Alps, More Alps, and Soccer in Rome

Before I update this page again I want to say sorry that last posting took so long and the text was so long. Congratulations if you read the whole thing — I never did.

You heard we were leaving for Austria, and so we did. There were three highlights of skiing in San Anton am Arlberg so I’ll go through them in order. Number one was the ski area’s terrain and size. The Arlberg ski area was bigger than 3 Valle (see Past Journal Entries) but it was much harder to ski all the valleys as one. When I went to Austria I didn’t know it was part of a huge ski area called Arlberg and not one area by itself. In truth the ski area is Arlberg and it consists of five or six different valleys — the most famous of which is San Anton. It’s not as connected as 3 Valle so we had to drive to get to other parts of the area (we stayed in San Anton), one of which was a mountain called Stuben. From the top of Stuben you could see the entire area and it surprised me to see that the mountains started to twist in different directions on each side — almost forming an S shape. Highlight number two was presented by my sister Sarah. We were riding up a T-bar together and I couldn’t get her to keep her skis strait in front of her. Finally, on about the tenth time her ski slid onto mine, she made both of us fall off. I fell off to the side, landed fine, and got up. I looked up to make sure Sarah was OK and saw that instead of moving out of the way off to the side she was moving up. When she fell off her jacket got caught on the T-bar and she was being dragged up the hill. It was quite a sight; no matter how much my dad yelled to her not to panic she wouldn’t stop flailing and screaming. After she had been dragged about thirty yards the attendant realized what was happening and stopped the lift.. She was ok and was brave enough to take a T-bar again. Highlight number three came from the heavens. On the last night at Arlberg it started snowing!!! When we woke up in the morning we all went in a mad rush to get packed up and ready to ski as quickly as possible. By 9:30 we were out on the slopes skiing eight to twelve inches of fresh powder. A few days earlier I had found a spot that was pretty well hidden and had good snow underneath. When we went to look we found that only two or three people were skiing there and it was the best snow on the mountain. We were all perfectly happy with the powder we had, but we also knew that there was still something to look forward to. The snow was very light (which is usually a good thing) but in this case there wasn’t really enough to give us the feeling of bottomless powder. That, for my dad and I, came at the end. For the last run of the day we skied a pitch that was completely skied out. The snow, because it had already been skied, was heavier than when it was fresh powder, but still soft. This run capped off a great week in the Austrian Alps.

From the alps we traveled for a few more days of skiing in Italy’s Dolomites before heading home.

After a couple non-eventful days in Gaeta I took off with my dad and brother, along with the father and son from the other family boat here, for Rome. We were going to see a playoff soccer game between Rome and the other families favorite team Ajax (pronounced Aiyax). I won’t go into detail about the match, but I will say that there is nothing like being part of a crowd at a European soccer match. The fans roar and cheer and scream louder than anything you’ve ever heard and they care so much about their team that if their team loses they start riots and stuff. Each team in Europe has a group of fans called fanatics that travel with the team and care even more than the regular fans. The father of the other family (who are from the Netherlands) told us that a few years ago an Ajax fanatic was killed when the Ajax fanatics got in a gang fight on a highway with another team’s fanatics.

The next morning my brother, dad and I went to the Vatican museums. There were many works of art in the museum that I liked but there were a few I liked more than any others. Leonardo da Vinci’s St. Jerome was amazing as was Giotto’s Stefaneschi triptych and of course the Sistine Chapel (ceiling and wall) was breathtaking, but Raphael’s School of Athens was my overall favorite. It amazed me how Raphael used paintings and art to give such important messages. Twice in the painting he shows a balance of all things is needed. Equally impressive to me was how he connected the amazing figures from Greece in the golden age to the amazing figures in his own time, which could also be considered a golden age by giving the philosophers and thinkers the features of Leonardo da Vinci, Bramante, Michelangelo and Raphael.

I hope everyone is safe and the world becomes a little more peaceful soon, but for now so long until next time.

— Danny–