Phew… cartwheels finally! Ribbing it in, ain’t I?

Yeah, so what the duce huh? After last time’s futile attempt to do something worth writing about, I was kinda sorta hoping to get some juicy stuff to write about this week. And boy, I lived up to my own expectations, and how.

First I had a late night yesterday at the Casba with some friends, and then today was the day when the clocks goes from 1.59 am to 3.00 am i.e. we lost an hour (so I effectively slept for about 3 hours), and then I missed the first of five trains which I must take to get my fat ass to Feldberg. Carried the camera, but not the memory card. Darn. Enough of whining.

Missing the train gave me an interesting diversion. It was classic Googie, train starts to pull away as you make a hurried last minute filmy entry onto to the platform. Anyhoo, since I was hungry (hey! it was 6.39 am) and since the next train was just waiting to leave, I took it to and got off at a random station to grab breakfast. Breakfast in hand… err… partly in mouth too, the ruminating commenced - about what kind of an idiot wakes up so early and other sundry uninteresting things which occupy any given reasonable person’s mind.

The delirious early morning ruminations were interrupted by the sight of a slight bespectacled man hobbling towards me. “Zuuureesh. René”, he drawled in a French accent. He was obviously drunk. The only way I knew to Zurich, was via Konstanz, so I helped him along, “Sie mussen nach Konstanz fahren, und vom da Sie kann weiter nach Zurich fahren..”. “Merci monsieur”, he thanked me and started hopping towards the ticket vending machine. Yes. Hopping. Right-ho, like a rabbit. It was a scene straight out of Alice in wonderland. And no, I was not high on pot, or magic cake.

A few minutes later, he was back on the platform, bathroom-singing at the top of his voice, “Zureeessssh, Rene..”, and dancing around the few available pillars. Think bollywood movies of the 80s, the ugly songs, and dancing around trees. Now you get the picture. The poor guy got into trouble with the cops, who wanted him to shut the F*** up, which he promptly did and thus ended the morning show. Oh boy, I must say, travelling Deutsche Bahn can be very entertaining.

Without further entertainment, I was at Hebelhof/Feldberg, to be told by the ski-school that there were no classes for the day, and since I was so “good” the last time, I could try doing my own thing. Yeah. What are the chances of that? Dang.

The thing is, it was very foggy, visibility was around 50 meters. The snow – white, the air – white. Bewitching. No wonder there was hardly a soul around. At the ski lift, another skier offered to share the ride, and I accepted. It takes about 10 odd minutes to reach the top (990 meters, and elevation gain of 124 meters) so we got talking. He was there on vacation with his family. They had rented a Ski hut, which he showed when we passed it. Then I told him I was from India, and that 3 hours of train journey to find a place to ski was better than travelling a whole day changing two planes to do the same, which is why I was doing this again and again. And, hold your breath, his sister in law is an Engineer working in Pune. What are the chances of that? Then I told he I went to school in Pune, and we were both like – what a small world. We guys kept talking until we reached the top.

The whole day was pretty uneventful. Almost. I could still do all the things I had previously learnt. I was sniggering when I saw beginners struggling to stop. Ain’t life grand? Then on my last run for the day – after about 12 runs, I also learnt something new. Skiing hurts.

First, it was quite wet, and then my ski got stuck in the snow while was speeding down the slope. Don’t ask me how. It just happened. The stuck ski became the pivot and I was tossed up in the air. I did a couple of cartwheels – one of them I distinctly remember was completely airborne, the two on the slope. And sometime while my limbs were flying around, one of the ski poles (thankfully not the pointed end) kissed my chest. There was only one other person on the slope (within visible range), a kid – perhaps 7 or 8 years old. He had fallen too, and he had just finished picking himself up when Circus Sushil started its act. And I could hear, “Oh oh!” echo across as I was doing ma thang for the day. It was painfully hilarious.

I didn’t feel much pain until I had returned the ski equipment, and was on the bus to Titisee. And now the ribs on my right side hurt. It hurts to laugh, to cough, to get up if I am sitting, to sit if I am standing, to bend, or to even lift up my arms. Not like I will die type hurts, but an irritating kind of hurt which you can tolerate, but wish you didn’t have. Arrgh.

