Andy (Chris' brother) and his friend Felix and his cousin met us on the slopes around 10. Thomas and I were the only ones skiing - the rest were snowboarding. It had been a long time since I'd skied and so gladly took it easy. Still, it was very icy and I was used to the powdery snow. I had forgotten how to use my legs so I could keep my balance and my skis kept crossing. Needless to say, I went as slow as possible down the first pass. However, I have to jump into things to learn them and so I decided to go a little faster down the second pass. I tried to stop and ended up hitting a wall of snow on my right side - coming to a stop when a ball of ice the size of a basketball met my ass. I still have a bruise the size of a baseball. Hopefully Tiger Balm will fix that.
That first day I fell more than 20 times. They said that I skied like a Dutchman. At the time this was said, I didn't know if it was a compliment or the unsaid obvious truth. My first thought was that it was a compliment because I have no concept of a Dutch skier. If they were being sarcastic, I thought they would have said that I ski like an American since I don't really picture skiers when I think of Americans. Plus, I had told them that I hadn't skied in a while, so maybe they were saying that I was doing pretty good for such a long respite. But then I immediately thought that I hadn't been skiing all that well. Still I let the thought wrestle for a while.
When we were standing in line to get on the lift and I got clipped by the restraining bar which consequently pushed me over, I knew the joke was on me. The worker even stopped the lift to make sure I was okay. Falling became second nature to me hahah. Even though I was the worst one there by far and felt like I was holding them back, they didn't pressure me at all and so I had a lot of fun. When we took a break, we had chocolate with bread and tea. That gave me the needed energy to go the rest of the day and warmed me up. We stopped skiing around 4 and by that time I felt like I was somewhat in control of my velocity.
By 5:00 it was dark. Felix and his cousin left and the Weik family (sans Gabi since she had to work) went to the apartment they had rented. It was 5 minutes drive to Gortipohl. On the outside it looked really old and Andy was like, "Oh shit, I hope it isn't as bad on the inside." He said this in German and I was too cold to notice what the outside looked like. When we went inside it was quite nice though. The walls creaked with warmth and I took a very hot shower to massage my muscles.
After we had all showered, we drove to an Italian restaurant and there was only one other couple there. The waitress was quite bubbly and from what Chris and Andy tell me - strange. I thought she was cute. She told us (them) that she had slept to much the night before (drank too much) and kept forgetting things. I didn't understand much because the conversation was all in German. I just told them what I wanted. She first asked us what we wanted to drink to which I responded water. She was shocked and said, "Water?! There is another like me who only drinks water!" She looked at me when she said this and I gave an uneasy smile since I had no clue what she had just said. Then the others ordered a Fanta orange and ginger ales. She kept bringing up things and then forgetting our order and had to be reminded a couple of times. It was funny.
For food, I had Minestrone soup and a Calzone. They tasted so good, especially after going skiing. When we came back to the apartment, Andy showed us a couple of funny videos and a snowboarding movie and then we hit the sack around 10.
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