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Vienna 1971—A Student Journal
A year of music, study, travel, sightseeing & friends.

Day 154 — Great skiing at Valluga
03-January-1972 (Mon.)

TRANSCRIPT

St. Anton
Es Schneet. Aber nur ein wenig.

Well, the whole day, it was snowing a little, but no difference in conditions. It just made it harder to see.

Morning. I had a lesson. Today, the lesson was normal. And so I learned something. We also practiced. I seem to be getting better and am doing an awful lot of skiing.

In the afternoon, I was on my own and went to Valhalla [actually, Valluga]. Very high station. It was beautiful snow conditions and the slope was not tremendously too hard. I had this most enjoyable (except for once, when I knocked two people over), run down to a dead end. Great snow, scenery, very few people. However, I had to take a taxi back to St. Anton.

At night, went to a live-band bar and had a pretty good time. Met an Austrian girl and danced a lot. Very enjoyable.


REFLECTIONS

German Grammar Girl. I often suspect that my German grammar is also not very good. I need a German Grammar Girl. It’s snowing.

Snow in St. Anton. It snows most of the day but not enough to make the conditions different. A morning ski lesson—we are back to skiing basics. In the afternoon, I head off to the summit of Valhalla. That is the very large cable-car lift (not ski lift, but cable car) that goes to the top of the summit of Valluga, not Vallhala. Yesterday’s picture has that image, and I’ll post the small image left. Here the conditions are great. And I spend the whole afternoon skiing down to the bottom. I am not near any ski lifts and so I must take a taxi back to town. Now, that’s something I have never done before. That's a big mountain.

Valluga—Valhalla. [Update] I learned a lot in a year of not blogging. When I first wrote this post and in my journal, I said that I went to Valhalla. Not true. Valhalla is a majestic hall found in Norse mythology, and is also found in Wagner’s operatic Ring cycle, Der Ring des Nibelungen. Instead, I went to the 9,400 foot Valluga peak. It would be pretty tough skiing down a mythical hall or castle.

A great day of skiing.

Don Juan. At night, Mr. Don Juan hits a bar with live music and spends a bit of time dancing with an Austrian girl. I like to dance. Funny, back in the States, it would be harder for me to be asking girls to dance. I suppose it is something about being overseas—Mr. International, or something.

John

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Tags: St. Anton, skiing, ski school, Grammar Girl, Valluga