Having a winter in the middle of summer

(dated August 11-13, 2006)

How do you have a winter in the middle of summer? This is how you do it: driving 750 km southeast to some gracier (Kaprun) in Austria for some snowboarding action. We (L, LG, and J) left again right after work for some ‘cold adventure’. Arrived in Burke (close to Zell am See) around 1am at this huge but cozy family run hotel in Austria. The owner was so laidback that he left the door open and the key on the table for us. (the funny thing is that we never really checked in to the hotel the entire time we stayed).

Went for a beautiful hike (that’s not true since we took the gondola up and just hiked down) in the Schmittenhöle the next day. The hills were lush and green filled with goats and cows. Got up super early the next day to hit the slope. 3 gondolas later, we arrived at the peak of Kitzsteinhorn, 3203m. It started snowing on our way up and by the time we were up there, the slopes were packed with fresh powder. The air was thin so it was more tiring than usual. Think I did about 15 runs altogether, not bad considering only 3 runs were open. Had a few puffs up there as well. Of course, I had to carry out some ‘borderless’ snowboarder ritual.

What can be better than jumping into hot tub after freezing one’s ass off for 5 hours? Straight to the hot spring place in Bad Hofgastein we went. Was such a scenic ride driving in the valley of the Austrian Alps. But the highlight of the day was actually the experience of seeing hundreds of old, naked dicks at the sauna. The Austrian Alps was beautiful but the scene at the sauna world was not that pleasant, I tell you. And of course, pulling an Asian, I refused to get naked and broke the rule by going into the sauna with my bikini.

Wanted to go back to the go kart place we never got to go to last time we were in Nurenberg. So we dropped by Nurenberg to find the go kart track. Literally went around the city for an hour and even phoned dear F (from the hood) in Spain, still could not find the freaking track at the end. Tired and withdrawn, we found ourselves pigging out at Hexenhausle in the middle of the medieval festival in Kaiserberg. It was the finest german cuisine I have ever had!

Well, that concluded another crazy weekend I have in Germany. And this is how you get a winter in the middle of the summer – snowboaring in a 3000-something-meter gracier in the middle of August.