Life is good in the Austrian Alps !

So on our last day in Paris I had taken Erika's advice and Laura and I went to the Crepe stand by the Louvre. Wow, that was an amazing crepe! Thanks for the tip Erika.

After a long wait in a cold train station, an 11 hour overnight train ride (which I got barely any sleep on) and a few train rides we finally made it to our next destination, The Austrian Alps! We caught a cab from the train station to where were staying, and totally overpaid, but we were in no mood to figure out the bus system. We settled into our little apartment and pretty much passed out right after dinner. Our place here is really nice, we've got a little kitchen, our own bathroom, we definately lucked out with this place. After a solid nights rest we were ready to explore the area we arrived in, and to soak up the mountain views ! I love being in the mountains and the fresh air, being here reminds me a lot of our trips out to the Rockies. At the end of our first day here we picked up our rental gear for snowboarding. Laura was skiing and I was boarding. Unfortunately, much to my dissappointment the neon pink one piece snow suit was no longer available! lol, I think I saw someone else sporting one on the mountain though ! haha, The gear we got was actually pretty good. They definately have better rentals up here than you'd find at Holiday Mountain. There isn't much snow left in the town we're staying in so we had to go up a gondola first and keep going higher on chairlifts to get to where there was good snow. I was just so pumped to be snowboarding in the Alps I wasn't much too concerned about the conditions. But conditions were as to be expected in the first week of March. All 3 days we were out on the Mtn the sky was clear and the sun was warm, so the snow was pretty sticky at most parts. But that didn't stop us from going out ! We had 3 gondolas to choose from to try different parts of the area and we went up each one. The Hintertux Gondola was the highest one and the busiest, there were so many people up there (mostly skiers too, not many people snowboarding) and not one person spoke english, that we heard anyways. this Gondola took us up to a point where we caught 2 more gondolas to reach 3250 m above sea level. It was really windy up there and you could hardly see a thing, partly because we were literally in the clouds and all the snow was blowing around. We were way above the treeline too so all the runs were open and exposed, there was no way Laura and I were going to ski down from the top of this gondola. We went up for the Photo Op and that was it. A little lower down, where we were actually skiing we stopped in an Alpine Hütte for a hot chocolate. I think that was the best hot chocolate I've ever had, although food has a way of tasting better in the Mountains. We've definately been getting our exercise out here, aside from snowboarding we've got a bit of a hill to climb to get to where we are staying. It's far enough up that we've decided it warrants a break half way up. We only spent 3 days boarding because lift tickets were pretty pricey to do any more than that. Of course today we're not skiing and it's snowing outside ! Everything is snowcovered again, but it's a wet snow so it'll probably melt in the next day or two. It's so beautiful to see everything up here with fresh snow on it.

So at the end of it all, having now snowboarded in the Austrian Alps, I think I'm going to have to stay true to my Canadian roots and say that I enjoy riding in the Rockies better. Not that it hasn't been amazing up here, too bad the conditions weren't the greatest, but in terms of the snowboarding experience I enjoy the Rockies ! Either way though you can't lose by being in the mountains. We've gotten some great pics out here ! We're another day and then we're off to a bit warmer Italy!

I hope everyone is doing great in Winnipeg ! And if you want to check out Laura's blog to fill in some details that I may have missed it's : www.europebylaura.blogspot.com.

Take Care :o)