Wife in the Fast Lane: BUZZARD SKI TRIP 2013

I'm finally playing catch up! Expect a few more posts in the coming week! And a HUGE shout out to my friend Liz Dowd that let me use all of her photos from the weekend because I didn't have my camera with me!
Enjoy!

FRIDAY, JANUARY 18

After many months of planning, the Buzzard Ski Trip finally arrived! Nick and I drove up to Innsbruck, Austria with our friends Sarah and Brad Zimmerman. After a 4 hour drive from Sacile, Italy, we were the first to arrive at Hotel Innsbruck right in the heart of the city. Once most of the 60 squadron members and families arrived to the Hotel, we started the weekend off with a raffle. We had about 30 prizes that included: a kindle, a digital camera, apple TV and an iPad Mini. Nick described each item, while I held it up to show the squadron and our friend Sarah drew the raffle tickets. The first person to win a prize was ...NICK! Everyone thought the raffle was rigged because we won the first prize; however, we won a HUGE bottle of champagne, so we let the squadron have it since we don't drink. Later in the night, we also won a 48-hour Innsbruck Card that allowed us to ride the city buses and get into every museum for free. (It came in much more useful than the bottle of champagne.) The night went off without a hitch!

This is the main shopping street in Innsbruck which was just around the corner from our Hotel.

We lucked out with some beautiful sunny days while we were there. This is one of the views from the bridge in front of our hotel.

SATURDAY, JANUARY 19
Early in the morning, 40 of us hopped on a private bus and headed to Stubai Glacier (yes, a glacier!) for some skiing/snowboarding about 50 minutes from Innsbruck. The Glacier's highest point was 11,000 feet above sea level! (Our hotel in Innsbruck is at 2000 feet above see level and our home in Italy is only 400 feet.) The air was a little bit thinner up on the glacier, but the snow was amazing!! For the first time in my life, I got to experience real powder! I think I have to be a little better at snowboarding to really appreciate it because I kept getting stuck in it, and I would have to unbury myself and crawl out. I certainly got my exercise in for the day!
I also got to experience my first black diamond with moguls! (not by choice!) I don't really want to admit this, but I MIGHT have had a melt down on the mountain as I was scooting down the black diamond on my behind. It was awfully nice of Nick to think I could handle a black diamond with moguls on my fourth day of snowboarding. :) Actually, I don't think Nick knew that we were approaching a black diamond...at least I don't think he did! :) In any case, I survived! After a nice cup of hot chocolate with whip cream in the lodge, I had mostly forgotten that experience.
At 4:30 we all got back on the bus, and headed back to the hotel. That night we purposely didn't plan any event, so everyone could get out and explore the town.

We found a great Thai restaurant around the corner from our hotel with our friends the Zimmermans and the Dowds. It's nice to have a variety of ethnic food because Italy doesn't really have a wide variety. After dinner, our friends Liz and Tom Dowd told us about geocaching. Geocaches are small waterproof containers hidden all over the world that have logbooks inside of the containers where geocachers enter the date they found it and sign it with their code name. The Dowd's have done geocaching all over the world, so we thought we would help them find some in Innsbruck. We walked down the alley to the famous Golden Dachl (golden roof) and we found our first geocache within about 5 minutes with the help of an iPad app. Our first full day was eventful and slightly exhausting, but so much fun!

Golden Dachl

Liz finding one of many geocaches.

SUNDAY, JANUARY 20

The next morning, about 30 people including Nick headed up to Stabai Glacier again. I chose to stay in the city and do some exploring after a nice hour-long massage. I've only had a few massages in my life, and I must say Europeans are much more open about nudity than Americans. Normally, the masseuse leaves when you undress/dress, and keeps a towel covering the necessary body parts during the massage, but NOT IN AUSTRIA! I'll just say, I was grateful I had an masseuse and not a masseur. :)
After my slightly exposed massage, I met up with my friend Liz and we headed out to the Swarovski's Crystal World. We were told we could catch the shuttle bus just around the corner from our hotel, but when we arrived, there were at least 10 different bus stops along the street. As we were contemplating exactly where we should wait, our bus drove by. I immediately ran out into the street to wave the bus down, but he didn't stop until he was a quarter mile down the road. Liz was wearing heels, so I sprinted ahead. Right when I reached the back of the bus, the driver closed the doors and started to leave. I banged on the bus and got him to stop. I was so out of breath when he finally opened the doors that I couldn't explain to the driver that there were more people coming except by pointing back toward where I had just run. (so much for that relaxing massage! Ha!) I was grateful to have caught the bus at that time; otherwise, we would have had to wait several hours for the next one.

