Skiing in Italy

This last week I went skiing in Italy with a few of my high school friends. We started the road trip in a green BMW with a dutch licence plate from Maastricht and headed towards Livigno, our final destination. The drive is supposed to be about 10 hours, when considering breaks it is around 12 hours. As dreadful as that sounds it was not half that bad with good company.

It was one of my first experiences as a conscious being on the autobahn. It is an absurd concept – go as fast as you want. It sounds illegal. The funniest thing that everyone taking these highways has probably experienced is ABS, the "Audi Back Syndrome".

This is when you are driving about 160 to 180 km/h on the left lane to overtake cars and out of nowhere there is an Audi that is half a metre from your trunk and is intensely flashing its long lights to make it clear he is indeed trying to go faster than you are going at that very instant.

Since we left Maastricht around 11 A.M we arrived in the mountains of Austria when it was already dark. The curvy and tight mountain roads were quite a challenge in the dark yet we arrived at our destination, in particular thanks to copious amounts of caffeinated drinks.

The skiing itself went well. We got great weather and no one got badly injured. The only struggle was trying to get up to go skiing at a reasonable hour. That might have been due to us staying awake every night until 3 A.M playing chess and other board games.

As I mentioned last time, I have started playing chess. I am not yet on Magnus Carlsen's level, but I am starting to improve my game. I brought my enthusiasm with me on the trip and managed to infect people around me. This meant that on multiple occasions we would have a drink and play a game of rapid chess.

I would compare this week to a long dream. It was a great reset for my system (or so I try to tell myself). I put my responsibilities aside and just let things flow. It was cool to have the possibility of doing nothing. I feel rested and ready to hit the ground running with school, volleyball and life in general.

This Week's Suggestions:

🎶 "WISH I NEVER MET U" by Used:

This song came out recently and already from the first listen it got to me. That is why I decided to share it here. The song has a simple yet effective build and I enjoy it a lot.

Try to catch a break yourself! You deserve it!