We arrived in Innsbruck, Austria to go skiing for a few days before the boys head back to school and found out when we got here last night that the World Cup Ski Jumping qualifier was here yesterday and that the Innsbruck finals were today. We decided as a family that this would be a more unique experience for the day vs. skiing, so we purchased tickets, bundled up (including Baxter) and headed to the base of the mountain (on the tram with evidently everyone else in Innsbruck!). It is a competition that takes place over four different days and four different locations. Those who place in the top three at the conclusion of each day get points, which after the four locations' jumping is complete, are complied to determine the overall winner. Admittedly, this is not a good analogy, but for my Southern friends, it is sort of like Nascar from a scoring standpoint. Anyway, we had to hike into position, which turned out to be right along side of the large red stripe across the landing zone. We later learned that this is the average distance of the landings of the competitors, determined during the qualifier. A great location except that we could not see the very end of the jumping ramp but, we could watch the ski down, the competitors catching a boatload of "air", and them landing just abreast of us. It was fantastic.
As a side note, here are the things that are plentiful at European winter sporting events: beer (of course), gluhwein (hot, mulled, delicious red wine), and noise. The Europeans love their horns and other noise makers, which, by the way, Baxter HATES! Wendy wore him in a carrier up the hill so he wouldn't have snowballs hanging all over his belly and legs and so that he wouldn't have such cold little pads that he would hate it. Although he loved the carrier and stayed warm, he shook and shivered from all of the noise until about halfway through the four hour event. We did, however, learn that he likes gluhwine though...Check out some of the photos:
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