Our last week in St Anton

Well it's been ages since my last blog so I need to summarise our last week in St Anton!

On Monday the heavens opened up a little and we got some snow. It wasn't a huge dump but a good solid 15cm or so. So with poor skiing conditions on Monday due to visibility and wind issues I took the day off skiing and Mariya and I built the St Anton Mega Ultimate Extreme Snowman XXXL. Pics of it can be found on Mariya's Facebook =)

On Tuesday we woke up to lots of clouds again but after 15cm of snow on the Monday I figured I'd risk the cloud cover and head to Stuben (aka powderville) and it didn't disappoint. The cloud cover was very bad with 5-10m visibilty up the chairlifts on my way to Stuben but as I came to the top of the last chairlift I left the clouds behind and came out into perfect blue skies, God bless Stuben. The ski conditions were perfect with 15cm of fresh and there was powder to be had everywhere. After lunch I decided to head out to Rendl again as Marco said it would be really good in the afternoon. It only seems to be the locals at Rendl most days and most of Rendl wasn't skied out in afternoon so there was still plenty of powder pockets around there too. On the way home one of my skis was feeling a bit funny but I guessed it was just because I was completely trashed after lots of powder skiing all day! On Tuesday night we headed out with Marco to his favorite pub, Mondschein (which means Moonlight, but by the end of the night both Mariya and I reckoned it really meant Moonshine). Marco drank a few beers while Mariya and I tried an Amaretto and Applejuice cocktail, it was bloody amazing and Mariya drank like 12 of them. After a few hours Marco bought everyone an Austrian Schnapps shot. Everyone got into the spirit and shot their schnapps, Mariya and I still weren't fans. However, Marco finally convinced me to try a bootleg schnapps made by a local in St Anton. Hey, everything in St Anton has been amazing, maybe their Austrian Schnapps could be awesome afterall. So Marco and I shot some of this bootleg schnapps ... now I'm going to need to get some hair clippers to deal with the 2 inches of hair that instantly grew out of my chest! This stuff really knocks your socks off!

On Wednesday we woke up to blue skies again so I decided to head up the Valluga Bahn (aka gondola) to get some photos from the top of the Austrian Alps. When I pulled my skis out of the ski cupboard it really looked like the front of one of my skis was bent, but maybe it was just my imagination. As I skied over to the Valluga Gondola I began to have some concerns about my skis as they weren't performing properly but I headed up the Valluga to take a bunch of amazing pictures anyway (check them out on Mariya's Facebook!). After taking the pictures at Valluga I skied home for an early lunch with Mariya and something was definitely up with the skis. When I got home I laid the skis down on the floor and unfortunately my misgivings of the last day were founded, the front of one of my skis was very bent. So after a quick snack for lunch Mariya had an awesome massage and facial booked at the Schwarter Adler Hotel. I decided to walk with Mariya into town and take my skis into the shop to see if they could be repaired. After walking Mariya to the massage place I proceeded onto the Ski Shop to have a chat with the Ski dudes. Basically I was told that the ski was broken internally and could not be fixed ... yay, well that's a $700 pair of skis headed to the tip, that's skiing I guess. So, after a "colourful" discussion with Mariya, she convinced me to return to the shop and politely request (ie firmly demand) a warranty claim on the skis. We headed back into the shop before dinner and had a chat to Jeff (you remember Jeff right? He's the guy who sold me the skis in the first place, we like Jeff). Jeff basically said that it was very unlikely that a warranty claim would be honoured as they would consider the ski damaged as a part of normal skiing activity. I guess we'll have to claim the damaged ski on our Travel Insurance ... and then Jeff said why claim on the travel insurance when the skis have insurance too! Music to my ears! Have I mentioned today that Austria is the best country on the planet? So after some paperwork Jeff ordered in a new pair of skis from Salsburg for me that would arrive and be ready to be picked up on Saturday morning. Well that's a shame, no more skiing for this holiday I guess, BUT on the other hand, a new pair of skis are in my pocket as we leave Austria, score! So with the skis settled, Mariya and I headed off to the St Anton Museum for dinner. This place was very nice and rustic and the food was fantastic. I had venison yet again (for like the 30th time this holiday) with rotkraut (om nom nom!) and Mariya had an Eye Filet with potato and cheese croquets and bacon (duh, this is Austria after all). After dinner we walked around the museum and learnt about the history of Alpine Skiing in St Anton. Austria is the motherland of Alpine Skiing and Ski Instruction and we learnt all about a man name Hannes Schneider who is basically the father of Skiing as it stands today. It was really interesting and alot of fun. After dinner we decided to check out the Ski Show at 9pm in the middle of St Anton but unfortuantely it had been cancelled. So with dispirited hearts and lowered heads we decided to smash down on some Chocolate Fondue for dessert! The fondue was awesome and looking across at some of the other people eating a MEAT!! fondue we instantly decided on our dinner location for the next night.

Thursday we decided to have a quiet one, we did some basic shopping around town and bought a new Austrian food to try at home, Marillen Knoedel! It was basically a dumpling filled with an apricot and covered with cinnamon biscuit crumbs, it was bloody awesome! For dinner we headed out for our new Meat Fondue experience. This was incredible! Brock, you'd love it! We had a few different meats (Veal, Pork and Beef cut into chunks) and they give you a weird fondue pot that is filled with a very hot oil with some spices in it. Basically you pop the meat onto a fondue stick and put it in the oil, after an extremely satisfying deep frying sound, in about 15 seconds the meat is cooked and ready to eat! They give you about 6 different dipping sauces for the meat (stuff like a garlic aeoli, a curry, a tatziki, a cocktail sauce, a whiskey sauce and others). My favorite was definitely the whiskey sauce and Mariya went for the garlic one as expected. We also grabbed a cheese fondue which was very similar to the one we had earlier in our stay.

Friday was another cruisy day finalising our train booking to Berlin and sorting out our final packing for our trip on Saturday. For our last night out we decided to splurge and head out to a restaurant called the Rasthaus Ferwall. This was about a 15 minute drive out of town by taxi in a nice little chalet on a hill covered in snow. Yet again, pictures are on Mariya's facebook. The food here was outstanding, I had Veal Cheeks with a Gorgonzola sauce and bacon and onion dumplings while Mariya had lamb cutlets with a meat jus and potato croquets (blergh). We had an aperitif (which is a pre-meal drink) which was a white champagne mixed with a cranberry cordial. It was so gesmackt that Mariya had to have two. For dessert Mariya had Panna Cotta with Passionfruit Sorbet and I had a Vanilla Bean and Cassis Parfait. Rasthaus Ferwall was incredible and we'd certainly recommend it to anyone visiting St Anton in the future. After dinner we hit the Mondschein pub with Marco, Konny and Dominic (Marco's brother) for the last time. We sat around chatting for a few hours over beers and amaretto applejuices while fending off Marco's offers of Austrian schnapps. We finally got a photo of Marco and this went up in usual fashion on Mariya's facebook.

Saturday I woke up with an unbearable headache and in severe depression. Ok maybe not, but it was very disappointing to be leaving St Anton at last. This is one of the most amazing places Mariya and I have been to and we'll certainly be heading back here as soon as possible.

Thus endeth our Austrian stay.