Travel around the country side, ask Nathan and Mariya brothers!

Yesterday I decided to have my first ski lesson. In the morning I strolled down to the Ski Lesson meeting area and was told by the ski instructor that he'd get a few of us to ski down the baby slope to decide which class we should be placed in.

So up the baby slope tow rope I went, at the top I had to wait for a few minutes for everything to get organised. Once everyone was settled the instructor told us to ski down. I waited for the first 2 to ski down ... mmm very pro snow ploughs guys, but I'm hoping I get put in another group ... so I skied down behind the pair to the instructors at the bottom. Once down there, the 2 others were placed in the same group and were sent off with an instructor. The head ski instructor looked at me and said "How do you feel about joining the off piste/powder group?". "Hells yea biatch!", came my instant reply! Ok maybe not, I had to tell the guy I didn't have an avalanche beacon or avalanche pack. He told me no problems and to follow him. He sorted me out with a beacon and pack for the day and sent me up the slopes to meet up with the Off Piste/Powder group that were already out and about.

When I met up with the group we had to ski down the mountain and jump on another lift as we were heading out to Stuben for some off piste spring skiing. The ski down the mountain took like a million years and I thought my legs were going to shrivel up and die, omg my legs were in agony by the time we got to the lift. Ok, so this Off Piste Ski Instructor is a sadist. Hmm the rest of the group didn't seem to be looking like they were about to die though ... so it was time for me to man up!

After a couple more lifts to the top of Stuben we headed over the backside of the top lift and down some seriously awesome Off Piste skiing. About half way down the run the instructor (Meinhard, very interesting Austrian name?!) stopped at a huge patch of grass on the side of the mountain. "This is Spring Skiing for you!" he shouted and pulled off his skis. So we walked across a couple of hundred meters of grass and rocks in the middle of the run and then got to snow again, clipped back into our skis and finished at the bottom of the mountain. At the bottom of the mountain we had a pretty hairy goat track trail for about 10km's to get back to a bus stop which then took us back to St Anton. This took us about 30 minutes with some hiking involved to get up and around some parts, I was pretty wrecked by the end of this and excited to see a bus turn up to return us to St Anton!

The bus delivered us to a nice little pub on the side of the ski slopes for lunch. I had a grosser bier (750ml beer with 5.0% alcohol) and Salmon and Salad for lunch. This could make for an interesting afternoon of skiing, the beer was like 3-4 aussie beers and we drank them in about half an hour. During lunch one of the guys asked our instructor if we were going to do the Rendl Waterfall Off Piste run after lunch but he thought there was about 30 minutes of walking involved. Meinhard's response was short and to the point, "We have a lift pass, not a hiking pass!" I seconded that opinion =P

Once we finished lunch we headed back outside to get back into our ski gear. One of the Austrian guys started passing around a bottle with medicine for all our sore knees ... Austrian Schnapps. Remember that schnapps Mariya and I tried the other day? It's about 35% alcohol and the guys all took a shot or 2 before we headed out after lunch (after also knocking over those big beers!), I said "No thanks, I'll pass on the schnapps." Afterall, I have more than enough hair on my chest.

We ski'd a few more runs in the afternoon and were then done for the day. Everyone said their goodbyes all around the group. It's alot more friendly than anything I've seen in any other lesson anywhere else, with lots of comraderie. There's a very different attitude to skiing over here, it's all about the fun.

Today Mariya and I decided to jump on the bus and head out to Lech and Zurs for the day for a little sight seeing. I took my skis just incase the opportunity arose for some impromptu skiing at these resorts.

First we headed to Lech to see what it was like. It was a lot less commercial than St Anton, there were much fewer shops and restaurants. However, it was also much busier. There is much more accommodation in Lech than there is in St Anton and Lech is actually on the highway (whereas St Anton is off the highway) so there is a signifcant amount of car and bus traffic always travelling through the town. We took heaps of photos and then stopped for lunch. I had Kase Spaetzle (which was like a really awesome Austrian Macaroni cheese but about a million times better, the Italians have a lot to learn). Mariya had 2 venison sausages with mustard, tomato sauce and grated horseradish which was bloody awesome as well. For dessert Mariya had pancakes with apricot jam (her new addiction, who would have thought Mariya would become addicted to sweets in Austria?!) and I tried their apple strudel (not as good as the one in St Anton but still good).

After lunch we decided to catch a taxi to Zurs, it's only 10 minutes down the road and the Taxi only cost us 15 Euros. We figured we'd spend about an hour in Zurs before jumping on the bus back to St Anton. Or not ... the main road in Zurs was about 200 meters long and it took us 15 minutes to finish browsing Zurs. The highlight being an absolutely enormous snowman about 5 meters wide and 3 meters high, check in out on Mariya's Facebook! We had 40 minutes before the bus to St Anton arrived so stopped for a quick coffee, which was tiny, maybe 4 sips and you're done?! We then jumped on the bus again and headed back to St Anton. The round trip for the bus for the entire day cost only 12 Euro's for the both of us! Once again, Australia has a lot to learn on the pricing of their public transport ...

All the photos of Lech and Zurs are up on Mariya's Facebook, so make sure you take a look!