Oh my God! Call myself a European, do I? And yet, as I came to write this blog this morning (on my sister's freshly installed broadband connection - yay!), I see that I can't even spell Alpine!! And on the first line of my last blog entry too! "Ash on my head!", as they say here when they feel truly embarrassed, presumably in reference to some arcane Mediaeval monks' punishment ritual.

So anyway, I've continued being "Apline" recently, with a weekend trip to Sankt Johann im Pongau, down in Salzburg, with Michaela & the boys. The drive down was amazingly untrafficky - I think it's the first time I've ever seen the A8 from Munich to Salzburg without a single set of roadworks on it! - and probably since Hitler first built this, Europe's first motorway, back in 1936 so he could invade his homeland more swiftly! - and the boys were very well behaved (okay, they were mostly asleep, which amounts to the same thing in my uncle-oid eyes).

On arrival at Frau Schnell's Pension (well-known to Michaela from several ski capers of years gone by - and what a character that woman is!) it was bloody cold. But then, it's a mountain village isn't it, so you've kind of got to expect that. What I didn't expect was for it to be actually no colder than Munich though! And the weather proved to be much better in the mountains than it was back home too. Saturday was a bit cloudy but no wind and Sunday really was a Day of Sun!

The skiing conditions were optimal too (is that a word in English? Or am I turning into a German now?). And the boys!! Wow! They were SO impressive on their little skis! We ended the first day by not taking the gondola down the hill but skiing out instead, and they were little troopers! Considering they've not skied very much at all before, they got down even the steep icy bits (it's a red run after all) with much less grumbling than I'd have produced at their age. Even Charlie was only totally freaked out at two very tricky points.

It was lovely to spend some time skiing with Michaela again. While the kids were in their class on Sunday morning, the two of us headed off to the back of the mountain and did some lovely relatively empty runs, working on our carving technique (as refreshed for us the day before by Michaela's friend Gareth, who was down with Bridget for the week, the lucky swine). Ah, the cheery sun on your face! The scrunch of snow under your skis! The uplifting panorama of snowy peaks on the horizon! Skiing is too good.

(By the way, it's forbidden not to wax lyrical about the joys of skiing when writing a blog, just in case you were wondering why I'd seemingly paraphrased my paean of the previous blog - which I didn't, by the way; this extolling of mountain virtues came straight from the heart! Again!)

While I'm on the subject of skiing, I think I forgot to mention in my last blog an amazing/amusing fact about the journey there in the bus: because we left Munich so early, and I'd been up drinking so late the night before (well, these things have to be done), I naturally fell asleep before we'd even passed the ring road. But, as if by magic, I woke up and sat bolt upright just as the "Republik Oesterreich" signpost appeared in my window. It was as if my Fatherland was calling to me, even through sleep. Which amused Claire & Diane. Well, me anyway; they probably thought it was a load of bollocks. But I felt cosmic.

In other news, I'm now officially resident in Munich as of last Friday and I have a German tax number. This should enable me to get work here. All that's missing is a health insurance account and a bank account, both of which should be along this week. Yikes! I'm almost a worker again!

The registration process with Munich authorities went frighteningly smoothly. I had been given to believe by various non-Germans resident here that the Anmeldung procedure was horribly drawn-out and bureaucratic. And to be honest, my first moments in the municipal offices at Poccistrasse only confirmed my worst fears: interminable corridors lined with identical cubicle offices; huddles of worried-looking people in waiting areas poring over paperwork; a feeling that I had been sucked into another universe which truly made me identify with K in Kafka's The Trial when he begins to feel seasick in just such a bureaucratic building.

I even had the classic "No you can't do that here, go back to the other end of the building" moment when I saw that the suite of cubicles devoted to people of the letters Pa to Ro (I am a name, not a number!) were closed for the day, and I had to address myself to another suite of cubicles elsewhere in the anthill.

But in the end the process was totally smooth. I drew my number from the ticket dispenser on the wall, fearing an hour's wait, but in fact no sooner had I filled in the one sheet of A4 required than my number came up. And I'd barely sat down and put my coat over the chair next to me before the woman (sour-faced, but not evil) was handing me my receipt and my tax card. Whoa! Bureaucracy gone efficient!

So now I've really got to get my head around the concept of doing what other people tell me to for hours on end, in return for cold hard cash. I'll get there, but wish me luck people.