Learning Vs. Doing

I started skiing for the same reason other people started using drugs: the cool kids were doing it. I skied a little as a kid, but didn’t really start the sport until my early twenties. My buddies were mostly good skiers and snow boarders who had been doing it since they were small. I realized if I wanted to see my friends I had to go with them on their ski trips. I ski like someone who learned following the cool kids. I can get down the mountain, but I don’t look good doing it. Andrew learned to ski as a teen when his brother was on ski patrol. He also can get down the mountain. He also doesn’t look so good while doing it. (Andrew says: “Hey!”)


This is all changing. We decided we wanted to become better skiers. For too long I have been describing my self as “solidly mediocre“. Watching Andrew ski I could tell with just a little big of nudging he would get much better. So we took a lesson when we first arrived in Cervinia. An extremely good looking Italian man took the two of us out on the slopes and attempted to get us in his words from “beginner intermediate to advanced intermediate” skiers. How much better does “advanced intermediate” sound then “solidly mediocre”?

Here is the thing about learning something new: it is hard. Adults, I have noticed, work hard to not have to learn new skills. Sure the occasional adventurous one takes a painting class, but usually they already liked to paint, so it wasn’t a huge leap. As an adult (and believe you me this is one of my most favorite parts of being an adult) you can organize your life to almost never have to be new at something. Never played basketball in high school? That’s cool, you can use the treadmill instead of shooting hoops. Never sang in elementary school? That is fine, just don’t join a choir and you are good to go. Being new at something is just not that much fun.

View from our lunch table

For years I threw myself down mountains following my friends. It was fun. Now I am trying to ski with form and it is much less fun. The instructor taught us how to bend and lean over our skis. It feels very unnatural and a bit scary. The catch is that I have to learn this if I want to get better. All those beautiful skiers I see swishing confidently down the slopes, they are leaning forward and bending like out instructor taught us. So these weeks we have been persistently practicing what we learned. We are working on form. We are going slowly and concentrating. We are doing the same runs over and over until it starts to feel right. It is much less fun than barreling down the hill with my arms outstretched. Mikala suggested I stop trying to do it right and instead barrel down the hill, arms outstretched, yelling. This is what she does. She has fun. However, she is also a much better skier than I am.


I am starting to get it. A few days ago I was quite convinced that I was even skiing right without having to think about it too much. This was very exciting. Alas, the other thing about being an adult and learning something new, is that you get tired more quickly. For the past few days I have been so sore that our days have been short and my form lacking. It will be ironic if the minute I start to figure this all out my quadriceps decide I am done skiing for the indefinite future.

One cold baby

This is not our baby, Andrew just had the task of carrying her

Last week Andrew, Mikala and I thought we might take the baby for a hike, but it was so dang cold and windy we gave up after less then 5 min. Still, we ended up with a nice picture.

Feeling very blessed

Sunday was my birthday and I got to spend it with old friends I never get to see and go skiing. During the day Ellen brought the baby up to the slopes so we could see her for lunch. It was pretty darn great. After a beautiful day on the slopes we had cake and coffee (it was all very Scandinavian).

Then we had a lovely meal in Cervinia sitting next to a fire. Ellen and Ianthe got the fondue, which is traditional in these parts. The group discussed the right wing parties in everyone's country and I found it comforting to know the US isn't the only place with scary rhetoric. So all in all a darn good day. I felt very blessed.

A quick video Andrew made on the day

Kate Birthday from Kate Bedford on Vimeo.

(note the baby's admirers)

Opps, a few missed Videos

Sorry folks, I meant to include these videos in the post on Munich

this one is not that great:

Bachelor party munich from Kate Bedford on Vimeo.

This one is better

Andrew + Max + Belly from Kate Bedford on Vimeo.

1 Norwegian +1.5 Danes + 1 German + 1 Dutchwoman = fun and Chaos

The star of the weekend with her admirer

In 1998 I studied abroad in Cape Town, South Africa, and became friends with a polyglot group of Europeans. Since our college days we have had several reunions. The last one was 6 years ago when we were in Prague. We were overdue for a gathering. Andrew and I invited the crew to Cervinia, and to my great pleasure, most were able to join us. They started arriving last Thursday and it was mayhem, chaos and fun until about 2 hours ago when the last ones left for the long ride back to Milan and then plane flights home. With hindsight, we maybe could have picked an easier place to gather people. Malte, who lives in Berlin, realized he spent almost as much time getting to our place in Cervinia as it takes him to get back to Cape Town. Oops. Also, the specter of 6 adults bopping around our apartment with its crappy kitchen and minimal hot water was a bit concerning. Thank god they got an extra apartment for most of the visit, we just would not have fit.

