an hour left before the lift closed. We quickly rushed down the hill and discovered the joys of mini ski jumps (microscopic is more like it, but I did achieve air time of about 0.2 seconds and still land safely). I eventually regained my ski legs back with enough time to take three more runs in under 25 minutes! On the last run, however, my ski legs gave out and I had a rather dramatic head over heels tumble where snow somehow permeated through my three layers of ski clothing, one ski ended up 2 meters from where I ended up, and my glasses became completely covered in snow. It took me about 5 minutes to put myself back together and meet Volker at the bottom of the hill. Promptly at 16:00, the skilifts closed and we headed back to ski rental shop to return our skis. We found Wenlan, somehow mixed in with a group of schoolchildren. He had given up for the day and take his skis off already. I however, anxious to partake of all the ski time I could, used piles of snow along the way to relive my downhill experience. We packed up our gear, paid for the half day, then loaded into the car for the trip back. After a few wrong turns, we made it back with 15 minutes to spare before the afternoon session started. Before I could return to the program, I had to snap pictures of the amazing sunset in the mountains.
I rushed into the women's restroom to change out of my sweaty clothes and then joined my colleagues at the tables. On a
previous hike, I had discovered that dried figs can quickly restore energy to the system, so I snacked on dried figs and managed to stay awake for the last two sessions of the day. The group then piled into the car for a dinner in town, where we happened to find the only hotel with a full salad bar. Since one never gets enough veggies when traveling, I was extremely excited, especially since Austrian and German salad bars feature red beans (all vegetarians or semi-vegetarians know the amazingness of this food). After dinner, the group members piled back into the car for the trip back to the farmhouse to enjoy Austrian beer and dried fruits. I rediscovered the wonderful stretching powers of yoga with my Yoga for Skiers yogaamazing podcast and then fell asleep around 12:30am.....
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