Stranger in a Strange Land: A Ski Trip to Remember...

Hey all! I hope you had a wonderful weekend! Ours flew by very quickly!! We spent all day Saturday packing things up and moving them into our new apartment... yay! I don't know how many trips we made just driving things back and forth between the two apartments, which are conveniently on the opposite sides of town. :) Either way, we're both pretty excited about moving into the new place... It's definitely a step up from where we're currently living! :)

On Sunday, we decided to go skiing in the Alps. We met up with our friend, Cornelius, and a couple of his friends early Sunday morning, and headed out for a fun-filled day of skiing... or so we thought! :) Let's just say that it was a very memorable ski trip!!

Now, for those of you who know me and understand my skiing philosophy, you probably realize that I tend to ski down the easy level/medium level slopes... I like to ski at my own pace, and I'm definitely not a daredevil on skis!! My sister, Stacy, and I were always the perfect skiing partners... We took our time skiing down the slopes, all the while chatting away, or laughing at each other when one of us just so happened to ski directly into a fence every now and then. :) After spending a few hours in the cold, we would always head up to the Lodge for some hot chocolate. After spending some time getting warm, we would head back out into the cold for a couple more hours of skiing, after which point we would head back into the Lodge to warm up, and the cycle would continue throughout the day... It always made for a very fun day of skiing!

Well, let's just say, that Sunday's ski trip was not so much like the ski trips I used to take with my sister... This time I went with four guys, three of whom have grown up skiing in the Alps, and Brian who has skied all over the place... Meanwhile, there's me, who likes to ski on the easy hills, at a very leisurely pace, and who has grown up skiing in Michigan... And, let's just say, the hills aren't quite so big in Michigan. :) I was pretty nervous at the thought of trying to keep up with all the guys for the entire day!! But, they promised me that they would find the easy slopes for me, and that they would stick with me...

They kept their word for the first half of the day. We found an easy slope and we pretty much stuck to it for the first few hours of the day... And, I was having a great time!! After the first few runs, I became comfortable with the hill, and I felt pretty confident with my skiing... I was also getting acquainted with my new skis and how they handled... and I must admit, I'm quite pleased with them! :) Well, after a few hours of skiing the same slope, I realized that the guys didn't quite share my skiing philosophy with me... The philosophy that after a couple of hours in the cold, you go in to the Lodge to drink hot chocolate and warm up, and then you head back out for another couple of hours... Well, we ended up skiing for almost 4 hours before they finally decided to stop for lunch! Yikes!! And, of course, when I think of taking a break during skiing, I envision sitting in a lodge, in front of a fire, and warming myself back up... Apparently, that's not what they envisioned... Instead, we sat outside, on a picnic bench... So much for getting warm! :) And getting something to eat proved to be rather interesting as well... There was a huge line, and the only menu they had was typed up in a very small font, directly in front of the cashier, and written all in German (of course!). I noticed that potato soup was on the menu, so I got to the cashier and ordered potato soup... She looked at me strangely and then mumbled something back in German, to which I had no clue what she was saying, so I simply smiled and nodded... Not such a good move on my part! I ended up getting Split Pea Soup... eeew! Needless to say, the lunch experience was quite interesting!!

I'm not sure what caused it, but after lunch, the day went from being very fun to absolute chaos!! After we finished lunch, we decided to head back out to the slopes. At this point, I was feeling very chilly, seeing as how I didn't exactly get a chance to warm up at lunch!! The guys wanted to ski once more down the slope we had been on all morning, and then they wanted to head to the other side of the mountain to see what slopes were over there... All the while, they claimed that there were easy slopes on that side too! Wrong!! When we finally got to the other side, we start heading down a run, which appeared to be quite easy at first, but once you turned the corner, it was quite a steep drop off!! Yikes!! Needless to say, I was definitely not confident in my abilities as a skier to be able to ski down that slope... So, I stood at the top, legs shaking, trying to figure out where to go from there... The problem was, that slope was the only way down... Not good at all!! Now, this slope looked like a "black diamond" slope that would be found in Michigan, and we all know that I avoid those slopes at all costs (the guys originally told me that this was an "easy" hill, but we found out afterwards that this was considered a "difficult" hill)!! As I stood at the top, looking down the slope, I just kept thinking about the fact that I was so close to coming home to the U.S. , and knowing my luck, I would have tried to ski down, and then seriously injured myself, making it impossible to go home! Thankfully, I didn't end up skiing down that slope... at least, not all the way. Brian convinced me to walk halfway down, and then from there, we put our skis back on and skied the rest of the way down...