In anycase, if I ever get to ski again - it won't be without a helmet. I now know why one needs it.

At Titisee I met a whole bunch of Indians. And a few were from Bangalore, so I got to speak in Kanada. “Yen magga”, and everything. And they work for the same firm as the man’s sister-in-law. And they knew someone, who I knew who worked at that firm. Small world indeed.

Ouch. @#$%^&@@!! Can’t a man yawn in peace?

31-03-2010 Update: The doc says I have fractured 3 of my ribs. I am not supposed to do any sports for 6 weeks. The darn ribs still hurt. I cannot sleep well, etc etc. So, so this experiment must not be tried at home and everything else....

Phew… cartwheels finally! Ribbing it in, ain’t I?

I can stop! Damit!

What can I say? Sometimes, I disappoint myself. Like this post’s title. What the eff was I thinking? Anyhoo, this weekend’s ski trip was dull compared to the last one. I could stop. When I wanted to. And no, not with a “controlled” fall. I could turn left, or right. At will. Going up with the ski lift, was however, a different story. But hey, we ain’t livin’ in no perfect world! In the grand scheme of things*, it couldn’t have been a better day.

Get yer pillows out. Put yer peejamas on. Damit! Don’t you have anything better to do? Sigh. Oh well. I told you so.

We reached Feldberg at around 9 or 9.15 ish, after the mandatory 5 train/bus changes. The ladies went Snowboarding at the Hof, and I trudged down to the other side – to the On Snow Ski school, to rent my equipment and continue where I left off last time. I must say, the guys at the school weren’t terribly thrilled to see me again. I wouldn’t have been either, if I were them, and if they had to undergo what they had to with me the last time I was there. But, customer service and everything, they put up a brave and friendly face, and said, “Hey! how are you doing man?”

The last time, I remember, I requested for UK size 10 shoes, and by the end of the day my feet were ready to grow hands and strangulate me. So, this time I requested for European size 45 shoes. But I said - “Size 45 – US please”. Damit!

The guy at the counter, who kinda sorta reminded me Shaggy from Scooby-Doo, you know – brown hair, lanky, long bearded face, semi curly mop, sweat shirt wearing kinda guy, grinned, and mentally asked me, “What the *.*.*.*.*.”. This is what happens when someone interrupts my labored effort to speak German, by posing a question in English. Anyway, I assured him I was no Yeti, and that I meant to ask for the European size 45.

Suitably kitted out, I headed out. The weather was perfect to learn skiing. It was snowing, it was windy, and it was freezing freaking cold and what that meant was, less people on the slopes. Bingo! Larzro, our instructor for the day, was getting the group together. The minor minor blizzard like conditions had everybody hooded and ski glassed – like Kenny from Southpark. I swear I cannot recognize any from my group if I were to see them again. Unfortunately, that also includes the instructor.

The only spectacular incident of the morning session, apart from the minor miracle that I could stop and turn at will, was the very late addition of a certain Mr. Kamikaze to the group. Ironically, he was Chinese**. He reminded me a lot of myself on my first day***. The guy could not stop. Period. He fell more often than the nine pins put together in a high scoring bowling game. I felt sorry for him. And the instructor instantly christened him “Kamikaze”. The rest, I must report, suffered no falls in the morning – thanks to the instructor’s super insistence that we all get the basics of balance right.

The afternoon session was when we guys learnt to use the ski lifts. Sounds easy, but I managed to fall out three times. Only once, was it my fault, the other two, was thanks to the other guy (or so I assume, because the next time we went alone, I got to the top just fine and he fell out of the lift.) Anyhoo, now I was a nervous wreck. I had singlehandedly managed to muck up the rest of the queue. There were people waiting, I was falling, I was getting psyched, and the cycle was spiraling out of control. Until, the instructor came with me. The guy was like aVipasana teacher#. A calm, collected and soothing presence which in a jiffy puts a mind, as troubled as mine, at ease.

