Learning to ski!

After not having been too well for a couple of days, I was a bit nervous to go to the Dolomites with some of my best friends for a skiing trip. One little difficulty - I don´t know how to ski. At all. It took a little while for my instructor to believe me ;) Alex Ploner really had to start from scratch. But what can you do when you spend childhood and youth in the German flatlands in Bremen, far away from the mountains, and when you really always preferred to run away to Australia in winter...?
Anyway, I felt fit enough on Saturday and we started on the training hill. Alex is a great teacher, it was a lot of fun and really easy to run down the slopes with him. I had been a little scared of the cold (we had minus 15...), but with the right gear, you will stay warm, dry and comfortable.
Of course I could not keep up with the "pros" - Regina, Bob, Tim, Andi and Alex are real racers! - but it was fun to see the progress and eventually be able to kind of control the runs at faster speeds as well. And then - we were in the most spectacular scenery, the Dolomites! I must admit that Ive never seen these mountains covered in snow before ;) It was great to try something new, to start as a real beginner, and to see my friends look after me well, with a lot of fun and patience. Thanks guys for a really really great time! And also thanks to Andrea (also a hang glider pilot and friend of Alex) for the great pizza in his restaurant Rifugio Piz Sorega and "mille grazie" to Alex´family - we stayed in their beautiful hotel Gran Paradiso! If you ever want to go skiing in the most beautiful mountains in the world, stay in San Cassiano at their place, it is magical!