Greetings!
I know most of my friends stateside are cursing snow these days. All I seem to hear is how deep the snow is, how cold the air is, and how crazy the Governor is for letting the schools remain open.
Well, last week and this week the schools in my city took turns enjoying a break at the end of the semester. One week for half the city, the next week for the other half of the city. It's an awkward system when you've got two kids going to schools in different parts of Prague, but somehow we always find one of the lads who's willing to take an extra day or two off.
We actually headed south for some skiing this year.
This winter in the Czech Republic the weather has been entirely too warm. We've had barely any snow. No sign of it in Prague these days. We'll be buried in blossoms before long if this continues.
So yeah, we headed south into the Austrian Alps and skied for 4 days in the Lungau area near Mariapfarr which is a pretty little town best known for claiming to be the birthplace of the Christmas carol "Silent Night"
More pictures, more or less without commentary have been swept under the ginger hairball--
The local castle:
We had a variety of weather in Austria: it snowed the day we drove in, the next day there were low clouds and we spent much of the day skiing above, through and below them:
Anybody remember me writing about the Czech tradition of carolers dressing as the Three Kings (as in "We three kings of orient are ...") and chalking their initials over doorways as a sort of blessing? They do it in Austria too.
It was so nice to finally experience some deep snow. The lower elevations in Austria were just as green as home. After finally having had that chance to romp about a bit in the snow it feels more natural to be seeing the early spring bulbs already showing off boldly in February. I'm dreading the inevitable frosts that should be appearing for months yet.
I'm eager to start planting my garden.