Innsbruck Ski Trip

First, sorry about the lack of posts, but as you'll see below, our recent spate of health issues continued into February.  Not that we let that defeat us!

With school starting in Mid-Sept and going through July, February is when the first semester ends and the second one begins.  So, the public school kids are off for a week in mid-February as a "semester break."  But because of the relative madness of our lives heading up to the break (Sue in the hospital twice, my trip back to the US, etc.), we really had nothing planned.  We had talked about Italy and had a friend coming for a ski trip, but we'd only overlap for a day, so we didn't pursue that.  We had another friend coming to Innsbruck for a conference, but it was a 6-hour train ride and Sue had a follow-up doctor's appointment and I still needed to finish a big proposal.  So, we settled on a compromise.  Stay home for most of the break, rent a car to go skiing or sledding once, and take a short train trip into Slovenia or Hungary or something.  That way, we'd get in skiing, a train trip, and could take care of our things at home.  Sounds like a plan, huh?

Well, then Grace comes home school on the last day before break and declares that she told her whole class she was going skiing in Innsbruck for break.  The things kids hear/pick up on when you don't think they are really paying attention!  So, Friday night, I booked us a hotel and train tickets ... to Innsbruck!

Pretty much as soon as I did, Sue said, "I'm not feeling that great ... I think I'm getting a cold."  Well, that always gives us pause around our house, and with Henry having missed almost all of the week with a nasty high fever, bad cough virus, we were both thinking, "uh oh."  And sure enough, by noon on Saturday, both Grace and Sue had succumbed to the virus.  But we thought, if they are over this in 2-3 days, we'll still be in good shape to get onto the train on Wed at noon.

As you might have already guessed, with 3 of the 4 folks in a small apartment having succumbed to a virus, it was just a matter of time for me.  And that came by noon on Monday for me.  I did as much work as I could on my proposal Monday morning and then came home Monday afternoon to sleep.  We were hoping this went through me as quickly as it did for Sue and Grace (2 bad days and then getting better).  Being the eternal optimist, I didn't cancel our hotel or change our train tickets.

But with Sue having to pick up the slack on Monday while I was down, that stressed her compromised health state and she had to go to the lung doctor on Tuesday to get some antibiotics for a lung infection!  I'm still in bed and the kids are bouncing off the walls.  I kept thinking, at least the train will keep them interested, right?

So, Wednesday morning dawns with a Sue that is feeling a lot better than the day before and I'm not feeling too bad.  We decide to make the trip.  The first leg is to take all our stuff (read into this, all of our ski clothes, helmets, etc. on top of other stuff, like toys and clothes, for a 4-day trip) on two buses to get to the train station.  We had so much stuff one of our only-German speaking neighbors wondered if we were returning to the US!

By the time we arrived at the train station, I was a puddle of fever-induced sweat.  I could barely function properly and couldn't stand having the sun beat down on me in our train car.  It was not fun.

But amazingly, the kids did great on the train ride.  I say "amazingly" because 6 hours is a long time to be confined.  But they were constantly entertained by things going on outside.  And after an hour or so, there was snow everywhere, sometimes REALLY deep.  They also liked our 6-passenger compartment.  And they liked going out in the "hall" and goofing around.  Sue and I were so thankful!

As we headed into the station I started dreading another session of dragging our stuff around.  And even though the hotel was only 500m from the train station, I called them to ask if they had a shuttle!  But guess what?  Our friend Bill who was in town for the conference ... he met us at the train and carried the heaviest bag to the hotel ... our hero!

Ok, enough with the play by play :-)  We spent Thursday exploring the city, including the Tyrolean native folk museum (Innsbruck is in the state of Tyrol).  I spent the afternoon back at the hotel recovering.

Henry and Grace on the bunny hill.

On Friday and Saturday we all went skiing.  It was rough going at the start for Henry, but after the first trip down the bunny hill, he did great.  It was low key enough for me that skiing with a fever was feasible.  And I even tried the "olympic course" on Saturday, which was scary, but absolutely gorgeous scenery from the top.  You can see why Innsbruck dubs itself "capital of the Alps."  And a little trivia:  Innsbruck has hosted the winter olympics two times (1964 and 1976) and both times they won the pride-and-joy event, the men's downhill (Egon Zimmermann and Franz Klammer).

Grace, Russ and Henry skiing outside of Innsbruck, Capital of the Alps!

Bill and Susan (CELDi Retreat in Wyoming in 2008).

Friday night we had dinner with our friend, Bill, and helped him celebrate his birthday, complete with the kids singing him "Happy Birthday."  He said it was the best birthday he'd had for a while.  Of course, every other year he spends it at this conference :-) It was great to have time with Bill.  He and his wife Susan have been two of our most supportive friends this year.  They spent a year in Munich on sabbatical when their son, Garland, was 9.  They understand what we're going through like few others and have always been there for us with advice, lending us travel bags, etc.  And they forever endeared themselves to Grace and Henry with Bill bringing mac and cheese (Grace) and yogurt raisins (Henry) -- he also brought some Tylenol for the "old folks."

The train ride back on Sunday was another good experience.  The kids discovered that you could make the seats into half beds and they took full advantage.  We arrived back in time for a normal dinner time and bed time.  I wish I could say that I was all better, but I survived and Grace could tell all her friends about her traditional winter break spent skiing :-)

Russ