Please Reed: Margaret's Adventures in Skiing

The night before the big adventure...

"Hello, Meg! Are you preparing for tomorrow?"

"... How should I be preparing?!?!"

"Oh, haha, nothing in particular, maybe your soul."

I was not sure what this phone conversation implied exactly, and I was afraid to ask. Nonetheless, I frantically called my counterpart to see if I could borrow some snow clothes after realizing that not only was my soul not prepared, but neither was my wardrobe.

Skiing is a serious business here in the Székely, apparently. Not to be taken lightly. Duly noted.

The next day we headed north to a small ski slope near Gyergyó. My actual ski instruction came from a sports teacher who lives and teaches in Korund. She didn't really speak English that well, but she did speak German, Romanian, and of course Hungarian. We managed to understand each other and make simple conversation while taking the ski lift up the mountain, but in the beginning she insisted on giving some instruction in German thinking I would understand. Now, I have never ever studied German. I only know how to say goodbye thanks to The Sound of Music and Heidi Klum's signature kiss, kiss "Auf wiedersehen" on Project Runway. Based on my experiences this assumption is made quite frequently, that English and German are somehow mutually intelligible. I had to kindly let her know that I did, in fact, know left and right in both Romanian and Hungarian. We had a little chuckle, but the Deutsch still made it's way into the instruction every once in a while. :)

After clearing up our common languages, the skiing bit wasn't too difficult! Glad to find that out. I was quite nervous of possibly dying, and in that case I should indeed be preparing my soul. Fortunately, I am alive and well, and now officially a skier! Check that off the list of things to try.

Keeper of the ski slopes...