The 4 Martins and a Crazy Marsupial

Last night culminated in an early night ahead of our early-(ish) start in Martin Tschol (Martin 1)'s house! We just caught the ski-ploughs going down the hill ready for the next day!

We woke to breakfast of Porridge, orange juice, honey puffs, flapjack, tea and coffee to get ready for the day. By 8:30 we were ready to hit the slopes and head down to town from our ski-out room, down a gentle blue route to a button lift to get some practice prior to my Ski lesson.

The button lift had a nice short run down to town, and found this a good warm up. I headed over to my ski lesson, where we were quickly asked to demonstrate our skiing in a "no competition" atmosphere which consisted of a lot of novices nervously trying to not compete in front of each other down quite a steep slope, eagerly watched by the uber-instructor and then before you'd even got to the bottom of the slope, you were allocated to your group! 3 out of the 50 of us toppled before the bottom of the slope. I ended up in Martin's (2) group, along 7 others, of probable intermediate ability (none of us had fallen on our route down).

We headed off with Martin to a chair lift to start some warm-up exercises and this is where our names were replaced with a number, 1-8. This allowed Martin to not have to remember our names, and could shout "Number 1, DO BETTER".

The morning consisted of a series of blue runs, up and down various chair lifts, following the leader in different arrangements (1-8), or (8-1) or (5-8, 1-4), whichever Martin fancied. This is where Martin 3 reared his head. Not happy to be number 8, he preferred to demonstrate his prowess, and lead the group behind Martin 2, overtaking everyone else as "The group does not conform to my ability". This culminated in an awkward exchange in a Gondola with the whole group, where he said "Tomorrow, perhaps we could clear up the group to remove those who are not keeping up!"

I arrived to a lunch at Griabli, which was a rapid operation, serving a variety of Austrian fare, with a mix of Pizzas and salads too. The hour was a nice rest from a heavy morning workout, and a chance to meet some of the other members of the group. We had Liesl and Ana, two German girls who enjoyed a cigarette whenever the moment would allow, Martin, the German who was "much better than this group", and Gary, a Brit with bleach-blonde hair who was staying in his Boss's Austrian villa.

The afternoon was a bit more technical, consisting of some plough-to-parallel oscillating movements, but unless you were number 1 or 2 in the group, Martin (2)'s instructions had alreay finished the time you'd caught up. His favourite phrase came out, "You need to do better" which would be shouted at whichever number skiier wasn't conforming to his requirements. A particular gem of feedback was when, on a chairlift sitting next to him, he generously pointed our a skier underneath me who "You see him, he skies like you, all hunched over and wrong, you see, see what he does, do better". Thanks Martin!

Pete, Colin and Tim enjoyed a nice day practising their skiing, and enjoyed watching the Womens' Skiing which is going on at the moment. They did lots of the same routes I did, in a bit of different pace I think when there's only 3 of you!

After a few final runs, I met Pete at the bottom of the slope, to go for a quick run with him before the end of the Skiing day. The lifts all finish around 4, and so the 3:30 run was a nice easy end to the day. The slight downside of the "Ski-in" accommodation is that one has to end the day with a ski, it's a touch difficult to walk up to!

Colin and Tim, First-day routes under their belts, had arrived earlier, and were sampling the 60C, 90C Saunas, and the Steam room in the accommodation. Pete and I had a warming cup of tea, and more oat-based snacks while we waited for them to come back.

Based of last night's food timing debacle, we decided to have an earlier tea, not wanting to risk another emergency tea. We headed up to Taps, another Apres hot spot, and this offered a limited menu of Pizzas and Nachos until 6pm. This suited, and after some allergy back-and-forth, we had 4 pizzas and 4 pints in front of us. These were gobbled over tales of the day's piste adventures!

The end of the meal culminated in our waitress picking up the DJ's mic and doing a funny rendition of a 70s medley! Once her solo was over, we paid the bill, and went behind it, and found the hotspot "Krazy Kanguruh", aggressively contesting with last night's bar for a top spot in the St Anton Scene!

Krazy Kanguruh didn't disappoint, a slightly more modern vibe than last night, where we meet Martin 4 - Martin Garix the DJ whose remixes were every other song, but definitely got the crowds jumping on the tables again! There was something very Apres about dancing surrounded by icicles one the ceiling, in an outdoor bar in -12C weather, with a thin layer of frozen beer on the floor. The highlight was either the table-dancing, or perhaps the impromptu conga!

The evening culminated in an interrupted video call by Colin to Katie and Chris, first outside Kanguruh, with Colin's new friends, and then back at the casa, back in the warm, with tea and chocolate.

It's off to bed again shortly, ready for the coldest day of the holiday, down to minus-20C! Let's wrap up warm!