Auf Wiedersehen Maik! Plus, Hahnenkamm and Fun Week Ahead!

To start this blog, I must explain the circumstances behind my new and improved (yet again) living situation. The big news to report is this: Maik was fired. So, the big room is all mine!! A lot led up to the firing, so I will first say that I am glad he is gone. While initially it was cool having him talk in German to me, it got annoying after the first week. He talked constantly to everybody around him, and it was usually about things that nobody else cared about. He would go on and on about movies and music, asking me if I knew of some movie he had on his computer. Then he would ask me about the next one, and it would go on for literally an hour or more. He would show photos and give commentary for hours on end, completely ignoring my lack of interest. He also drank alcohol every day. Most days it was just a few beers, but I was starting to sense he had a problem. It also seemed very strange to me that Maik has 3 children (from 2 ex-girlfriends). His two daughters live with their mother in Kitzbuehel, yet in 2-3 weeks of living with Maik, he never saw them. In fact, the only times he even left the room were to go to work, or to go to the bar or the supermarket with me. There were also a couple of incidents that made me a bit nervous. First, he invited some of the hotel guests into our room to drink and party. Then he invited our boss' son and his three friends (who were all 16 or 17 years old) into our room a few days later, again to drink and party. While I had fun both nights, it didn't seem like a very good idea to be drawing that kind of attention (of course the son told his dad about it the next day).

So finally the kicker: The night before Maik's last day, the two of us, along with Tommy and his girlfriend, went out for a drink in town. To sum up a long, stupid night, we ended up in Kitzbuehel with Maik's car, everyone drunk except for me. Maik refused to let me drive his car, and drove home completely trashed, leaving me alone in a parking lot freezing my ass off at 4 am. They tried to convince me to get in the car with them, and Tommy told me the next day Maik drove like a maniac, almost killing them a few times. He hit a couple of things with his car, then broke in to a convenience store to steal something to try and fix his car's damaged tire. Like I said, a very long story that I just summed up. I waited an hour in the cold for the train. Maik didn't wake up for work the next morning, so I ended up covering his shift, which didn't matter to me. When Maik finally made it to work, he said some pretty bad things to Klaus for some reason (depends on whose story I believe). They decided it was time for him to go, and Maik had moved all his stuff out and was driving back to the other side of Austria a few hours later.

I won't tell an old tale here, but for those readers who remember the story of my first roommate at university, Maik was an eery reminder of the other alcoholic who was kicked out of my room, Matt (minus the homicidal instincts).

This weekend was Hahnenkammrennen, which is what Kitzbuehel is most famous for. It is a 3 day ski event which draws 50,000 people to town. I didn't want to pay 24 euros to sit at the finish line and watch the race, but I did want to check out the party afterwards! Friday was the Super G, which I watched on TV, then Andrea and I headed over to Kitz to check out the music, souvenir stands, hoardes of people, etc. Saturday was the Downhill, which is the most famous and supposedly dangerous downhill ski race in the world. The skiiers hit speeds over 140 km/h. Today, I went up to the mountain (16th time) after the last race, the Slalom. I noticed they were letting some people onto the roped off Downhill course, so I snuck through to check it out. I only got to ski on the top half of the course, but it was absolutely insane. I knew it would be steep, but I didn't realize it would be a solid block of ice. It was like trying to ski down an ice rink tipped on its side. Most of the people there just fell and slid straight down, which I practically did as well.

Now for the best news of all: I am visiting Maren in northern Germany this week! After work on Tuesday, I will catch a train to Munich, then fly to Bremen, where Maren will (hopefully) pick me up and drive us to Oldenburg. I fly back to Innsbruck from Hamburg on Saturday, in time to work that evening. I am excited to see Maren, and also to visit northern Germany for the first time (and hopefully understand the 'real' German accent :) ). My boss is letting me go on this trip because I had planned it before the 'Maik' situation. They are not going to hire a replacement, I guess they decided it wasn't necessary to have another dishwasher. So my hours are increasing to four and a half days per week. I have Thurs, Fri, and Sat mornings free. It is actually the perfect amount of work. A good balance of money and free time.

Life here has definitely calmed down with Maik gone. I am really getting used to the mountain lifestyle. Work is going fairly well and I have new places to ski every day. I should mention a bit more about the skiing. I am a bit disappointed with the snow. It is still a bit lacking in many areas, and the powder days have been few so far. All the towns in the valley are at 800-900 meters, and the gondolas take you to the peaks at 1800-2000 meters. That really isn't all that high for a ski resort of this magnitude, which brings me to my next point, which makes up for the lack of snow: the ski areas around me are so massive they put Whistler to shame. There are lifts and gondolas as far as the eye can see. Then you turn a curner and there are 3 more gondolas and 12 more chairlifts. I thought the whole Kitzbuehel area was pretty big considering it takes over an hour to get from one side to the other. Then I discovered an even bigger area with more people and more gondolas which I can get to via a 10 minute bus ride. Every day I go skiing, I wait for one of several busses at the bottom of the hill. Whichever comes first determines where I will go for the day. I think after 16 ski days, I have probably been on about one third of the ski runs in the area. I am not including the 6 other ski areas covered by my season pass which I haven't been to yet as they require a train ride. I hope to check out some of those places on my off days. Well, I am (as usual) enjoying my good fortune to now have a big room with free accomodation all to myself! Not to mention the beer Maik left here in his hasty departure...