Hello everyone! It's been a while since I did a blog post, so I'll just do a quick list of what I have been doing.
- Putting coins in dead pigeon's mouths
- Going on trains
- Buying a plague doctor mask
- Playing Civilization VI
- Drawing ancient maps
- Writing books (mainly in my made up universe, Tuael)
- Writing alternate histories of Earth
- Losing three teeth in three days
- Breathing
- Not dying
When we got to Austria, we visited Mama's host parents. Their names are Ilse (Elsa) and Christoph (Kristoff), which made me wonder if Frozen was set in Austria. Maybe the ice powers were from Austrian mythology, or maybe something like it. That would be really interesting. (UPDATE: No. Elsa is loosely based off a Danish fairy tale.)
Anyway, we went to this ski jump place, and I tried not to curl up into a ball and whimper. We went up twenty flights of stairs - outdoors, so we could see the children zooming off and flying down the cliff - and saw kids doing 80 meter jumps. And that was the small one. On the other side, there was a 116 meter. No one was doing that one, I noticed. Instead of snow, because snow wasn't here yet, they had plastic turf that apparently worked just as well. I had recently watched the movie Eddie the Eagle, about Britain's first ski jumper, and I decided that I did not want to be a ski jumper. Here's what I learned from watching his final 110 meter jump:
- Get your invincible skis and your industrial-grade helmet, because if you fail it is going to HURT.
- Head up to the really slow and creaky elevator next to the ski jump so you can watch the instrument of your destruction for about half an hour as you sloooowwllly go up.
- Get on the second elevator, standing around uncomfortably with the other ski jumpers.
- Walk over to the buildup ramp, sit down, clip on your skis, stare at the ground far, far below and reconsider your life choices so far
- When you've ensured there is no way out, just do it and slide off the chair, building up so much speed you're kind of wanting a hang glider/parachute
- Launch off the end and off the cliff, leaning as far forward as you can with your skis in a V position and hoping you don't screw up or break your back
- When you land, you either land with a thump but slide down easily, OR
- You crash land, most likely your skis and helmet break, along with most of the bones in your body. Luckily, the ski jump facility also doubles as a hospital, if you're lucky.