"St Anton is the place to be, for fun, laughs and ski, ski, ski!!!" A quote from the poetic masterpiece created by Eloise and I at the end of the week. Definitely true - a wonderful week of skiing and laughing in Austria.

The trip started off fairly shakily. After getting up at 5am to catch a 7am train to Geneva I was not one bit impressed when 7am changed to 20 past, which changed to 7.45, then 8, then 8.25 and I STILL hadn't left. Luckily ('lets be glad') I anticipated this French slackness and made sure I had a good 2 hours in Geneva between trains so I still made my connection. Just.

I couldn't get over how amazing the scenery was on the train ride through Switzerland - absolutely stunning! And I just love how the food trolley guy switched from French to german to Italian to English - inspirational! Although made my one and a half languages seem quite feeble!

Getting off the train in St Anton, about an hour into Austria from the Swiss border, and I was already sure that the week was going to be awesome. I felt like I was in a snow globe! I wandered through the little town which was completely surrounded by snow covered mountains and found our chalet where view from my window was absolutely magical!

What followed was a week which included:
- my attempts at remembering how to ski… turns out that 12 years or so is rather a long time to keep up any skiing ability. So, I clearly had other option than to bring back the 'pizza slice' (or 'snow plough' according to the British) technique of very inelegantly bumping down the slopes with my skis permanently joined at the front…
- amazing meals. Such a treat to not only have great food but to have great gluten free food at every dinner! Not sure how I will survive being back to self catering now though…
- the loudest and most messy game of racing demon I imagine ever existed.
- Being reminded what is was like when smoking in bars was legal in NZ - Gross. Gross. Gross!
- hilarious company! 23 of us in our chalet made for a rather boisterous but always entertaining group. Great mix of people, great games and laughs.
- Mass consumption of Milka chocolate…
- Me teaching everyone how to speak. Well, I like to put it this way. What actually happened was me having my accent imitated by almost everyone in the group, all of whom thought they would be helpful and teach me how to speak English properly - nothing wrong with a good old kiwi accent! ("acc*** quot;)
- My first experience of bum boarding… kinda like tobogganing but not. Unfortunately the thigh deep snow meant not only was it exhausting to climb up but we slide only about 2 metres before sinking into the slush.
- The discovery of the joys of the card game Uno… quite a find!
- Skiing in temperatures of never before. I could not get over the concept of skiing in such warm sunny days that meant that thermals, gloves and multiple layers were completely unnecessary.
- Me signing up for a guided day of skiing in a different part of the mountains. All good in theory… that was until I discovered that the criteria was that we were meant to be able to ski at a certain level - woops! This resulted in me arriving at the top of a slope, peering over the cliff (I swear it was a sheer drop) and completely freaking out. I then inched down at what was definitely world-record glacial speed… luckily the rest of my group was equally terrified so my lack of ski bravery/talent blended in rather well.
- Lets be glad that I found Route number 20… the easiest one in the entire mountain range I reckon. I personally loved that almost totally flat bits, nothing like a bit of pushing with the old poles I say! Yep, that's where I could be found for the first few days… Me and #20 became rather close… guided tour anyone?
- The realisation that skiing and laughing is about as impossible as laughing while climbing at high altitude. Big thanks to Eloise for this breakthrough!

All in all a brilliant week. It was lovely to not only get away from uni, the city and my looming exams but also to be in a family type situation for a bit again. Massive thank you to the Harris whanau for inviting me along!