Almost the whole crew with baby pram on the slopes

Folks started arriving Thursday afternoon. Mikala arrived at 1am in a car with her 6 month old baby Malin. This is the first reunion with a baby.

The most epic, memorable, crazy parties of my life have been with this group of friends. In general, I am not a partier. I get sleepy by 10, occasionally I am up until Midnight. Also, partying late at night generally means the next day is lost. Somehow though when these guys show up that all goes out the window. Our reunion in Berlin was the first, and only time, I have looked out the window of the club, saw the sun come up and taken another shot. In Prague we slept off our serious absinth hangovers on the island in the middle of the Vltava for most of the next day. During this reunion we were asleep by midnight at the latest every night. There was a baby to think about, and we are getting older, and well, Cervinia doesn’t exactly have the happening nightlife that draws you out of the warm apartment and into the -15 C night air. Also, most folks went skiing, so we were a bit worn out by the evening. I was relieved we went to bed early-- I could barely party like that when I was in my 20s and now it is even harder.

Mikala and Malin stayed with us which meant once again Andrew and I had the perfect rent-a-baby situation. We slept all night, but in the morning there was great cuteness waiting. Malin’s parents made a special effort to expose her to a lot of people when she was very little and you can tell. She is comfortable with everyone. One day Ellen (the Norweign) and I babysat and Mikala went skiing. At first we were very confident about this until we realized we hadn’t taken care of a baby in 10 years Also, it is deeply cold here. Mikala laid out all the clothes the baby needs for each kind of contraption and situation and it was daunting. When everyone left for the slopes and Ellen and I were alone with the baby we looked at each other and laughed. I am from California. I haven’t the faintest idea how to keep a baby warm in 6-10 degrees below freezing. Ellen is from somewhere where is it cold, but that doesn’t mean she knows her pram booties from her backpack booties. I was so far outside my comfort zone it was laughable. We did manage to get Malin dressed and into her pram. They we sat outside and ate while the baby slept in the pram bundled up. If we had taken her inside she would have been too warm and woken up, so the kid slept outside in the freezing cold.

(we accidentally woke her up at one point checking on her. With all those warm clothes, and scarves and everything the newbie babysitters were afraid we were going to smother the poor kid.) Then the baby woke up and I took her out of her pram and we watched the skiers for a little while. The kid was warm from sleep and in a full fleece body suit. It was like having a live, snuggling, happy teddy bear on your lap. It was at this point I started to enjoy the experience of Italy with a baby. First, it was the waitresses who stopped working to coo and play and giggle with Malin. Then as Ellen and I walked her around town we were constantly stopped by admirers. Men, women, young, old, everyone came to say ciao. They spoke in singsong Italian, the baby smiled, they smiled. I heard, “Bella, bella” over and over. (she is a strikingly beautiful baby) In the grocery store she was surrounded by a group of Italian grandmothers ( I know they are grandmothers because they told me, in Italian, but I know the word “Nani” so I knew what they were saying) cooing. The grandmothers first wanted to know if she was a boy or girl. I understood that question and knew how to answer back in Italian. They wanted to know how old. I held up 6 fingers. Then they wanted to know her name. My brain froze. We had just been calling her baby. And I had just met her, and Malin (if I am even spelling it right) is Swedish and I say it terribly. I stood frozen only able to come up with a name I knew was wrong. I had to call to Ellen, “um Ellen, what is the baby’s name?” The grandmothers looked concerned. Ellen answered my question, then I looked at the grandmothers, pointed to my self, shook my head and said, “not the mama. No mama.” They all looked relieved.

All and all, Ellen and I were proud of ourselves. We got back to the apartment with a healthy baby, who had napped and hadn’t gotten frost bite anywhere. (not one single spot) I was getting ready to change her diaper when the distressing thought hit me, “where was that diaper bag again?” Alas, the newbie babysitters left the diaper bag, with the bottle, and the hiking booties, hiking gloves, and baby wipes at the restaurant, hours ago. Ellen had to run back down the hill to town, which is not an easy or short trip, and try to get to the restaurant before it closed. This was about the moment Malin decided she was getting ready for a bottle. I searched her stuff. No extra bottle. The baby looks up with sad eyes. Yep, I had left the one and only bottle on some chair. Sigh. In the end, mom came home and fed the baby. Ellen found that bag and it even had been brought inside so it wasn’t frozen solid, and all was well.

Ellen decided she wanted to record the baby's perspective

There were 6 adults who were all pretty into this baby. She always had someone wanting to play with her. When she got fussy, we all sang.

Why do you fill me up buttercup? from Kate Bedford on Vimeo.

