So its been a while since we’ve given an update on our trip, however this is mainly because we have settled down in Austria for the winter season in and have not been having quite the same amount of excitement. We have already spent a few months here and plan on staying until mid April, needless to say the time here has flown by so far.
Both of us have found jobs here working in kitchens, putting our university educations to good work. Joel works in a restaurant called Hazenda, primarily making drinks for the service staff and helping out with many other various things in the kitchen. Scott is working in a restaurant/sports complex called Arl Rock and is kept busy doing dishes, making salads, and helping to prepare the food when the place gets busy. Both of us have similar working hours. We have most of the day off and work the dinner shift. Joel starts work at 5:30 and usually works until 12:30 – 1ish, and Scott starts work at 5 and is usually done by 10 – 10:30. We both work six days a week and thankfully where able to coordinate Tuesday as our day off. This allows us to enjoy après skiing activities together.
Both of us have found jobs here working in kitchens, putting our university educations to good work. Joel works in a restaurant called Hazenda, primarily making drinks for the service staff and helping out with many other various things in the kitchen. Scott is working in a restaurant/sports complex called Arl Rock and is kept busy doing dishes, making salads, and helping to prepare the food when the place gets busy. Both of us have similar working hours. We have most of the day off and work the dinner shift. Joel starts work at 5:30 and usually works until 12:30 – 1ish, and Scott starts work at 5 and is usually done by 10 – 10:30. We both work six days a week and thankfully where able to coordinate Tuesday as our day off. This allows us to enjoy après skiing activities together.
Needless to say getting into the working world was a real shock to the system, especially coming from a leisurely life of traveling at our own pace and doing what we want. All in all though the jobs have worked out pretty good. We have all day to ski, and finish with enough hours left in the night/morning to still enjoy the nightlife. A down side to our jobs is the rather rude awakening of having somewhat ‘unfriendly’ bosses in our respective kitchens, but thankfully they have warmed up to us now for the most part, making work much more tolerable. Joel’s bosses are still kind of crazy though (they’re twin brothers).As mentioned before, our living arrangements here where taken care of by our employers when we got the job. However, the dwellings we got put up in are somewhat different. Joel lives in an apartment in the basement of his boss’ house about a 15 minute walk from the centre of town. It is about 4 years old, has heated floors, a full kitchen, bathroom and a sitting area with TV and DVD player. Joel shares his place with a German guy named Ben who also works at Hazienda. He is 26 years old, studied as a photographer and spent the last 13 months traveling around South America. To get into their house a finger print scan is required, they don’t even have a key!
Scott lives in a house run by the Gruber Family. Located about a 20 minute walk from the centre of town his house has a barn connected to the back, sometimes the cows can be heard (and smelt). He has a single room located by the front entrance in the basement. He has a sink, but purchased a heater and teakettle. Gruber House has about 20ish people boarding at their residence (depending on the amount of people sleeping in the halls or getting kicked out), all of which are Swedish. All boarders share one kitchen, two bar fridges and three bathrooms. Scott opens his door with a key that looks like it is from the 1800’s. We are both enjoying our respective arrangements.
With our working schedules we have been able to get in a lot of skiing over the last two months. There is no shortage of mountains around the St. Anton village, of which there are many separate peaks that can be skied. We still have yet to explore all the mountains our pass covers, as there is just so much terrain to cover both on piste (marked runs) and off piste (unmarked areas). We have however gotten to know our way around pretty well on the main mountains that are closest to us, Valluga, Gampen, Kappall, and Rendel. The weather here has been unreal for the most part, not like Ontario winters at all. The temperature doesn’t quite fluctuate like back home, and usually stays any where between a few degrees above zero to -12 in the village. We have been lucky as well to get plenty of sun throughout the winter thus far. At one point in December we had 20 consecutive days of sunshine. On average will have four or five days of mostly if not fully blue skies a week, making for awesome weather to ski in. Until the middle of January we did not have many flurries to speak of but the snow has for the most part been good. It doesn’t snow that often here, but when it does you are almost guaranteed to get a huge dump of snow, in many cases a few feet at a time. The days when this happens on the mountain are typically white out blizzard type days, but if you can bear it there is some great powder skiing to be found. Our strategy on these days however is to usually wait out the storm and try and get out for the next few days when powder conditions are still great, and you can actually see where your going.
St. Anton is almost as famous for its nightlife and après ski bars as it is for its skiing. Because of this it attracts lots of ski bums that have come for the season to both ski and party. We find most ski bums come from Sweden and Great Brittan, however we have met people from other countries like South Africa, the U.S. and Namibia that come for the season as well. As far as we know there is only one other Canadian that me have met that works in town. Everyone asks why we are not skiing in Canada.The après ski here is not quite the same as at home. Instead of going into town for a drink after a long day of hitting the slopes there are various bars/restaurants located all over the mountains that people will visit throughout the day. Two of the most famous and craziest places on the mountain are called MooserWirt and the Krazy Kangaroo. On any given day of the week these places are packed with people by 3pm. MooserWirt is pretty much a club where everyone is in their ski boots/clothes. Rumor has it they sell more beer there in 5 months than any other bar in Austria does in 12. We are more of a fan of the KK. It has more of a bar feel until about 4 or 5pm when things often get a little more live. Now you have to remember this is après ski, so after everyone is done at the bars you have to ski to the bottom of the mountain. Luckily the run home is fairly short, but of course to add to the fun it gets dark around 5, so the ski home at 7 can be amusing to see and experience, especially considering there are no lights on the ski hill. If you are still standing after the après ski, St.Anton has a rather large number of bars for a village its size. Most of these are also busy on any given night and some are even open until 5am.
Getting into a routine and settling down again has felt good for the most part. Work can get monotints at times but we feel it is a good character builder and a necessary evil. Life in the mountains is pretty good. He have had some great ski days and great party nights(/afternoons). We are a little over half way through the season and with visits from both our families and spring skiing ahead the second half looks to be just as promising.
