I’ll stop dragging it out, which Alpha said only sounded whiny.

I loved the skiing.

Especially for the first two days.

The teacher was excellent, a young business student earning money on his holiday, coincidentally also the son of the ski school owner. We talked about linguistics while riding the lift. About learning languages, since he was currently studying English, French, Spanish, Italian and Czech. That, and about the things a father has to do so his daughters don’t think he’s a wussy. Although in this conversation I used the German expression “Weichei” which translates literally as “soft egg” and means “soft-boiled egg” as well as “wussy”.

Yes, we rode lifts from my first day, which was the class’s second day, since I started late. Chair lift, and then those tricky t-bar lifts, where I constantly felt on the verge of doing a very embarassing slapstick routine. But best of all, he used me as the good example. “Mig, you take off first here. Watch carefully everybody, and do just what Mig is doing.”

Yes, my first day skiing (in over 15 years) and I’m showing people how to ski parallel etc.

“Well, don’t do what he did just now, of course.”

Yes, I crashed once or twice that day, but not badly. Well, one dramatic crash, you know, where you think afterwards, “gee, I didn’t know I could do a cartwheel! Cool!” and look around for stuff, like a ski, or your ass, or your tongue “here it is, frozen to my boot,” and the directions “up” and “down.”

Yes, it was wonderful. Hardly any crashes, better than the rest of the class. On the first day, we skied clear down the mountain. We took flattish detours around the steep bits, but hell. I’d been hoping we would, you know, ski down on the final day or something. And dreaming that, someday in the future, I’d be able to take the gondola clear to the top and ski down from there.

Still, it was nothing compared to the little kids. In ski-crazy countries like Austria, they stand them on skis as soon as they can walk, literally, and give them a little shove down the slope. They’re so small, they look like boots and helmets on skis, with bits of bright Goretex in between. Once, on that first day, riding the tricky t-bar lift uphill, I observed such a small tyke skiing down the slope like a maniac, and thought tenderly, Someday Gamma will be doing that.

Two seconds later, Gamma skied past.

On my second day, we did a little more. Alpha and the girls saw me from the chairlift and cheered me on. Later, they all told me how great I looked. It was all very gratifying and encouraging and I got all sorts of ski-related ambitions.

My second day was the last day of the class. The next day, I had to jump into another, more advanced class. I arrived at the school early and looked around for someone to point me in the right direction. By the time I found someone in charge, my new group had already left.

“Just take the lift up to the station, I’ll call him and tell him you’re coming.” He got on his mobile phone and spoke to the new teacher. He looked me over. “He’s wearing a grey ski suit,” he said to the teacher. “Grey pants, grey jacket. Grey hat.”

“What’s he look like,” I asked when he hung up.

“Older guy. He’ll be looking for you. Wearing the ski school uniform. If you can’t find him, just ask around for The General.”

[Cue Vincent Price playing organ in the House of Usher, which is on fire. Playing "Taps" or something.]

“The General, eh? Excellent,” I said, smiling bravely.

The lift ride up took about fifteen minutes, during which time I got covered by at least a centimeter of snow as it was falling quite thickly at the time. It was also enough time to theorize that older teachers are likely to be more hard-assed than younger, college-student teachers, especially if their nickname is The General.

Turns out, though, that my theory was right for once, which is good, right?

All I can say is, Jesus F. Christ.

It was, in fact, a phrase I repeated often that day. Practically a mantra. Repeated it doing the splits on ice, climbing up out of deep snow, and lying on my back after tumbling like a klutz trying to get on the T-bar lift and holding up the line because I couldn’t get the fuck back up because I was so fucking exhausted because all we did that day was ski, ski, ski down steep goddamned scary slopes.

“Bend your knees more,” the General said a lot. That and, probably, “whatever you do, don’t do what Mig is doing,” as they stood and rested and waited for me to catch up.

Boy was I relieved when it was finally three in the afternoon and we were finished. I turned in my rented equipment (one thing I have to say is skis and stuff are far better than they were 15 years ago when I last skied. The outfits are warmer, skis turn easier, and so on) and met Alpha and the girls at the lift.

“I rode the gondola to the top and skied down,” Gamma proudly announced. Her teacher, a wild-looking young blonde woman with facial piercings in all the usual places, had done a wonderful job with her. Gamma, who had cried the first day because she didn’t want to ski, cried the last day because she didn’t want to leave.

“I didn’t hit any trees,” I said.

Like I mentioned, skiing is not something I would normally do, but I enjoyed it a lot. Just the last day sort of sucked, but the rest was a lot of fun. I’m looking forward to going again next year, taking a slightly more advanced class with a compatible instructor and perhaps skiing with the rest of my family towards the end of our stay, weather permitting. If you live in Austria, among the natives as I do, you’re simply incomplete if you don’t ski. I suppose it would be like living in Brussels and not eating mayonaisse with your french fries, or living in the United States and not having a fat ass television firearm gas grill, redwood deck SUV Freedom of Speech.