Oh Mountains, My Mountains!

(I have survived a one-week absence from the Internet. I was not whole as an individual. On Saturday night, I was actually salivating -- my mouth was seriously watering -- at the prospect of all the news I could read, all the people I could e-mail.)

Monday, January 23rd - THE APPROACH

Austria, or at least our little piece of it, is a long, long bus ride from Hungary. We journeyed, for the better part of a Monday morning through Budapest, Szekesfehervar, and Western Hungary - all the way to the Hungarian/Austria border. A non EU-citizen, I was the only one who caused a stink at the border, but also the only one to secure that delightful click of a passport stamp.

For the better part of a Monday afternoon, we journeyed through a landscape and cities somehow significantly more advanced than Hungary. The border is a time warp, a money gap, a development bridge. Graz, the highways leading in and out of it, and the mountains lazering straight lines through the mountains that seem to stretch across the whole damn country, are testament to a sort of standard of living and national development that Hungary can only dream about.

But the highest of high mountains, standing a snow-covered bright white against the forests below, came into view as our bus raced on. I smiled. I like the mountains. And I had actually never really seen mountains in winter before.

The sun was yellow, hanging above the mountain. The yellow of the yellow bulb on a stop-and-go-light. The mountain grew and grew, and the sun reddened and reddened as we got closer. By the time sun was touching the side of the now impressive mountain, that yellow light of caution had changed quite perilously to the bright red of a stop light. The mountain was looking damn trecarious. trecerious. treccarious. trecharous. trecheraous. treacherous. tracherous. whatever.

I was scared. Wisconsin has hills. Even Lutsen is just hills. These were real mountains.

Tuesday, January 24th - THE CROSSES

Austria has a higher altitude that Hungary, and they do seem to be closer to God. Roadside alters and pictorial shrines stand testament to this sort of higher religiousness.

But the crosses on the mountain, right next to the third of three lifts we used to get to the very top of the peak, we of a different sort. The smiling pictures and two dates below, usually about twenty years apart, gave the markers away. The mountain was really starting to scare me.

But at the top Geza Bachi, Zsofi and I could do nothing but gasp at the view. The whole Karnthian valley opened in front of us. Little Austria villages speckled the snowy fields below. Across the wide valley, snowcapped mountains as far as the eye could see. Spectacular.

Then our cell phones, all at once, started to vibrate. Text messages. We were standing so close to the Slovenian border that we were using Slovenian cell towers. The text messages were our welcome, courtesy of T-Mobile, to the beautiful country of Slovenia.

I skiied down the hill, in wide, sweeping arcs. And did not die. Confidence built.

After seeing the beauty of the top, first hand, my first stop after arriving back at the hotel in the evening was to buy a camera. I wandered to a convenience story, and mustered up the triumphant apex of my linguistic abilities: "Grüss Gott. Haben Sie ein Kamera, dass man wegwerfen kann?" (Greetings - a particularly southern greeting, as we were in the very southernmost stretches of Austria. Do you have a camera that one can throw away?) She pointed me straight to the disposable cameras.

Wednesday, January 25th - THE EUROPEAN COLD SNAP!

On the news, there were reports of people dying in Europe this week, it was so damn cold. Normally that wouldn't much faze this boy from the winter-wonderland of Wisconsin. But on the slopes of Petzen, I was by far the most layered man in all of Austria. I counted, at one moment, 6 layers on my bottom half and 7 on the top. The scarf and gloves, borrowed from Gitta, were my saving grace.

Bundled almost as much as the hordes of 3-4-year-old Austrian children who were learning to ski, I was a hot sight. Coupled with my size 12 1/2 boots (not sure why they had the English measurement), I'm not sure how the ladies of the mountain were able to keep their hands off of me.

Perhaps it has something to do with the blazing speed at which I raced down the 12 km descent to the bottom of the valley. (Actually, I'm rather slow. I don't have much of a need for speed, and am fairly content to meander my way down any steep slope.)

Thursday, January 26th - SKI AND SLEEP

My world has been reduced to ski and sleep, ski and sleep, ski and sleep.

Have settled into routine with ski partners Geza Bacsi (Uncle Geza) and 9th grader Zsofi.

Geza Bacsi is awesome, this man would be your hero if you could meet him. He's probably about 65, he's a Szechyi from Transylvania. I have no idea why he is skiing with us. He wears awesome old-school skis and cold-weather gear. My favorite part is the red, blue, and faded white winter hat bearing the logo of the 1984 Sarajevo Winter Olympics. He flies past me on the slopes. He's gifted with no English beyond "go," "yes," and some numbers, but that's fine. That's all you really need on the mountain.

The girl, Zsofi, is a nice kid. She's a German student, so I don't have her in class, but she takes private English lessons. We communicate with an odd mutt of German, English and Hungarian, and it works well enough for the both of us. When facing her, the lower one-third of the right side of her scalp is shaved. I think it's fashion, not medical. She, too, skis past me with ease.

Friday, January 27th - THE LAST RUN

By the fourth day of skiing, I guess I was ready to do anything to make it fun. So I timed myself, from bottom to top.

From the valley of 680 meters, I used three different lifts (a poma, a gondolla, and a t-bar) to ascend to the maximum height of 1900 meters. It took 28:49 minutes. On the race down, a combination of blue and red runs (as their color codes go here) took 17:36. I'm no Alberto Tomba, but it was a good gallop.

I am finished writing this story. I apologize for the lack of punchline. It's just that I got timid at the end, keenly aware that I had not injured myself during four full days of skiing, and had no intentions of busting my uninsured body on the final run of the final day. A wonderful trip, one that left me content to return home. Not a bad prize in these parts, or any other.