Just a heads up this post has 36 or so photos. I just want to share with you what was a fantastic weekend.

Friday

We were treated to a ‘sweet Austrian breakfast’ by FHV (the Uni). It consisted of brilliant European bread, nutella, jams, croissants, coffee, tea, juice etc. They’d put effort into setting up tableclothes and flowers. It was in fact pretty sweet. Following that we had a kind of show and tell thing where we brought in something that reminded us of home. I had originally brought in a photo of my me and my Dad but when asked by a fellow nameless Chilean classmate if it was a photo of me and my boyfriend, I changed to a photo of the harbour…

After school a fair amount of us went back to the second hand ski shop in the rain which was a bit of a wet excursion but we got some good deals for the slopes the next day. We returned to our homes, made dinner and got ready for the International Party that night at a bar/club in town where we had to dress up as our country. Our Moose Family had dinner and drinks together downstairs which was really nice. We then all walked to town together. We then went to the party. We then came home and returned to the table where conversation continued. What a great bunch of people these guys are.

The walk along the river to school everyday

Saturday

Saturday was broken into two groups – those who were feeling the repercussions from the night before and those who went skiing at 7:30am. I feel into neither category really but got up at about 7 and went for a chilly run, whilst listening to German podcasts. On return, a friend knocked on my door and he told me we were all having brunch downstairs. We got into our ski gear and then caught a bus to the slopes. The weather was looking pretty average, but better than the rain from the day before. As we progressed in altitude we started going above the clouds, however, which resulted in clear blue skies and lots of fresh snow from the previous days showers. Skiing was amazing! I haven’t been since Crusaders Hotham Ski Camp circa 2009 but I wasn’t as rusty as I thought I’d be. The worst incident was probably the loss of both skis on the T-bar and the consequential stack in front of a particularly charismatic lifty. Oh well, these things happen. We found a pretty good black run towards the end of the day which also resulted in a stack due to TOO MUCH powder (definitely not Australia). I landed pretty heavily on my ski and now have a sweet bruise. The depth of the snow also meant that despite the fact it was a pretty clean fall, I actually couldn’t get up so had to get pulled out by a Russian friend of mine.

We returned our skis, boots and stocks at 5 (which were hired for 28 Euros!) and waited for the bus. We’re very blessed in Moosmahdstrasse to have a couple of French boys who seriously know how to cook. One of them pulled out a chocolate cake/brownie/slice he’d made the arvo before. I’m not usually that keen on cake but man this was SO good!

On arrival back home, we all showered (separately) and had dinner together. I think everyone was pretty tired and the topic of conversation showed that ranging from crying to death to tinder. We’ve decided to have a tinder dinner party. Everyone has to bring someone. I then went to a party although devastatingly tired and left pretty early despite a very friendly host.

Nevia, Thibaut, Isa, Zouheir, Milann and Aurélien 

An amazingly empty ski slope for a Saturday

Evening analysis of Tinder prospects in Austria

The bus ride up

 

Sunday

Despite exhaustion, I woke at 6 to a rainy Sunday. I walked to church and then caught the bus the rest of the way where I ran into Maddie. We’d planned to go on a snow hike up a nearby peak but were questioning (well I was) the weather. She convinced me otherwise and after church, a small group of us did a fantastic snow hike up a mountain called Staufen. We lost a few on the way as the incline was pretty tough and the snow was pretty deep. We did a fair amount of climbing on all fours and there were some pretty sketchy areas where I wasn’t too sure how safe it was. This was further emphasised by Matthias, an Austrian guy from church, who pointed out some people had died there recently. Highlights included walking past a frozen waterfall of stalactites (I think that’s the right one, maybe stalagmites), playing two truths and a lie, sinking in the snow up to my waist and having to get pulled out by Jan, eating European chocolate, going through sections where the only security was holding onto a rope that someone had embedded into the cliff and generally just hanging out with some really great people. It took us about 5 hours and it hardly rained at all! I’d seriously recommend it if you happen to be in Dornbirn at all.

Yeah so that’s it! Again, sorry about the rant.

 

The mountain we climbed (doesn’t look nearly as steep here)

Maddie holding onto the rope which ensures no death

Frozen waterfall

Dornbirn from halfway up

Rainbow shoes strike again

Got lost a few times…

House on the hill

Cave walk