February 14, 2006 St. Veit am Pongau, Austria

We’re on day two, or just finishing it, of our skiing vacation in Austria. So far, we’ve found it exactly as my friend who recommended the place said: perfect for families. Kenai has taken two days of skiing lessons on the mountain, and is having a great time. Hell has frozen over, and I am on day two of lessons, as well. Not only that, but really enjoying it, if even a bit impatient to get more practice. More comments on that later. Chris, unfortunately, is still suffering from his piriformis syndrome, aka severe pain in the butt, that he started having problems with around the turn of the year. As a result, he’s just hanging in the room, rather than skiing, but seems to be enjoying that option quite well.
We’ve come with Siegi Tours, a company run by a man and wife team from the small town of St. Veit, which is conveniently located about 10 minutes from Alpendorf, in “the largest ski area in Europe”, whatever that means. In any case, we are staying in this small town in a lovely hotel on the Marketplatz. The single price includes half-board, hotel, 5 days of ski lessons, and full entertainment nightly. The meals have been very nice four courses, and Kenai is free as long as he eats part of our meal. We rented skis from a company in the town, which probably has some relationship to Siegi’s family and are taking lessons from “Rot-Weis-Rot” Skischule, which I imagine is also family related. In any case, the lessons have been wonderful.
Kenai is dropped off at the top of the gondola each morning. The ski kindergarten has itsy slopes for the 3+ year old kids to practice on, and a little conveyor belt to lift them back to the top. They work on their balance and are already doing some turns. They have a little merry-go-round type thing that the kids grab onto and get pulled into a circle on their skis. At lunch time, the kids are taken care of by the teachers to make life easier. It’s great. In the meantime, there are plenty of four year olds, some even younger, zipping past us on the normal slopes.
I had planned to cross-country ski this week, but found out when I got here that I’d be the only one and only two hours of lessons would be provided. So, I’d really be alone the whole week. Didn’t sound like fun. Our friends Krista and Kevin are here with us and were taking beginning classes, so I agreed to try for one day and see what happened. They start you out on a really little hill, really little. It was terrifying at first, but practicing the snow plow over and over, then turning over and over, and it got better. Climbing up the hill each time used enough energy though, and so we were soon hoping for more fun for our workout. Also, misery loves company. There are three women in the class some 15-20 years older than me who were also new to skis and scared witless. Sadly, I know, that gave me confidence not to be alone in the situation. They’ve done pretty good, though one woman had to drop down to private lessons and another is having lots of problems with the constant walking up the small hills. I say small, but as all you skiers know, this is pretty rough work over and over again. We moved to the “banana lift” today and were able to do bigger runs probably 6-8 times. I tripped on the lift once and ended up flat on my ass and another time almost fell again! There something about being hauled up a slope by a thing stick on your butt that is disconcerting, especially when the lift stops three times on the way! So, I haven’t got that down. Tomorrow, though we will move up to the four-man chair lift and to the first intermediate slope. Not that we’re doing an intermediate run, we’re still working on plowing and turning. It’s getting better.
So, entertainment. Last night was a disco night at the Siegi hotel. They had karaoke and hula hoops for the dance floor. Kenai started by wanting to dance, but too shy to do it himself, so made me carry him dancing on the floor. Then he relaxed and took off himself. He was really the only one dancing, except for me, of course. If I stopped, he complained. He had a great time. He was fascinated by karaoke, which really only got started before we left. But, as we were getting ready to go, “we will rock you” came on. Naturally, we had to dance to that. They put the mic in front of him and after a few minutes of being shy, he sang the song. It was great. He knows only a third of the words, but he belted those ones out: “mud on your face”, “disgrace!”. Then he did the air guitar for the bar audience. Just great.

February 16, 2006

We’ve now finished four days of ski lessons with only one left to go. Kenai hasn’t yet made it to the banana lift, but they think he might be able to go tomorrow afternoon. We’ll see. He would really like to, but he has to demonstrate that he can stop in a snow plow, a.k.a. pizza slice, without abandon. In the meantime, they work on turns, using a mini-slalom course, stopping and balancing on the skis. There are very young kids, mostly about Kenai’s age, but one little girl dressed in orange who must be quite a bit younger, handling huge slopes. Today this same little band of children passed us on the red slope as we were working on basic moves, flying off course over the ledge and onto a pure powder slope. No worries.

In the meantime, Krista, Kevin, and I have continued to progress and have now been down one of the intermediate slopes – well, not really, we criss-cross the slope – eight or so times. We’re working on parallel turns and downhill sliding, and we seem to have the general curve movement pretty well. Most importantly I’ve been able to recover several times from disasterous feet placement. Though admittedly, for each recovery, I’ve probably fallen another time. Luckily, no big falls.

There is a really nice restaurant at the top of the four-man chairlift we’ve eaten at twice now. Good food, good prices. Unfortunately, someone took my glasses today while we were there. Talk about frustration. It was snowing quite heavily and without them, the slopes were a sea of white without form. I had put them on my tray to get a drink, came back, and they were gone. The instructor, who turns out to be the son of the owner of the ski school, kindly lent me his goggles for the rest of the day when it was clear I was going to have trouble. It was snowing pretty hard today, especially this afternoon.

Kenai seems to be having a great time. The children go up and down a small ski slope over and over again. They also get pulled up the hill by a conveyor belt. Tomorrow they have their race! (so do we, apparently) He is very excited about the race. He reminds me, “you have to hold your knees ver-y tight!” in order to ski down.

