The Amazing Trip Where Everything Went Wrong

After coming home from Paris last week, I couldn't imagine having a trip as fun as that one was. Well, this past weekend in Austria, I have to say, was equally amazing as Paris, although in a completely different way. I honestly don't know if I have laughed so much as I did on this past trip, where I traveled with 4 other girls: Natalie, Madison, Chelsey, and Perri. Almost every step of the way, our plans unraveled and things went wrong, but amazingly enough, the alternative to the plans that we had made and the "wrong" thing that happened either turned out to be even better or it at least gave us a good laugh.

The trip started out with my almost missing it altogether. We were supposed to meet at the train station at 6:15, and I woke up 6:20 to a text message from Natalie saying she'd be a couple minutes late. Our train left in 55 minutes, and I have never gotten ready as fast as I did that morning. Obviously, I made it in time, thanks to the amazing public transportation here in Prague that got me to the train station in record time. After we got to Salzburg, all of us but Madison went on the Sound of Music tour; that movie is absolutely a childhood favorite of mine, and I have also dreamed of going to Austria since I was a young girl in the 5th grade, and I did a report on the country of Austria. I was not let down in the least, as the stunning Austrian Alps whizzed past us while we were on the train and tour van, with small villages and brilliant blue lakes dotting the countryside. Our tour guide, Peter, was a lot of fun, and he was the one that suggested we girls eat at a local beer hall in Salzburg for dinner.

After the tour and freshening up at our hotel, we all decided to hop on the bus and search for this beer hall. It took some searching, and we were just about to give up when we found it. I am so happy we didn't stop searching, because this stop was definitely a highlight of the weekend! We filled up our beer steins, loaded up on rich (read: artery-clogging) Austrian food, and sat down at one of the long tables in the hall. We were stared down by almost everyone in the room, and we quickly realized that we had not been directed to any type of tourist destination, because we were clearly one of maybe a few groups of foreigners in this packed hall. After a little apprehension, we all relaxed a little and chatted it up with our new friends at our table. This was our weekend of making new friends, to be sure! We walked to the bus stop afterward singing the "Do re mi" song from Sound of Music at the tops of our lungs, which, although embarrassing in retrospect, was so much fun at the time! : p

We all wanted to ski at Flauchau on Saturday and Sunday, but after getting to the train station on Saturday morning, we found out that not only was Flauchau 3 hours away, it was also extremely expensive. So we literally picked the next train headed in the direction of the Alps (Salzburg has mountains around it, but nothing suitable for skiing!) and hopped on it. When we arrived in the village 2 hours later, we were pleasantly surprised to realize that we had arrived at a mountain that was a bit more out-of-the-way and less touristy, which offered lower prices but equally amazing skiing. Our next new friends were the two guys working at the ski shop, who not only gave us free beer at the end of the first day, but they gave us discounts on our ski gear and great advice on places in town to eat. On that first gondola ride up the mountain, I almost had to pinch myself to believe that I was really about to ski in the Alps. I had never really dreamed of doing this, like I had dreamed of going to Colorado growing up, because I had sort of assumed that it was such an impossible thing to happen. However, it was just as incredible as you could imagine it to be. I would just stop skiing at times and pull off to the side to look around me and soak in the fact that I was skiing in Austria!

I had more experience than the other girls on the trip with skiing, so I headed off on my own most of the time, which was perfectly fine with me. We would meet up for lunch, and at the end of the day, but the rest of the time, I was free to ski as fast as I wanted ;-) I couldn't believe how good the majority of the other skiers there were, because after skiing for as long as I have been, I am generally used to being one of the better skiers on the mountain, but here, I was surrounded by people going as fast as I was and carving beautifully down the mountain. Unfortunately, my tendency to go off on my own is what led to my first disaster of the trip. My first of two, to be exact. After doing some tree skiing right underneath a ski lift, I noticed that off in the distance a little ways, there was more tree skiing with fewer tracks and more powder. Excitedly, I headed off in that direction, knowing that I still had ready access to the lift if I was over there, and that I would be fine if I stayed where the other tracks already were. I wanted to be adventurous, but not stupid, especially since I was alone. However, I unknowingly started down the run too far to the left, and although I followed someone else's tracks, I realized later that they had made a mistake in going where they were and had gotten lost. So in following their tracks, I did the same thing. After only going about 30 feet down the mountain, I realized I was in trouble. The snow was impossibly deep and way too fluffy to ski in safely. I also had quickly lost sight of the lift. As I skied towards a stand of trees, I suddenly started to rapidly sink into the snow, and suddenly I was waist deep in the snow and unable to move. I could feel panic rising inside of me, and although I tried to stop it, the fear that I would go in over my head in the snow and I would suffocate overwhelmed me. I started to wriggle like crazy, which only made things worse. However, I managed to get my skis off and pull myself out of the hole, and after a long time, pulled my skis out of the hole. After getting back up, I proceeded to sink again, and went through this experience 3 more times. Each time, my panic grew deeper, and I began to scream for help. In my foggy mind, I realized somewhere that I had a phone, but I knew that I had no way of really describing where I was, and I worried that I would sink again and if my head went below the surface, I might not have a lot of time. That realization all of a sudden made my brain re-engage, and I remembered all of those articles I've read over the years about what to do if you panic. I began to talk to myself in the calmest voice possible, attempting to pull myself out of the numbing panic I was feeling. Each struggle to pull out of the holes I sunk into sapped my strength even more, and so I began to feel weak, and I was drenched in a cold sweat. However, as I began to talk to myself, I could feel my brain clearing, and I slowly managed to slip my skis back on and skim as lightly as I could without breaking the surface of the snow until I found a small path with footsteps (of the person whose tracks I had earlier followed). From there, I took my skis off and walked for about 20 minutes hoping that it was the right direction. I eventually found where a run joined in, and I shakily put my skis back on. I took two long, slow runs down the other side of the mountain after that, because I did not want that experience to be the last one I had on the mountain. That experience terrified me, but in no way scared me off from skiing or even tree skiing. It did remind me, however, that the majestic beauty of a mountain also holds incredible danger if you don't respect its rules, and while I truly wanted to be safe by staying in sight of the lift and following all of the tracks, I ended up making a huge mistake that could have cost me so much more than just an hour of my day.

