The Long Road Home

I left Berlin early on a Saturday morning and made my way to Munich, where Dimma and I were picked up by Kingy, the Driver who is doing the job I would have done at Alpen Rider this winter if I’d have done what I originally planned. Dimma and I were already drunk by the time Kingy got there and we proceeded to get more drunk as the trip went on. Upon arrival in Kirchberg we left our stuff in our room, went downstairs to the bar and continued on that same path. Drinking in the Alpen Rider bar is always a dangerous activity as Shevy (the man in charge) loves to dole out free shots of Jagermeister to everyone in the bar at regular intervals. By 10pm we were both trashed and decided to head into the bigger town of Kitzbuhel (about 6kms away) to go to the Londoner, the largest pub in the area. At the Londoner we continued to get more trashed and ended up back at the chalet at around 4am. We got up and snowboarded the next day, but this set the precedent for the whole trip, and an eight day bender was started.

The snow itself was pretty slushy for most of the week we were there, however the sixth day was epic, and definitely the best day of snowboarding I had ever had. The problems for the five days before this day varied from getting out on the snow early when it had just been groomed to find it icy and hard, or getting out on the snow late to find it slushy and full of moguls as it had been carved up for four hours before we got there. Also, a standard for the whole week was feeling like crap due to being hungover, sick and not having had enough sleep the night before.

On the fourth day, we could see that the snow was going to come in, as we were boarding in nearly a complete whiteout on the Kitzbuheler horn. We came back to our side of the mountain to make our way slowly home when Dimma realized that he had lost his pass and wouldn’t be able to use the lifts. I did one run by myself but with the zero visibility it was incredibly slow and not the most fun in the world.

That evening we had every intention of going to bed reasonably early to get out on the snow for some fresh powder, but like most nights we went out for a few beers, and Bo and Beth at the boomerang kept us plied with alcohol all night, leading to another night that ended around 3am and another morning where my desire for snowboarding was waging a war with my desire for sleep. Of course, with half a foot of fresh powder on the slopes, my desire for snow won out and after many insults to his manhood, Dimma got out of bed also. We went up to the horn again and found a run with an off piste drop off into a fairly unused red run on the back side of the horn, and we stuck with it pretty much all day. It was the first time I had boarded on powder since I’ve had the skills to do anything, and it was a totally amazing experience. It’s all just so much easier than scraping through the icy bumps, scared shitless that you might catch and edge and end up on your head. Through powder it’s easy and it doesn’t hurt if you do happen to stack it, and it’s just so silent as you carve through the white mist. The only thing I could hear over the whoosh of my board was my own joyous laughter.

At the end of the week in Kitzbuhel, we gone out every night on the turps, averaged about 4 hours slept a night, got up every day and boarded, progressed to both being comfortable on blacks and a bit of off piste stuff and were both incredibly sick. All in all, an absolutely sensational week.

After finally getting back to Dimmas flat in Clapham, we parked on the couch, watched movies, ate pizza and lamented our sore heads and swollen throats. The next day I had to make my way out Blackheath, to stay with Roz, a friend of Scottie’s who I had met while snowboarding in Meribel. I sent her an sms to make sure she’d be home at around 4pm when I was planning on coming over, and was horrified to find out that she had changed her mind and said that it was no longer convenient for me to stay there. Of course, I immediately started to complain about women and the fickle nature of their promises. I then sms’d Scottie to let him know, and then he also wondered what the hell was going on, as it had all been organized weeks in advance. After Scottie talked to Roz we were speaking on Facebook when he said that they didn’t know what I was talking about, and upon closer inspection of the Roz I had sent the message to, I realized that I had sent the message to a Roz I had hooked up with many months before while travelling and hadn’t really spoken to since. No wonder she didn’t think it would be convenient for me to stay there.

So, after moving my stuff over to Roz’s place in Blackheath I spent the next week in London catching up with people I had met travelling, including Ash and her friend for a game of bogan bingo in Clapham that ended with all of us being covered in texta thanks to a Bingo Blotter fight throughout the entire game. And a day out in London with Holly talking about all things musical and creative and how the lead singer of one of her many bands is not particularly talented, before heading into Camden to see Loud Howards awesome new lineup ruined by Dimma’s still wrecked throat, one week after our return from Austria.

My time in London was soon up though and the long flight home beckoned. I was excited to see everyone again and although the timing was pretty awful with the Guiding job back in Berlin, I had a sneaking suspicion that I might be ready to fall in love with Australia all over again.