138!

day 138, first day on the slopes, and the blog has also reached over 9 thousand total page views. yippity doodah. well, today started nice and ended nice, i will say that for sure. for once i didn't mind eating bread for breakfast because they were some classic Austrian rolls that i've expected to see in Europe since the day i got here..along with some hot chocolate made with really real milk...or, 2%? who knows. then it was time to ski. i wasn't that scared actually, but let me start by giving you some background information about myself. if i do not get enough sleep or if i have had a bad nights sleep, i am a wreck. i'm usually not an angry, emotional, or bitter person..but with the improper sleep, anything can happen with me. last night we slept with the window open because my host mom is used tothat. okay, i'll try anything once. hmm, not so pleasant. thus, i was fine going up the lift, which i thought would be the hardest part..but i had no idea what was to come. we got out of the lift and all the sudden i look down and see the steepest slope i could have ever imagined i would start with. okay, have no fear..i can do this since i've practiced on the moving carpet, right? absolutely not! fight or flight...hmm, lets see..little sleep, steep hill..FIGHT! i got down the hill and never wanted to do it again in my life. but lucky me i have five more days of it, hoorah hoorah..lets get to it. no, actually it wasn't as bad as imake it sound. apparently i was actually not so bad at it either, but i can't say that it was at all enjoyable. thats how i am though, if i am uncomfortable with something or feel like i'm not doing it perfectly; i will "dislike" it. that is something i am really really striving to i

mprove in my time as an exchange student. i've come a long way so far, and this skiing nonsense is going to make me hard as a rock, or...my legs at least. here's me pretending to be happy doing "the pie/pizza/plow" down a hill. i was a lot less giddy than i appear to be.

next is the map. the finger is pointing to what we did. it took me like two hours, an hour of which was complaining. my fear of heights really doesn't help me with the steep winding slopes of Austria..shucks!

and this is the warm wine i drank after my failed attempt at skiing. it tasted like warm wine with apple cider spices. i could only finish half because i wasn't feeling 100%, but i'm glad i got to try it.

so we finally came to the hotel after what seemed like forever. everything seems like forever when your head isn't in the right place. we had chicken for dinner. last night was schnitzel, best thing ever! but like i said, morning and night of today were fine. skiing is just another thing i need to push myself through and learn some valuable life lesson crap from, i know that. please believe me when i say that i will try my hardest again tomorrow, but it really is the fear that gets me. a switch in my brain must flip and say, "so what if i fall over that giant cliff..i'm here to ski!"..and that switch will probably not be flipping for a couple days. so thanks for reading, and here are a couple stupid quotes i found about skiing.

The sport of skiing consists of wearing three thousand dollars' worth of clothes and equipment and driving two hundred miles in the snow in order to stand around at a bar and get drunk. ~P.J. O'Rourke,Modern Manners, 1984

There are really only three things to learn in skiing: how to put on your skis, how to slide downhill, and how to walk along the hospital corridor. ~Lord Mancroft, A Chinaman in the Bath, 1974

haha, i think they are kind of funny. last but not least, a picture of the blanket in the hotel room. a heart! aww. goodnight!