And up we went, “Look, what a beautiful day it is”, he said, while asking me to see the islands of blue in the sea of gray overhead.

“Look, at the pervert wind playing with the snow”, he said while pointing to the giant whorls of snow strewn all over the hill as the wind gently lifted a fine layer of snow on its journey over the slopes.

“See, how calm it is to climb up with the lift”, he said, interrupting only the sound of two pairs of skis.

And, just like that, going up a ski lift became enjoyable.

It could easily have been the monotonous drone of, "Breath in, breath out. Feel the air passing your nostrils, and in your nose and in the wind pipe. Feel the air go out as it hits your upper lip. In and out", numbing the brain into a coma. But it wasn't and this was way better.

Really, I wish I could regale you with stories of me tumbling down the hill, crashing into trees, breaking a limb or two, or whatever other morbid scenario you may want to imagine. Unfortunately, it wasn’t meant to be. Don’t blame me man, it was the freaking universe.

But then, there was that thing on the train… Yes, something on a train. Again…

One of the 3 trains we took on the return leg, was a two car train between Neustadt and Donaueshingen. The train is too small for the number of people travelling, so one has to rush, wade in, and grab whatever seats are available. And when 3 people are travelling together, one can hardly be picky about where one sits. We found ourselves in this pickle too, and yours truly spotted these two rows of seats facing each other, the ones which makes train journeys interesting. The old man sitting in one of the four seats really didn’t matter. So, then now we were four.

After sitting down, I looked at the old man a bit more carefully. He was old alright, withered round face; white hair; long flowing uneven unkempt beard; a walrus moustache which i am sure doubled up as a tea strainer as well – guessing by the faint tinge of brown at the edges; and mischievous eyes peering through rimless, alas not circular, pair of spectacles sitting on a round short nose; He was a bit on the plumper side and the white reindeers running along the border of his red woolen cap made it difficult not to imagine him as Santa Claus.

He was working diligently at a word jumble puzzle, and by the pace at which he was filling up the blank spaces, one could safely assume that the top story was still sharp, alert and often worked overtime, or that he was really good at making up his own answers. In anycase, I was impressed. I was hardly finished being impressed that he fished out a tiny bottle of alcohol from the depths of his jacket and took a swig. With panache. A swig which would have made the badest scallywag look like an innocent kindergarten kid. And then he let out a small burp.

After a while of getting bored looking at the black forest rush us by, the old man causally lifted the lid of the garbage bin between our seats. The open lid revealed the necks of two open beer bottles. Earlier in the day, I had seen an old lady fish out bottles from similar garbage bins, presumably to return them to a supermarket for 10 cents. So, that image was still floating around in my mind, when Santa Claus pulls out one of the beer bottles from the garbage bin, holds it up to the light (now the whole compartment can see the bottle), then peers at it with his old eyes to take stock of how much beer is still available. Satisfied, he took a quick sip of the stale flat beer. Replaced the bottle back in the garbage bin, and closed the lid.

Eyes met, smirks were exchanged and eyes were rolled, eyebrows were pointed, but we did not laugh.

Then we started talking. In English. The old man’s ears perked up, his curiosity was certainly tingled - “But this was an alien tongue these people were talking in, Or?”. Then the two ladies switched to German, and now he was positively confused. What was he hearing? Could it be? He could understand English! What the duce? He hurriedly brought out the remaining stash of whiskey and took a giant swig. Crap! He could still understand English. What the!

He had to join the conversation! This is so exciting! and he made his grand opening statement, “Abbaa baaa hmpf”. Damit!

And he went real silent. So did we. After a while he slowly lifted the lid of the garbage bin and gradually retrieved the beer bottle. He held it up again against the light. It was supposed to be beer. Damit!

I need a prize for not laughing! Really!

Und damit mache ich schloss :)

*Can’t seem to rid myself of this phrase. Damit!

**The Chinese hate the Japanese people. Damit!

*** Damit! This is your SECOND day! Stop being so patronizing!

# Loooonnggg story. Me dad had forced me as a child to attend this meditation course. Scarred me for life.

I can stop! Damit!