Sunny skiing, Jagatea, Lunar Eclipse ... a GREAT TRIP

Wow! Sitting at my keyboard the morning after our trip, wow, seems to be the best way to summarize it. My pal Chip and I had five straight days of perfect cloudless, windless, relatively warm days skiing. For the uninitiated, that is pretty rare in the Alps, and certainly neither of us remember such luck. So despite less than perfect snow conditions and a smaller area to ski than we were used to, this was clearly the best ski trip I’ve ever had.

Expectations were high, as anyone sending an email to my work account would have seen with my automated out of office reply:

I am on leave skiing in Austria through 22 Feb and, subject to my ability to defy the whims of gravity, will be back in the office on the 25th. When not taste testing the various local beverages, I’ll be on a mountain trying to prove I’ve really not aged while avoiding too many auditions for the Wide World of Sports “Agony of Defeat.” Although I’d really like to read and respond to your email immediately, it probably won’t happen …

For the record my only fall (which Chip says doesn’t count) was from a full stop; this despite having flown down quite a few advanced (very steep) runs. Why is that up front you ask? Because it’s very unusual for me and all the more amazing following a two year hiatus sliding down mountains with skinny high tech boards strapped to my boots.

Lisa’s Personalized Tours (a very low cost travel agent … or extremely high, depending on how one looks at it) again set us up, this time in Maria Alm, a small Austrian town in the Hochkönig ski region just south of Salzburg. The Hotel Lohningerhof was more than adequate with half board and a great sauna area to relax after long days on the slopes. I will never cease to be amazed with how many good conversations get started in saunas; certainly the hotel had plenty of interesting people. Half of them were Danish with rowdy small kids (Denmark being on school vacation this week); most of the rest, Germans curious with the oddity of two Americans who spoke “perfect” German (something our wives or any semi-legitimate German instructor would strongly disagree with). The ski area was relatively small even if our ski ticket covered a huge area (if one wanted to drive) but it boasted very short lift lines and remarkably un-crowded piste (trails or runs). The slopes also had more than the normal share of skihütten, small restaurants that would have been very cozy inside had we not always opted to sit out in the sun with our lunch, beer or jagatea (not sure what jaga translates too, but suffice it say it was hot and has a very pleasant kick to it). Thanks again to Lisa!

Maria Alm itself is a rather sleepy little town dominated by a small church with towering steeple and only a couple bars (at least bars that aren’t part of the score or so hotels); put another way it has less nightlife to offer than most ski areas. We took the offer up on our last night all the same and closed down a very lively little place just in time to see the full lunar eclipse with mountains in the foreground. For those of you who know my proclivity for early retirement to bed, you’ll be more than a bit shocked to know closure was sometime after 4 a.m. Our luck with cloudless skies held to that point and the eclipse was an incredibly cool sight to behold, even slightly inebriated at 20° F. Our plans to ski yesterday morning were scratched in favor of recovery before driving home; more luck on our part, since yesterday morning … it started to rain.

Playing for Pizza and other good reads

Just in case you’ve an impulse to pick up a new book or two … below are some good books I’ve read in the last few months.

First and foremost, Playing for Pizza by John Grisham is the most enjoyable book I’ve read in years. Yes, the John Grisham that brought you A Time to Kill and other great lawyer thrillers … but the only lawyer (judge actually) in this book is an Italian running back who thinks he’s Franco Harris. The idea is fabulous, a 3^rd string NFL quarterback blows the AFC championship game and overnight becomes the worst QB in NFL history while lying unconscious in the hospital. Unemployed, he winds up with the Parma Panthers of the Italian Football League that allows up to 3 American “Pros” per team. I’d given the book to my pal Gerhard with a twenty minute short course on American football (nope, most Germans have no clue what a quarterback is) and had to chuckle several days later when he text messaged me “you said this was a book on American football, I’m reading a book on Italian food!” It says much on both cultures, American and Italian, and it does so with a tremendous amount of fun. Most of the Italian players are in it for the love of the game (they love to hit) and the post practice pizza with their comrades … which may be why I enjoyed it so much, since one of the great things about playing in a German basketball league is the culturally obligatory beers after practice. Pick it up, you’ll enjoy it.

Other notable books I've read of late:

Napoleon, by Frank McLynn. What amazes me most about this long and well written book is how much it covers of Napoleon’s life, his psychological makeup and his achievements and yet leaves so much yet to ponder. Clearly one of the great men of the ages, Napoleon remains enigmatic … rarely dealing with betrayal by those close to him he nonetheless once said the loss of a million soldiers meant nothing to him.

And finally, from David Baldacci, I strongly recommend the The Camel Club series (The Camel Club, The Collectors and recently released Stone Cold). Thrillers, they are of full of conspiracy and all the normal trappings … what sets them apart are the misfit oddball heroes of the series. Lovable and quirky, all three books are great, although the latest is much darker than its siblings.