Reflections of a 19 year old

*Written yesterday but only posted now*

Okay, okay. I'm sorry for being terrible with the blog lately. The mood just really hasn't struck me, and while I realise there is a lot missing from it I want to do it properly. This is just a quickie about my first overseas birthday.

I was a little bit worried about my birthday - it's still early season here so I don't know many people and no one wants to spend their birthday alone. The few days beforehand I was the most homesick I've been this whole year - I'd never had a birthday without Mum making me cake! (And only one without Sarah getting grumpy at me for ageing). The original plan was to ski at the little hill in town in the morning (on my new birthday skis), open presents and then maybe go out? There wasn't much of one.

Birthday Skis

Much kudos has to go to Tom for organising me a really nice birthday! We actually didn't end up skiing (because we were stupid and left our boots at the Alpine Centre on the Kitzsteinhorn) so we slept in, then there was breakfast with presents and general hanging around in the morning. Then at 2pm ish we went down to the Ski Dome for a champagne afternoon gathering with some of the other instructors. Tom had a few surprises up his sleeve there - there were more people than I expected, there were gummy bears and fruit in the pink champagne and he had even organised Florian to make me a birthday cake! Much merriness was had, chocolate cake eaten and pink champagne drunk. It was a really well organised event considering I'm in a foreign town! I really enjoyed my afternoon :)

We walked home just after it had gotten dark, and the best birthday surprise of all for me was that it had started to snow during my party! Giant fat sticky flakes, that perfect beautiful romantic kind, and with Christmas lights starting to go up around town it was a really beautiful sight. We had quick pasta on our own and then Colin and Karl (the only other native English speaking instructors here this season) came over for drinks and more general celebration. (Thank goodness this was at our place as we all ended up very drunk and I was already at home! A whole bottle of Jagermeister disappeared amongst other things).

We spent most of today getting over our hangovers (unfortunately not skiing, AGAIN) and then we went out for a nice dinner tonight (using my birthday money from Oma and Opa) at the Dorfkrug, I had a very Austrian meal of pork cutlets with creamy mushroom sauce, vegetable, and spätzle. (Tom of course had a giant bloody steak). Now I am at home snuggled up in bed with Geoff Bennett's new tiny laptop (we have a 2 month loan of it here), vanilla scented candles and lots of birthday chocolate!

All things considered it was a fantastic birthday, I never expected it to be a big deal here in Kaprun.

Plan for tomorrow: SKIING. About time. Hopefully the recent snow opens up a bit more terrain on the glacier!
Added note: Went skiing today and hit up the first off-piste of the season! A bit safer with my dandy avalanche tracker (above). Visibility was terrible (as skiing through a snowstorm tends to be) but the fresh powder was GREAT. Hit a couple rocks but that was to be expected this early in the season. Bring it on!