Lisi Makes 'em Laugh up on Hahnenkamm

 Today my plan was to join Kurt Exenberger of the Bike Academy for a mountain bike ride. But rain poured down, so we put this off until tomorrow. That was ok, it gave me  a chance to get to the Hahnenkamm, the steep mountain that gave Kitzbuhel its famous name in ski racing. The 'mouse trap' up here is how you start this wickedly steep downhill plunge, and more than 70,000 spectators view the Super G race when it happens every January. I saw a chart of all of the race times going back to 1937--when they first began, the winning time was 3:53,  last year it was shaved to 1:51.  Better skis or just better skiiers, not sure which.

Up on the top of the mountain, I hiked in a sporadic snowfall, and worked up an appetite that was sated when I reached a little restaurant owned by Lisi Schiflinger and her family. She's worked up here for 28 years, and said she loves making people who are down feel good. She prods and jokes and carries on, and simply makes them play along until they too, have a smile on their face.

She told me that Germans and Swiss often don't know how to react to her, they are used to their waitresses being silently servile.  She told me that in a recent meeting of ski lift operators, hotel owners and restauranteurs from the region, the conclusion was that they had to prepare for more over-fifty guests, and more families. "We have to have more events, do more for people." She said visitors from Scandinavia aren't as frequent as they were in the '90s--and that's too bad because they drink a lot.

When I first came in and Lisi saw me scribbling in my notebook, she came up and grabbed me, and another patron said "George Bush."  He meant that he thought I was a spy for the president. I assured them that no, he wasn't my man, but that I did like our Governor Arnold, who grew up near Graz.