I tried to buy a poster before leaving Toblach but it was just too complicated and we were leaving at 10:00 a.m. (and I didn’t want to get left behind, something I’ve made into a joke).
Two hours on a bus filled with caffeinated and overly enthusiastic folks is not really a recipe for my calm, especially when the insist on singing with everyone encouraging it. I had left my earplugs in my bag.
Thankfully, we arrived in Innsbruck. It was a beautiful day, clear and cool. I actually remembered walking down some of the streets. It’s a nice city, about 110,000 people with a university, clean and quiet. It really does have easy access to skiing within 30 minutes, and unlike boulder, it’s true. One of our guides is Austrian and her son, who is in school in Innsbruck met us and had skied that morning since they had about five feet of powder. There were plenty of avalanches too, some of which you could see on the surrounding slopes five or ten miles away.
Innsbruck
I tried to take a selfie, the result is unimpressive.
In Innsbruck, which I visited in summer with my family a few years ago, the plan was to go to lunch, then ride the train to Seefeld. My plan was to grab a sandwich, and ride the train, alone and in peace, to Seefeld. Mission accomplished, almost. I feel asleep somewhere before the Seefeld stop, went to the end of the line (two more stops) and realized what happened. The train immediately started the other way, the conductor came to collect my ticket, I explained what happened, and he said fine after a bit more explaining.
In Seefeld I walked around (I had a general idea of where the hotel was). I would say, this is Aspen, more or less (at least age demographic-wise along with shopping opportunities) but with amazing access to cross country trails and World Cup events (cross country) coming this week-end. In fact, our little group (well, group within the group) is forerunning the sprints on Saturday and the short course, about 3.7K, on Sunday (the races go around a bunch of times).
Anyway, I found the hotel and of course they tried to put me in what Skip, my Ski.com partner, used to call the “Ha, ha” room (small but no view). Anyone reading this knows that that doesn’t work for me.
My new room is a lot better with an amazing view!
Here in Austria instead of saying sorry let’s find you something that works, they cop an attitude and act like it’s your problem. I don’t know who that would work on.
View from my upgraded window!
At dinner, which was many courses and very rich (that whole vegan thing is out the window), out of about 10 people the waitress asked me first, if I spoke German (in German) and then an unintelligible question (in German). I asked her to restate the question in Hoch-Deutsch, which she claimed to be speaking (she wasn’t). Garrett was sitting nearby and confirmed that first, her German was terrible, and second, she was likely Eastern European. Anyway, she spoke enough English that we got by. The question was, do each of the people at the table get separate checks (for alcohol). The answer was yes.