The Hahenkamm was quite the experience. Ashley likened it to the Austrian version of Mardi Gras. That’s a pretty good comparison I think (though I’ve never been to Mardi Gras). I’ve been doing a little more research on ski racing though and realized that the nighttime race in Schladming, Austria this weekend trumps even the Hahnenkamm. 50,000+ crazy fans will converge on the little alpine town of Schladming for the World Cup race tonight or tomorrow…I couldn’t tell because the Schlaming race website crashed from too much traffic. So there’s that.

Anyhow, in other news, Winter is really, really here. It seems to snow almost everyday now… To combat this winterness, we went sledding with Edith yesterday. It was one of the coolest things I’ve ever done. We did this same hike back in the summer – from Sistrans up to Sistranser Alm – it takes about 90 minutes and you climb many many meters upward along what would be the equivalent of a small service road (maybe 8-10 feet wide?)…almost 1000 meters total, probably more like 700, whatever.

Anyhow, so the road is all snowed in and nice and slick. The road is curvy, snowy, and a wee bit slippery – and on the Austrian sleds (think of those classic sleds with the upturned curvy fronts) – your path upwards is now the best sledding hill on the planet. Normal sledding? Nahh. This is sledding on lots and lots of steroids.

Ashley and I shared a sled down and Edith shared one with her dog, Arco. We rocked. Once we got the hang of turning (simply drag your left foot a bit to turn left and your right to…guess), it got really fun. We could really carve a turn on the sled. I realized that the feeling is always the same – a well-carved turn whether it be in a car, on skis, on a sled, or by bike is just one of the best, most exhilirating feelings ever. 

In summation – we hated it.

On a completely different note – we’re headed to Morocco on the 2nd of February. We’ll travel all around the country (Fes, Chefchaouen, Tetouen, Tangier, Marrakech, Ouarzazate, and Essaouiri), and I’ll do a fair bit of bikin. After that, we’re off to Croatia for the last two weeks of Ashley’s midyear break between semesters. It’s going to be great. I’ve been doing a ton of research on Morocco, and it looks like it could be a really special place. I’m excited to say the least.

Ok, back to work…

I’ll post pictures from yesterday soon. Pictures from the Hahnenkamm are already up on Flickr!

I  have been talking about going to see the world’s biggest ski race for years now. I don’t know the first thing about ski racing, but I’ve always heard from Vati and read it in different places, that if you ever get the chance to see one ski race – you go to Kitzbuehel in January to see the Hahnenkamm Downhill.

I talked to Vati this morning and he mentioned that it was this weekend.

Yeah, we’re about an hour from Kitzbuehel. Seems like it would be a shame to pass it up. So we’re going. 22 euro apiece tickets be damned, we’re going.

Hopefully the weather is ok…because that’s the only thing that will stop us. Haha.

What’s been going on? A whole lot of nothing. Winter has come and it’s ugly and nasty and awful. We’ve had a nice week of rain/snow and there’s one guy on this website that doesn’t mess with that…me. I guess I’m in a little bit of a holding pattern till next week. Next week? We’re going to the part of the world where the sun shines at at least 15C everyday. Where is that? Not here. South.

I’m going to go to bed now. Before I do, I think I might edit a few pictures and post them on up to Flickr, so go on over there if you want to see some pictures.

Croatia was incredible…as we are beginning to expect. The weather was pretty good, the company even better, and the biking was perfect. I could go on and on about it, or just direct you forward to the pictures from the weekend, because that’s just a lot easier and way more fun than me blabbering on and on about it.

So go HERE for the newest pictures and HERE for all of the pictures.

More soon…tired now…bad weather is coming our way. Oh joy.

Portugal wasn’t cool enough for us, so we went to Ljubljana and next we’re going to Rijeka and after that…Momjan. Yeah, I definitely jinxed the trip to Portugal, but that’s neither here nor there. Ashley told me her Grandpa says that phrase – I always think it, but I’ve never actually said it. I like it.

Anyhow, the hard life we lead has led us back to Croatia this weekend. We’re excited to do some biking and coffee drinking and hanging outing.

I/Ashley forgot bike shoes for Ashley. Woops. Ashley says it’s my fault…I say ultimate responsibility rests with her. She says, OH COME ON. I say, yeah, you’re right.

Ashley just had her first ever communion in a Catholic Church. It was a mistake. She went to catholic high school for years and never took communion, but today the streak ended and she is in fact going to hell. I am too…I’ve taken communion more than a few times. I always felt like I was missing out. Is that bad? Yeah, I know it is.

We went to the altar with hands crossed on our chest with the intention of getting blessed (in Ljubljana), but the priest didn’t understand the X and fed us the body of Christ.

