Snowy Alps

At the top of the ski run!

I was very happy to see that Aidan was able to answer my question about gondolas.  We are using a different type of gondola to get us up the mountains to go skiing.  We are in the lovely country of Austria.  

The western part of Austria is very mountainous.  The Alps are the big mountain range in Europe. We have come to a beautiful little village called Seefeld.  It is near Innsbruck and is high up in the mountains.  We are skiing everyday and having a lot of fun!

Also, the first ever Youth (ages 15 to 18) Olympic Games are being held here!  We walked over to the Olympic area to see the biathalon.  That is the event where competitors ski around a track and then come in to a shooting range and try to hit 5 targets.  They do that 4 times.  It was very cool to watch.  And guess what????  A Canadian named Stuart Harden won the men’s event--almost.  He actually won by a lot, but he missed 1 target (only 1! most other competitors missed 4 or more) and when you miss a target you have to do a penalty lap around an oval.  Stuart forgot to do his penalty lap so he got 2 minutes added to his time and ended up in 7th place.  I’m hoping that Stuart uses this as a learning experience before he gets to the real Olympics!

The mascot for the YOG is a chamois goat called Yoggl.  Do you remember the chamois goats I saw in France?  Anyway, Yoggl is pretty cute and I snapped a picture of Anne and Kate with him.  

Anne and Kate with Yoggl

I hear that you don’t have much snow in Guelph.  What are you doing at recess when there is no snow????