That being said, I still had a blast in Austria. I know you might think I'm crazy for saying that, but I ended up okay in the end, and I just thanked God a million times over for watching out for me. I know that I have so many people praying for my safety on this trip, and that was made even more obvious in both this case and in my next story. This one was also a "near-miss". Since we took the 4 AM train on Monday back to Prague (it was either that one, or we left the mountain at noon on Sunday to take the train back to Prague, leaving us with 2.5 hours of skiing on Sunday, which none of us liked). We stayed in the waiting area at the train station until 4 AM, getting absolutely no sleep, so when we got on the train, we were all anxious to sleep. However, I felt a little uneasy sleeping while all of our stuff was there, and although we were in a separate compartment with a closed door, if we were sleeping deeply enough, we would never hear someone come in. WELL. I decided to stay awake, but I was lying down on the bench seat with my purse right next to my face. Unfortunately, pure exhaustion caused me to slip into a doze. All of a sudden, I had the sensation that someone was standing over me, and I snapped my eyes open. All I see is the back of a very big guy headed out the door of our compartment with something purple under his arm. My purse. I leap out of my seat and race after him. I see him slip into a compartment next to ours and slide the door shut. Keep in mind, at this point, I had a major adrenaline rush, and I knew that nothing was going to keep me from getting that purse back. I yanked their compartment door open and (Mom, you'll have to forgive me for this, but this was not a time in my life to be nice) and screamed at the man to give me my purse back, sprinkling plenty of obscenities in there. By that time, he had passed my purse off to his buddy, and so I reached forward and ripped my purse out of the second man's hands. I think that I took both of them so by surprise that they didn't resist me as I yanked my purse back. I immediately raced out of their compartment and into the hallway, rifling through my purse to be sure that everything was there. It was. The conductor heard me screaming and came running, and although he assured me that he would get the police, as soon as he left to go the phone, the two bumbling thieves jumped out the door of the train and onto the snowy ground. From there, they tripped around and walked off into the fields. C'mon, this is Europe. Did you really think the police would help me much anyways? I am so glad I just got my purse back myself, otherwise I could have said goodbye to my passport, debit card, credit cards, ID, and camera. I normally keep those things in a wallet around my neck while out of Prague, but I hadn't planned on sleeping and had started putting things back in my purse. The other complication was that while I really wanted to stay in the hallway of the train and scream at those guys and (remember: adrenaline rush) punch them in the face, I also knew that none of us in our group were in a position to make the conductor notice us too much. That's because we unknowingly gave our ticket to Natalie when she left on Sunday (she didn't ski on Sunday). I though that since we had 5 sheets of paper, each one was a ticket, and so I gave her one. However, since we bought all the tickets together, only the top sheet of paper-the one I gave her-had our destination written on it. The others were basically worthless without that top sheet. So when the conductor came, she told us to get off the train or pay again (at least $50 for each of us). Luckily, I am nutty about being organized, and I had saved the receipt for those tickets. Although that said nothing about our destination on it, I think that the fact that I had a receipt was enough for her to let us stay. I think she also felt sorry for us. However, the next conductor didn't know that she had let us just stay on, so when he came wanting to talk to me about my purse, I said I was fine and didn't want to talk, in case he found out about our ticket situation.

I know that these two stories may make it sound as though my trip was horrible, but it really wasn't. I had two near-misses, but I pulled through them and feel stronger because of it. I also feel more aware of my safety, which is always a good thing to be reminded of! Anyways, it was a weekend of laughing and goofing off and making new friends, and whether it was Chelsey knocking wine bottles down at the grocery store as she swung her backpack on, or eating cheese strudel and apple strudel, or hearing from the man at the hotel counter that we couldn't pop popcorn in the microwave there because "that stuff veel grow and spread all over the microwave!! It could break my microwave!! Eet grows!", or getting free champagne our last night there, or just being together and bonding, it was the trip of a lifetime. I skied in the Alps baby!