Midway Through the Season

Life is still great in the mountains! My living situation has finally stabilized, no changes there. The snow has picked up a lot since my last post. It snowed about half a meter here last week. That meant lots of snow shovelling at work, but it is worth it for the powder on the slopes!

I spent 4 days with Maren in Germany. It was relatively simple to take a few trains to get to the Memmingen (near Munich) airport. I landed in Bremen where Maren was waiting for me, and we drove back to her flat in Oldenburg. Her parents are currently in the market for a new house in Oldenburg, so for the time being they are living in a flat with Maren's younger sister Johanna. Maren is living there for pretty much just the month of February. She has stopped travelling to work for the month before she leaves for South Africa. It was snowing as soon as I arrived and didn't stop much for the next few days. In fact, I left the same day a massive storm hit northern Germany. Maren and I spent our time walking into town, shopping, and biking. On Friday we left with her mother and sister for a house her family owns north of Bremen in the middle of nowhere. It is a massive warehouse that they have converted into a house and storage space for all her family's stuff. Her father (who was out of town) seems to be a bit of a packrat. The place was really cool despite there not being a whole lot to do in the area. We drove to nearby Wilhelmshaven to the indoor swimming pool Friday evening.

I had to wake up very early Saturday morning. My first train left the town of Sande before 8 o'clock. It stopped in the tracks for no apparent reason for about 15 minutes. This caused me to miss my connection in Oldenburg, so I also missed my connection in Bremen, then missed my connection in Hamburg to the airport. I arrived at the Hamburg airport an hour and a half later than I had planned, at 12:35 for my 12:50 flight! Shockingly, I somehow made it onto the plane! It involved a lot of pleading and running. I flew into Innsbruck and took a couple of trains to get back to Kirchberg to work that evening. In the end, I didn't get to really see any of Bremen or Hamburg which was a shame, but I will have plenty of time to do that in the future. I got to spend time with Maren and meet some of her family, which was the main point of the visit. All in all, it was a fantastic trip and I made use of every second of my free time from work!

I went skiing several times last week. On Thursday, I decided to head to Zell am See and Kaprun for my 20th time on the slopes. It took a little over an hour by train to get there, but it was well worth it. Both of those ski areas are covered by my season ski pass, and I had heard many good things so I decided to check it out. Zell am See had a large ski area with great snow and amazing views over the huge lake next to the town. I stayed for a couple of hours, then headed over to Kaprun. I took a taxi with some other people who didn't want to wait for the bus either. The mountain next to the town of Kaprun is called Kitzsteinhorn and is one of the tallest peaks in Austria at over 3200 meters. Some of you may recognize the name, there was a fire in the funicular tunnel in the year 2000 that killed 155 people. I took 2 gondolas up, then a chairlift, then a T-bar (2000 vertical meters total) and I was at the highest skiing point, at over 2900 meters. I was actually on a glacier that is open for skiing year-round. It was incredibly windy and cold up there, despite very warm weather down below. As I skiied down, I was getting blown right and left by the wind, but the snow was perfect and I had a lot of fun. I managed to forget my sunglasses in one of the gondolas, which was the only disappointment of the day.

Some other things to mention:

My friend Lisa (who I met in Lisbon, then visited in Dublin) is coming here for a visit in a week and half. We will get some skiing in, see some Austrian sights, and I will get to repay her for letting me crash at her place in Dublin!

On a side note, everyone please root for Yulia in today's Ukrainian election! The polls don't look so great, but I am still hoping that damn rapist doesn't win...

Alright, just to give you a little tease for my next blog post: I have, until recently, been uncertain as to my plans after the ski season. But a plan has been developing lately, and I will have huge news to report very soon! I will let you all know about my next epic adventure this week.