St Anton: The Halfway Mark

Well, we're halfway through the St Anton stay and quite a lot has happened since the last blog.

Over the last few days I've managed to ski all of St Anton, St Christoph and Stuben. The ski conditions here in Austria are second to none and the weather has been outstanding. I'm waiting for some nice snowfall so that I can head out to Stuben (aka Powdersville) and get some powder skiing action happening, sounds like that will be early next week if the Austrian Weather Man is right, and he's been right on the money with his reports so far.

With a perfect bluebird day today (with not even a single cloud in the sky and no wind at all) we decided to head up the Galzig Bergbahn (aka Gondola) for lunch at the top of the Austrian Alps and to take some photo's of the surrounding mountains (the photo's are on Mariya's facebook). The view was amazing with visibility for hundreds of kilometers and the food at the restaurant was outstanding. We both ordered Wiener Schnitzel and ended up with 2 schnitzels each and about 12 kilograms of french fries. Obviously we didn't manage to get through the food but we had a pretty good crack and only paid like 13 Euro each for the experience.

With 8 days of skiing down it was about time for some therapeutic ski massage loving! Mariya popped down to the massage joint recommended by Marco (our landlord) and booked herself in for a Relaxation Massage and me in for a Sports Massage. Mariya's massage was scheduled for 2:15pm and mine was slated for 5:45pm (at the end of the ski day!). When I got home at around 5pm, Mariya gave 2 thumbs up to her massage and I knew I was in for some sweet therapy to mend the broken body. After 8 days of skiing I was in serious need of some remedial work to make the body last another 8 ... and I haven't even done anything rough yet or got a mountain guide to run me through my paces =P Needless to say, the massage was fabulous and not half as painful as the sadistic, little korean sports masseuse from Queenstown on our last ski holiday. Fingers crossed the body now lasts another 8 days of intense skiing abuse.

After my massage we were off to a "Mexican" restaurant called Bobo's for dinner, their specialty a pork ribs and chicken wings combo. Does Austria have what it takes to usurp BRT and claim the title of Best Ribs In The World?! Unfortunately not, but they gave a strong showing and easily push into second place. I guess Austria can't be the best at everything or their population would be roughly 7 billion. But if their worst performance is 2nd place in the world for Pork Ribs I think they're in pretty good stead.

The last few days have been bright and sunny with perfect conditions but now we're hoping for a few clouds to roll in and show us some snow loving. All the sun over the past week has been melting away some snow and creating some icy conditions. Apparently the snow might roll in on Sunday (and hopefully the skies open up and spew mountains of snow!) but for now we continue with perfect blue skies and warm positive temperates in the 1-2 degree range. I guess we can't really complain about perfect weather, we couldn't really ask for much more.

Last night Marco came over for a beer and chat. We sat around for a couple of hours chatting and drinking beers, the night actually disappeared really quickly as it always seems to do for us when we sit around chatting. Mariya bought an Authentic Austrian Apricot Schnapps to try and we both had a taste ... to say it would put hairs on your chest is probably an understatement, the Yeti probably drinks this stuff by the bottle. When Marco came around we showed him the schnapps and asked him if that was a good one (as Mariya and I both almost died trying it). Marco gave it high praise and smacked down a shot of it instantly ... I wonder how hairy his chest is ... I'm guessing a massive rug is on display under his tshirt based on his schnapps sculling abilities.

With plenty more on our plates and still over a week to go, there'll be plenty more action to report from the snow fields of St Anton in the coming days!