Lost and Found

In Winter of my junior year in high school, I went on a skiing tour to Austria with three of my friends. We took a tour bus to a small town in Austria called Mayerhofen. We commandeered the back of the bus on the way there and my friend Bo made me laugh about nothing, my friend Bobby showed me how his watch could tell the time in other time zones and my friend Melissa told us how her bus on a school field trip had gone over a cliff and put her in the hospital. Good times.

When we got to Mayerhofen, we got a day pass to go skiing. Our tour bus dropped us off at the base of the ski area and told us to be back at 5pm to head home. I strapped on my rented ski boots and put on my water resistant red Gore-Tex ski jacket. I had only been skiing once before, but Melissa promised to show me the intricacies of the tow rope, the chair lift and how to stay upright.

It was a clear day and wasn't currently snowing, so we had a great view. We took a small gondola that held just the four of us up to the ski area. We could see for miles. We went up so high that my ears popped from the change in altitude.

When we got to the lifts, Melissa suggested that we start out with the tow ropes. I tried to hang on and stay up on my skis. It was challenging, to say the least. I wasn't having much luck, so instead of practicing more, we all went up to a harder area on the chair lift. That's logical, right? I was scared, but after all, I had my friends right there to help me.

I managed to slide off the chair without falling over and wobbled out of the way of other, more experienced skiiers. Fearless two and three-year-olds whooshed by me, but I ignored them and turned my attention to the steep slope that lay ahead of me.

Bo, Melissa and Bobby asked if I was ready to go and I nodded, but I was lying. They zipped past me began to shoosh down the gigantic mountain side. I gingerly pushed off behind them and focussed on not falling over in a heap.

I wasn't too skilled at steering left or right. I was more of a tuck and go straight type of skiier. This is not a big deal if you are on a run with little to no incline, but I wasn't. I started to pick up speed and attempted to snow plow to slow down. This worked for a minute until I lost my balance. I wavered on one ski and then tumbled over, popped out of one ski and flipped over a couple time before I landed on my face in the snow.

Bobby and Melissa gracefully came to a stop by my side, accidentally (I think) kicking snow up into my face with their skis.

"Hey, that was quite a fall! Are you ok?" Melissa asked.

I nodded and tried to laugh it off. Of course I was ok. I'm just like Barbie - my legs can bend backwards and forward. Hahaha! This is so fun!

Bo retrieved my ski for me, and I attached it to my foot. We all skied away toward the chair lift so we could get back on that slope and do it all over again!

The next few runs went like the directions on the back of a shampoo bottle: Ski at an out-of-control speed. Fall. Repeat.

After the 3rd or 4th run, Bo took pity on me and asked if I wanted to go on some easier terrain. I did. So we took off and went on some woodsy trails that had small dips and bumps, but were not as steep and scary.

We had gotten quite far away from the main ski area and realized that it was getting close to 5pm. I didn't think I was going to make it, but then I saw a large gondola! Bo wasn't sure that it was a good idea, because it was different than the one we took on the way up.

I said, "Look, I can't make it back to where we were. Let's just give it a try. It's already 4:3o." I added that this will get us there a lot faster if we just take it now instead of skiing (or falling, in my case) back to where the small gondolas are. Bo finally acquiesed and we hopped on.

When got off the gondola and got to the parking area, we didn't see our bus. Damn busses. First the bank bus and now this!

We looked around and nothing looked familiar. I saw two guys in blue work overalls that looked official, so I tried to explain to them in German that we were lost, but I couldn't remember the right phrase, so I said, "Ich weiss nicht wo ich bin," which means, "I don't know where I am." They got a good chuckle out of that, but were able to tell me that we were no longer in Mayerhofen. The gondola that we had taken was indeed the wrong one, and we were now on the opposite side of the mountain and in a DIFFERENT town! And it was 4:45pm!

I started to freak out a little bit, but Bo was laughing because he thought the whole thing was pretty damn funny. I decided he was right and started laughing, too.

We didn't really know what to do, but we saw a city bus that was going to the train station, so we minced over to the bus stop (mind you, we were still wearing our ski boots and had to carry our skis and poles). We got on the bus successfully and made it to the train station.

After paying bus fare, I didn't have enough money for the phone and wasn't sure how to make a collect call from Austria to our parents in Germany. Bo said he was pretty sure his Dad wouldn't accept a collect call from him anway and we imagined what it would be like to be stuck in Austria forever.

Just at that moment, our tour bus drove by and Melissa and Bobby stopped the driver so we could shuffle onto the bus and heel toe it to the back of the bus where they were sitting. I have never been so grateful to sit down as I was that day. My body felt like it had been in a blender for the past 5 hours. I knew I would be bruised like an over-ripe banana the next day.

The tour guide was annoyed with us, but we didn't care. We were on our way home.

I looked at my watch and saw that it was only 5:30! We were pretty proud of ourselves for getting lost and found in less than an hour.