A good warm up...

You know, you can do aerobics at the top of the Osthang lift. They have a set of speakers with a recording which cycles every twenty minute throughout the morning. As you come off the lift, all you can hear, in a rather aggressive German voice is…

‘Und Lich, Lich, Lich, Und Lich,
Und shmurgen, shmurgen,
Das ist gut,
Shmurgen to ze left, unt doppel’

Or something like that. In four years of coming to St. Anton, I’ve only once seen any skiers actually performing the warm-up exercises to these instructions, and I’m pretty sure they were a bunch of pissed-up Brits. Oddly enough, they have another speaker half way down the Osthang piste. If you’re very, very lucky, you may just catch a bit of Shania Twain on your way down.

Tony and I eventually went up the mountain just after twelve. At this rate, we’re going to be catching the last lift of the day for one run down to the Krazy Kangarugh. Dex, having done one day on the mountain, elected to take the day off for a well-earned rest. So, the two of us ‘pratted around’ on Osthang for a few hours, trying various jumps while avoiding the other incompetents on the slopes. It’s a bit like driving really, in that everyone else on the piste other than yourself is useless. I clipped a skier at one point, and it was clearly his fault. I accept that I’d landed a one-eighty and so, technically, I’d jumped onto the piste and was riding across it backwards, but I’d checked up the slope before I went and he clearly had no idea about anything. God damn it.

We stopped for a mid-afternoon bite to eat, and listened to an American ski instructor chatting up a British woman who’d obviously booked him for a private lesson (ahem). He was, frankly, talking bollocks, but being a ski instructor gives you a massive ‘chat’ bonus, and she sounded like she was eating it up. Oh well, he’s stuck wearing bright blue and yellow jacket and snow-pants on the piste, whereas I get to wear a…rather rubbish hat and a jacket with a day-glo orange stripe across it. Bugger.

We actually managed to eat in tonight, collecting enough food and utensils for Tony to whip up a chilli. I did have to bother the live-in maid for a tin opener, but got round the language barrier by taking a tin with me. I still have no idea where she’s from, as she doesn’t appear to speak any language known to man at all. I’ve tried a smattering of everything I know ('Sprechen sie Latin?'), but there’s never any recognition.

Another day managing to avoid getting smashed, then. I feel tomorrow could be a big one, though. It’s the last night for a lot of people in for the week, so the KK and the Moose should be hoppin’. It'd be rude not to, wouldn't it?