Ski week in Austria

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It had been some time since Linda and I had been on a ski trip. By now the kids, or at least the girls, were getting to be old enough to learn to ski. Our church was sponsoring a week-long ski trip to Innsbruck, Austria, so we signed up knowing that we would be with good friends.

So on Friday, February 14th, Valentines Day, we loaded up our car with our snow gear and drove part of the way to Innsbruck, and on Saturday completed the journey to the ski village of Igls, just south of Innsbruck.

Our ski lessons were from Sunday through Friday. Linda decided to stay with Will and sled. She really never enjoed downhill skiing. Tamara, Rosanna, and I were assigned to our respective classses based upon our previous experience. The girls had never skiied so they started on the bunny slope. I started at lower intermediate, as I knew, more or less, how to parallel ski, but hadn't skied much lately so didn't have confidence on the steeper slopes.

The girls picked it up very quickly, and by the thrid day were skiing the 3 kilometers down the mountain. I did ok, refining my technique. And Linda and Will had a great time together, with Will sitting on Linda's lap as the sledded down the long prepared sled run.

For lunch we all ate together at the restaurant at the top of the ski slope. My favorite meal was gern knodle, steam bread stuffed with poppyseed and covered with lemon sauce. I also enjoyed some jager tea, which is mostly Jagermeister schnapps which gives a person a lot of confidence skiing down steep slopes. In the evenings we had dinner at the hotel which was right at the slopes, and then apres ski activities.

One evening Tamara was sick, but fortunately her doctor from the NATO clinic was one of the participants on the trip so kindly leant his expert advice.

By the end of the week we were all proficient skiers. The girls had a blast. The last day we had the ski races and the awards dinner.

Saturday and Sunday we drove home to Overijse.

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