Snow and Skis

Hello loves!

My boyfriend, a friend of ours, and I went on a one-week ski trip to Leogang, Austria over the past week. I was honestly a little bit unsure about the trip due to my ongoing back issues. The trip had been booked well in advance and from the pre-surgery estimates of my doctors, we expected that I would already be doing a lot better than I am. Obviously, given the current circumstances, a skiing vacation is not exactly an ideal choice, but we decided to just make the best of it.

We literally hit the jackpot when it comes to our holiday apartment. Our balcony was right in front of one of the slopes and you could literally ski to our apartment on your way back. And just look at that view (you can click on the pictures to expand them):

Both pictures were taken from our balcony (but facing different mountains). Having grown up in a big city, I don't think that I have ever seen that many stars in the sky before. But the most important part of the environment for a ski trip is, of course, the slopes. We got really lucky weather-wise. The night before we left, it started raining and a lot of the snow was gone the next morning. But for the duration of our trip, we had a lot of snow and the slopes looked so pretty:

I mainly went up the mountain to go on walks and take pictures, but I did also try skiing again. It went better than expected, but it was very exhausting for me. But even though I couldn't ski for very long, the few hours of standing on skis gave me a lot of hope and motivation as it showed me that it is realistic for me to do the sport again. Don't get me wrong - I was not a big ski person before my surgery. In fact, I had just began learning it. But it is a lot of fun and it is a big hobby of my boyfriend, so I would love to share it with him. Speaking of my boyfriend, this cute picture of us was taken by the friend with whom we went on vacation:

Alrighty, back to the vacation. It was so good for me to finally get out of the house again after months of being home sick. I know that I am incredibly privileged in the sense that I was able to stay home for so long. Since I am self-employed, I was not able to get any money from the government while being home sick, but I was also not able to work as much as I normally could. Luckily, the surgery was planned well in advance (about a year ahead of time) and so I knew that this was coming and saved up for this time. I also took clients for my self-employment when I could and so I was also able to go on this vacation now.

At the end of last year, I also got some great news regarding my employment status: I found a job and will be starting in March! So this trip was also a little celebration of this development. A few weeks ago, I found an apartment in my hometown (Stuttgart) since I will be moving out of my student flat in Tübingen, where I lived for my master's degree. I can move into the new apartment in March - so it's a perfect match! I am really excited for this new chapter of my life. I just hope that my health will now improve as well, so that it can all work out well.

I want to leave you with some happy vibes, so enjoy these pictures from a walk we took on vacation. But not just any walk - a walk with alpacas. It was surprisingly relaxing as the animals are very calm and stop a lot when walking. This makes you focus on your inner calm as well.

That's it for now - speak to you soon.

Lots of Love,

Elena