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a lot of my threads involve me fucking up somehow. Perhaps I'm a moron?
Hey everyone. I recently had the opportunity to spend a week snowboarding in St. Anton, Austria. As you can probably tell by my avatar, snowboarding is a huge part of my life. I've ridden all over North America, Australia and parts of Asia. However, this was my first time riding in Europe, and it was a pretty eye-opening experience. In this thread I will talk about my experience and how it differed from the other places I've been over the years.
European skiers are the rudest, most unaware, obnoxious people I've ever dealt with in 20 years of riding.
This floored me. Never in my life have I had such a negative, all around experience with other people on a mountain. The skiers in Europe are incredibly rude. They'll happily smash into your equipment in the lift lines, shove past you to get on a lift or even get a beer, and at one point actually attacked one of my friends while riding up a magic carpet lift. Outside of the lift lines, they have zero awareness of other riders on the hill, and seem to only focus on what is directly ahead of them. I cannot count the amount of times I was almost ran into or had my line cut by some dickhead not paying any attention to what was going on around them. I was blown away by the sheer over-the-top and almost cartoonish rudeness of the European skiers. Nowhere in Canada, America, Australia or India have I ever dealt with anything close to this. Absolutely unreal. I cannot overstate how shocked I was at the attitude displayed on the hill. Zero courtesy, zero kindness, zero awareness.
The Apres-Ski scene is fucking huge
Apparently in Europe, the skiing and riding come in a distant second to the drinking and partying in terms of importance. There are bars everywhere on the hill, and by mid-afternoon they are absolutely packed with people drinking, dancing and singing. It was fucking nuts. People dancing on tables, women of all ages taking their shirts off...just craziness. I also have to give mad props to the staff at these places, who will happily carry trays just loaded with beers and shots-with ease. Some of the trays they were carrying around probably had 100lbs worth of glass and liquid on them, and they're carrying them through incredibly tight and completely drunk crowds of people.
The amount of terrain was mind-blowing
I've ridden the Himalayas. I've ridden the Rockies. I've been to the top of the world more times than I can count, but holy hell the Alps are fucking endless. Lifts everywhere, like, everywhere. There was so much terrain you couldn't ride half of it in a whole season. Going up one side of a mountain, then down the other, only to find out there's another 10 lifts going up even higher in every direction. It never stopped. I couldn't wrap my head around how much there was to ride, how big it was, and how many god damn lifts there were.
Prices were...very reasonable
From the lift tickets and food to the beers and cigarettes, prices seemed standard across the board and were always pretty reasonable. Anybody that's ever skied in Canada (Or Australia especially) knows that once you're on the hill, you're going to gouged. A beer could be five bucks in town but once you're in the village that same beer is going to cost at least twice as much. Not so in Austria. Despite the shitty Canadian dollar screwing me over, I was pleasantly surprised at the prices.
German people cannot handle anything remotely spicy
I thought this was hilarious. I work with a few Germans at my hill back in Canada, and this has kind of become a running joke there; little did I know that this would be a common thing in their home territory. My friend's girlfriend is German and she was almost sweating after trying a salsa that (really, I'm not trying to sound tough) was as mild as ketchup to myself and the other people in the crew (Aussies, Canadians and Brits). Not so much related to skiing or snowboarding, but man I was dying at how weak-tongued the Germans were when it came to food.
Those are the big things that stuck out to me, and other than the first thing I mentioned I had a wonderful time. The Alps are just incredibly beautiful, and even outside of the actual riding it would be a wonderful place to take a holiday. Off the hill, the locals were...maybe not friendly, but kind enough and very accommodating to us anglophones.
Would recommend.
European skiers are the rudest, most unaware, obnoxious people I've ever dealt with in 20 years of riding.
This floored me. Never in my life have I had such a negative, all around experience with other people on a mountain. The skiers in Europe are incredibly rude. They'll happily smash into your equipment in the lift lines, shove past you to get on a lift or even get a beer, and at one point actually attacked one of my friends while riding up a magic carpet lift. Outside of the lift lines, they have zero awareness of other riders on the hill, and seem to only focus on what is directly ahead of them. I cannot count the amount of times I was almost ran into or had my line cut by some dickhead not paying any attention to what was going on around them. I was blown away by the sheer over-the-top and almost cartoonish rudeness of the European skiers. Nowhere in Canada, America, Australia or India have I ever dealt with anything close to this. Absolutely unreal. I cannot overstate how shocked I was at the attitude displayed on the hill. Zero courtesy, zero kindness, zero awareness.
The Apres-Ski scene is fucking huge
Apparently in Europe, the skiing and riding come in a distant second to the drinking and partying in terms of importance. There are bars everywhere on the hill, and by mid-afternoon they are absolutely packed with people drinking, dancing and singing. It was fucking nuts. People dancing on tables, women of all ages taking their shirts off...just craziness. I also have to give mad props to the staff at these places, who will happily carry trays just loaded with beers and shots-with ease. Some of the trays they were carrying around probably had 100lbs worth of glass and liquid on them, and they're carrying them through incredibly tight and completely drunk crowds of people.
The amount of terrain was mind-blowing
I've ridden the Himalayas. I've ridden the Rockies. I've been to the top of the world more times than I can count, but holy hell the Alps are fucking endless. Lifts everywhere, like, everywhere. There was so much terrain you couldn't ride half of it in a whole season. Going up one side of a mountain, then down the other, only to find out there's another 10 lifts going up even higher in every direction. It never stopped. I couldn't wrap my head around how much there was to ride, how big it was, and how many god damn lifts there were.
Prices were...very reasonable
From the lift tickets and food to the beers and cigarettes, prices seemed standard across the board and were always pretty reasonable. Anybody that's ever skied in Canada (Or Australia especially) knows that once you're on the hill, you're going to gouged. A beer could be five bucks in town but once you're in the village that same beer is going to cost at least twice as much. Not so in Austria. Despite the shitty Canadian dollar screwing me over, I was pleasantly surprised at the prices.
German people cannot handle anything remotely spicy
I thought this was hilarious. I work with a few Germans at my hill back in Canada, and this has kind of become a running joke there; little did I know that this would be a common thing in their home territory. My friend's girlfriend is German and she was almost sweating after trying a salsa that (really, I'm not trying to sound tough) was as mild as ketchup to myself and the other people in the crew (Aussies, Canadians and Brits). Not so much related to skiing or snowboarding, but man I was dying at how weak-tongued the Germans were when it came to food.
Those are the big things that stuck out to me, and other than the first thing I mentioned I had a wonderful time. The Alps are just incredibly beautiful, and even outside of the actual riding it would be a wonderful place to take a holiday. Off the hill, the locals were...maybe not friendly, but kind enough and very accommodating to us anglophones.
Would recommend.
