Ski Season Winding Down

I am going to write a couple of blogs today, this one to cover the last month or so, then another to cover the events of the last few days.

A few days after my last post in the middle of February, I was out skiing in one of the parks. There was one particular jump that seemed pretty popular, and I went off it several times in the day. I was feeling pretty confident, so I decided to attempt a helicopter (360 spin) on my last jump of the day. I've done that trick before, but it has been years... Well, for no apparent reason one of my boots popped out of my binding right as I left the snow. I spun all the way around in the air, but the landing with only one ski on resulted in epic failure. I limped my way home with pain in my lower back. Every tiny bump in the snow hurt like hell. So I ended up having to take about a week off from skiing until my back felt better. I didn't need to miss any work, but was very fortunate that it didn't snow much that week so I didn't have to snow shovel! My back fully healed and I was back on the slopes near the end of the month.

My friend Lisa came to visit on the last weekend in February. I had to work the first couple of mornings, so she got to sleep in. We went to Kitzbuehel one evening and I showed her around the town. We met up with some of my Aussie friends and went to a couple of bars. We took the train to Zell am See another day, where they had a really large street market going on. We waited for Saturday to hit the slopes. Lisa had told me before that she was a beginner skiier. I told her no problem, but I hadn't realized until we were on our way up the hill that it was her 2nd time ever skiing! Looking back, we probably should have taken a different lift to one of the beginner hills. Those lifts are free, by the way. Fortunately for Lisa, we found someone selling a lift pass in front of the ticket office for only 8 euros! What a steal! The problem is that the main gondolas in the Kitzbuehel ski area don't lead to any easy runs. We went on the easiest run that I knew of and quickly discovered one critical element of skiing that Lisa lacked: the ability to stop! All in all, I think it made for a pretty humorous day, and she didn't get hurt at all. Hopefully she learned a little bit, though I think her next trip skiing should be on a much flatter hill!

Lisa and I took the same train on Sunday. I left her in Munich, where she headed to the airport to fly home to Dublin. I continued on towards Nuremburg to meet up with Maren. Her sister lives with her boyfriend, Arne, in a suburb of Nuremburg called Schwabach. Unfortunately her sister was out of town, but Arne was happy to have us stay with him. We checked out Nuremburg one day, which turned out to be a cool city. There is a huge walking area in the center with lots and lots of shopping. The architecture and old buildings were pretty nice as well. I couldn't tell you a whole lot more about the city than that, as we only had one afternoon to walk around. Maren and I got groceries, then got lost on the incredibly long walk back to the flat in Schwabach. We finally made it and cooked a big dinner for Arne with he got home from work as a thank you for letting us stay there. The following day, Maren and I took care of some things and talked about our trip some more. We took the S-Bahn to the main train station in Nuremburg where we said our good-byes. She headed to Frankfurt for her flight to South Africa, where she is right now. I took the last train back to Kirchberg.

The month of March has been mostly uneventful for me. I have been working quite a bit and skiing every time I don't work and the weather is decent. There has been a surprising amount of snow this month. The weather seems to stay very cold for about 3-4 days and we get 20-30 cm of snow, then turns very warm for a few days without a cloud in the sky. At work, another dishwasher named Misa was hired a few weeks ago for a couple of nights a week. He is very nice and speaks to me in German, very clearly and slowly and without an incomprehensible Tirolean accent. I was told that my last day of work would be March 21st. After that, there won't be enough guests in the hotel. That will also be Tommy's last day. And Andrea left last week, so life in my basement room has been a bit lonely and dull. I feel pretty good about work ending. My boss told me that I can stay in my room until April 1st, as that is the day I will head up to Germany and meet Maren when she flies back from South Africa.

Maren and I are both very excited for our trip together. We have booked the first flight to Istanbul, we leave on April 17th. The rest of the trip is still coming together. We are cutting Greece out. We both feel it is a 'normal' place (i.e. not exotic) that we can visit some other time. We would prefer to save more time for Southeast Asia. It looks like we will split 4-5 weeks between Turkey, Israel, and Egypt (max one week in Egypt). That will give us 8 weeks for India, China, and Southeast Asia (possibly Thailand and Cambodia). I can't wait to leave!

After much work, I have completed Rosetta Stone German Levels 1, 2, and 3! I am feeling much more comfortable with the language. It is still very, very difficult to understand Austrians when they speak, but I can now read German quite a bit better, and my speaking ability is improving as well.

As I alluded to earlier, important events occurred on Saint Patrick's Day, which I will write about later today or tomorrow.