Di and Frik Orban: Ski-ing in Obertauern 12-19 March

The kids have been driving us crazy for snow...real snow... not the frozen bits they've been seeing next to the roads...
Well...they got their snow!...as we entered Obertauern, everything was white and beautiful.
After we arrived at our hotel, which was lovely...set right next to a slope as well as 2 ski lifts, Cameron and Jodi rushed to the snow and started making a snowman. Of course we had to pull them back immediately and put gloves, beanies etc on them before frostbite set in.

Ski Village in Background

The hotel(Moaralm) was very cosy and friendly. Soon everyone knew we were from Namibia and that the kids had never seen snow, so every day they were inundated with questions as to how much they enjoyed it.

The first morning the kids were off to Ski-Schule and Di and I went to our own ski school. Jodi was a bit iffy to be left alone without us...but soon was in the swing of things. The kiddies' ski instructors were brilliant with them and extremely well organised. Just a quick funny - Di and the kids have just sort of become attuned to the Viennese dialect, and now we were in Salzburg with the mountain folk and Jeeez they have a wierd dialect. Anyway, Cameron came to us and told us his teacher was an American and couldn't speak German very well. The next day we met his 'American' teacher. Turns out the teacher was a local with a helluva dialect and spoke English with an American accent!!!

We got to our class and there were about 10 of us all together, Germans, Hungarian and even a Yank. The Intructor was a young bloke called Michi, and looked like a surfer...nice guy!
I had already skied before, so didn't struggle too much with the basics...I just struggled like hell to get myself upright with the ski's on, after a fall - NOTHING to do with my bulging waistline!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

Ist day at Ski School

Our First Snowman

The next day I left the ski school and went on the slopes with Erwin and Doris...completely poo-ed myself a few times until I found my rythm...but then it was full speed ahead and f... the Icebergs...and the massive bruising!!!
Di carried on with the school and the kids were apparently also managing...or so we thought...?!

Shhhhjoe, thats high

Captain Fearless again

Night Ski-ing - Where is Mamma

After our 3rd day school was over and we all decided to go ski together...well knock me down with a bottle 'o Jack!...the little shits were ski-ing like Austrians...I kid you not!! Jodi was snow plowing any slope that we went on. Cameron flew down the slopes as if he was born on ski's. We only found out afterwards that during his 3 days in beginners class, he had been 'promoted' twice and was ski-ing with the older kids.

Lemme tell you, although Di and I were absolutely mortified at what he was doing on ski's and where he was going(off piste in powder snow for eg...!) we were VERY proud! Erwin told us he was a natural, so from then on Cameron went with Erwin as high and as fast and as off the slopes as they could find. Erwin is an excellent skier and he looked after Cameron well...we are just glad we did not see all the places they went down...This was for Di and I such a pleasure to see this Cameron, who is quite timid at the hockey, bloom and become so confident at this sport...we could not get him down off the slopes.

YOU go first !

(Di here.) We had been looking forward to this ski-ing week for ages! The dates specially sought out so that we would be here over my birthday. It was everything that I (we) imagined and better. I have always been to Europe in summer time so have never really experienced a real winter and real snow conditions. Cold takes on a new dimension but we wore ski clothes every day all day so it was nice and snug.

Ski school was nice and everyone wants to know about Namibia as no one had ever met anyone from Namibia and all the kids were asking in disbelief if it was true that we really had not seen snow.

As you have all heard by now, I discovered a real fear of heights and was absolutely mortified when I looked down a slope and thought about going down. It actually brought me to tears. Well, once up the only way down is to ski down so this is what I did, albeit at a snails pace.

This week we are back in Wien again with a live Ice Hockey match planned as well as a excursion to the Lippizaners. On Sunday its a Childrens Opera and then next week we plan to start travelling to Italy, Switzerland and France.

School work - we plodding along between all these outings but the kids have gained so much and so have we.