Kicking off another ski season

Time flies when you’re having fun. Or when you’re working your ass off. It feels like forever ago that I had time to sit down and gather my thoughts. At the end of October I had my Halloween tour, followed by the end-of-season-party to wrap up summer. I had two nights in my own bed before I went to Morocco and then another week before moving to Austria. On the 4th of December I flew to Innsbruck. I dragged my bags on a bus and two trains and arrived in Kirchberg. It wasn’t the warmest of welcomes.

I got picked up from the train station by my new boss. He drove me two minutes down the road and knocked on the door of an apartment. Kim, a girl I’d been in touch with via What’sapp, opened the door and my new boss left me. Kim showed me the rooms and I took a small space that resembles a broom closet. It has a bed and a cupboard of which the door opens halfway. Coming into these shared houses will always be a bit of a shock. Luckily Kim and I got along really well and we ended up spending a lot of time together.

I started to wonder why I had come so early in the season. There was no work yet and we had no clue when it would all begin. Communication was kept to a minimum and everything was unclear. In hindsight I am glad we had this time to adjust to our new environment, to find our way around the slopes and our new town and of course to enjoy some skiing. It was basically like I was on a holiday.

Slowly more and more people joined us in the house and then the Christmas holidays arrived. On the Saturday before Christmas we had a training day. I had already been working a few days, but now everything would be official. The next day the craziness started. Suddenly we had lots of kids waiting for lessons. Our Christmas days were spent with groups of kids. In the evening we tried to get Christmassy, by a shared meal in the house on Christmas eve and a dinner in town on Christmas day.

The second week of holidays only got crazier. Our house got filled to the rafters. We had people sleeping in our living rooms, leaving us no space to quietly sit down. It became a mess and I ended up having a New Years Eve meal on some chairs in our tiny kitchen. Here I was, in a fancy ski town, where Audi’s and BMW’s crowd the street and barely anyone has a coat without fur, having pasta huddled in a corner.

But the busy period also brought a lot of fun stuff. One night we all got together, hopped in some taxis and made our way over to Westendorf for some apres ski. We all wore our work vests and were soon recognized by the DJ. We sang along to the Dutch and German hits, dancing and laughing until we shuffled back out. It was only 9PM, so the next day most of us were ready to entertain some kids again.

Then all the holiday staff left again, the house got cleaner and peace and quiet returned. Or so we thought. A lot more kids showed up than expected and the start of the week was full on. Most of us had been working for two or three weeks straight and we were all getting a bit tired and sick by the end of this week. We still managed to find a night to go sledding together. There is an amazing 3,8km long night sledding track. I raced down competing against my 5 colleagues. Every run was wilder and more reckless, but so much fun. After 6 runs I walked home with a frozen ankle and bruises all down my legs.

And now it is January. I’m in a new year, but barely had the time to process it. I finally had another day to get out on the slopes myself. And I had two days to crash. I was so tired and broken, every muscle in my body hurting. These weeks have taken its toll on my body. We worked hard and we played hard. It was intense, but fun. I’m about halfway through my time here now and It’s crazy to think I’ll be leaving in about a month. One more month to ski as much as I can, to have fun and enjoy the winter!