Frohe Weihnachten! - December 22 - 29, 2007

Merry Christmas friends and family!! We have just returned from a week long trip in Saint Anton am Arlberg, Austria and it was FABULOUS. As this was our first vacation in over a year we were thrilled!! (I know, I know..we've been doing a lot of traveling..but we have yet to stay somewhere for more than 3 consecutive nights..and we missed our beach vacation with the move...). This time we opted to drive, which would have been perfect had we not hit horrendous traffic. Total trip time: 8 hours. We stayed at an awesome hotel in Saint Anton, Hotel Anton. The family which owned it was so hospitable and upon our arrival gave us a personalized tour of the entire hotel! (Sorry, you just don't get that with Marriott and Sheraton these days..). Having spent 7 days there you might imagine we have a lot to say...so I am going to move to bullet points to hopefully make this move along:

1. Christmas. So yes. It was our first Weinachten away from home..and it was definitely hard. We exchanged presents in Frankfurt prior to departing which were very small, as our trip was our present to each other. Our hotel had a holiday party on Chirstmas eve and all of the guests gathered for canapes and champagne (yum!). Then the family that owned the hotel had us light candles on the tree and sparklers as well, in lieu of having trees in our rooms. I kid you not, we thought the place was going to burn down and the entire time we were gathered around the tree singing German Christmas carols we were also looking for the fastest way out! It is German and Austrian tradition to put your tree up the night before Christmas...which seems like a great idea when you are planning to add some "fire" in the mix...dry trees probably wouldn't fair to well. We were lucky in that we met a lot of people in our ski classes and hung out with them all week. For Christmas dinner we enjoyed some pizza at the Pomodoro.

2. Ski Class. So...Saint Anton is apparently one of the best ski resorts for "the real skier" in the world. Yikes! The hills were ginormous and the easy slopes in St. Anton equate to intermediate slopes in any other resort. Add all of that up...and you have a beginner's nightmare! We signed up for ski lessons the first day thinking it would take us a day to get the hang of it and then we could swoosh swoosh our way down the hills. FAT CHANCE. After one day it was quite clear that we were in a bit over our heads. Three days later we were finally starting to go down some of the easy (blue) slopes. At this point Shaun decided he was too advanced for our class and graduated to the next level. Needless to say we both took lessons ALL week and had a great time meeting new people. The mountains were crazy. You'd be skiing down a huge mountain..and there were restaurants, stores and even bars! I admire the cajones of the owners of these establishments ..trying to charge me 7 EUR for a bowl of Goulash soup!! But then again...I am the one stranded on a mountain...

Pic of the "advanced class:"

3. I don't like skiing. Shaun did awesome in his new class, albeit, I don't think they had the fine-tuned form of my fellow classmates, but who is to judge? In the end..my fear of heights and speed clearly took over my legs. After a few bouts of tears on the slopes (which paid off as my super cute teacher, Dario the Argentinian, gave me a hug to cheer me up!) I finally gave up on the 6th day. I know..many of you are probably pretty shocked considering my athletic prowess and coordination..but for kicks..here is a video of me going down a little bunny slope. (Just to clarify: I love everything about a ski vacation EXCEPT the actual skiing).

4. Apres Ski. WE LOVED Apres Ski. There is something about getting together with a bunch of people at an outdoor bar and grabbing a few drinks after a long day of skiing that is so fun! They serve the gluewein and the hot chocolate with rum too! Every day after class we would meet up and hang out at apres ski for an hour before heading back to clean up for dinner.

5. What a cute town!! There is something about being in a ski town that makes you feel isolated from the world. St. Anton was so incredibly gorgeous. On the last day there while Shaun was off being Jonny Moseley I spent the day with a classmate, Lizzie, and climbed (via ski lifts) to the highest peak in Saint Anton, Valluga at 2,811 meters. From there we could see Italy, Germany and Austria and it was truly one of the most beautiful things I have ever seen.

It was an awesome trip and we met some awesome people whom we hope to stay in touch with. I can't think of a better way for us to spend our first Christmas away. While we missed everyone at home dearly, we really had such a great time..here's to Saint Anton in 2008! Click the album below for more pics!

St. Anton (Christmas 2007)