Engstligen again.

I had yet another day off, so I went out on Sydney's Schneeboard today. There wasn't enough snow on the hillside to snowboard into Oey, so I hiked into town and took the bus out to Unter dem Birg. It was only about three Swiss Francs with my new half-fare card. This morning was sunny, but it started snowing a few hours into my snowboarding practice. We did get a few sun breaks in the afternoon, but it got harder to see. I broke the back foot toe binding strap at one point. Sydney's board is actually her sister's board, and the bindings are ancient. Sydney broke one last time we went out together. I kept boarding, since the repair shop on the slopes was closed.

All in all, I did fairly well for not having been on a snowboard in a decade. Sure, I sat down a lot and wiped out a few times, but I got the hang of turning. It helped when an instructor brought a group of kids at about my level to the run I was on for a while. There was also a group of Austrians just learning to snowboard, and another class with much more advanced teens. They were literally spinning in circles around the rest of us all down the hill, and flying off a large jump at the right side of the piste. I was next to the baby slope, so I got to watch a few proud Swiss parents train their three-year-olds not to be scared to fly down a snowy mountain while wearing ungainly boots and sticks strapped to your legs. A few were even ready for harnesses or holding onto poles by their parents' side. I don't know how the parents ski downhill with tiny children between their legs, clinging onto their knees. I'd be afraid I'd fall and squish my child. A few also ski with backpacks holding infants too young to learn to ski. I suppose we take our babies in bicycle bucket seats, so it's not that odd.

The ski area at Engstligen is a giant bowl up above the waterfall, so it offered this view of the valley I live in. The town down there is Boden, which means floor. Adelboden is up a bit higher, on the side of the mountain, and curving around the valley to the right. Once you take the gondola up from Unter dem Birg, there's the longest tow rope I've ever seen to take you from piste to piste. It was basically a bunch of hoses attached to the main rope, and it was hell for an inexperienced snowboarder. I must have fallen off at least four times. I wasn't the only one, thank goodness, but it was still embarrassing. I swear it was a kilometer long across the floor of the bowl. You can see it for yourself below. I went across the bowl to check on the repair shop, which was, as I've said, geschlossen (closed). After the long tow back, during which I only fell off once, I ducked into the igloo fondue bar, then snowboarded until my thighs and ankles complained.

When I got tired, I went snowtubing. Dutch had given me a card good for a few rides last night, when I said I'd be heading up to Engstligen today, so I got a free helmet and tube. It was fun to careen off the walls of the tubing track, much like those giant slides at the bigger water parks at home. I think it was just me and some six-year-olds, but I can't think why more adults weren't spinning crazily down the track.

I got to speak German a lot today, since almost nobody at Engstligen speaks English. (The exception being that the Engstligen gondola ticket seller, in contrast to all the other ones, e.g. at Tschenten and Oey, did.) They didn't speak much English at the repair shop I went to in Adelboden, either. I don't know what "to fix" is in German, but I could explain that my snowboard was broken and point hopefully at the strap. The repair guy got the idea, and I bought some wax so I could return Sydney's board in better shape than I got it. It was actually pretty rough in places on the bottom. Finn taught me how to wax my skis last week, so I should be set for the rest of the season.

This picture is of Adelboden, the town I live the closest to.
You can see one of the churches and a few of the sporting goods stores. The town has a grocery store, post office, two banks, bus station, three ski lift/gondola entrances, a couple of parks, an outdoor ice skating/hockey rink, three indoor curling/Eisstockschiessen rinks, an indoor rock climbing facility, two ski rental/repair places, three churches, a school, an equestrian barn, a Kino (movie theater), six bars/pubs/clubs, seven hotels/inns, three bakeries, and a handful of cafes and restaurants. The main street has a few switchbacks to get up to and through town, but the Schulstraße climbs straight up the hill. It's a little walking path for the kids to get to school, but it's also used by a few horse riders, the postman, the rubbish collectors, and just about all the pedestrians. You'll find tourists huffing their way up very slowly, the elderly just as slow but without the huffing, most people hiking up steadily, and kids running pell-mell all over the place. In the winter, you can sledge down Schulstraße, but you have to watch for where it crosses the main road's switchbacks. This picture is along the main street of town. Almost everything is along one flat section of the street. There aren't many people around during the day, but at five at night, everyone comes down from the slopes and wanders the street before filling the restaurants, cafes, bars, and the Kiosk. Everyone just goes out in their ski boots and jackets, and the parents pull their toddlers around town on sledges. The baby carriages look a bit like old prams, only with little sleeping bags instead of a bin in which to tuck your infant. It's quite a sight to be sitting in a nice cafe with everyone's ski-booted legs stretched out around you.

I also took care of some school details in my time off, and I won a small scholarship for next fall. Hoorah! A good day all around, excepting what I'm sure will be a lovely bruise on my hip come tomorrow.