Skiing without much snow (pt. 3)

On our last day of skiing, we all managed to get together in a big group, with everyone there, for the first time in the holiday! It didn't last any longer than the first run of the day tho, as the girls who'd just graduated from beginners class didn't want to tackle anything harder than a few blue slopes, while trhe rest of us wanted to head over to another mountain where we hadn't been yet, at the far sie of the valley. The only way to get there was by cable car, right across the valley so we decided to head up to it. Unfortunately, as we wound our way up on the chair lift, what we thought had just been cloud at the top of the mountain turned out to be a full-fledged blizzard! The visibility was down to maybe 10 meters, the temp was about -15 with wind-chill factored in, and the snow was being driven horizontally into out faces. At that stage we decided to cut our losses and just go back down on the slopes we'd been on before. On the way though, we found the entrance to a run we'd been looking for before but had always managed to miss, and despite the fact that it had a big "closed" sign on it, we decided to try it anyway. It was probably the best run of the day, as we had it all to ourselves and were pretty much running on fresh undisturbed snow. After a (really) big lunch, we decided to try a few red runs before meeting the others again, and I was quite pleased with myself that I only fell twice (one was silly tho - crossed my skis on a flat bit!). After that we decided to call it a day, as everyone was a bit weary, so we started heading for the Hannenkamm lift. This involved taking a chairlift and two more blue runs though, and at this stage the weather had closed in again and visibility was back down to bout 5m - fun!

We made it back alive anyway and then headed down to meet the girls who had some sort of medals presentation thing from their ski school to go to, from some race they'd done on their last day (none of them had won tho I think!). After a drink or two in the pub, we all agreed to meet back up and have dinner in that place the lads had had the orgasmic steak in on tues night. So, after showerng, shaving etc, we all met up. Pretty much everyone ordered the same thing (the prawns for starter, then the steak) except for me - I hate prawns, and at the last second I had a fit of contrariness and decided against the steak. Judging by the silence around the table when the mains arrived out, a good meal was had by all, and after we set about the task of finding a good bar to park ourselves in for the night. Unfortunately, our first chouce was not the best one - a trendy cocktail bar full of the beautiful people, all dolled-up in thir friday finery - so naturally a big crowd of loud irish in ski outfits stood out like a sore thumb! We only stayed there for two drinks, then headed out to look for somewhere slightly better. We got distracted along the way by an outside bar where they were playing this game where you hammer a nail into a block of wood with the narrow chisel end of a hammer. Your strike had to begin with the hammer touching the edge of the block tho, so it wasn't as easy as it sounds. After a good few games of this we realised (a) it was nearly 1am and the bar was closing and (b) we had to be up early the next day to catch the taxi to the airport, so we called it a night.

The next day dawned bright and early - too damn early! We were getting a 7:30am pickup for the airport, so had to be up at 6:30am. Naturally the discussion in the taxi on the way to the airport was minimal, and we only really were waking up when we got into Munich. Checking in was uneventful, right up to the point where the girl at the check-in counter told em I had to queue up again to pay for my bags - damn Aer Lingus and their charging per bag policy! The guy at the Aer Lingus desk seemed to have had a serious attack of the slows just before I got there - there were only 4 people in the queue ahead of me, but it still took him 35mins to deal with them! And all of this for an €8 fine that had I known in advance, I could have paid online and saved myself all the hassle! At this stage the others had already gone through security, and by the time I reached them I didn't even have time to get food before we took off! Needless to say I was slightly a bit miffed at this. The flight itself passed uneventfully, apart from a pretty hard landing in Dublin, and so we all went our separate ways, probably never to see each other again until the next time we go skiing.

So, all in all, definitely not a leisure holiday, but a damn good one anyway!