Cervinia: Part 1

the view out the window

When we first started planning this trip, and making our wish list, we decided we really wanted to ski in the Alps and we wanted to become better skiers. So we rented an apartment in Cervinia, at the base of the Matterhorn for two weeks. Cervinia is much cheaper than the Alps on the Swiss side. It also is full of Italian food which is always a good thing. Alas, it is not easy to get to. Zermatt has a train station. Cervinia has the occasional bus from Milan. It is only a two and a half hour drive, if you have a car, but on public transit it is a bit more daunting. Tuesday was spent lugging all our stuff through multiple subway stations to get to the bus station. We have been lugging ski stuff with us since Vienna and Andrew is getting really sick of it. Our bags got caught in the turnstiles, which is always annoying. I kept reminding him: only one more trip, we will have less stuff soon, only one more trip. I caught him doing his deep breathing, calm yourself exercises. 2 subways, 2 buses and many hours later we arrived in Cervinia. Our land-lady said she would meet us at the bus stop with her car and help us get our bags to the apartment. The place we stayed in Milan was odd, with a communal bathroom out of the 1950s. It wasn’t a place to be high maintenance. It also wasn’t the best bed, although compared to many beds in Italy it was pretty darn comfy. The bottom line is that I arrived in Cervinia with dirty hair, chapped lips, dry skin, exhausted and slightly nauseous. From the window of the bus we saw our landlady waiting for us. She was a young unbelievably beautiful woman. She had on snow clothes that still managed to be sexy and hip (I am not sure how she did this) her lips were not chapped, her hair was not dirty and her skin was dewy and glowing. Sigh.

This flat we rented was one of the cheapest we could find. I did not expect it to be much, but when we arrived I was still disappointed. The oven was broken, so they had set out a hot plate. One refrigerator was broken, so they used it to store food, and added another refrigerator awkwardly behind the door. The hot plate and the laundry machine (which really is older than I am) share a single plug socket. The hot water heater is tiny. There are 3 different kinds of tile in the bathroom, all looking a little worse for wear.

Sigh again. This experience was going to be much more like camping than I had hoped.

Andrew and the Matterhorn

Still, there is a view of the Matterhorn from the bedroom and living room. The ski run ends almost at the door of the apartment. It is very warm and cozy.

Weekend in Munich: German Homestay

Moon over Munich

Sorry for the long laps between posts. It has been an exciting week here without a lot of time to write. Also, we no longer have access to the internet in our room, so everything is a bit harder. To get internet we have to go to a Russian restaurant in town and get drinks. The restaurant does not serve Russian food. It actually serves very beautiful Italian food that sometimes makes my stomach grumble while I am emailing. We call it Russian because there is a very large picture of Medvedev meeting the owner both outside the restaurant and prominently displayed inside. Also, there are signs in Russian everywhere.

Last weekend we were in Munich visiting Andrew’s friend from college Alex, his wife Birgit and their delicious baby Maximilian Aurelio. It was a weekend homestay with a real German family. Because their initials are B.. A…M (Brigit, Alex, Max) we call them BAM. Max is 7 months old, easy, giggly, comfortable with strangers and still much smaller than his name. Andrew and I became attached to Max immediately. As is apt to happen, Max fell in love with Andrew pretty darn quick. I don’t know what it is that he offers babies that induce love, but he is a baby magnet.

Andrew and Max. Note Max is wearing a Stanford shirt

A lot has happened since we left Munich, so I will just give a few highlights now:

-BAM took us to a beer hall which is a Munich institution. We were served beer, and delicious food by women in a dirndl. As the evening wore on, the same women in the dirndl took an interest in Max and all his cuteness. Munich is smoke free. More accurately, the entire state of Bavaria is smoke free. The people voted on the smoking ban in a referendum. The citizens voted for the state to be smoke free. I love it. It makes me optimistic for the rest of Germany and the rest of the world. It also meant that we could spend many happy hours in a beer hall with a baby and an asthmatic (that’s me) and be totally comfortable. Did I mention that the beer was delicious. Alex says it is not the best beer in Munich. We will have to go back to taste the best, because if this stuff was second best I have high hopes.

-We had brunch in the Archeology museum where we could eat surrounded by treasures (undoubtedly most of them stolen from Turkey. After visited pilfered ruins in Turkey it was interesting so see where those treasures ended up). BAM live in a dense, active, beautiful neighborhood filled with glorious civil buildings and grandeur. Alex says occasionally it is a bit distressing to remember a lot of the really grand buildings were used by or built by the Nazis. They are now repurposed into arts and civic buildings and they make for a nice stroll.

Urban Surfing in down town Munich

-Andrew and I got to explore Munich for an afternoon. I posted the video of the surfers. This was pretty mesmerizing stuff. It was cold, but they just kept going. The surfers were of a variety of skill levels and I could not decide which was more fun to watch, the guys were could stay up for a long time and do tricks or the guys who fell quickly and magnificently. We also wandered around the main squares of the city, which were filled with classical music groups, protesters and bachelor parties. (this video is not that interesting, but it does show a Bachelor party with everyone dressed up in traditional Bavarian clothing, and the groom to be in traditional Bavarian women’s clothing.

