After a week in Holland lets go Skiing!

So… after moving ourselves to the other side of the world finally and excitedly, spending a week enjoying the wonderful February weather, we set off on another holiday.

Yep that’s right, after 8/9ish months of travelling around Australia, then moving to The Netherlands, we decided we needed another holiday. And that holiday was with Alex’s parents, sister and family friends. We would be travelling to Austria, specifically to the area of Königsleiten for a whole week in the snow, #eeeek!

Now this trip was one we joined only a few months prior. You see our trip around Australia was extended and extended a few times, which we never complained about. But as such, it meant our time of arrival in Holland was pushed back each time, which meant we were uncertain whether we would be in Europe to go skiing. But once we had purchased our flights here, we were so excited to receive our invitation to join!

After all those wonderful amazing months, practically a year with amazing weather, bar that wonderful week in New Zealand, a little snow was welcome.

We packed our bags, ensuring we had enough warm layers for the week, and enough food to last us, then one very very early Friday morning we were up ready to go.

Some of us were much more awake than others! Lianne, Alex’s sister had told us she would wake early to get breakfast ready for the drive, as well as watch the latest episode of Walking Dead. However her friend who is in America called and whilst making breakfast they had a very fun and energetic conversation. It was quite funny because the rest of us were still waking up because it was 5am, and there was Li all happy speaking with her friend bouncing around the kitchen. It definitely helped waken me up a little more at least.

After packing all the bags into the car, the 5 of us piled in, got comfortable and set off on a long journey. To begin with, us ladies in the back tried to get a little more sleep. However once the sun started to rise, it was a little difficult, that and also the fact that we crossed the border into Germany and I couldn’t contain my excitement. Its not every day that happens ok!

After many many many hours driving fast speeds on the autobahn, me always in the back, because lets face it I cant drive on that road, we arrived at the Austrian border.

That day we had driven about 9 hours and it was enough. Alex’s dad had booked a night in a hotel for us all, meaning the next day we could wake up nicely, get to the ski area  earlyish and still have a small practice before the week began.

We had an interesting experience with the receptionist when checking in, who wanted to know every detail about all of us before we received our keys. After quite some time we finally got them and went to check the rooms out. Alex, Lianne and I were sharing a massive room (woo), where we chilled for a bit. Mostly to just lie flat after so long in a car.

After an hour or so we all dragged ourselves off the comfortable beds and headed out to a local restaurant. After all we were in Austria and Alex and his dad wanted Wiener Schnitzel and Apfel Strudel.

Now the story of our dinner was definitely an entertaining one! We were all seated at a really lovely table, given our menu’s in German and left to browse. Now of course I know zero German, however I am attempting to learn Dutch and we can admit there are some similarities relating to food at least, so it took me a few minutes to figure out some of the dishes. I was trying to see if there was any vegetarian options, because lets face it there wasn’t going to be a plant only based option.

In the end, with everyones help we figured out there was a nice pasta dish. However this pasta dish was served with a gorgonzola sauce on top. Now for me that was a bit much, so when the waitress came, Annette, Alex’s mum asked if the dish could be without the sauce.

Well, no that was not ok! In very fast German she said that the dish would taste terrible without the sauce and really it was an amazing dish with it and that I would like it. But at first she accepted this request and began to walk away. Then she came back. She spoke with Annette, then with some giggles from Annette, told us after that the lady said she could put the sauce on the side but that the dish HAD to have the sauce.

I of course nodded and said sure that is fine. But the German waitress started speaking to me, apparently trying to convince me that the dish would be delicious with the sauce and that I’d like it. In this moment I had no idea what was being said and apparently my face was quite entertaining to watch. Everyone was laughing once the waitress left and told me I looked like a stunned dear in headlights when she was speaking to me.

What followed was lots of laughing over the sauce conversation, as well as the bottle of wine that appeared.

Alex’s parents had ordered a bottle of red wine. We knew it was cold outside, but never did we think they stored the wine outside, in the snow! Seriously the bottle was freezing! So much so that the waitress said we may need to leave it for a few minutes.

However after those few minutes, our food came but the wine was still frozen. We tried a few things…we placed the bottle behind a pillow on the couch we were sitting on, that didn’t work… I tried warming it by cuddling it, that only made me cold and nope it didn’t work either. It seemed that even throughout and after our amazing meal, the bottle just didn’t want to warm up.

The wine itself was apparently very nice. Cold but nice.

In the end Alex was the only one who took desert and it wasn’t an Apfel Strudel. But not to worry, there were many eaten throughout the trip.

So after our delicious and entertaining dinner we all retired back to our rooms and quickly passed out from the long drive. The next morning we were up early, ate breakfast downstairs and then drove the rest of the way to the ski area.

And what a week in the snow it was! Stay tuned for what we got up to next 🙂

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