Gabi is on my tail, skiing faster than ever. We are back in Kolfuschg/Colfosco in the Dolomites. Today weski on rock -hard slopes under a sunny blue sky. We start in Colfosco, head up Boe and cross over to Pralongia. There are no lift lines and we cover a lot of slopes. It is very cold and we warm up in one of the numerous restaurant/huts. In the afternoon our skis take us down Col Alto and Stella Alpina or Edelweiss Tal. After all this work, we are the first guests in our sauna at the Hotel Gran Ciasa, warming up our cold bodies. From our balcony, we can see the sun setting over an impressive rocky Alpine panorama. The vertical cliffs surrounding us should be called the Rocky Mountains!
“Es passt?” or “it fits?” is what our Austrian waiter asks us at every meal. We are in Kirchberg and everything fits.(is ok) After 2 days of alpine skiing, we are taking a break and spend the day in the WWW. No, not the internet, but a spa: Wörgl Wasser Welten. Gabi and I have the outdoor pool and bubble beds all to ourselves. Later, we work our way through several aroma saunas. A new experiènce is the salt water pool: we float in the high saline pool and listen to underwater music. After serious skiing, we deserve some serious relaxation. Besides, it is snowing again in Austria!
The Kitzbuehel mountains have ten feet of snow. It snows for the first three days of our vacation and a lot of lifts are closed due to “sturm”. Finally we ski on Wednesday and Thursday. Two picture perfect days with blue skies and good powder on groomed slopes. We begin our mountain assault on the heated chairlift of the Maierlbahn and continue on Ehrenbachhoehe, Steinbergkogel and Pengelstein.On our second day, we take the 3S Gondola across a very deep valley to Wurzhoehe. The views are breathtaking and we take a little sigh of relief, after we are back on terra firma. It is time for suntan lotion and lunch break on Baerenbad Alm (hut). After lunch, we make as far as Gauxjoch, before we ski back to our Hotel Willms in Kirchberg. The sauna and steambath revive us before dinner. Then it snows again! At least, we had 2 days of great skiing here this week. On Friday and Saturday, the lifts close again due to another winter storm!
After 2 days of anticipation and lots of snow, a great day of skiing on the Kitzbeuheler Alps was the reward for our waiting. We skied km after km but only took a few lifts all day. It seems like the trails never end.
At the end of the day we went to our hotel sauna to help our muscles recover for tomorrow. For the first time ever,I made it to stay in the 85°sauna for the “required” 15 minutes. A quick shower and into my warm robe, I sat and waited on the heated tile bench for Lothar.He was enjoying his Grohe all over body shower. A fellow hotel skier wanted to get into the sauna but needed to shower first. After waiting a couple of minutes, she asked if there was room for 2 in Lothar’s shower stall. What could I say, there were 2 showers…..the lady went in and the 2 showered next to each other in their birthday suits. I think my US upbringing still wouldn’t allow me to do that. I’ve mastered coed saunas but showers is another thing.
On Sunday, January 8,we have breakfast with Henning, Anne Marie and Hubert in the Haus Delecke, before we head south to Austria. On our drive through Germany, it is cloudy with frequent rain showers.We stop in Wuerzburg and the sun is shining. Lunch is at “our” restaurant Laemmle and I have the usual: Sauerbraten. We arrive in Kirchberg , Tyrolia, four hours later. It started snowing in Kufstein and the road into the Aschau valley is snow covered. It snowed for the last 3 days and we are driving through a winter wonderland.In the darkness the houses and trees are covered with a heavy layer of snow.We are only 200 yards away from our hotel, when I have to drive up a steep side road in Kirchberg. Our Mercedes A 160promptly gets stuck in the snow. I get out and survey the damage: the rear wheel is deep in a snow bank and the car won’t move forward or back. Just at that moment, four drunk guys appear out of nowhere!
One persuades his friends to be nice and help me. First,they all piss between some parked cars and then, with new found energy, the four are able to push our small Mercedes uphill.I take a running start and we reach our hotel just in time for dinner. Thanks, guys. Your piss and push strategy worked. Now Gabi and I can begin our ski vacation.
In Frankfurt, our 777 lands on the new North-West runway and our luggage is the first to appear. We pick up a Mercedes A 160 and cruise on the Autobahn to Aachen. In Aachen, we recuperate in the Carolus Thermen. The saunas and Turkish baths feel good after the long flight. In the dark, we swim in the steaming outdoor pool, followed by another sauna session. Dinner is in the historic Aachener Brauhaus, a nice finish to a long”Heilige Drei Koenigstag”.
On Saturday, January 7, we arrive at Haus Delecke, which was built as a knight’s mansion in 1270. Today, Henning has invited us to celebrate his 60th birthday here. Gabi and I move into a large suite, overlooking the Moehne lake, which used to belong to the Kettler noble clan. We meet Henning, Elisabeth and Thione and about 80 other party guests. Gabi and I have fun dancing the night away. Later, we talk withAnne Marie and Hubert and take a tour of their new motor home. The bithday party is a lot of fun. Henning’s brother, Jochen, is a professional cello player and, together with a pianist, plays several nice classical pieces. Gabi and I still have some jet lag and go to bed at 1 AM. The party continues without us until 4 AM!
