Wherein Chris experiences for the first time true alpine skiing, realizes that the hills of Minnesota did not adequately prepare him, improves and bites it hard enough on the final day to require a trip to the resort doctor.
The invitation to join the family of the foreign-exchange student who lived with my family last year was first extended when I visited them in Dresden in the fall. I declined the invitation at first, unwilling to accept such generosity, but when I finally got around to planning what I would do with my two weeks of Christmas vacation and decided that a full week of my German relatives was too much, I took that answer back.
I am bleeding glad I did. For four days I got to hang out with decent people and speak a lot of German in Ischgl, Austria at a ski resort large enough (300 or so kilometers of piste I believe) to stretch into Switzerland.
Keep in mind now, my only previous skiing experience was at a small ski resort two hours from my house in Minnesota. I’m fairly the height of the building I’m living in here in Munich is comparable to some of the hills there. Also, I think the last time I actually did downhill skiing there was some five years ago.
Fortunately, it appears that skiing resembles riding a bike in that you never forget how, even if the difficulty is a bit more. No ski school for Chris this time around. Of course this means I fell somewhere between five and fifteen times on the first day. I know I fell at least five times earlier in the day, but on the last one, the one which ran from the highest point to the very bottom, I lost track. An these were proper falls too. Not slipping on a flat part. These were bite-it-and-slide-ten-meters-before you-slam-your-elbow-down-to-keep-from-finishing-the-slide-at-the-mountain’s-base falls. Amazed that I somehow came out of it all without any bruises. At least I improved. I don’t think I could have taken many more days of that punishment, and the others, far more accomplished skiers than I, were probably tired of waiting for me. Fell only three times on the second day and once on the third (and that was on the glare ice at the very bottom of the run where everyone had finished their own runs). Only twice on the final day, but that last fall was bad enough to send me to the resort doctor. Even though I was able to walk there, they still sent me to a town doctor to make sure my spine was okay because of the pain I was complaining of. Fortunately it turns out only to be a strained muscle in my neck. I have the X-rays to prove it. Thank God for free European health care.
I would have been happy to simply be there, even if skiing were taken out of the equation. It was absolutely beautiful. It occurs to me that mountains covered in snow should be cold and threatening, but I did not find them so. Cresting that first mountain and catching my first glimpse of the range was a view worthy of taking one’s breath away. The sky, too, was perfectly clear, a relief after the month of overcast in Munich and all the better to see the blue. I hear it’s a different blue, richer and deeper, than that you see from sea level. I believe that.
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