Monday, April 14, 2008

Austria

Feeling more myself today after a nice long night's sleep and a day of doing absolutely nothing. I took today off work which was definitely the right thing to do.

I have very mixed feelings about the skiing trip this year. Parts of it were EXCELLENT - definitely the best yet - but then there were the hours I spent being miserable and sick which were probably the worst yet.

We arrived to hotel Sunny Sölden at 1am Friday morning and were immediately very impressed by the rooms. I shared a room with 3 others and had expected it to be a tad crowded, but the rooms were HUGE!

Two large bedrooms (larger than the one I have here), a living room, a walk-in closet, a toilet and a HUGE bathroom with two sinks, a shower and a jacuzzi! So first impression=definitely great.

The next morning as we went to rent skis, we discovered that the people arranging the trip had somehow gotten permission to hang the NC banner from the hotel flag pole! THAT I had not expected!


Unfortunately the weather on the slopes wasn't too great - foggy, snow falling and you couldn't really see more than 10-20 meters in front. A huge shame, as they were some of the best slopes I've ever tried. Next time I'm going on a skiing trip with Lars and Henni I'm going to suggest going to Sölden instead of Livigno, because even though the town isn't as cozy, the slopes are MUCH better.


After 5 hours on the slopes, my legs were wasted, so I went back to the hotel for a shower and to relax a bit before meeting the others for after-ski. Here came the second surprise - the after-ski place had a NC banner as well!!!


The after-ski went as it always does, with lots of egg-shells (snaps and mango liqueur) and Flügeln (red vodka and red bull)

as well as lots of dancing, fun and laughter.

At around 7pm we went back to the hotel to get changed for dinner. Austrian cuisine is one of the most boring I've experienced, but that doesn't matter much when the company is great :)



At 11pm some of the others went to a disco, but I was tired and wanted to be ready for a new day of skiing, so I decided to just go to bed. Unfortunately, that was not to be... well, I did go to bed, but after about an hour I got such a stomach ache that I couldn't sleep, and at about 2am it turned into horrible nausea instead :( I didn't sleep a wink all night, and felt like death warmed up the next morning, so instead of going back up on the mountain I felt I'd better stay in bed :( I felt so incredibly sorry for myself, I could just have cried. Lars had had a night shift, and was fast asleep, so I called my parents for some pity.

Around noon I felt better and went for a walk around town. I still didn't feel well enough to go to the slopes, as I felt like I might be sick at any moment and didn't want to risk it, but despite the nausea I was starving so I found a place that served soup for lunch. I felt no worse and no better after eating that, so apparently my upset stomach didn't mind what was in it, it was just gonna be upset no matter what? Weird!

Fortunately I finally managed to get some proper sleep in the afternoon and therefore felt well enough to join the others for dinner. I'm glad, because we had so much fun!!! The table next to mine kept performing "Bananaphone" (one had it on his cellphone and sent it to the others, so they'd all play it at the same time and sing along. Could have been really annoying, but it actually ended up being loads of fun!) and the table I sat at got into the weirdest inside jokes and just couldn't stop laughing. :-)


We went early'ish to bed as the bus was picking us up at 3:30am the following morning, and the trip home was utterly uneventful. I was feeling well again (but TIRED) and extremely annoyed that I'd been sick at all. So all in all, I think I'd have to say it was a good trip... at least, it had more good moments than bad :)

Tomorrow I'm heading off again - this time on a business trip to Holland. At least I get to meet two friends while I'm gone :)

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