Alpine Ski Week.

I apologize for the long silence, but I am finally writing my first actual Austrian post! After arriving in Vienna on the 28th of January, I woke up at 5:30 AM the next morning to get to the train station and begin the journey to our Alpine skiing destination: Saalbach-Hinterglemm. It was quite the process. We took the 6:44 train to a small, very cute Austrian town called Zell am See.

Church in Zell am See.

From Zell am See, we took a bus to Saalbach-Hinterglemm. Saalbach and Hinterglemm are actually two separate little towns, but they're so tiny and close together that their names are combined. Other than ski resorts, there's really not much there. We got off the bus and were essentially at the foot of the mountains. We rented all of our ski equipment, and then to get up to our hotel near the top of the mountain we had to cram into a gondola (the Schönleitenlift) with all of our newly rented ski equipment AND our luggage (in my case, a pretty large rolly suitcase). The ride up was amazing, with incredible views of the mountains around us. The five of us smooshed into the gondola marveled at the snowy, craggy mountain peaks covered with dense clusters of snow-covered trees. It was good preparation for the surreally beautiful scenery that would be surrounding me for the next 5 days. When we reached the top of the mountain, we loaded our luggage and ski equipment into a cart and then had to walk a long and, at times, very steep path down to our hotel.

Following Professor Murray (the head of the program) down the mountain toward our hotel, which you can see right near the center of the picture.

Since all the traveling and settling in took up such a big part of the day, we didn't start skiing until the next day. Our hotel was nestled right into the side of the mountain, completely surrounded by snow. We kept our ski equipment in a room right next to the lobby of the hotel, and after we put our ski boots on and walked out the door, we could step into our skis and ski right down the slopes, which was obviously very cool.

Our hotel: das Berghotel Seidl-Alm.

It was strange to ski at first, because I think the last time I skied was maybe about 3 years ago. But I think I got back into it pretty quickly. We had two ski instructors, an Austrian couple, Joschi and Burgi. Joschi is almost 70, and Burgi is a just a little younger. Needless to say, they were beasts. Burgi was my instructor, and I skied with her almost every day of the trip. On the first day we went on several different runs, but I wasn't really paying attention to where we were because I was so preoccupied with how beautiful everything around me was. It was almost hard to believe that I was actually there, skiing in the Alps. On the first afternoon, right after lunch I was starting to realize how exhausted I was, and how difficult it was to stay focused and in control. Burgi and I went down a pretty steep and icy slope, with a lot of little mounds created by all the skiers during the course of the day, and I wiped out hard. It happened so fast that I don't really even know what happened exactly, but basically I was going a little too fast and went over one of the mounds, got a little airborne, and then lost control completely and fell. I lost my hat and my left ski, and I hurt my leg a little bit. So Burgi (out of pity) took me to get some hot chocolate at the top of the mountain, and we spoke mostly in German, so it was really good practice for me.

Resting spot at the top of the mountain. Delicious hot chocolate.

On the third day, I skied into the town of Saalbach, which is down in the valley below our hotel, and it was very charming. But like I said earlier, there's not much there besides ski resorts.

In Saalbach.

One of the most amazing things about the ski trip was the ages of some of the children I saw on the slopes. The youngest were probably 3 or 4 years old, and I saw TONS of children who seemed to be in about the 5-7 range. And they weren't just going down the easy slopes, either. They were going down the really steep ones, and I even saw a young child doing moguls! It was insane. There were tons of groups of little children in "Skischule," getting ski lessons, and it was adorable.

Group of Skischule babies.

The weather was basically perfect every day. The first 4 days, there was barely a cloud in the sky. The sun shone so brightly, and I got very hot in my ski gear. It got pretty cloudy the last couple days of the trip though, but I actually think that the mountains looked even more beautiful, and kind of mysterious, shrouded in wispy clouds. Below are some of my favorite pictures. Enjoy!