Skiing in the Alps

In the middle of December, we went to the Austrian Alps for a day ski trip :) It was a really spectacular deal. I bought one ticket for 30 euros and it covered everything for the day except my ski rental, which was only 12. I got up at an ungodly hour and went to the main bus station, where all the buses going up there for the day start leaving at 6:50. You just give them your gear, if you have any, and hop on the bus. Once a bus is full it leaves and the next one pulls in and starts loading. On the bus they gave us all a coffee and a pretzel with butter :) They also gave us our lift ticket, which was like a credit card. It was a fun bus ride, even though it was so early, since there were so many of us together and we had some very nice views. What was odd was that the base of the resort was literally in the middle of a town. The i-club tutor took us into a ski rental shop that I assumed was part of the resort (cuz that's how it works in California) but it was just a local business.

Since there were so many of us it took AGES to get our gear, and you had to pick out your own skis, so I finally got to the desk and the guy told me I had chosen children's skis :/ bahaha, thankfully he was nice enough to go get a new pair for me. The main lift is a full gondola, instead of just a chair lift, and you go through a turnstile that automatically senses your ticket and lets you through. You slide your skis into a slot on the door and hop in the gondola and off you go! This is from the top, right side:

We stayed on this side for the most part, and in the middle. These were the medium runs; the left side had the hard ones. 

About half way down:

Most of the mountain was in shade by the time we got up there, at least on the right. The bottom of the middle runs was still in the sun.

From the middle:

That building is the mid-point for the gondola, that's where we got off the first time, while we were still testing it out :)

And me!

Rocking the sunglasses. And bossing it with a backpack, which I just stuffed with food, naturally.

At one point I pulled a noob-move and dropped my pole off the chair lift cuz I was too busy lounging all by myself. I had to brave the tiny winding path through the trees underneath the lift TWICE, as the first time I basically ran over my pole and only spotted it when going back up the lift.

There was also an awkward time when I thought I had gone the wrong way and cut back under the chair lift, uphill :/, only to discover that that actually led nowhere, and I had indeed been going the correct way to begin with. What a workout. 

The bus ride back was also nice. I got to talk to everyone that I hadn't been skiing with, and got a "free" glühwein for turning in my lift ticket :)

And contrary to my family's apparent belief, glühwein is delicious.