Wheels don't work in snow!

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Last time I wrote we were finishing up in Zurich. The last thing to note in Zurich is how expensive the city is. We went out for dinner and couldn't find anything within a decent price range, ending up with a $41 swiss franc mussaman curry. For those playing at home that's something around $55 for one curry... I'm sure you can all imagine Matts reaction!

We left for Lech which is a ski village within the Vorarlberg region of Austria. Thinking that the local station that all the regional trains go to (Langen) would be a reasonable sized station we were wrong. When the train doors opened we were welcomed with a platform of powder and not a soul around. Turns out our suitcases are not much good when being wheeled along a train platform covered in what must have been at least 5 inches of powder. Add to that the snow that was coming down on top of us and our canvas sneakers and it didn't make for a very nice start! When we got into the station we found there was no ATM for us to get euros and also no taxis as suggested on the website. We ended up having a taxi stop at another village (Stuben) so we could get money to pay for the taxi.

When we arrived at our lodge I promptly changed into my après boots which made it much easier to walk around town, though visibility was low and it was still snowing quite heavily, though the locals tell us it's nothing! We got our ski gear and some food at the supermarket and went back to our lodge to rest.

Today we got up early and had breakfast - lots of crusty rolls for me and muesli for Matt (I mean, seriously? We're in Austria!) and then set out for the lift. Turns out we can ski to the lift but have a rather long walk back from the run In the afternoon.

We decided to just follow the crowd making sure we stuck to the intermediate runs and we ended up in Oberlech, then Zug and then

found that we were at the end of a trail with only a chair to go back up or a gondola to go in the other direction. We chose the gondola, not realising it was the new gondola that only opened this season, linking Warth with Lech. We spent a bit more time over in Warth which was nice but a small village. We also had lunch over there - table service if you can imagine (for those who know what mountain restaurants are usually like) and shared our table with a family of 7. Weiner schnitzel and pomme frites were the order of the day! The most embarrassing thing was though, after not falling at all on the slopes as soon as I entered the outside area of the restaurant I slipped over. Not a single person moved to help me, was rather embarrassing and not easy getting up on slippery timber in ski boots! Will have a lovely bruise on my hip later I think!

I keep telling Matt he is like a second class citizen here. I think in the whole day we've probably seen maybe 15 snowboarders. Definitely in my element!

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