Graz, Fusenfeld, Gotzis and Innsbruck, Austria.
Hey everyone,
Merry Christmas to you all and we hope you all had good New Years. We have just spent the last seven weeks in Austria including the last two weeks in Gotzis with Renate's daughter, Sigrid, and her family. Our time in Austria ends tomorrow but we have been busy since I last wrote.
While still in Graz we travelled with Renate to Fusenfeld to see Isolde and stay the night with her. Isolde took us to some thermal hot pools called Bad Blumau. The pools and adjoining hotel had been designed by Mr Hundertwasser again and looked great with coloured tiles and curving shapes everywhere – much better than Waiwera Hot Pools, but also four times the price. When we swam in the 35 degree Celsius outdoor pool it began to snow on us. It is weird to run, yes run, from one pool to another in your bikini while it is snowing on you.
The night before we left Graz, Hedwig and Gudrun took us out in the evening to have drinks at one of the punsch stands at the Christmas market. I had a strange drink of white hot chocolate, coconut and rum which will not become my new favourite drink. Then we visited Rudolph’s a restaurant/bar with a giant red nose painted on the front and had some beer and smoked a pack of cigarettes each, second hand smoke of course.
The following morning we caught the train to Gotzis, on the far west of Austria. We spent 8 hours straight looking out on snowy landscapes and mountain ranges and travelled almost the whole way across the middle of Austria. It had not snowed in Gotzis, and has done so only once since we have been here, about 1cm of snow. However, it only takes about 20 minutes to drive to mountains covered in snow.
In Gotzis we have been staying with Sigrid, her husband Jessie, and their two sons Robin, 12 and Kevin, 9. Robin and Kevin look a bit like the two younger members of Hanson with their long blonde hair and have been great fun to hang around with. Robin’s English is a million times better than my French ever was (after three years of French lessons) even though he has only been learning it for two years, and Kevin’s English is about as good as my French was and he hasn’t even begun learning it.
We had a proper traditional Austrian Christmas with Sigrid’s family. The Christmas tree was an actual Christmas tree, not the same as the pine tree we get at home. We went and bought it on the 24th and decorated it that day. Unlike at home the tree does not get decorated until the night of the 24th. Then we opened our presents on Christmas Eve, after lighting all the candles on the tree - a little fire hazard.
Unfortunately, we did not have a snowy Christmas but it certainly was freezing outside so, on Christmas day, we visited a frozen river. We had fun smashing our way through the layers of ice, jumping in a group of six in a circle on the ice. Every time we smashed through poor Kevin would end up on his back lying in the smashed up ice, though he did not seem to mind. However, the river had frozen so that all the water underneath had washed away and we did not end up standing in puddles of very cold water. If you looked under the ice you could see the river bed about 10cm below the ice layer. We also had sliding competitions and fell over a number of times.
We celebrated New Years with Sigrid’s family, but instead of calling it New Years it is called Silvester here, as the 31st is Saint Silvester’s day. People give each other good luck charms for Silvester and the supermarkets sell lucky pigs, toadstools, chimney sweeps (?!), four leaf clover plants and horseshoes. On the night we had some bock beer, extra strong winter beer, and red wine to drink and we played with fireworks in the garden with the boys at midnight.
We have also been tobogganing, and if you thought tobogganing was simply a matter of sitting on a wooden sled and pointing it down the hill and going down on a slide of snow, you, like me, were sorely mistaken. Tobogganing is hard. The first time we went, we walked for about half an hour up a winding track of snow. Then we had to come down it. In places, on one side of the track is a massive pile of snow and on the other a massive drop and massive pines trees to slam into if you can’t take the corner right. In stretches of the track you are going about 50km/hr with no brakes (you are suppose to brake using your shoes but I was wearing boots with NO grip, I couldn’t even walk down the track I fell over so much from slipping) and to corner you need to put your feet down on one side, but do it too much and the toboggan starts drifting in the snow or just rolls over. Generally we tried to stop by slamming into the nearest pile of snow. Ollie often managed to crash and slide metres down the hill on top of Robin.
Next time we went tobogganing we had some proper snow boots with proper grip and we went to a kid’s snow slide where you do just go straight down a hill. We enjoyed this very much. However , the next, next time we went, we visited a ski field with a 3.5km toboggan track. We caught the ski lift up and then came down a track with some pretty steep hills, sharp corners and scary drops on the other side. Ol and I finally came off on one of these drops and it was not as bad as I feared. We just went straight over the edge, fell off the toboggan and slid about 10 metres down the side on our stomachs. And this was by no means the only time we fell off or crashed in the 3.5kms. The next day I felt pretty sore and bruised. However, when you’re flying down a hill, snow smashing up into your face, hair blocking your sight while trying to look out into the mountains and the 90 degree corner coming up just before you crash, it is lots of fun.
We have almost seen enough snow to last us a lifetime though. Snow is cold and we have to wear two pairs of socks, pants under our jeans and waterproof pants over our jeans, three tops, a jumper and a ski jacket, gloves, hats and scarf and it is still cold. However, once you have walked in knee-deep snow for a bit and then begun tobogganing you boil in your layers, especially with a Jager (hunter’s) Tea with rum and tea, in you.
Yesterday, we took a two hour drive to Innsbruck to see their massive ski jump used in ski jumping competitions. I now understand the sport of ski jumping a bit better from watching it on TV and know I will never ever try it. The slope they land on is practically vertical – you can’t even walk up it. We also visited the Swarovski Head Office where they exhibit art installations using crystals and have a huge shop. We saw the world’s biggest crystal and the smallest.
Staying at Sigrid’s has also given us time to catch up on some important cultural things such as seeing the Simpson’s movie and the new Harry Potter movie, amongst a number of other films, and I have finally read the final Harry Potter book which Sigrid happened to have in English. Ollie has been learning to play Beethoven on the piano and playing on Jessie’s drum kit. These things can be blamed for why I have taken so much time to write to you all again.
Tomorrow though we are moving on from Austria, we will travel to Munich, then to Berlin, then to Amsterdam and Paris and finally to London. We will be back in the sunny Isles of Britain on 22nd of January to revisit our families before flying back to New Zealand at the end of February (hopefully as we do not have tickets yet). We will be back before we run out of money to get jobs, see the sun and feel warm again, see our families and so that I can be a bridesmaid at my friend Haylee’s wedding. But I will update you all during stages of the trip when I can.
From Ollie and Sophie.