I hadn't heard much about the Swarovski Crystal World before going, so I didn't have high expectations. I imagined it would look a lot like a jewelry store. I really just wanted to see the main fountain at the entrance, which looks like a green giant with water coming from its mouth.
The crystal world was SO much more than just a jewelry store. It was a sensory overload. It was almost a performance with art pieces. In each of the 14 rooms everything is meticulously planned and placed from the color of the walls, to the lighting of each room, to each magnificent piece of art work displayed. One of my favorite rooms was the Crystal Dome. You feel like you walked into a huge crystal. You're surrounded by 595 mirrors and the lighting is constantly changing.
After walking through the museum, we walked around the gardens to a Labyrinth formed by bushes in the shape of a hand. The maze was pretty simple (but fun!), so we headed back to the bus.
We still had about an hour until the skiers got back from Stubai, so we headed to a Tirolean Museum. The museum had modern and ancient Tirolean art, but it didn't compare to the Crystal World. Next we walked to the Golden Dachl Museum near our Hotel. We were the only people in the museum, so we stayed until it closed. We learned all about the life and times of Emperor Maximilian I, and the Golden Roof which is the symbol for Innsbruck. (see pic above)

The green giant of The Swarovski Crystal World

He has a frozen beard right now!

Keith Haring cross-shaped stele

Laying down inside the crystal

This room was designed by Susanne Schmogner. It seemed like something straight out of a dream. Can you imagine describing to someone that you saw a Zebra in a pink shoe?

This was called the Ice Passage. Every time you took a step, crystals would form behind you on the floor. Liz and I were running around like little kids. :)

This was another fun exhibit. The computer screen mimicked your movements with patterns. I sort of look like I'm doing a work out video.

This was the fun labyrinth we did in 5.1 seconds. We may have planned out our route before hand. (pun intended)

After the skiers returned, the entire squadron got on a bus and headed to a real Tyrolean dinner. We were served Austrian food, and watched the Gundolf family perform typical Tyrolean dances and songs including yodeling and shoe-slapping. The men wore leather lederhosen and the women wore dirndls. A squadron favorite was a song about a cow. The woman singing it let out a deep, guttural, "Moooooooo," and then would continue the song by yodeling. None of us could keep a straight face during her performance. At the end, one of the pilots gave her a standing ovation. The woman pointed at him and gave him a "Mmoooooooooo." Haha! She had a great since of humor. It was hilarious!
The ladies in the squadron enjoyed a dance called the,"jealousy dance." Two men were fighting over the affection of one lady, so the men had a dance-off! At one point in the dance, one man picked the other man upside down and they start slapping each other in the rear! Our squadron was in hysterics! Some of the pilots shot Nick some dirty looks as if to say, "What kind of show did you bring us to?"

This was a hammer dance. Some of the wood went flying into the guests dinner...but the performers could have cared less!

Didn't believe me, did you!? Here's a picture of the slapping mentioned earlier!

On the left is SHAG, one of the squadron members. On the right is one of the performers. Don't they look like they were separated at birth? Brothers from other mothers'.We begged them to get a photo together.

Here I am with Liz: my sister from another mister.

At the end, all the wives got up to take a photo onstage.

MONDAY, JANUARY 21
At 11am the next morning most of the squadron headed 25 minutes toward the town of Igls for BOBSLEDDING on an Olympic bobsledding course!!! When we arrived we weren't given any instructions, safety briefing, or safety gear except for a helmet. We were all bused to the top of the hill in the back of a truck like cattle. (It was almost as exciting as bobsledding!) We got off the truck and were handed a helmet, and instructed to get in groups of 5. (We had 20 people exactly, so the numbers worked out perfectly) I was immediately volunteered to go in the very first group that included only girls. Whoohooooo! We got our helmets on, the driver got in, we took a few pics, and OFF WE WENT!!! STRAIGHT DOWN a hill of ice! We were screaming at the top of our lungs! As we rounded the first corner, we all realized this was much faster than we had all anticipated. We kept gaining more and more speed. Our heads bounced in unison as we would enter and exit a turn. The top speed we reached was 55mph. We finished the course in just over 45 seconds. Once we realized we were all still alive, we got out and cheered!! It was much more exciting than any roller coaster I've ever been on! I would DEFINITELY do it again!

After we grabbed a bite to eat at the bobsled cafe, some of us headed down the road to a try our hands at curling!! This was not normal curling with a broom and stone though. The "curling" we tried was more like the game of bocci ball on ice. We each had a stone to throw toward a wooden block on the ice. Whoever got their stone closest to the wooden block won! I was not as good at "curling" as I had hoped, but Nick proved to be pretty proficient at it. It was not nearly as exciting as bobsledding, but we all had a good time and it was a great way to end a fun weekend.

Looking slightly scared and excited!! BOBSLED TIME!

Some of our friends were standing waiting for their turns on the left, an instructor was on the right and the course was waiting right in front of us!