Wednesday, 21st December

My brother and I at the bus station

They have opened the Skiing place we usually ski in!!! I was so excited. This would be so great. Finally good food again, which was a really good sign for my starving stomach after the 2 hour skiing session. It was snowing in the morning just like every other day up to now. All of the trees were covered in snow. Instead of green leafs they now had a beautiful white coat. They looked so magical. It was like in a child’s story book. We went to spend some time in Mayrhofen after the skiing. I really needed some new ski pants, because mine were too short for me now. Unfortunately none of them would fit. The ones that had the appropriate length were all too wide around the waste, and all the others were either too big or too small. But we did buy a ski jacket for my brother and some shoes for him too. I got some new pants, and my dad go new gloves. My mom didn’t seem to need anything. After buying a couple of things we went back home by bus.

Tuesday, 20th December

We had to ski on the glacier again today. It wasn’t that bad. Better than yesterday at least. Up there it’s about  −18° Celsius. My father and I stayed in the afternoon to ski while my brother and mother went down to the busses. It was so brilliant. There was this one run that we especially loved. We kept on saying that we’ll go completely down during our next run, but it took about 6 tries until we actually managed to get down there. Once back at home, I couldn’t wait until the next day, because they would finally open the place we usually went skiing in. They have much better food there and the restaurant is also much warmer, which is really good after spending some time in the cold freezing snow.

Monday, 19th December

My brother, dad, and I

Today we had to go all the way up to the glacier, because the skiing place we usually went to was still closed due to the lack of snow. The people said that it had already snowed in August! But now the snow had only started a week ago. The glacier was fine I guess. The good thing was that we weren’t beginners in skiing anymore, because the slopes up here are too steep for beginners. It went fine. I just didn’t like the fact that we had to take off our skis to go on the gondola. I don’t really like gondolas. My brother and I went to the playground, which was right next to the restaurant. I know I’m slightly too old for playgrounds, but the slide was just too awesome. With our wet clothing, we were sliding down so fast that at the bottom we actually flew for about another meter away from the slide. We had to go again and again. It was so much fun that we just didn’t want to stop. It was slightly hard to climb up there, because we had ski boots on. It’s not easy to walk in those. And scrambling up ladder is even harder. My parents went to “Spar” without us kids to buy the groceries this time.

Sunday, 18th December

Me Sledding

We left for the Train Station at 6 in the morning. The ride took 5 hours to Jenbach with the OBB. Then we had to take a smaller train which would bring us to Mayrhofen. There we took a taxi to get to Finkenberg. We stayed in “Hotel Neuwirt”. We have stayed there many times before. Even last year we slept in that hotel. The hotel owns an apartment that we stayed in. I like it, because since we wake up at 4 in the morning and go to bed at 6, we won’t have to wait for breakfast and dinner. We wanted to go to “Spar” to buy some groceries, but it was closed. Instead we went onto a sort of hike. My brother and I took our sleds with us to slide down on. Our actual goal was to get to a restaurant up there but it was closed. On our way down, my brother and I slid down on our sleds. The snow was blowing into our face, making it feel completely numb. It felt like paradise to see the snow again. Everything felt so home. I could not understand how I could feel comfortable in the cold, but that’s just the way it was. Once at the bottom, my brother and I had to go borrow some skis so we could go skiing the next day.

Friday, 16th & 17th December

Our Christmas Tree in Jakarta

We headed towards the airport right after Madness. This time we flew with Turkish Airlines again. Once we have arrived in Vienna, I felt home again. It was cold, but y family and I survived. It wasn’t that cold actually. We just didn’t have the proper clothing on. We wanted to go eat lunch with our neighbors, who actually live under us, but that didn’t really work out. Then we wanted to go to “Christkindlmarkt” with another of our friends, which didn’t really work either. So we then just visited our neighbors and chatted about how life in general went. The parents then got into the topic “School”, so my parents showed them the VPA Video. The sound wasn’t that great actually. We never got to meet our other friends, but we still went to the “Christkindlmark”. It was nice there. I haven’t been to one for ages. The last time I went, I was about 6 or so. There were so many people there though, tourists mainly. We all bought a drink, but I was the only one who wanted to keep the mug. My brother especially, just wanted to have the money. If you returned a mug, you got back 2 Euros. I wasn’t really bothered about the money. After we were done at the market, we had to go to “Spar” to buy some cereal, milk, bread and other things to eat in the morning, before we would head for Finkenberg in Tirol to go skiing. It’s the same place as last year, the same hotel even.