Cross Country Skiing...

Two of our friends are really into cross country skiing (or in German, langlauf).  The husband races, and the wife is fantastic, and their two year old even gets out on skis and shuffles along (which is super cute).

They've been wanting to get us into the sport for a while and yesterday we finally made it out to Altenburg (a quaint German town) where they have groomed cross country ski trails.

Now, knowing our luck with outdoor adventures (*note: I broke my sled two days after Christmas :(), we weren't expecting things to go smoothly... and they didn't- though all things considered, I think we're on an upward trend.  We wanted to rent skis in Dresden before we left for the hour car ride, but they were out.  Strike one.  Traffic was slow and we got stuck in a traffic jam... I'd call that half a strike since we didn't run into any fallen trees or un-snowplowed roads.  In fact, it was very pretty so I didn't mind the extra time in the car.

And when we got there we found there was an hour and a half line to rent skis.

BUT, after renting skis, we were ready to try out our new sport.

I'd been cross country skiing before.  Probably about 17 years ago.  And I remember it being entertaining.  But our friend raved about it so much, I was convinced I'd been doing it wrong all those years ago and it was going to be like a totally different sport.

Um... not so much.  Pretty much its like walking with skis on.

I tried to learn good technique and "glide" more, but our rentals were so sticky that I couldn't even glide downhill!!  It was a great workout. And I'm sure will be more fun next time with better equipment.

At least there was pretty scenery to look at.

I was so tired by the end that when we saw this awesome horse drawn carriage, I almost jumped on.  But I stuck it out and skied back...

Am I a cross country convert.  .... Not yet.  But moving to NY where we'll have plenty of time for outdoor winter sports, I might have to give it a few more tries!