Skiing in Saalbach

I whizzed down the hill towards the town in the valley below, the wind rushing by me and the sun glinting off the snow. I couldn't believe it - I was skiing in the Alps! This month, February, has been full of exciting adventures in new places. Let's start at the beginning, when I went on a little ski vacation with my host family.

My host family's destination was the idyllic ski town of Saalbach-Hinterglemm, nestled high in the picturesque Austrian Alps.  They were nice enough to let me come along on their family vacation, stay in their apartment that they were renting, and give me the train tickets to Saalbach as a Christmas present. I'm going to be eternally grateful that I was able to go - the whole week was a ton of fun! I got some high-quality skiing time in and I was able to truly immerse myself in German, as  I was completely surrounded by German speakers day and night.

After waking up at 4 am and traveling for 12 straight hours, we made it to the twin towns of Saalbach-Hinterglemm, population 2,800. We got right down to business and hit the slopes the next morning. We had 200 km (124 miles) of slope to choose from, so we got real busy real fast trying to see it all.

I remembered how to ski from my first ski trip in California and I picked it up again no problem. I was thankful for that, since there were remarkably few beginners on the slopes - I got the feeling everyone there had basically grown up on skis. 

I was also probably the only American on the whole slope - not once did I hear anyone speak English with an American accent. I did, however, hear a lot of Austrians speaking "German" - and wow, they really have a strange accent. They sound like they are intentionally mispronouncing words to make them sound as funny as possible, so depending on how strong their accent is, I was at times  barely able to recognize it as German, much less understand it.

The weather was perfect when we were there! We almost always had clear blue skies, and the temperature never dropped below 14 degrees Fahrenheit even though we were 2000 meters (66000 feet) up. I just had to ski with my camera so I could record the crazy views of the Alps that we were getting.

On the train ride there, we had a transfer in Zell am See, a town on this beautiful lake

The view from our apartment in Saalbach-Hinterglemm

In the town at night, the bars were chock full of skiiers unwinding after a hard day on the slopes

On the slopes

You know the slopes we were on are legit because the Ski World Cup took place there a few weeks after we left

On the way back, we stopped again in Zell am See and had some time before our train left. Constantine and I decided to walk around a bit and explore. We ran into St. Hippolyte's Church, which was first built in the 1500s and is one of the oldest buildings in the whole region

Inside the church

The fun didn't stop once we returned back to Berlin. Check this out! Our fancy ski tickets tracked where exactly we had skiied each day. Here is one day I was on the slopes with some fun stats. According to the website, I was among the best 9% of skiers on the mountain that day! 

I'll always remember my time on the slopes in Austria with my host family. But upon our return, I couldn't dwell on it too long - destinations in Berlin, Potsdam, and ROME were on the agenda! More to come.