-Back to food: BAM made us a traditional German dinner of Raclette (ok, maybe it is a traditional Swiss dish, but our German home-stay family fed it to us, so I am going to say it is German too). It is a participatory meal where you get to make your own little potato and cheese dishes. Yumm.

-On Sunday Munich had unseasonably warm weather and we were able to walk comfortably around the palace gardens. Max slept comfortably in his pram and we enjoyed walking though a bit of nature. Andrew was even in his shirt sleeves for awhile, but he is freak. Did you know when it is really cold you can ice skate down a river by the Palace. The river goes for quiet awhile so it can be a long skate. I was grateful for the warmth, but also sad about missing the ice-skating. I have never ice-skated on something natural, and after crowded rinks with everyone going in a circle it would be a lot of fun to skate on a river.

We ate more, we drank more, we visited outdoor beer gardens and an indoor hip pub. We also played with Max a lot ensuring that he was so wound up he didn’t sleep much at night. One of the great benefits of visiting friends with babies is that you get to play with the baby, but you also get to sleep all night. I think from the parents’ perspective it is great to have visitors who want to play with the baby, but alas you don’t get to sleep at all at night. At one point Andrew looked at Max and said, “Maxillion, Maxamillion, if there were 1000 of you, you would be Max -a -billion.” I called the poor kid Max-a-billion for the rest of the weekend.

BAM + beer + sausage = Happy

On Monday we said good bye, kissed Max one last time behind the ear (the perfect place for baby kissing) and got on a very long train ride to Malian.

7.5 hours later we wheeled our stuff to a very odd, but cheap, BnB in a Milanian suburb. Yet Milan is a proper city, and a proper Italian city at that, so even though it was 9:30 at night, and even though we were no where near the center of town, there was a restaurant open that served us fantastic pasta. Ahh, Italy.

Innsbruck

I find it slightly odd when tour books describe regions, or cities, like women with specific personalities. (“If you are patient, Ljubljana will reveal her charms.”, “Laos is boisterous but with a quiet side.”) Yet after two days in Innsbuck, describing the city as a fickle, moody woman is really the only way to go.

When we arrived in Innsbruck, Austria on Wednesday, she was in a bad mood. It was grey and dark. We lugged our bags though town (not the pretty part) and checked into our hotel. Rather then go out and explore, we used the hotel’s wi-fi to do some trip planning and didn’t leave until dinner. It was dark and raining. The restaurant we had planned to go to was for smokers, so we ended up at a (delicious) Indian place full of students. There was nothing noteworthy about the town as we made our way back to our hotel. Other than everything being named “Tyrol” or “Tyrolean” it was just like everywhere else.

The next day we spent the morning exploring old town Innsbruck. Our tour book waxed poetic about the charms of Innsbruck. Apparently the mountains are stunning and the buildings historic. We didn’t see it. We did notice that the travel book store owner was particularly helpful. That afternoon I had wanted to go on a “winter wander” through the mountains above town. But, it was raining and grey, and I realized, with a little encouragement from Andrew, that this would be a miserable experience. Thus we had out highly interesting and educational trip to the municipal Sauna.

Friday, we had planned to stay in Innsbruck until 4:30 when we were catching the train to Munich to start our authentic German home-stay (i.e. stay with Andrew’s friend Alex, his wife, Birgit and their son, Max). Friday morning, we set our expectations for the town pretty low. We thought we could use the morning to stock up on gear for our Ethiopia trip since touring the town wasn’t feeling important. It was about noon on Friday when Inssbruck changed her mood, She decided to give us a show. The clouds went away, the mountains came out. The next thing I knew I was in a stunning Alpine town.

I realized why the tour books encouraged us to visit. Innsbruck is charming and it is surrounded by Mountains jetting up behind buildings. We tried to squeeze in as much Tyrolian beauty in the few hours we had left as possible. We took the funicular to the “Alpenzoo” This meant we got to visit buildings designed by Zaha Hadid and see lynxes. We also saw a few other Alpine animals before rushing down to make it to our train to Munich.

Weird Munich

There is a standing wave on the eisbach in Munch. People surf there. We watched. It was fantastic. Here are a few videos.

Urban Surfing in Munich from Kate Bedford on Vimeo.

Urban Surfing take two from Kate Bedford on Vimeo.

