Well well..
Did i say that..Yes i mean it..U got to sledge more often..!!!!...Nops obviously i am not talking of the verbal sledging here..but sledging the in mountains of Europe in cold winter.....::))))
It was Jan 31st 2006....Client had been planning to take out all the employees working in IKEA project for a skiing session for quiet some time but the inclement weather was playing the spoilsport..But today things were better...The temperature was just 0 degrees which was actually less as per the Austrian winter standards...So we were all set for the skiing session...
I was feeling all excited on the same as my only acquaintance with skiing was the watching the athletes going zig-zag in style touching the pole in quick succession on the idiot box...At 4.00 pm we wore the tight suitings specially given for the purpose of skeeing and boarded the bus..The destination was Semmering--a small hill station in the outskirts of Vienna
Did i say that..Yes i mean it..U got to sledge more often..!!!!...Nops obviously i am not talking of the verbal sledging here..but sledging the in mountains of Europe in cold winter.....::))))
It was Jan 31st 2006....Client had been planning to take out all the employees working in IKEA project for a skiing session for quiet some time but the inclement weather was playing the spoilsport..But today things were better...The temperature was just 0 degrees which was actually less as per the Austrian winter standards...So we were all set for the skiing session...
I was feeling all excited on the same as my only acquaintance with skiing was the watching the athletes going zig-zag in style touching the pole in quick succession on the idiot box...At 4.00 pm we wore the tight suitings specially given for the purpose of skeeing and boarded the bus..The destination was Semmering--a small hill station in the outskirts of Vienna
which is used as the skeeing spot by the localites towards the fag end of the day..This one althought not one of the biggest in Austria provided night skeeing facility which served the purpose..
Alex who was the head of the IKEA project is a kind of women who believes in the policy "work while u work and play while u play"..It was precisely this facet of her character that came out during this outing..She was very much a different person outside the office..Through out the journey she was talking in length on various sporting events held in Austria,places to go around etc...Austrians are very good at skiing and it is a very rare occurrence to find one who doesn't know the same..It was more like a fish which doesn't know swimming!!!!
Austrians were expecting a lot of medals in events like skiing ,skating etc in the winter olympics scheduled to be held in Torino,Italy just 1 week away...
We hit the destination at around 5.30 pm..It was already getting dark bcoz of the winter..We grabbed a quick pie and went on to get the equipment....There was a small disappointment in that we were advised not to take skiing as the track was really steep and it was not safe to go for the same w/o a professional trainer..I was personally a lil down with it as i was looking forward to skiing with some enthusiasm..Nevertheless i took on the sledge half heartedly not having the faintest idea of how much of a fun it was going to offer...!!!
The first look at the illuminated skiing track was an out of the world experience..U could see the entire length of the track starting right from the top of the mountain and running all the way to the bottom running upto say 3km length..It was lined with the trees on either side.The flood-lit snow made it look all the more beautiful..People were coming down all the way from the top in a cris-cross fashion so as to control the speed on descend..The winges were carrying the equipped enthusiasts all the way to the top..It took around 10 min to get to the top..On reaching there we found out that there were separate tracks for sledging..There were also alternate tracks available for the skeeing people other than the main one we saw downhill...
Alex who was the head of the IKEA project is a kind of women who believes in the policy "work while u work and play while u play"..It was precisely this facet of her character that came out during this outing..She was very much a different person outside the office..Through out the journey she was talking in length on various sporting events held in Austria,places to go around etc...Austrians are very good at skiing and it is a very rare occurrence to find one who doesn't know the same..It was more like a fish which doesn't know swimming!!!!
Austrians were expecting a lot of medals in events like skiing ,skating etc in the winter olympics scheduled to be held in Torino,Italy just 1 week away...
We hit the destination at around 5.30 pm..It was already getting dark bcoz of the winter..We grabbed a quick pie and went on to get the equipment....There was a small disappointment in that we were advised not to take skiing as the track was really steep and it was not safe to go for the same w/o a professional trainer..I was personally a lil down with it as i was looking forward to skiing with some enthusiasm..Nevertheless i took on the sledge half heartedly not having the faintest idea of how much of a fun it was going to offer...!!!
The first look at the illuminated skiing track was an out of the world experience..U could see the entire length of the track starting right from the top of the mountain and running all the way to the bottom running upto say 3km length..It was lined with the trees on either side.The flood-lit snow made it look all the more beautiful..People were coming down all the way from the top in a cris-cross fashion so as to control the speed on descend..The winges were carrying the equipped enthusiasts all the way to the top..It took around 10 min to get to the top..On reaching there we found out that there were separate tracks for sledging..There were also alternate tracks available for the skeeing people other than the main one we saw downhill...
To guage the feel of the stuff we were initially dragging the sledges in the snow..The friction was way too lil and it was virtually skidding off...The initial ride was pretty exciting and a lil scary too..There were these steep corners where in one had to really put his leg out and balan
ce hard enough so as not to fall off to the other side..To get the momentum one had to lie back on the sledge....Basics were learned in a hard way though with a couple of nasty falls off the sledge ..On getting the ropes of the trick it was fun all the way..We had competition among ourselves as to who would reach downhill first..The last lap of the journey was especially interesting with a lot of steep slopes and sharp curves..The activity went on all the way till 9.00 pm by which we had travelled up 6 times.....!!!!
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