Ski season!

A little while ago a friend of mine from work mentioned he was going skiing in Austria, so I decided to join him and his other friend Chris (who also works at BCG, but in Munich). We were originally going to go to Zurich and ski in Davos, but a winter storm ended up making it too difficult to get there (the snow was good for skiing, but not so much for travelling) so we ended up flying to Munich and then driving to Fügen, Austria.

View of Fügen from the hotel 

Nick, my BCG friend is based in Dubai, but he's currently working in Australia (where he also grew up) and I worked with him in New York - but despite our travel resumes neither of us really speak German so it was good we had two other German speakers with us to help navigate. After flying into Munich Friday afternoon, we drove out to Fügen that night and got settled into our hotel. The snow the previous week really did help us out as it was the first weekend of the season but there was already plenty of fresh powder and open runs.

winter wonderland

Nick and (other) Chris, with the valley in the background

We ended up getting pretty good weather on Saturday too, with it being sunny most of the morning and then getting a little more snow in the afternoon. After a full day of skiing we rested for a bit, then got dinner and went out to the only club in the valley, whose name apparently translates to English as 'Bathtub'. Not the most promising name for a place of nightlife, but we ended up having a fun time. Fun enough that none of us were able to get up in time to ski the next day... It ended up working out well though, because we just headed back to Munich and me and Nick were able to do a little exploring in the city. This time of year they have a huge Christmas market sprawled throughout the central area of the city, so we strolled through that, checked out the shops, and got some tasty German treats.

The Christmas Market goes right through Marienplatz, in front of the city hall

After a few hours of that we met up with another of Nick's friends who lives in the city for a bite to eat, then headed to the airport and to our separate destinations. Another good weekend in the books.