Coed Naked Sauna

At Lake Bled before our first co-ed naked sauna experience. We don't know the code yet, so we have bathing suits on under our robes

I am an American, born and bred. And Americans, as a group, are modest people. The country was founded by Puritans, don‘t forget. I remember as a kid at camp girls used to wear bathing suits into the shower so that other girls would not be able to see them naked. (Don’t think about that too hard: it was camp, no one was ever clean.) This is the world I come from, so this whole coed naked sauna thing is throwing me for a loop.

Did you know that the town of Innsbruck, Austria, with a population of about 115 thousand people, has four municipal saunas? Yep, there are four places run by the government to go and sweat in a wooden room naked with other people. All four have “mixed” days, i.e. both women and men are welcome. We are in Innsbruck today and we decided to try out this particular governmental service. Before we left we downloaded the instructions from the facility’s website and used google translate so we could read it in English. This was helpful, kind of.

4. In the sauna you put your bench towel under the body. The stay should short, but the effect can be intense. Therefore, sweating on the middle or upper bank. But not longer than 15 minutes. Rely on your quiet feeling.

5. Prone to feel the heat uniformly pleasant. The last 2 minutes but if you sit so that your circulation used to the upright posture and the blood does not suddenly sinks into the legs.

Now, unlike my campmates in elementary school, I am not modest. I have a reputation for blithely changing my clothes in front of people. In my defense these people tend to be my friends, and usually I both need to change and want to keep talking, so I change my clothes. Apparently some find this weird. I suspect my European friends find it weird that I am friends with people who find my lack of modesty weird. Ah, Americans, we truly are a modest people.

Andrew and I read about each of the 4 municipal saunas and picked the one that seemed best for today. Then we took the bus to the facility and walked inside. Quickly, I realized that I was not in a place for outsiders. Everywhere else in Austria signs are in German and English. In the Sauna, just German. We got our “tokens” and went inside. The first room is a locker room with changing space and a few guys taking off their clothes. Andrew got naked, I got naked and then it happened. An older man looked at me questioningly, not appalled or shocked, just questioningly. I looked around and I panicked. I realized I was standing in a locker room filled with men, I was the only woman in a place where I could not read the signs, and I was totally naked holding a bath-sheet. I become certain that I had gone into the men’s only locker room and gotten naked and all the men thought this was strange. I become convinced that in fact it is not a coed sauna, but a men’s sauna and I was the lone confused tourist wandering around in her birthday suit. The world slowed down for a minute and I realized I was living that horrible dream everyone has. You know that dream. You have your version, the one where you get off your bus in high school, never mind that you haven’t been in high school for decades and realize that you are naked and everyone is staring at you. I was living that dream. I was naked, convinced I was in the wrong place and totally unsure of what to do. I started saying to Andrew, “there are no women, I must have made a mistake, oh my god there are no women.” He did not seem concerned. I started looking around frantically when my savior finally arrived. A portly women, naked as a jay bird, with large bouncing breasts came walking down the hall. A woman, a naked woman. Thank god, there are naked women here. I didn’t wander into the men’s locker room. Everything was ok. Andrew looked at me confused. He couldn’t figure out why I panicked, it didn’t make any sense, we bought a ticket to get in together. An employee showed us the door. A man helped me use my token to enter. No one thought it was strange that I took off all my clothes. What was there to get wrong? He may have a point, but I would like to see how he would act totally surrounded by older naked women and not a man in sight. It is unsettling.

Once I got over my panic, we had a glorious time. We strode confidently into a sauna to sit and lie in the heat. It was full of almost all men and most were well over 60, but there was an occasional woman. No unnecessary modesty here. Folks had a towel to lie on, but not one to cover up with. Once I had enough heat I followed the instructions from google translate and took a cold shower. This was a shock and I did have a moment when I thought, “well it sure would be ironic if I had a heart attack here and never made it to the adventurous part of this trip” but in the end the cold water felt good. Then I went to the resting area and lay on a comfy chair and felt pretty fantastic. I could hear Andrew when he got into the shower, not that he said anything, but I recognized his breathing and then recognized when his breathing stopped for a second of shock.

After a rest we went back into the sauna. This time I looked around more. I think that was a mistake. The man sitting next to me looked eerily like the father of one of my childhood friends. It just felt slightly wrong and odd to be sitting, naked and sweating, with someone I knew as an 8 year old. Also, lets be honest for a second here, most people, myself included, look a little funny naked, especially sweaty naked (well, most people except Andrew, he’s dreamy). Best not to look.

We ended out visit with a trip to the steam room, which was darker, and therefore people were more comfortable chatting. Then it was time for showers and clothes. We are going again tomorrow, but to a different facility. This one is in an art nouveau building. Naked art nouveau. Who knew? For video click here :)

Vogal Slovenia

Lake Bohinj. Taken from the Gondola

This post is a about a week old. We were there January 5th and 6th. Alas it has been stuck in our computer until now.