At this point, I told the guys to go do their own thing, and I would go back to the easy slope from the morning. But, they were determined to find me an easy slope. So, we headed back up to another slope that they wanted to try... This time, instead of taking the gondola up, we had to take a "T-Bar" lift to the top... This apparently is another version of a chair lift, and it was my first time experiencing this type of lift, so I wasn't quite sure how it worked. It's a bar that is shaped like an upside-down "T" that hangs from the cable above. When it comes up behind you, the one portion hooks behind you (under your butt) and propels you along. Now, you must hold onto the bar that is connected to the cable, and you can't sit on the bar as it's very narrow and doesn't hold your weight. Meanwhile, your skis are on the ground... So, you're basically skiing up the hill and the bar, which is under your butt, is pushing you forward. And, as I found out the hard way, it's very important to keep your balance!! It's definitely not a very comfortable way to get up the hill! So, after my episode at the previous hill, all I wanted to do was get back to an easy slope. So, Brian and I hope onto this "T-Bar" lift... He's on one side of the cross bar, and I'm on the other... We get about 20 feet out, my ski catches in the snow, and I fall off the thing. Brian, on the other hand, proceeds to hang on to the bar and continues riding up. So, I'm left to go back and try it again by myself... Which I did, and this time I managed to get a little farther out, before I completely fell again! Ugh!! This time, being that I was farther up the hill, I had to side step my way back down the hill... Once I got back to the bottom of the hill, I attempted to try the lift for the third time. This time, I got settled in pretty well, and after making it further than I had in my previous two attempts, I got quite excited! That is, until my ski caught in the snow, yet again, and I flew off the lift! This time was a bit scarier though. I had tried to come up with a way to ride the lift without falling off, so I had attached both of my poles around my gloves and I was hanging on with both hands. So, when I fell off, the bottom of the pole caught on the crossbar and it wouldn't let go. I was basically being pulled by my wrist (as the poles were still connected to my glove) up the hill. Let's just say that it wasn't a pretty site! I was screaming and flailing about and trying to get my glove off... Finally, after being dragged about 20 feet, my glove finally flew off and the poles broke free of the crossbar. At that point, I scrambled to stand up and get out of the way of the rest of the people going up the lift, and as I stood up, I got beamed in the head with "T-Bar" that had been coming up behind me... ouch!!

So, I was basically standing there, trying to figure out if I should walk the rest of the way up the hill or if I should hike back down the hill for the third time. Well, me being me, I ultimately tried to hike uphill, but after 20 minutes of going nowhere, I finally gave up and headed back downhill! The hike back down was not fun! Every step I took, I managed to posthole myself... meaning, everytime I took a step, I would step into waist deep snow... Not fun! So, I would step down, get stuck in waist deep snow, dig/pull myself out, take another step, etc.... All the while trying to carry my skis and poles... ugh! In the meantime, people were going up the lift and staring at/laughing at/pointing at/singing to me, and Brian was nowhere to be found... Needless to say, I was not a happy camper! I did feel better at one point, when another guy fell off the lift, and he ended up walking down with me... It felt good to know that I wasn't the only one that did that! :) So, after about 45 minutes of walking back down the hill, I finally got to the bottom, and found Brian.... and I immediately informed him that I was ready to go home... Unfortunately, I wasn't that lucky. Brian then informed me that the only way to get out of that particular area of the mountain, I had to take 2-3 more "T-Bar" lifts... ugh!! We managed to get up the next few lifts with no problems. I then found an easy slope to ski down, and we headed back down the mountain. Once we got to the bottom, we decided to call it a day... Thankfully!

Overall, the first half of the day was extremely fun, and I'll just say that the second half of the day proved to be quite memorable! :) On that note, I'm off to bed... I've basically written a book today! :) I hope you're having a great Monday! We look forward to seeing you soon! I'll leave you with a couple of pictures from our "memorable" ski trip!! :) Miss you much!