Happy Birthday, Henning! We have been friends since 1959 or 2nd grade in Elementary School in Struemp!
After 3 hrs in the 1st class lounge in Newark Airport(which Lothar said we received through a credit card application), we boarded our 777 jet to Frankfurt. After going through the front door, I expected to take a right to our seat, but no Lothar took a left. “Isn’t that Business Class?” I asked. “No, 1st,” he said. “Huh?”I was confuse.He had been able to book this flight”Business-First” on Continental for miles.Merry belated Christmas Gabi!
After settling in with champagne,a movie on a 13 in screen, and looking forward to a good nights sleep, the captain informs us that the jet stream is really fast tonight and we should make it to Frankfurt in 6.5 hrs. What a disappointment! 180° bed and only 4.5 hrs of sleep after the 4 course meal to enjoy it. Life is not fair!
The next morning I was totally rested, so it was definitely worth it. We were all set for the Carolus Therme in Aachen….thermal pools and sauna to come. I could get used to this again.In 2004-5, we were spoiled rotten for the trip around the world with our ticket.Maybe in the future again!?
We are trying to fly to Newark and from there to Frankfurt. The occasion is Henning’s 60th birthday party. Today is January 5 and we taxi out to the runway at 1 PM, as scheduled. Then the usual Albany waiting game begins.Our pilot informs us that our take off time has been delayed by 1 hour. We are sitting on our Dash 8-200, listening to the turbo-prop engines, for the next hour and do not move one inch.Eventually, we take off at 2 PM and the 30minute flight takes 75minutes. Newark is operating with only one runway, the other one is blocked by a disabled aircraft. Always something new happening. We land at 3:15, driving would have been faster.I manage to get into Continental’s President’s lounge and Gabi and I have a wine and cheese party, while we wait for our flight to Frankfurt. I am still waiting for the staff to bring out some real food. The First Class lounges are not what they used to be. We must be spoiled! Next stop is Frankfurt.
Today is December 11, our last day on the “Norwegian Star”. We had no internet during our one week cruise in the Western Caribbean and we will fill in the gaps when we have time.
It is Sunday morning and our wake-up call comes at 6:30 AM. We had left Cozumel on Friday at 6 PM and traveled 2 nights and 1 day on our cruise ship, arriving in Tampa at 7 AM this morning. One last time, our breakfast is being served in our stateroom on deck 10. The weather in Tampa is overcast, and our balcony overlooks a tanker and oil storage tanks. This makes it a little easier to disembark and leave the ship, after we had been spoiled on board by the very friendly staff for the last 7 days.
After breakfast, we leave our cabin at 8:15, and are checked in for our flight at Tampa airport less than one hour later. On the way to the airport, the cab drivers are racing each other, going about 85 MPH. Like they say, the drive to the airport is the most dangerous part of air travel! We say good bye to the Florida palm trees and are welcomed in the Philadelphia Airport by Christmas trees. We did not hear a single Christmas song during our one week cruise. All of a sudden, as Gabi and I walk to our gate in the Phili terminal, we hear “O Tannenbaum, O Tannenbaum”. 2 women and 2 men are dressed in 19th century costumes and entertain the travelers with Christmas songs. A nice experience, when you travel on the 3rd Advent.
We have a brief delay, before we can board our flight to Albany. Our Canadair jet has a malfunctioning computer and the captain informs us that the crew had to manually do some weight and balance calculations. I hope they are good in math! We take off without any problem. Our 40 minute flight from Philadelphia to Albany takes us north along the New Jersey shore. I see the setting sun on our left, as we fly over JFK airport and Long Island Sound. Before we land in Albany, there is snow on the ground below us in Connecticut. We arrive at 5:10 PM, only 5 hours after leaving Tampa. Carsten picks us up at the airport.
We have dinner at home, with our Christmas tree and Christmas music getting us in the Holiday spirit. Now we have to get used to sleeping in a bed that does not roll and pitch during the night.
12
Dec
Slow Lady With a Big Rear End
Her rear end is actually 107 feet wide! Gabi and I are on board the “Norwegian Star”, leaving Tampa on December 4th. The ship was built in 2001 by the Joseph L. Meyer Werft (ship yard) in Papenburg, Germany. She is 971 feet long and weighs 91,740 tons. We do a lot of walking this week. Our cabin is in the forward section of the ship (10520), the places we go to every day at the stern of the ship. We spent most of the time in the Barong Spa and take our meals in the Versailles restaurant, looking out at the ship’s propellers’ wake. We take it easy and have plenty of time to get spoiled. The “Norwegian Star” cruises for 2 nights and 1 day to cross the Gulf of Mexico and cover the 717 nautical miles distance from Tampa to Roatan, Honduras. A plane takes less than 2 hours, but is not this much fun! The 6 to 8 foot swells keep everything slightly swaying: including us, walking down the promenade deck, the chandeliers in the fancy Versailles restaurant, our stateroom’s queen size bed and the dancers on the stage at night.
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