Our next stop was the ski resort of Vogel. I had really wanted to see Lake Bohinj since everyone said it was even more smashing then Bled. As it happens there is a ski resort above the lake (yep pretty literally above 1535 meters above to be specific).

Andrew rolled the roll-y bag back down Tito's driveway and we waved good bye to palace life. We took the bus to Lake Bohinj and from there we transferred to a Gondola to take us up the mountain. When I looked up on our Gondola ride I saw a building perched precariously on the edge of the mountain. I thought to my self “oh #&*$ we are going to be staying in that building I am going to be terrified for the next 48 hours.”

This is me not so sure about this staying way up high on a mountain thing

You can take the girl out of California but you can’t take the fear of earthquakes out of the girl. As it turns out we were staying in a different building, perched, but not as precariously on a different part of the mountain. We got off the Gondola and found ourselves in happy ski land. The sun was shinning, the children were bundled, the skiers looked out of breath, all seemed well. Our instructions were to go to the pizza parlor and inside we would find reception. So Andrew rolled, but really dragged, the roll-y bag though the snow to the Pizza Parlor. Inside we found reception and checked in. The hostess showed us to our room and we tromped back out into the snow, roll-y bag again though the snow to a medium sized wooden building that looked both like it has seen better days and that it belonged in the Alps. We were staying in the hostel and our room was the last, with a window out the back. Hands down the view was the best we have had yet.

View out our window #1

View out our window #2

The room itself, however, was not the most posh. We had bunk beds (I got top) a sink that leaked water on the floor, a closet and that was about it. Alas the ceiling was sloped, so climbing into or out of the top bunk (or, for that matter, sitting up in the top bunk) was dangerous. At one point I woke up with a start and, whack, my head crashed against the ceiling. The bathroom was down the hall, which normally doesn’t bug me too much, but it was a damn cold hall some of those nights, so that was bummer. Also, there was no light in the ladies bathroom, so I had too keep the door open if I wanted to see anything. But I get ahead of myself.

I stole this picture to give you an idea of the place. Remote, up high and spread out. In this shot you can see our hostel, right bottom corner, the pizza place and the dinner spot. No real paths between them.

That afternoon it was too late to ski so we sat and had pizza, drank too much beer, and chatted with a Croatian family sitting nearby. It was sitting at the pizza parlor that I saw my first purple mermaid-style skiing skirt. Have you seen one before? Is this a trend i am missing. The best I could tell this woman liked to ski in a purple tafita dress. I tried to be discreet and video it so I could show folks. Not sure if it worked

Purple mermaid skiing Skirt from Kate Bedford on Vimeo.

Our hostel room included breakfast and dinner. That evening dinner was served at a bar on the other side of the main lift, which was the only place open on the mountain at night. Otherwise the mountain was empty. There were maybe 4 other parties eating dinner and some guys drinking beer, and that was it. Once the sun went down and the Gondola stopped, we were pretty much alone on that mountain. Dinner was delicious, and hearty, and all tan colored. Andrew use to have colleagues who would only eat tan colored food. They would have been happy here. Walking back from dinner, through the snow, we could see tons of stars. We stared up and noticed how stunning they were for about 3 seconds and then we realized how unbelievably cold it was, and moved as fast as we could to get inside. That night was not a good night of sleep for me. The wind came howling up the valley behind the hostel and hit our window something fierce. The hostel was empty besides us which was also a bit creepy. It started snowing and the wind was going crazy and I started to do some thinking. What if the Gondola can't run tomorrow because of the wind? There is no other way down. Or up for that matter. How would we get food? We would be stuck. On the other hand, maybe it is just always this windy in the mountains and I have just never stayed in an old building in the former Yugoslavia in the snow before. I had all night to ponder these questions.

When the alarm went off at 7 am I looked out the window. It was dark, wet and windy. Some slightly unkind words came out of my mouth that can best be summarized as, “Andrew, my dear love, you may get up and go out in the snow for breakfast followed by a lovely day of skiing, but I would prefer to stay in bed a bit longer.” I am sure that is how it sounded to him.

At 8, the sun had come out a bit more and I was willing to consider getting out of bed. I dragged my sleep deprived self into warm warm clothes and over to breakfast where I had some of the world’s worst coffee. I felt cursed. A storm had come in over night, thus all the wind, and brought with it wetness and clouds. We rented skis. wind be damned, snow be damned because we were going skiing gosh darn it. Alas, since it was windy there were only two “lifts” open, one of which was a tow rope. After about 2 hours of the worst skiing of my life, most of that time spent standing in line for the tow rope, I decided this just wasn’t worth it. It was silly. I am not even sure you could call these spots of slope “runs“. In Kirkwood they would simply be connectors between other runs.

