XXXI. Skiing like a pro

   Last week my host family took me to the Alps to go skiing. I had never skied before, so that was really an adventure. There was lots of snow there already when we arrived at the cabin, and the view in the mountains was just beautiful. Unfortunately, I did not take any pictures of me skiing with my camera because I was afraid I might break it, but here are some pics of what it looked like from the cabin.

That is the cabin itself. It's called "Bergli", and we only stayed in the bottom half (somebody else owns the top half).

That is the impossibly steep hill behind the cabin that my host brother convinced me to climb and sled down. Thankfully there was enough snow that we didn't really go very fast, and it was virtually impossible to get hurt.

That shows just how much snow there was.

There are little villages of old, wooden houses that we can see in the valley. The roads here are all so narrow and windy that it is almost impractical to drive.

That is pretty much where we went skiing. We skied on a mountain called Eggishorn in canton Valais (or "Wallis" if you are from the German-speaking region like me).

   The weather was a really important factor when we decided whether to go skiing or not. If we couldn't see the peaks of the mountains because of clouds, then it would be foggy if we went skiing, so we would stay at the cabin and have a simple vacation day.

   The first time that I skied, they took me to a small street on a small hill that was smoothed over for sledding or skiing, and there was no one there besides us. We had decided against taking me to a ski school because that was expensive, so my host dad, Vati, taught me how to ski. He's actually a really good teacher, since he's already had the experience of teaching three children to ski, and apparently I learned very quickly.

   When we went up to the actual ski slopes, I started on the kiddie slope, and then they took me to a slightly more difficult hill. I got lots of practice in, fell a lot, and overall became a somewhat good skier. 

   One of the highlights on the mountain was finding an English mistake on one of the signs. It said, "Slope market on both sides." So, of course, I joked that when you were hungry, you could buy a bratwurst or something on your way down, although I understood that it really meant to say marked. 

   It was a good vacation, and when I wasn't sore or terrified of particularly steep hills, I had a really fun time. :)