skiing was awesome. when telling others that you are going skiing, the first question is always "have you skied before?" of coooourse - you know - a whole 4 times in my 23 years of existence. and the last time i went was about 4 years ago, for one day, and snowboarding - not skiing.
enter the sass going to saalbach w/ 9 others - 3 of which were my students, 6 of which were new friends. wednesday started w/ an 8am meeting at the bus stop, waiting for an hour for the bus, riding on the bus for a good 11 hours and then arrival at a nice little mountain hotel/ cabin/ type place. 7am wake-up and head to the slopes to ski. yipes!!!
i started the day in skis as tall as me - which means i started the day tumbling down the first run. there was no skiing and no restraint of the things that kept yelping from my mouth. in between giggles and pep-talks, i eventually made it down the mountain and we all decided that long skis were the worst idea ever for me, so at lunch i was able to switch to short skis. pheeew. the people i went with could not have been kinder, more gracious, more hospitable, etc. spalek and helena stayed w/ me for the better portion of the day bc spalek wanted to teach me to ski. which was amazing bc he speaks a total of 10 english words :) so helena would translate if needed - but mainly the communication was "push left, push right. good? yeah? let's go"
by the third day, i was a freakin champ - conquering a couple red slopes and all. my legs were shaking like it was no ones business - not out of fear - but out of sheer exhaustion. day 2 we skiied something like 40 km. that is a lot. even for a sass. but it was amazing. the first day we had beyond perfect weather, the 2nd day it was well below zero, w/ 20-50 km/hr winds and snow snow snow. to give the floridians an analogy - the first day was like wakeboarding on a beautiful, cloudless, sunny day in florida - where the lake is glass. day 2 - a hurricane is brewing and you decide it is way too choppy to go. but when you have paid for your ski day and you only have a few days to soak it in, you ski anyways - on the overly choppy surface, in the depths of the snow. fun fun fun. day 3 was cloudy - not as bad as 2, but nowhere near the weather of day 1 either. but still - delightful for sure.
most everyone i was w/ could speak english well and they would humor me about 30-40% of the time w/ english which was super nice. nights we would collapse into dinner, feel a little revived, hang out in the room and laugh and then sleep soundly until the next day of skiing. saturday we skiied and then headed back on the bus - arriving in ostrava at about 330am. it was absolutely fantastic. i loved being able to experience the alps and was so so glad i got to spend more time w/ my students and their friends. so kind. so amazing.
