Ski
Trip 2002
School ski-trip Diary
Introduction/Day
1 Continued
The
houses were made using lots of wood and the roofs would extend
over and to the sided of the actual main structure. The white
plaster walls of the outside often had beautiful ornate pictures
on them and many houses had amazing wooden balconies jutting out
on the higher floors. We stopped off at a McDonalds for a quick
bite to eat and tried to use what German we had. Unfortunately
it wasn't the best and, after being laughed at while trying to
order in German, Peter Bagnell ended up speaking Irish to the
guy who took the orders. One thing that was slightly unnerving
was the fact the practically every single one of the Austrians
could speak English to the point of being able to listen in on
our conversations, so we all got a great laugh in switching to
Irish occasionally and watching their reactions.
We travelled on anyway and soon we came into the Alps and began
to see the snowy mountain ranges for real. They were absolutely
magnificent. I spent a whole film in one day just taking pictures
of the journey and what we saw out of the window. I really wanted
to have loads left at the end of the trip so I could relive what
I was seeing now. We were very tired, as practically all of us
had been travelling since three in the morning. Anyway we eventually
reached Ehrwald and continued up to a spot above the village.
There was a large compound building, which contained the main
hotel, a restaurant and various facilities such as a swimming
pool. Next to it was a kind of playground made up of several climbing
frames and slides interlinked above frozen ponds. Above the main
building was the Tirolier-Zugspitz Bahn, which was the cable car
up and down the Zugspitz Glacier. This is the highest peak in
Germany, being just over the border, and is distinguishable as
a huge mass of ice covered in rock, which is already on top of
a high mountain. To the left of the down station of the Zugspitz
Bahn was a Ski shop. And up the slope a bit was our home for the
week. A separate, four storied building called the Alpenhotel,
which was owned by the main one below. We had reached our destination
at last, and it was dark. We could only see little patches of
frozen snow here and there, as it had not snowed for a while.
I took some pictures of the hotel and went inside. My room was
on the third and final floor, and I was lucky enough to have gotten
it pretty much to myself, with only one other roommate, Colm Turner.
I had plenty of space to unpack and store my stuff, unlike some
of the other lads who had five to a room! We had an on suite bathroom
with a shower, sink and toilet. I finished unpacking and found
that each floor had a long balcony, which all the rooms opened
out onto, and as I was highest up I had a beautiful view of the
surroundings. On the ground floor we had a common room with a
T.V. and several tables and chairs. We also had another room with
a stereo and a disco light spin thing, which was cool out. There
was even a small lift that you could get up and down the four
floors! Shortly after we had arrived all of us were gathered into
the common room, divided into groups and sent down to the ski
shop to get our ski boots, poles and skis fitted. I got measured
and weighed and was 1.84 metres high and 74 kgs. I got nice boots
which fit me well and were as comfortable as a pair of rigid stiff
ski boots can be. My Skis were monstrous and bigger than anyone
else's. They were Black with purple streaks and had the name Olin
written into them. I liked them. After we all got our skis and
stuff we lugged them back up to the Alpen Hotel and lent them
carefully up in a storage room. Then we gathered for what I came
to later call the day's debriefing in which Mr. Sutton would address
us in the common room and tell us what had happened and the plans
for tomorrow. Mr. Sutton gave us the debriefing and we took in
portions of it depending on our levels of tiredness by that stage
of the day. We hung around afterwards and chatted before going
out and investigating the climbing playground in a brilliantly
immature way. By the time we went to bed, we had been up for twenty-two
hours straight and we were wrecked. My last thought going to bed
was wondering what skiing would be like.