This is another picture I stole to show you what one of the two open "runs" looks like-- only imagine it gray, and wet and windy.

It was cold, it was wet, the line was long and disorganized, the snow icy and the 2 runs short. On the way up to the café to get some hot chocolate I chatted with an older Croatian man. We agreed that it was not a day for skiing, it was a day for hot chocolate. Andrew, who was, and is, far more determined then I am to make a go of this skiing thing, kept at it. He kept at it after lunch too. I, however, crawled into bed, red a Stieg Larson book, listened to the wind hit the window and took a nap.

That night on the way back from dinner there were no stars to see. They were covered by the storm clouds. The food was still delicious, and still brown. I slept a bit better that night, the wind was just as strong, but I was a bit more use to it. The next morning I looked out the window and in was raining, actually raining. Again I said a variety of unkind things about my unwillingness to leave my warm bed at 7am to peruse sliding down a wet mountain on sticks. Andrew agreed. Eventually I hauled myself into clothes and into breakfast for more bad coffee. We packed up, and wearing our ski clothes because they are both warm and waterproof in the rain, got onto the Gondola to go down the mountain. There was a very long line to get onto that Gondola going down. The line, as far as I could tell, was mostly full of skiers who got to the top of the mountain looked around and thought, “acck man, this is not worth it.”

The irony of this story: Despite so much going wrong, bad coffee, bad sleep, bad sinks and really the worst skiing of my life by far, I am still really glad we went. It was a trip. It was a little like camp, but I was allowed to drink beer and go into the sauna (naked with strangers no less, I wonder if I will ever get over the novelty of the coed naked sauna thing). It felt like an adventure. I never did really see that lake except from above. It was too cold to go walking, and anyway, you can’t drag a roll-y bag though the snow indefinitely.

From Vogal we went to a far more established ski place. We stayed in a hotel at the bottom of the mountain, with a working bathroom in our room. As luck would have it, that storm followed us to the next place dumping wet warm air all over the slopes. We spent a lovely rainy day not skiing, but planning the next stages of our trip. This was probably for the best.

Kitzbuehel

I have a long blog post about our adventures in Vogel, Solvenia stuck on my laptop. Alas, we don't have access to wireless right now, so I will have to wait to post that. In the meantime a quick update. We are back in Austria, which is nice if pricy, especially after being in Solvenia. We are staying in Kitzbuehel, a posh ski town in the Tyrol. An Austrian man explained to Andrew that Kitbuehel had some of the best skiing, but was posh, with all the good and bad that goes along with being posh.

First the good:
The town is adorable. The mountain dotted with lovely huts filled with delicious food. The skiing is the best we have found so far, although that is really not saying much. There hasn't been much snow yet this year, so the conditions are not that great. This town also knows how to eat after a day of skiing and we have had some Austrian speicialities that knocked our socks off. Who knew, right?

Then the bad:
The town is taken over with clothing stores selling 1800 euro men's coats and 600 euro women's sweaters. That is not bad, necessarly, it is not like I was planning on going shopping. Still the place has that smell of money and its share of women who look like they belong in Park City, showing of thier designer handbags. It is a posh tourist town, they are pretty much the same everywhere as far as I can tell.

Side note:
This morning we were eating breakfast and the man at the table next to talked our ears off.
We learned all about the local skiing hero from the 1950s. I kept having to remind myself we are here for cultural experiences, not to ski, if we get to the slopes 30 minutes later, but know all about the local skiing legend that was good.

OK that is all for now

More Lake Bled

Lake Bled is so lovely, I wanted to share a few more pictures that didn't fit into our first post.




Oh and I wanted to share a little Andrew story. We went to the Church of the Assumption on the island in Lake Bled. Inside the church there is a "wishing bell." The instructions for the "wishing bell" is to ring the bell three times. Andrew decided if he had to ring the bell 3 times he would make 3 wishes. The first two are none of your business. The third however is priceless. He wished that Jim Harbaugh would stay at Stanford. Now that is a fan.

Ljubljana, Lake Bled

(written by Andrew, picture selection and video by Kate)

Pronunciation note: Ljubljana is a Slavic name. For those unfamiliar with the mysteries of the Slavic languages, let me inform you that it is properly pronounced “el-joob-el-jana”. OK, back to the post.

Traveling to Slovenia was a last-minute decision. We had stumbled upon information that Slovenia had instituted an indoor smoking ban in 2009 while investigating routes from Venice to Vienna. A few days before leaving Salzburg we found that one of the direct destinations available via train was Ljubljana. And that was that, a hotel was booked, train tickets were bought and we were off to Slovenia.