February 18, 2006

We’re on our way home now. What a great vacation. This morning we spent a short time testing out our snow shoes, walking atop three feet of snow, and doing a little sledding in the town. We’re all excited about skiing some more, and I’m eager to perfect the parallel turns that I was working on at the end of Friday.
Thursday night at supper, Kenai charged up to the waitress, and in his best German accent said, “Bitte, who took meine Mama’s goggles?!” The waitress is one of ill-humour and spoke little English, so she didn’t understand. We thought it was hilarious. Indeed, the only complaint here is that a few of the help were rather unfriendly, but in the end, it didn’t really matter. One of the waitresses was wonderful to us and especially kind to Kenai.
By yesterday afternoon, Kenai had been on the banana bar lift a good ten times and mastered it. We finished class at 3pm and had to wait for the ski school party, so we decided to ski with Kenai in the banana area. This was really the most wonderful experience for me of the week. Skiing with Keani was just such a delight, and I thought how great it will be to go together when Chris is better. In any case, he told me quite bluntly as we headed down the hill for the lift the first time, “practice your turns, Mom” and “control your speed”. He explained the difference between “pizza slice”, which is a small snow plow in adult terms, and “control your speed”, which is a big snow plow. To stop, you need to make a big “snowball”. On the banana bar, he yelled back at me, “don’t get off early” and “get out of the station”. This is very important. Connor apparently didn’t get out of the station, and he almost fell down the hill, but the teacher caught him. Connor is the boy that likes Kenai. Kenai was doing great, curving back and forth down the hill and then “schlussing” (I’m not sure of the spelling there, but it means going down straight and fast) at the end. He got too excited though, and on the third time toward the banana bar he just took off. He either didn’t our couldn’t stop, and he tumbled right into the banana bar fence. Not good. We made him play follow the leader after that, which he begrudgingly did because he wanted to keep skiing. We had a small argument when we left because he wanted to go down the big hill, onto the four man chair lift, and ski through the woods.
On Friday morning they had a slalom race for all of the age groups. I was not about to lose it on the morning of the last day, so I gently did the run. Kevin and Krista took first and third place in our group. Low and behold – Kenai won in the kindergarten! We were so proud of him. He got a big gold medal and got to stand on the top of the award boxes.
This morning he grabbed Kevin and said, “look Kevin, those are the girls that don’t like me. Come, see them.” He continued, “they think I’m a spaz. But it’s just my superpower. They don’t understand my superpower. They get frustrated with my powers. That’s why they don’t like me.” He later told me that those were the nice girls who didn’t like him.
By the end of Friday, we had actually completed all pieces of the intermediate runs on the front of the mountain at Alpendorf, and a good portion of those on the backside. We had lunch Friday on the backside, and sat outside with the view of a black run. Sure enough there were children no older than four heading down the black run. This is one steep hill, and because it is in the shade, it is pretty icy. Still, they came slipping down there, all crunched up in little balls. When we were doing the hills, we concentrated so much on our feet and staying upright that we didn’t notice how steep some runs were. Looking back up, we were all amazed at what we had accomplished. It was really an amazing experience. Certain parts of it became tranquil, and we could just swish back and forth along the slope. That was wonderful. The off-trail part was extremely challenging, and I kept finding myself zipping quickly across the slope on the edges of my skis. My friend Kevin mastered the parallel turn, but my brain couldn’t consistenly get it right.
We’re going to Switzerland the weekend of March 17th to ski again. The trip is really too short; we ski only one day and part of another, I think. But it is to St. Moritz, which is the ski resort, apparently, in Switzerland. We’re really going because another set of friends are the organizers for the trip. In any case, another chance to work on our skill set. I hope Chris is feeling better by then.
Chris sadly hasn’t approved much this week. He seems best when he is standing, and has pain otherwise. He has particular problems when he bends over, such as to tie a shoe, etc. The muscles that were extremely tender a few weeks ago, though, have relaxed, and when I massage them they are soft. I hope he will see a doctor this week and maybe take another week off for sick leave.
In the meantime, my problems continue, but come and go. This week was really pretty good, I had no pain while skiing at all. Only yesterday afternoon my hamstring pain came back, and sure enough when I checked it, one side of my pelvis was tilted opposite of the other. Argh! I have my third session of rolfing on Monday. This woman speaks English very well and is a certified advanced rolfer. She’s been practicing for 14 years and seems much more skilled than the last rolfer I tried. She certainly is massaging deeply and moving tissue around; you can tell during the session that you get lengthening in different places. I’ve read Ida Rolf’s original books now on alignment and they make sense. I am hopeful that they will be the change that I need to get my body settled, or at least the hamstring and back problems. I am tired of constantly having to work at my body, and I am embarrassed that my son has to see this. Perhaps that’s the wrong word, but Kenai is very caring, and he’ll ask us each day whether our back or leg hurts. He will bring us massage balls, and he tells other people that his mommy (and daddy) hurt. I try to keep our lives as normal and adventurous as possible, but wish he didn’t have to see that. I remember so vividly when my mother had serious pain as a child, and I remember how much I worried about her when they took her to the hospital. I don’t even recall the diagnosis, but I remember running to the neighbors for help.
I wish you could all see Kenai now; he is such a joyful child. I think people genuinely enjoy his company and his overflowing energy, and they remark to us how good his disposition is. He speaks in this funny German accent, even when he is speaking English. He was speaking to some other travelers, who are from England, and in this accent, when I told him, “it’s okay, they speak English”. In response, he immediately said, “oh, okay”, and switched to a normal English voice. When he is not spun out of control from exhaustion, it’s great talking to him and watching him invent games. He’s very logical, and will argue points on those grounds. He’s established a sense of fairness and views the world in those terms.