ayearinvienna

Sat in Bratislava airport, enjoying a pre-flight coffee and bagel in a fantastically middle class way, I was blessed with ways to entertain myself. Not only is Bratislava one of the entirely reasonable airports that offers its customers free wifi, I could also marvel at how empty it was and listen to Slovakian radio. The highlight of my radio experience, somewhat limited by the language barrier, was a middle-aged man (or at least I assume so) happily murdering Stromae’s hit Papaoutai in a phone in competition. Despite his replacing almost every consonant in the song with the letter D, after a brief chat with the presenter at the end of his performance he gave a small cheer, so I guessed he must’ve won whatever it was he was Da-Da-ing for. I could only wish him a good day whilst fervently hoping he wasn’t trying to embark upon a career as a Stromae tribute. But it also made me think about my appearance on the radio in Vienna two days ago, and that in comparison I can’t have sounded too bad at all.

... come nowhere near as far that weekend. Although red routes remained purely an invitation for me to fall flat on my arse, I was very proud of how far I managed to come in a short space of time.

The rest of the time there was spent relaxing, chatting, playing a few games and eating delicious food. There was a restaurant attached to the ski-lodge we were staying in that made the experience all the more luxurious, which did traditional Austrian food and was serviced by a traditionally heavily accented, funny, and drunk Austrian waiter. Imagine Peter Kay drinking more than an occasional Baileys and opening up in a pub near Lake Windermere, and you get somewhat close to our Kellner* for the evening. And for when he wasn’t being entertaining, we had our own jokes to go on, and of course skiing on the television in the background.

The ski lodge also had a small sauna. This gave me an opportunity I thought I’d missed by giving up Russian before my year abroad: heating myself up to an almost unbearable temperature before jumping into snow. Of course the Russians go that extra mile by whipping each other with branches in the sauna, but I think suddenly sinking waist deep into the snow as naked as the day I was born was extreme enough. And I can quite honestly say that if I did this several times a month as a cleansing ritual, I wouldn’t think twice about annexing the Crimea either, particularly as it would give me somewhere warmer to move to.

By Sunday lunchtime the weather had gotten worse and the snow that had started falling was bad for skiing – apparently. My colleague’s husband, who would probably make an excellent iron man contestant, decided that that evening he wanted to play football, and therefore we left on the Sunday afternoon. Not wanting to let a 50+ year-old man get the better of me, I agreed to go along and play as well, despite having muscles as stiff as Putin’s face at a gay wedding. Or after another round of Botox. Despite being very tired, the football was an excellent way to round off the perfect weekend, especially as in the car on the way there and back I was able to sit and listen to the Generalsekretär of the Austrian Foreign Ministry discuss the country’s foreign policy. Incredible!

In the past, many people were surprised to hear that I had never been skiing. Not just Austrians, who mostly appear to be fired out of the womb and straight onto the slopes, using the short time just before landing to equip themselves with skis and puffy jackets, but also my other friends from around the world. I think this is partly because I like doing sports that are in the same class as skiing (climbing, kayaking, surfing), and partly because my eminently middle class background would suggest that my family had hit the slopes several times during my childhood. But they didn’t. I also didn’t join any school skiing trips because I don’t like trying to learn things when my friends (whose middle class families had bothered to winter for a few weeks in the snowy mountains of Europe) are already very good at them. Following all this logic, however, two weeks ago I decided to complete another major outdoor sport, live up to my middle class routes, and suck it up and allow small Austrian children to laugh at me: I accepted an invitation to go skiing.

As I’ve already said, the vast majority of Austrians are very good at skiing, and also take a large interest in the sport in general. When a ski-jumper gets his landing a little wrong and breaks something, I always thought it was only himself, his family, and his sponsors who would get a little be upset about it. Over here, however, the national newspapers and the population at large join in. I was invited to my colleague’s ski lodge in Steiermark*, and went with her husband and son, Cecilia, and my other colleague’s whole family, meaning that beforehand I had a whole crowd of little ski instructors giggling at the baby steps they would teach me.

As it were I didn’t see the children all too often. As I slowly increased my skill level to be able to attempt blue routes, they were bombing around all over the resort. Fortunately that left me more time with my colleague’s husband, who during his student years had made some money by working as a ski instructor. Now, after years as a successful banker, he obviously felt comfortable enough financially to be able to offer me some tips for free. I am extremely grateful, however, as without his help I would have…