Ok, gotta go…

Yep, we’re headed to Portugal next week. I got an email from Richard this morning asking if I would be interested in attending the Cervelo TestTeam training camp in Portugal from the 15-19 of January. And now you say…so? The Cervelo TestTeam is a first year squad with a big-time line-up. The two marquee draws on the team are defending Tour de France champion, Carlos Sastre, and former Green Jersey winner at the Tour, Thor Hushovd. Just to meet the team would be a cool opportunity, but it looks like we’re getting an all-expense paid trip to cover the team in Portugal.

The camp runs from Thursday to Sunday so it was possible for Ashley to go in terms of school (no class Friday), but not planned for. I presented the idea of Ashley coming as a second journalist and photographer and Richard was cool with the idea, and now apparently the Cervelo people were ok with the idea and it looks like we’re both heading to Portugal.

I hope. Hopefully I’m not jinxing it, but this is too good to pass up mentioning.

Oh, and I get to ride too. Yeah!

Johnny Cash has been haunting my dreams of late. Every morning for the past three days I’ve woken up with a song of his in my head…One Piece At A Time, Sunday Morning Coming Down, Jackson, and the song that I just woke up to in my head? Do You Like Pina Coladas. That’s not Johnny Cash. That is definitely not Johnny Cash.

Ashley and I are walking zombies at the moment. For the second time in just over a week, an all-nighter was the order of the evening. The first was a 16-page behemoth, and this one was an 8-pager with a PowerPoint presentation. We started sometime after midnight and finished at exactly 830 in the morning. Right on time for Ashley to be her customary ten minutes late. It was quite the effort. Once again, I was all-time secretary, and enjoyed an evening of typing practice. I did get to put some of my PEZ and picture takin’ skills to work though with the PowerPoint presentation: we used a ton of old pics for the presentation on the history, customs, and miscellaneous everything on hiking in the Alps. It was really good fun. I like helping out. Maybe I’m old enough to like school now? No one ever told me that would be one of the plusses of getting on in years. Ha.

Needless to say, we have been utterly worthless today…we did our best to stay awake throughout the day and not switch over to a completely nocturnal schedule. The whole staying awake thing while tired isn’t much fun, but I guess the piper needs paying at some point.

I’m thinking that the duress of no sleep along with Ashley forcing me to watch The Sweetest Thing caused my brain’s unholy repeating of the song Do You Like Pina Colada’s while we napped today.

The house is almost back to normal following the traditional unpacking melee. It’s ready for us to start all over again with a packing frenzy before our next trip…probably tomorrow. Yeah!

22 hours of travel later and we’re back in Innsbruck. We left on Sunday at noon-ish from Monroe and we ended up in our house at almost 6pm on Monday here in Innsbruck, so just under 23 hours I guess. We flew from Monroe to Atlanta to Paris to Munich then by train to Innsbruck.

The trip didn’t get started off too well on the little flight to Atlanta. There was a mean ol lady sitting in front of me and she didn’t like it that I was 6′3. Normally, people can’t push their seats back when I’m behind them because there is that inconvenient thing called my knee in the way. She didn’t like that one bit. I could hear her huffing and puffing just beyond the seat, and one time she even slammed her back into it like it would magically bend to her immense will.

Finally, she got so pissed off, she turned around and said that I wasn’t sitting properly and she wanted to put her seat back. I didn’t know there was a right way to sit on a plane. I’ve read through the emergency and safety literature quite a few times, but I must have missed the recommended seating posture.

I’ll just fold myself up next time to make sure it makes her flight a little more pleasant.

People…they’re the worst.

We spent 2.5 hours on the runway in Paris…it was snowing. We were scared when we realized it was snowing in Paris. If it was snowing in Paris, what on earth was it doing in Innsbruck (nothing, as we’d later find). Anyhow, it would have been an awful wait had we not passed out entirely. Ashley woke up one time and asked if we were in Munich when she saw that we were on the ground. We hadn’t moved yet.

Anyhow, we’re home, glad to be here, a little nervous about the cold, but we’ll deal. Ashley has a ton of schoolwork tomorrow and I need to get back to bikin…and taking pictures with our new camera (which reminds me that there are many, many pictures to be posted on Flickr: all in good time).

It’s 11pm now, so I figure I’ve made it late enough to go to bed.

The only question that needs answering now? Where are we going this weekend? Nice? Bolzano? Rome? Croatia? We’ll let you know as the week progresses.

More soon…

It got kinda busy, ok a lot busy over the last week, and now we’re off to Austria again. I had an incredible time in Louisiana, but it’s time to pull out the coat, gloves, and hat again. 

I got kinda sick over the last few days and that didn’t do me so well for biking, but I’ll get over it.

We went to New Orleans for New Year’s…that was pretty much fantastic. New Orleans is a cool town. I can’t wait to see more of it in the future. I figure I’ll be seeing quite a lot of it in the near future once we return from Europe.

I’m neglecting my packing duties. Next post will be from back home.

Happy New Year and thanks for reading.