Sunday 21st of December we were up bright and early to catch our flight to Austria with Amy and Derk for our first proper white Christmas (thanks to Amy organising it) unfortunately the weather wasn’t with us and after holding above Innesbruck for quite a while we were diverted to Munich and the shuttled back by coach. There we meet Sharon & Mark, who also had been diverted but a little earlier, picked up the rental car (thanks to Derk for driving) and headed off to Reith im Alpbachtal. After finding our accommodation (only getting lost a little) a traditional farm house, Kupfnerhof, 
high in the mountains of which we had the top floor complete with our own cosy kitchen. Our hosts Elisabeth and Georg brought us up breakfast the next day loaded with excellent farm produce after which it was of to town to hire ski gear and get groceries for the week. Not having enough time to ski that day it was back to Kupfnerhof and practice a little skiing on the slopes of the farm and of course build a snowman, quite a scary one at that. Georg was kind enough to bring out some locally made schnapps to share with us which certainly warmed us up. The next two days were ski days, up early and home when the fields closed to Gluwein cooking dinner and playing cards. We went to different ski fields each day the first just below where we stayed in Reith (Ian & I had lessons on this day, a very good idea that made the rest of the time skiing more enjoyable) and the second day at Alpbach (a bigger field). Alpbach was stunning above the clouds a perfect day blue sky and sunshine. A friend of Derk’s, Fabian who lives in Germany not far from where we were joined us so we had a traditional European Christmas celebrating on Christmas eve, we cooked a large roast dinner, drank lots of wine & beer and opened our presents while listening to Christmas carols. Christmas day we enjoyed a champagne breakfast then went for a walk though the snowy countryside playing in a children’s playground and generally having fun in the snow. 
For Christmas dinner we decided to go traditionally kiwi and had a BBQ, Elisabeth and Georg thought we were crazy and had a good laugh at our BBQ in the snow. We even made pavlova for desert, which must have been the flattest pavlova in history but the good thing with pav is it still tastes great no matter what it looks like! The next two days we spent skiing this time at Zillertal, this was my favorite ski field and once again it was perfect weather. It really was stunning up on the mountain.
Unfortunately this brought an end to our Christmas holiday the next day we were up and back off to the airport, everyone secretly wishing we would be fogged in and have to stay another day.
2lostkiwis 