We were staying a tad outside of the city center as most of the hotels were booked by new years revelers. According to a cab driver our first night, 50,000 people had been partying in the center of Ljubljana the night before. Note: Ljubljana is a city of 230,000 people. The old city center was full of lights, food and drink stalls, and multiple stages for live music. Both nights we were there (1 Jan and 2 Jan) bands played all evening long. Given our state of exhaustion we passed up partying in order to stretch out in the splendor that was our foamy-goodness of a bed.

We wandered the streets of Ljubljana, went to the castle, saw an amazing exhibit on Slovenian history (especially fascinating after WWII) and ate non-Austrian food.

History sidebar: Slovenia engaged in a 10 day war with the Yugoslav army when it seceded. Slovenia was the first of the Balkan states to break off from Yugoslavia and it was the first state from behind the iron curtain to join the EU. More interesting facts about recent Slovenian history can currently be found in the Ljubljana castle.

Funicular sidebar: you can walk to and from the castle, or you can take an automated conveyance to the top for a small fee. The question is: is it still a funicular if there is only one car, one straight section of track with no bypass, and the counterweight is stack of concrete weights?

Ljubljana lights at night from Kate Bedford on Vimeo.

Ljubljana is a beautiful city. It is unexpectedly majestic, it is full of wonderful bike paths, the buses are comprehensive, if sometimes confusing when they switch into night mode, and the taxis enticingly cheap. Kate and I noticed all of this, and looked at each other and agreed that we were done with cities for a while. We may notice all of this magnificence but we weren’t able to fully appreciate it. We’ll come back to Ljubljana and see it proper-like.

Wearing our "Rufus" costumes

When I mentioned to some friends on the interwebs that we were headed to Ljubljana, Anne, my online scrabble buddy (Kate calls her my Scrabble mistress) and Cisco colleague, recommended going to Lake Bled. We started doing a little research, the first hotel that came up is in a building that used to be one of Tito’s palaces. It would be a splurge, but it was within an acceptable deviation of our budget goal. We splurged and booked 2 nights with half-board, at Vila Bled, a sumptuous hotel on the shore of Lake Bled. We even got a lake view from our room. This was a nice step up from the floor-nest in which Kate slept in Salzburg.

The view from our window

We may be the first guests to arrive at this hotel via the bus. We got off the bus, rolled our bags up the snow covered sidewalk and pulled into the long driveway leading to the hotel. All I want to say is that BMWs, Audis and Mercedes can’t hold a candle to a nice warm bus being driven by someone else.

Roll-y Bag into Tito's Palace from Kate Bedford on Vimeo.

I’d like to be able to say that I’ve now slept in the same bed as Tito, but I imagine that the guests who book the “Tito Suite” can more reasonably (if still falsely) make that claim.

Church on the island in Lake Bled

Bed sidebar: for those that don’t know, two-ish years before Kate and I went to Stanford, Tiger Woods went there for a year. And guess who slept in Tiger’s bed every night for a year? That’s right, my freshman room-mate, Mike Lai. I have the much envied distinction of having slept next to Tiger’s bed for a year.


What did we do in Lake Bled? We slept, we walked around the lake, we took the boat to the island in the middle of the lake with the pretty church, we hiked up to the castle along a footpath that was closed due to weather and construction but missing important signage noting this fact at ground level, we ate wonderful meals at Vila Bled and made use of their sauna and steam room. We also miraculously tuned the TV on one night to a replay of the second half of the Orange Bowl with a commentator commentating away in Slovenian. It was pretty awesome.

Orange Bowl in Slovenian TV from Kate Bedford on Vimeo.

Sauna/steam room sidebar: We are not in America anymore. Kate doesn’t have to wear any clothes in the sauna to appease other people’s sense of modesty, neither did I, neither does anyone else who’s used saunas and steam rooms with us in Slovenia (Interestingly, they are all Austrian). Sweating in a sauna naked is a much more pleasant way to sweat in a sauna than sweating through layers of towels and or swim trunks. Warning: expect far more Naked Andrew the next time you see me. Click here for the video.

Beer hall fun

Thought you might like a quick video look into a Austrian beer hall

Andrew in augustiner keller from Kate Bedford on Vimeo.

Salzburg Part 2

This is no so much a blog post, as a collection of pictures from our time in Salzburg


Salzburg is known for its phenomenal Baroque churches. We loved this one.


As we walked around town we saw lots of children dressed up as kings following stars asking for money. I am assuming they were being the three wise men. I found it very strange that some of them were dressed up in black face. Really? Black face? Had to get a picture of that. They also sang. I used my flip video camera to capture that. After watching the video, however, I thought I would spare you all the kids singing.



One afternoon Mom, Roger and I took a tour of the lakes and mountains around Salzburg. We visited a few towns that were beautifully lit for Christmas. We also took a few pictures in the winter wonderland that was Austria in December.
Cute eh?
Handsome couple